The Gold Hunters' Adventures Or, Life in Australia

I have had this long book on my phone, and read it at times when I don't have a book to hand, over a period of 4 months. I found it excellent - action packed and filled with the stories of men the main characters come into contact with - stories within stories in the same vein as the Thousand and One Nights with those longer stories which do this.

Eighty three chapters of adventure in Australia in the 1850s, when two young Bostonian men take places on a ship in California bound for Melbourne, looking for adventure. Fred and Jack (the name the author assumes for the book) are not without intelligence and physical skills to get them through all kinds of risks and troubles, and certainly to cause a few too.

After some time in Melbourne, they undertake to travel to Ballarat where the gold strike is, but they take a long time to get there as they end up having a series of run-ins with bushrangers (the colloquial Australian term for bandits or highwaymen), and establish a rapport with a couple of lawmen who feature throughout this book. Upon reaching Ballarat, rather than throw themselves into the dangerous game of mining, set up a trading business, selling provisions to the miners.

The above is a simple outline of events, but we are treated to many side-adventures, and we meet a great many other men (and a few women) in the course of the story. There is treasure hunting, murderers, more bushrangers, tangles with all manner of criminals and convicts who are secured their freedom. There are journeys to find stores, mercy dashes to save friends and strangers, there are duels, fights, scheming and outwitting of foes; foes who become friends, bullies dealt with, victims of crime assisted with finding justice. These are men setting a good example for Americans everywhere, righting the wrongs of (some of) their countrymen, and better the British in the new land.

After just under 900 pages of adventure, the story stops somewhat abruptly, and we are reassumed a second volume will follow! I suppose I ought to seek this out - as if I don't already have enough books to read!

Available on Project Gutenburg, and recommended to those with an interest in early Australian history.

Five stars