All That Glisters

' O Gemini! cried Raikes. . . . We have it now, he continued, we'll do well. ' Thus the explosion of delight with which a gold digger, simply known as Raikes, greeted John Sherer's discovery of a fourteen-pound nugget at Bendigo in April 1852. As the vein continued to yield, to the extent of twenty-one pounds before nightfall, the enrap tured Raikes gave further vent to his feelings, muttering 'Gold, gold, gold!' He chuckled with hysteria and, while picking up pieces as large as marbles, exclaimed 'My stars! where will it all end?' Eventually he be came giddy and 'sank back against the wall, overcome by his emotions'. Eight days later the fortunate party, led by John Sherer, decided to make an ending to their saga. They now had eighty pounds of gold in their possession and, being content with such riches, they departed the fields. It was only eight months since Sherer had left England 'in the fall of 1851', four months since his arrival in Melbourne on board the Mary Ann when 'the sun was in the zenith of his summer glory and the ver dure of the earth was at its height' and where his eyes were again 'greeted with the green carpet of nature'?an unlikely circumstance in Melbourne in the month of January. Be that as it may Sherer, together with his companion Thomas Binks, were back in London before the year was out and, as a man of relative wealth, Sherer was able to devote him self to the writing of his antipodean memoirs. Raikes, who 'had become deeply enamoured of a very pretty Australian', remained behind to pur sue the inclinations of his heart which, according to Sherer, was 'as big as an ox's'.1

Political science · Australian History and Society