Читать книгу The Last Chance: A Tale of the Golden West онлайн

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Sullenly regarded by the white labourers as alien to their country and their trade, it yet could not be denied that here, at least, was the right burden-bearer in the right place—in spite of his queer temper, his general unpleasantness, and his incongruous appearance in this twentieth-century Australia, utterly, manifestly indispensable, as he had been in the long-past ages when ‘the famine was sore in the land.’

Mr.Banneret having a taste for exploring, and being also a practised pedestrian, took a longish walk around the outskirts of the town, before returning to the hotel and taking his seat at the dinner-table. This was a long, substantial piece of furniture, amply supplied with materials for a meal of the same character. All sorts and conditions of men were there represented: aristocratic tourists, on the look-out for mining investments—directors, or managers of syndicates, companies, exploring parties, mercantile partnerships, what not. All were animated by the common attraction, most successful of all baits with which to ensnare the soul of man, from the dawn of history. Recruits for the great army of industry, from all lands, of all colours, castes, and conditions—the coach-driver, the teamster, the newly arrived emigrant, the army deserter, the runaway sailor, the stock-rider, the navvy, the shepherd,—all men were free and equal at the Palace Hotel, so long as they could pay for bed and board. Nor was there ssss1 observable any objectionable roughness of tone or manner, in a company formed of such heterogeneous elements.