gems, trade, commerce, early trade

Amongst the first visitors to Australia the Chinese initially were involved in business with the Aborigines. On the early trading ships they saved themselves from scurvy by doing their own cooking and sprouting beans. One of the book's highlights is the description of the Chinese preoccupation with food and cooking. Sojourners covers the important themes of health and sickness in particular opium and the spread of leprosy and smallpox and the passion for gambling which the Chinese share with the European Australians. In the 1850s with the discovery of gold they encountered men from all over the world the result was fear and widespread racism toward the Chinese.