In Australia, as in all new countries where treasure is discovered or where land is not monopolised by the few, townships spring up like mushrooms. Some grow apace, and become places of importance; others, in which the promise which brought them into existence is unfulfilled, languish and die out, to share the fate of the township of Gum Flat, in which Basil had met the man who played him false. Shortly after the events which have been recorded, a party of prospectors halted in a valley some eight miles from the valley where Basil and Newman Chaytor had been working, and began to look for gold. Their search was rewarded, the precious metal was found in paying quantities, and miners flocked to the valley and spread themselves over the adjacent country. The name of one of the early prospectors was Prince, and a township being swiftly formed, there was a certain fitness in dubbing it Princetown. All the adjuncts of a town which bade fair to be prosperous were soon gathered together. At the heels of the gold-diggers came the storekeepers, with tents in which to transact their business, and drayloads of goods wherewith to stock their stores. The tide, set going, flowed rapidly, and in less than a fortnight Princetown was a recognised centre of the rough civilisation which reigns in such-like places. Storekeepers, publicans, auctioneers, plied their trade from morning till night, and the gold, easily obtained, was as easily parted with by the busy bees, who lived only for the day and thought not of the morrow. The scene, from early morning till midnight, was one of remarkable animation, replete with strange features which a denizen of old-time civilisation, being set suddenly in its midst, would have gazed upon with astonishment. Here was a cattle-yard, in which horses for puddling machines and drays, and sheep and oxen for consumption, were being knocked down to the highest bidder during ten hours of the day. A large proportion of the horses purchased by the miners were jibbers and buckjumpers, and a very Babel of confusion reigned in the High Street as they strove to lead away their purchases. Around each little knot of mates who had bought a jibber or a buckjumper a number of idlers gathered, shouting with derision or approval when the horse or the man was triumphant. Exciting struggles between the two were witnessed; men jumped upon unsaddled horses and were thrown into the air amid the yells of the spectators, only to jump on again and renew the contest. Here an attempt was being made to pull along a jibber, whose forelegs were firmly planted before it, while twenty whips were being cracked at its heels to urge it on in the desired direction. A dozen yards off, up and out went the heels of a buckjumping brute, scattering the crowd, and for a moment victorious. Nobody was seriously hurt, bruises being reckoned of no account by these wanderers from the home-land, who for the first time in their lives were breathing the air of untrammelled freedom. It was wonderful to observe the effects of the newer life which was pulsing in the veins of the adventurers. At home they would have walked to and from their work, or idled in the streets because work was not to be obtained, listless and spiritless, mere commonplace mortals with pale faces, and often hopeless eyes. Here it was as if fresh, vigorous young blood had been infused into them. The careless, easy dress, the manly belt with its fossicking knife in sheath, the ragged and graceful billycock hat, the lissome movements of their limbs, the hair flowing upon their breasts, transformed them from drudges into something very like heroes. Seldom anywhere in the world can finer specimens of manhood be seen than on these new goldfields; it is impossible to withhold admiration of the manlier qualities which have sprung into life with the free labour in which their days are engaged. It is true that liberty often degenerates into lawless licence, but the vicious attributes of humanity must be taken into account, and they are as conspicuous in these new scenes, mayhap, as in the older grooves; and although crime and vice are met with, their proportion is no larger--indeed, it is not so large--than is made manifest by statistics in the older orders of civilisation. Next to the cattle sale-yard is a small store in which the wily gold-buyer is fleecing and joking with the miner who comes to change virgin gold into coined sovereigns or the ragged bank notes of Australian banks. Next to the gold-buyer's tent is a stationer who, for the modest sum of half-a-crown, will give a man an envelope, a sheet of notepaper, and pen and ink, with which he can write a letter to a distant friend.