With this object in view, a digger named Dunlop packed up his tent and baggage, and would have taken himself to Clunes; but when he learned that four pounds was the price of carriage in the waggon about to start for that place, he resolved to give Buninyong another trial. Early next morning he disappeared from the township. In the evening he returned to his wondering mate and showed him a match-box containing half an ounce of gold, which he said was the result of that day's seeking amongst the hills five or six miles away. His mate would not believe his tale, but at break of day Dunlop again disappeared--this time in company with a friend named Regan. A few days elapsed, and the two men being still away, his mate went out in search of them. Then the absence of the three men was remarked at the hotel where they had been lodging. Four other men, suspecting the cause of the sudden disappearance, and hoping to share in any fresh discoveries, went stealthily out of the township and endeavoured to track the supposed lucky prospectors. But the latter did not wish to be discovered, and attempted to elude their pursuers. However, all their efforts to escape observation were in vain, for in a very short time the place that Dunlop had discovered attracted almost all the diggers from Buninyong, who soon displaced the few miserable native wanderers who had roamed over Poverty Flat--as it was gruesomely named--"monarchs of all they surveyed, and lords of the fowl and the brute." Shortly afterwards the treasures of Golden Point were revealed. A family named Cavanagh had secured a half-worked claim, and having carried it below a layer of pipe-clay into the midst of some decayed slate, they struck the first of those rich pockets which were afterwards found in such abundance throughout the Golden Point Field. Before the end of August the mineral richness of the neighbouring creeks became evident, and numbers of nimble fossickers gathered the first crops of the Ballarat gold-fields. In September rich diggings were opened at Mount Alexander, and two or three weeks later the yield of those at Bendigo eclipsed for a time the glories of all other fields. CHAPTER III. _Effect Of Discoveries._ "Like stragglers from an army, orderless, The adventurers toward their haven press; Their ardent minds, ignoring present care, Imagine future "lobs" of which they share. Through their hot brains what splendid visions speed Of golden _claims_ directly on the _lead_, Enabling them thro' hoary Age to sail With hawsers moored to Competence's tail! * * * * * How chang'd the landscape since the paleface came, How hard to recognise it as the same! The earth no longer wears her garb of green, But grave-like holes may everywhere be seen; The forest fell'd to cook the miners' food, The sadden'd Natives scatter'd and subdu'd."