lifting, and bread were as easily procured as water, man would not be disposed to take healthful exercise, much less labour or toil. We shall not describe the scene as it developed itself on Sunday. It was at total variance with the reputation Scotchmen have acquired for the observance of that day, but in perfect keeping with the notoriety they have gained for their love of strong drink. Monday was the fifteenth day of the gold-fever; and, like most other fevers, it was then at its height. Parties had been on the hill soon after the previous midnight awaiting the dawn, resolved to be the first at the diggings that morning, and 'have their fortunes made before others arrived.' But the lark had not got many yards high in his heavenward ascent, and only struck the first note of his morning-carol, when the mountain concaves sent back echoes of music from a whole band of men, marching at the head of a still greater number, who might have been taken for a regiment of sappers and miners. They have come from a distance; and, like the others who have preceded them, can have known little or nothing of 'balmy sleep, kind nature's sweet restorer,' unless they have taken it at church the preceding day, or in their beds, when they should have been there. The morning has grown apace, and shews the mountain-sides and table-land teeming with life. 'The cry is still, they come;' and long before mid-day, it is calculated that there are at least 1200 persons on the hill--many of them spectators of the scene, but most of them actors in it. To a curious observer, it was at once an amusing, interesting, instructive, and painful spectacle. It developed character; shewed to some extent the state of society among certain classes and professions; and exhibited human nature in some of its peculiar and less agreeable phases. The most striking and unlikeable manifestations were--ignorance, credulity, superstition, recklessness, and disregard for all that is 'lovely and of good report.' We were particularly struck with the want of foresight, observation, and reflection shewn by a great number of the persons concerned, and of whom other things might have been expected. They had come to 'the diggings' without instruments of any kind with which to bring forth the supposed gold from its recesses; and, more wonderful still, without food to sustain them while employed in finding it. What an easy prey these persons would have been to any one willing to take advantage of them! They willingly parted with much of their supposed treasure for a few crumbs of cake from a boy's pocket, and with still more for a slice of poor cheese from a quarryman's wallet. The man who brought intoxicating drink to them, would have received in return whatever he would have been pleased to demand. One party, and one only, so far as we could learn, was more provident than the rest, having provisions with it equal to its necessities for one day at least, among which whisky held a prominent place.