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language difficulties), eventually decided to join his compatriots heading for the Jim
Crow mines. His Maggesi travel companions, the majority of whom were farmers or
stonecutters and stonemasons also seeking work in their trades,* faced similar
difficulties and had become resigned to a future in mining. The disillusionment
experienced during the voyage (see The Joumey) thus became a reality of the early
months of settlement and the newcomers felt the trap of poverty and debt closing
tighter about them.
With their arrival on the goldfields came new hopes, however, and the men
quickly established themselves in temporary accommodation and began their search for
gold. Despite his lack of mining experience, Vincenzo may have had some early
success, for only one year later his son Alessandro left Maggia to join him.
Alessandro's departure from his home at only thirteen years reveals how quickly the
cloak of adulthood fell upon peasant shoulders; it was not uncommon for children of
four and five years to be responsible for younger family members and to work side-by-
side with the adults. In giving up her son, however, Serafina may not have realised the
permanency of this decision, for the emigrants of the past had almost always retumed.
Alessandro departed for Australia aboard the Adele in May 1855 accompanied by his
two cousins Abbondio and Lorenzo Quanchi, young men of sixteen and seventeen
years. Together they had contracted with German shipping agents to travel overland
to Hamburg then on to Antwerp for their departure, this part of their joumey being
expected to last 66 days. Though they had paid only the comparatively low sum of
500 francs for their passages' (which was 50 francs more than they had originally
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