• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

The Institute of Australian Culture

Heritage, history, and heroes; literature, legends, and larrikins

  • Home
  • Articles
  • Biographies
  • Books
  • Ephemera
  • Poetry & songs
  • Slang
  • Timeline
  • Topics
    • Anzac Day
    • Australia Day
    • Australian Aborigines
    • Australianism
    • Australian literature
    • The Eureka Rebellion
    • Explorers
    • Significant events and commemorative dates

Chapter 3 [The Eureka Stockade, by Raffaello Carboni, 1855]

30 January 2013 · Leave a Comment

[Editor: This is a chapter from The Eureka Stockade by Raffaello Carboni. A glossary has been provided to explain various words and phrases that may be unfamiliar to modern readers.]

III.

Jupiter Tonans.

One fine morning (Epiphany week), I was hard at work (excuse old chum, if I said hard : though my hand had been scores of times compelled in London to drop the quill through sheer fatigue, yet I never before handled a pick and shovel), I hear a rattling noise among the brush. My faithful dog, Bonaparte, would not keep under my control. “What’s up?” “Your licence, mate.” was the peremptory question from a six-foot fellow in blue shirt, thick boots, the face of a ruffian armed with a carbine and fixed bayonet. The old “all right” being exchanged, I lost sight of that specimen of colonial brutedom and his similars, called, as I then learned, “traps” and “troopers.” I left off work, and was unable to do a stroke more that day.

“I came, then, 16,000 miles in vain to get away from the law of the sword!” was my sad reflection. My sorrow was not mitigated by my mates and neighbours informing me, that Australia was a penal settlement. Inveterate murderers, audacious burglars, bloodthirsty bushrangers, were the ruling triumvirate, the scour of old Europe, called Vandemonians, in this bullock-drivers’ land. Of course I felt tamed, and felt less angry, at the following search for licence. At the latter end of the month, one hundred and seventy seven pounds troy, in two superb masses of gold, were discovered at the depth of sixty feet, on the hill opposite where I was working. The talk was soon Vulcanish through the land. Canadian Gully was as rich in lumps as other gold-fields are in dust. Diggers, whom the gold fever had rendered stark blind, so as to desert Ballaarat for Mount Alexander and Bendigo, now returned as ravens to the old spot; and towards the end of February, ’53, Canadian Gully was in its full glory.



Source:
Raffaello Carboni. The Eureka Stockade: The Consequence of Some Pirates Wanting on Quarter-Deck a Rebellion, Public Library of South Australia, Adelaide, 1962 [facsimile of the 1855 edition], page 4

Editor’s notes:
Jupiter Tonans = “Jupiter the Thunderer” (or “Thundering Jove”); from the Latin “Iuppiter” for Jupiter, “tonans” for thundering; in Roman mythology, Jupiter was the god of sky and thunder

Vandemonians = Tasmanians; people from Van Diemen’s Land (Tasmania) were known as Vandemonians, and were widely regarded as having the convict taint upon them, due to the fact that Van Diemen’s Land was the recipient of about 40% of convicts sent to Australia, and continued to receive convicts from the UK for over a decade after the transportation of convicts to New South Wales had ceased (transportation ended in 1840 in NSW, and in 1853 in Tasmania); in the context of the goldfields, a “Vandemonian” was a rough and nasty character

Filed Under: chapters Tagged With: Raffaello Carboni, SourceArchiveOrg, The Eureka Stockade (Raffaello Carboni 1855), year1855

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Primary Sidebar

Australian flag, 100hThe Institute of Australian Culture
Heritage, history, and heroes. Literature, legends, and larrikins. Stories, songs, and sages.

Featured books

The Man from Snowy River and Other Verses, by Banjo Paterson A Book for Kids, by C. J. Dennis  The Bulletin Reciter: A Collection of Verses for Recitation from The Bulletin The Songs of a Sentimental Bloke, by C. J. Dennis The Complete Inner History of the Kelly Gang and Their Pursuers, by J. J. Kenneally The Foundations of Culture in Australia, by P. R. Stephensen The Australian Crisis, by C. H. Kirmess Such Is Life, by Joseph Furphy
More books (full text)

Featured lists

Timeline of Australian history and culture
A list of significant Australiana
Significant events and commemorative dates
Australian slang
Books (full text)
Australian literature
Rock music and pop music (videos)
Folk music and bush music (videos)
Early music (videos)
Recommended poetry
Poetry and songs, 1786-1900
Poetry and songs, 1901-1954
Australian explorers
Topics
Links

Featured posts

Advance Australia Fair: How the song became the Australian national anthem
Brian Cadd [music videos and biography]
Ned Kelly: Australian bushranger
Under the Southern Cross I Stand [the Australian cricket team’s victory song]

Some Australian authors

E. J. Brady
John Le Gay Brereton
C. J. Dennis
Mary Hannay Foott
Joseph Furphy
Mary Gilmore
Charles Harpur
Grant Hervey
Lucy Everett Homfray
Rex Ingamells
Henry Kendall
“Kookaburra”
Henry Lawson
Jack Moses
“Dryblower” Murphy
John Shaw Neilson
John O’Brien (Patrick Joseph Hartigan)
“Banjo” Paterson
Marie E. J. Pitt
A. G. Stephens
P. R. Stephensen
Agnes L. Storrie (Agnes L. Kettlewell)

Recent Posts

  • Vale! Percy Mahoney [by H. A. Burton, 14 December 1950]
  • Early-day sportsman’s death [obituary of Percy Mahoney, 7 December 1950]
  • Visits to the IAC site from various countries
  • Poems by J. Shaw Neilson [book review, 22 December 1923]
  • “Australia in Palestine” [book review, 6 November 1919]

Top Posts & Pages

  • The Man from Snowy River [poem by Banjo Paterson]
  • Clancy of The Overflow [poem by Banjo Paterson]
  • The Man from Ironbark [poem by Banjo Paterson]
  • Click Go the Shears [folk music, lyrics; traditional Australian song, 1890s]
  • The Bastard from the Bush [poem, circa 1900]

Categories

Archives

Posts of note

The Bastard from the Bush [poem, circa 1900]
A Book for Kids [by C. J. Dennis, 1921]
Click Go the Shears [traditional Australian song, 1890s]
Core of My Heart [“My Country”, poem by Dorothea Mackellar, 24 October 1908]
Freedom on the Wallaby [poem by Henry Lawson, 16 May 1891]
The Man from Ironbark [poem by Banjo Paterson]
Nationality [poem by Mary Gilmore, 12 May 1942]
The Newcastle song [music video, sung by Bob Hudson]
No Foe Shall Gather Our Harvest [poem by Mary Gilmore, 29 June 1940]
Our pipes [short story by Henry Lawson]
Rommel’s comments on Australian soldiers [1941-1942]
Shooting the moon [short story by Henry Lawson]

Recent Comments

  • Rawlinson R on Rommel’s comments on Australian soldiers [1941-1942]
  • Mike Gregory on Australian slang
  • Peter Morgan on Rise of the wool industry: John Macarthur’s work for Australia [chapter 10 of “The story of Australia” by Martin Hambleton]
  • raymond on Ballad and Lyrical Poems [by John Shaw Neilson, 1923]
  • IAC on Ballad and Lyrical Poems [by John Shaw Neilson, 1923]

Search this site



For Australia


Copyright © 2022 · Log in