CHINESE WERE THERE IN THOUSANDS

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28950, 18 July 1959, Page 10

CHINESE WERE THERE IN THOUSANDS

An Australian Gold Rush Recalled [By HARRY HODG2] j SYDNEY, July 14. Recent attempts by Chinese to smuggle themselves into Australia by hiding in ventilator shafts and under ballast tanks recall some of the sacrifices made to enter Australia in the days when gold was the lure. During the rush to Hill End, and the 1 neighbouring goldfields of Tambaroora, thousands of Chinese got cheap passages to Australia by hiring cargo space in the holds on a community basis and supplying their own food on the voyage. They were allowed on deck for a limited period each day for air and exercise. Today, the bare, eroded hillside at . Tambaroora and the cemetery without graves at Moonlight Gully nearby provide scant evidence of the presence of thousands of Chinese in the height of the rush.

During Tambaroora’s heyday in the 50’s and early 60’s, the Chinese camp was ,an important part of the town.

Its crowded mass of mud huts, hovels and tents, packed under the shoulder of Red Hill, must have resembled in some ways a village in the Yangtse valley, squalid, evil-smelling and somewhat sinister-looking. Whites generally kept away from the area.

In parties of up to 20 in number, its denizens.toiled in the red clay and creek gravel by day and gambled, smoked opium or drank su jo by night. A Chinese theatre gave frequent performances and two josshouses with their incense, fluttering papers and idols served their spiritual needs. The Court records of the period throw a good deal of light on their human railings. In the records from 1862 to 1868, 88 Chinese names appear, mainly for lack of miners' rights and dog licences but also for furious riding, assaults over sluicing disputes and an occasional felony. In some cases the assaults were provoked S whites jumping the claims of e Chinese, but in these cases the police held the scales of justice Very evenly and arrested wrongdoers with detached impartiality, regardless of race. I- , £ Adversity

i Stealing and begging by these •aliens became more common in *the late 60’s when alluvial gold yecame progressively harder to •win. Their plight had been made Jtnore desperate.; by the antagonism jWhich had brought on the LambIhg Flat riots some years previously. White men cut off the pig•tails of the Chinese whenever qpjportunity offered and sang toe Tallying parody of the ex- * U> ®e’ Britannia, Britannia « rule the waves, S, J No more shall F■. enter Spath Wales.” k Adversity, despair or hunger •Caused some of them to take their JWwn lives. One determined fellow «4ug a shaft and piled the earth “in such a way that a tug at a key log holding the pile would fill the pit. He then sat in it and buried himself alive. One can only speculate upon the agony of mind which could produce and bring into execution such a macabre plan.

The Chinese at Tambaroora had a lot to put up with because of the activities of the local “talent” These teenage louts baited and

assaulted them, washed up their sluices after rain, cut their dams and pushed their privies over. Occasionally the victims retaliated, using palings and shovels as weapons. A favourite joke among the “talent” was that of unhitching the horse of a Chinese, pushing the shafts of the vehicle through a paling fence and then rehitching the horse between the shafts on the other side. On his return the puzzled owner often spent some time working out how the horse could have got itself into such a mess. Ceremonies Chinese funerals always drew-a large audience of curious sightseers. The cortege with banners and paper dragons on poles proceeded to the burial ground in Moonlight Gully to an ear-split-ting accompaniment of crackers, basket bombs and drumming on tin—all intended to frighten away malevolent spirits lying in wait to snatch the soul of the deceased. The circular grave, so shaped to foil such evil spirits who might lurk in the corners of the conventional oblong hole, was filled in as the noise continued and bottles sited like cannon were placed at strategic points, to keep them at bay. A sumptuous feast of pork, poultry and rice wine was then placed on the mound to nourish the deceased on his journey to the Flowery Land. A local legend has it that the bones, disinterred some years later, were filled with gold dust and sent to China.

The Tambaroora Chinese used to come to Hill End to sell their gold and to buy supplies, until well into this century. Regardless of the width of roadway available, they trotted along in single file, each taking his regular place

in the file. Conversation was relayed back and forth along the chain which always reformed for the homeward journey. The queue lessened sadly in length with the passing of the years. New Chip, the last of the Chinese on the field, died in 1931 at the age of 104. He told me, years before, that he haji come to Australia in 1852, leaving a young wife and child in Hankow. He had intended to go back when he made his pile, but fortune did not smile and they never met again.

For years old Chip led an aged horse up to Hill End to hawk his vegetables. Laden panniers across the packsaddle burdened the horse sufficiently so Chip walked ahead, clasping the bridle rein behind his back. One day near the old battery dam the rein was suddenly wrenched from his hands and with an indignant “Whaffor ” he turned tp see a yawning gulf in the roadway, but no horse. The chasm was the 100 feet deep Napoleon shaft, covered by order of the borough council, many years before. The rotted timber had given way and horse and baskets plunged to the depths. A stick of gelignite dropped down the shaft ended any possibility of the animal lingering in agony. A poignant memory of my childhood is the sight of the old man, his main means of livelihood thus swept away, shuffling dejectedly up the street, the tears coursing down his wrinkled and weatherbeaten face. Chain Stores Few of the Chinese who remained in Australia achieved prosperity, but there were one or two notable exceptions. On Gay and Company, later On Gay Jang, had a chain of stores on the western goldfields. The Hill End branch outlived all its competitors, save one. It built up a reputation for honest trading and during its 70 years of life it assisted many a miner who was temporarily out of luck. Years ago, an old canvas bag was hung each morning on the swing door dividing the shop from the living quarters. Only the two storekeepers knew that it contained 200 sovereigns. The motion of the swing door rubbed the coins together and every now and then the thrifty Chinese emptied out the fine gold dust thus produced. In time, another sovereign’s worth of gold was thus accumulated, without visible damage to the original. Little trace of the Chinese on the field now remains. Even their cemetery has now disappeared. It was partly washed away by fossickers, but only after the last body was disinterred and sent back' to China lo rest with the ancestors. Some still sleep in lonely, unmarked graves in the Turon and Macquarie gorges, but the remains of those who lived out their lives at Tambaroora have returned long since to the land of their forefathers. Associated Newspapers Feature Services.