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Fuhvood, it represented a movement of a single viUage culture to the Australian
setting.
Though Vincenzo's experiences at sea are unlikely to have been pleasant, his
language skiUs enabled him to eam extra food rations (like several of his compatriots)
by acting as crew's interpreter. He leamt quickly that the survival skills of emigration
could be different from those of subsistence life ~ a challenge to the assumptions he
had made about Australia. Arriving at Port PhiUip, he headed directly for the
goldfields of Bendigo but, having Uttle luck there in the mines, travelled on to Avoca
and later to Maryborough (towards Ararat) (ref figure 6). Within one year he had
arrived in Spring Creek where many Ticinesi had been mining for some time. The
resemblance of the area to Mergoscia, with its lush green springtime valleys, together
with the presence of the large Italian-speaking community, attracted him to settle
permanently. Here Vincenzo began a small one-man prospector's mine, taking up a
piece of land as was the miner's right. If they were successful, miners were able to
apply for a residence area mine licence and erect a house. At first the plots of land
were very small, approximately 33 metres by 33 metres, and sometimes even smaller
when positioned on a creek bed. Though Vincenzo found little gold in his early mining
days, he appears to have been more successful later and within two years was joined by
his brothers Pietro and Giuseppe.
Pietro and Giuseppe arrived in the colony in 1856 aboard the Montmorency
which had departed from Liverpool on 5 June.* Although Ticino's emigration rate had
begun to ease by that stage, the vessel carried seventeen passengers from Mergoscia
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