Ovens Diggings, Spring Creek, Dec. 25. 1852.

Hurrah! there are the diggings at last! After the arduous and eventful journey of nearly two months, over only about 250 miles of ground, but such ground! there are really the diggings. On reaching the brow of a hill, we see a broad valley lying below us, and white tents scattered along it for a mile or more. The tents, right and left, glance out of the woods on all sides. In the open valley they stand thick, and there is a long stretch up the centre of the valley, where all the ground has been turned up, and looks like a desert of pale clay.

After our long pilgrimage, it seems as if we ought never to come to diggings at all, but that our business were to go on and on. But here are the diggings, spite of fate. We descend the hill. There stands a great wide-open tent, with a pole and a handkerchief hoisted upon it, in sign that it is a store or shop. We go on,—huts, dusty ground, all trodden, trees felled and withering up in the sun, with all their foliage; here and there a round hole like a well, a few feet deep, where they have been trying for gold, and have not found it.