Two men and a woman had me pinned to the ground. The woman had a pair of shears. She roughly turned my head and cut off my queue, holding it aloft, a growl of triumph as she brandished my hair for the mob. I struggled, a leg free, finding a groin, hearing a grunt, and I was up and running.
The mostly European ‘gweilo’ were fiery drunk, and baying for blood, as they came for us at the mine. Chants of “slanty chinks”, “murderous chinamen” “poxed coolies” could be heard as the mob came up the hill, picks and shovels shouldered to do battle. There were fifty or sixty, men and women in the chanting mass – we were five, all family, and I was just taking my place at our workings, to relieve my cousin Zhang Wei.
As I rushed to the mine, I saw my younger brother, Junjie Xi fall to the ground, blood pouring from his head with two men, picks held high, about to strike. Bo Wei, my elder cousin was surrounded by a group wielding shovels, and I saw him take a cut to the side of his head! As the evening closed in, Hell was upon us.
A snarling, bearded man saw me, yelling to alert the mob as I ran. I ran, and I ran, up and over the hill, down the other side, into a gully. I found a hollow log. My pursuers, initially rampaging, fell behind as I ran. I remained in that log until daybreak.
I tentatively inched out, I could smell smoke but all was quiet, save for a kookaburra laughing, somewhere in the distance! I couldn’t see the humour, and cursed the silly bird!
I buried three souls that morning! There was no way to ease their journey into the ‘afterlife’, no joss or incense to burn, just my humiliation, anger, tears and frustrations. Why had we come to this new country, this Tsin Chin Shan?
I remembered the trouble at home, the opium dens, the corruption back in our village in Sze Yup and my parents urging us boys to pursue the fabulous wealth being found in California. The lure of the yellow metal. It would mean eternal security for our families beside the beautiful Pearl River.
We boarded the ship to America, but it meant three years of hard toil, few rewards, abuse and regular discrimination against our families. We heard the stories that gold could be picked up off the ground in Australia. Surely it would be better than here?
My cousins and I had a letter written to our Shanghai sponsor, seeking an agreement to extend our indenture and provide passage to Ballarat. It took a few months but we were once again embarked, another ten weeks of seasick wallowing, and finally off the schooner for the long walk to the Ballarat field.
We joined forces with several other groups from the boat and collectively hired a guide for the five-week, overland walk. We had avoided the Victorian colonial tax by landing in South Australia, at Robe, but we all agreed that it might have been better to have paid the hefty £10s, rather than the long hot days, tramping to ‘Baallalat’.
Our guide was a drunken lout, driving a bullock dray loaded with supplies for the growing settlements along South Australia’s coast. He took our money and disappeared on the third night out from Robe. Other spivs were on the track, ever ready to take our few resources. We knew there was safety in numbers and drew comfort from the extra family groupings, particularly at night when we shared guard duties, campfire stories and homeland reminiscences.
It was a gruelling walk; at times a narrow path, enabling just a single file. When spirits flagged, Bo Wei started to chant ‘Baallalat, Baallalat, Baallalat’, maintaining a rhythmic chant that we all took up. I can only imagine the strange picture we must have presented to those large hopping animals we occasionally saw.
We had been on the track for two weeks, each with our worldly positions in the two baskets balancing across our shouldered, bamboo pole. The head of another family group, Zhang Yong had bought a precious wooden wheelbarrow from California. We enviously noted the extra provisions he was able to carry.
The dry hot summer made the trek that much more tortuous. Water and food were precious commodities and there was relief when an old black man showed us a small spring, just off the track. Somebody had already cut limestone blocks and started to line the spring. We took two days off our trek, cutting and fitting three more limestone blocks into the well’s sides.
Food was a constant issue. We spent a lot of our savings on rice at the store in Robe, but we supplemented supplies with grasses and any berries we found. We had unsuccessfully chased the hopping animal, drooling over the possible meat. Zhang found some fungi and cooked them up. He died in agony two days later, and I fought several contenders and took over his wheelbarrow.
We arrived at the small settlement of Penola. Several Chinese families had already given up on the lure of the yellow metal, settling and establishing market gardens on the rich, grassy plains. We were able to revictual ourselves, picking up advice from the storekeeper, Wang Wei, about the onward journey.
There were strange nighttime cries, maybe just birds, but eerie, ghost-like. We had heard stories of hostile natives, and bushrangers. Their attacks on unwary travellers meant we slept fitfully, and someone was always awake and alert.
We approached a mountain range and the pathway divided, one track going to the northeast, the other, southeast. We went north, spending a few days in the cool bushland gullies of the ranges.
Our party walked around the mountains. We came upon another smaller series of hills and made camp. Bo had been to the toilet and came running back into our camp excitedly waving a small lump of rock. He pointed, we gathered and saw the yellow flecks. Was it gold? Bo assured us it was, and the decision was made to abandon our Ballarat quest; temporarily. We jokingly called our find Gwóngdūng Kwongmak – the Canton Lead. The name stuck.
Over the next few days, we scratched around in the creeks. Other parties joined us – the excited chatter saw upwards of two hundred men on the creeks within the week. Flecks, small nuggets, the hills echoed with the ring of picks, axes, scraping shovels and the creeks quickly turning into muddy brown sluices. A thousand buffalo couldn’t have turned over the hillsides quicker than our enthusiasm. Gold, gold, gold. Our excitement drove us hard.
News of our find spread quickly and within two weeks we were outnumbered by the ‘gweilo’: colonials, Americans, Italians, Irish, British, and Germans. At first, they were quite friendly, but as their numbers increased, and the alluvial gold became harder to find, frustrations and tensions grew.
They came at sunset. From the store, from their hearths and tents, armed with picks, shovels, sticks and bloodlust. I escaped over the hill as they overpowered our family camp.
I returned the next morning. Our camp had been ransacked; tents burnt, our few possessions strewn or missing, and the vegetable garden trampled. The only positive was that they never found our yellow metal’s hiding place. We had an old tobacco tin and every evening we deposited our finds into the tin before returning it to the wire suspended into our toilet trench.
So much for the lucky future, anticipated those three years ago as we left Shanghai. I sat, unsure of my next move. Would the mob return?
My mind ranged back over the years since I left the Pearl River; the voyage to California, my outstanding debts, the decision to extend the indenture and head to the riches of Ballarat, the eventual landing in Robe, the five-week overland trek, Bo’s discovery of the nugget, final success, then the ambush.
With nobody to share the gold, I made my way to Ballarat. I found my countrymen, a little work, even a little more gold, but I was humiliated, debt-ridden, and without the anticipated golden future for myself or the family back in Sze Yup.
I sent our collected gold ore home to my parents. I arranged to have a letter written that explained what had befallen us at the Canton Lead, asking that they pray for the departed, and share the meagre offerings across the family.
I never saw the Pearl River again! I settled on the banks of a small creek below the Canton Lead and started a vegetable garden. I built a small shack and store, I learnt a little English, and eventually married a local girl. Kids arrived, five sons and two daughters. There was a steady demand for our goods, and we prospered. Canton Lead was renamed, at first to Mount Ararat, then shortened to Ararat.
Background:
This story relates to the Ararat gold rush, beginning in 1857 with the chance discovery of alluvial gold by a family of Chinese diggers, enroute from South Australia’s Robe to the Ballarat diggings. As happened elsewhere, discrimination, jealousies and Chinese successes led to deadly, civil unrest at Canton Lead, resulting in at least three murders. Commercial gold mining continued in the area up until the outbreak of WW1. Ararat today celebrates its history as the only Australian city founded by the Chinese.