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From this scene rose a blurred hum of sound; rose and as it were remained stationary above it - like a smoke cloud, which no wind comes to drive away. Gradually, though, the ear made out, in the conglomerate of noise, a host of separate noise infinitely multiplied: the sharp tick-tack of surface-picks, the dull thud of shovels, their muffled echoes from the depths below. There was also the continuous squeak and groan of windlasses; the bump of the mullock emptied from the bucket; the trundle of wheelbarrows, pushed along a plank from the shaft's mouth to the nearest pool; the dump of the dart on the heap for washing. Along the banks of the creek, hundreds of cradles rocked and grated; the noise of spades, chopping the gravel into the puddling-tubs or the Long Toms, was like the scrunch of shingle under waves. The fierce yelping of the dogs chained to the flag-posts of stores, mongrels which yapped at friend and foe alike, supplied a note of ear-splitting discord.
Henry Handel Richardson, The Fortunes of Richard Mahony, Heinemann, London and Melbourne, 1930, p. 11.
PLACE: Ballarat, Victoria, Australia
TIME: 1850's
CIRCUMSTANCE: description of gold digging
The hoofs of the horses pounded the plank bridge that spanned the Yarrowee, and striking loose stones, and smacking and sucking in the mud, made a rude clatter in the Sunday quiet.
Henry Handel Richardson, The Fortunes of Richard Mahony, Heinemann, London and Melbourne, 1930, p. 30.
TIME: 1850's
PLACE: Ballarat, Victoria, Australia
CIRCUMSTANCE: a wooden bridge
And when, in passing a swamp, a well-known noise broke on her ear - that of hundreds of bell-frogs, which were like hundreds of hissing tea-kettles just about to boil...
Henry Handel Richardson, The Fortunes of Richard Mahony, Heinemann, London and Melbourne, 1930, p. 80.
TIME: ca. 1850
PLACE: the road between Ballarat and Geelong, Australia
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