A CHAPTER FOR NEW CHUMS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume III, Issue 127, 11 June 1853, Page 9

A CHAPTER FOR NEW CHUMS.

The following rather graphic sketch is extracted from the Geelong Advertiser, as it conveys a very useful hint to many a new arrival amongst us, who is wasting time, money, and patience, when a field of useful employment is open to him, which will at all events afford a subsistence, and opportunity to look around for better things. "It is nearly four years ago since I landed at the Queen's Wharf, Melbourne, aud never shall I forget the feeling of desolation that fell upon me. I felt then, for the first time, what emigration was; it had been a feeling; it was then a fact, and I felt it, for it was too tangible to be mistaken. I was a stranger, and soon found the distinction between imagination and ieality. I had placed too high an estimate upon myself, and had clothed the colony in an aspect that it did not present. It was a double disappointment, self-caused. I had had no experience beyond home circles, and had studied emigration by a comfortable fire-side. Letters of introduction I thought were the " open sesame" to fortune ; and like Caesar, I thought that I had only to come, to see, and to conquer. I presented my letters, which were received for just as much as they were worth; and I was estimated as a cipher, wanting the number one of wealth to give me value. Days and weeks rolled on, and I found my means and my hopes diminishing in a similar ratio. I advertised that I was willing' to do anything; but the public did not want anything done, so I was compelled perforce to remain idle. My friends, that is to say the gentlemen to whom my letters of introduction were addressed, expressed their sorrow, told me to call any time that I was passing, and advised me to keep myself select and genteel, until something turned up. But I found that good society entailed a good expense, and, like a horse, could not be kept for nothing, and that gentility was too costly to be indulged in as a luxury; and so one day I took a plunge into Colonial life, and never regretted it since. I becume a " new chum," and found it much more economical than being " the young gentleman" just arrived iv the colony. " Ce'n'est que le premier pas gui coute." I took it, and in blue shirt, fustian trowsers, and cabbage-tree hat, began life with just sufficient in my pocket to maintain my dignity on the road in my new position as a hutkeeper. I exchanged, for £\7 10s. per annum (I bargained hard for the extra 10s.) and rations, gentility and dangling dependence, and to this day I never repented the step. Passing over the journey up bush, I arrived at the honie station, sat down, and said nothing. I was disI pirited. There was a short old woman, with a weather beaten face, much scarified, busily employed cooking, and smoking a black pipe. She was very taciturn, and not at all curious ; her avocations evidently employed the whole of her thoughts. Putting before me a piece of beef, a damper, and a pannikin of tea —" Pitch in," said she. I did. When she had served up the "master's" dinner, she sat down, and after a few preliminary whiffs from her spliced pipe—"From the Derwan ?" said she interrogatively. " I beg your pardon, Ma'am," said I; " I did not hear your observation distinctly."

"Hum! Gammon! A immigrant, I sposebrought your pigs to a pretty market —imported by the settlers to bring down wages—seventeen giving in town, Bill tells me—not enough for eating the rations. Where do you shake down —in the box ?" " Certainly, if there be one large enough, said I, glancing round the room. " Bill will show the road, when you've done your tucker. Coo e-e." " Coo-e-e," responded a guttural voice from a clump ofgum trees —and soon after sauntered up, with true Australian deliberation, the aforesaid Bill, whose face certainly was human, but covered with hair from eyebrow to chin. " The cove," said the old woman with the spliced pipe," wot's a going to give Terrible Billy his ticket." Terrible Billy, I afterwards understood, was my predecessor in the art and mystery of hutkeeping. Bill led the way, and I followed, until we came to a lambing"down dock, when Bill pointed to a white looking object on wheels, with two handles like a barrow. " There you are," said he. "Do you keep a Newfoundland dog ?" said I. " A what ?" said Bill. " Newfoundland dog," said I. " Isn't, that the kennel?" " My words !" said Bill, looking at me with supreme contempt—" That's the Box. Terrible Billy left some good straw there." The Box! What Box ?.—-I began to have an indistinct glimmering that the imaginary dog kennel was somehow connected with my future bed-room—a feeling that was confirmed by Bill's withdrawing a slip pannel,.through which I crept, and in spite of the aroma diffused by partially cured, semi-green sheep-skins, I wrapped my blanket round me,, and coolly slept my first sleep in the bush.