Tom Gerrard by Louis Becke

When the _Gambier_ arrived at Cooktown at the mouth of the Endeavour River, a scene of the greatest activity presented itself, for several other steamers had just reached the port, some bringing European diggers from the southern colonies and New Zealand, and others from Hongkong with Chinese. The latter numbered over a thousand, and they landed amid a storm of execration and missiles from the white miners, who had preceded them to the shore. But the yellow men made no show of resistance, not even when some of their number were seized--and thrown into the water with their heavily weighted baskets; they crowded together like sheep, and gazed with stolid faces at the Customs officials remorselessly capsizing their baskets upon the ground, and kicking the contents apart in the search for opium. Bags of rice were cut open and the grain spilled upon the ground, to the delight of the white diggers, especially when a tin of opium was found, and the would-be smuggler had his pigtail tied to that of another until there were several groups of a dozen so secured to be driven to the roughly constructed jail and court-house, where justice was administered in an exceedingly expeditious manner by heavy fines. Had it not been that the angry diggers were anxious to get to the newly-discovered fields as quickly as possible, a riot would have taken place, for they knew that within a few weeks there would be thousands of Chinese alluvial diggers all over the country, enriching themselves and spending nothing, for they brought even the greater part of their food with them from China.

But the fatuous Government of the day wanted to swell its depleted treasure-chest, and the Chinese poll-tax brought in money quickly. All over North Queensland the rich alluvial gold-fields were soon to be occupied by the yellow men, to the detriment of the white diggers who were hastening to them from all parts of Australasia to meet with bitter disappointment, for the swarms of Chinese would descend upon a newly opened rush like locusts, and in a few weeks work out a field that would have made hundreds of white miners rich, though perhaps each Chinaman might not have obtained more than a few ounces of gold, every penny-weight of which he sent or took back to his native country.