g softer to the shoulder), your coat being carried
outside the swag at the back, under the straps. To the top strap fasten
the string of the nose-bag, a calico bag about the size of a pillowslip,
containing the tea, sugar and flour bags, bread, meat, baking-powder and
salt, and brought, when the swag is carried from the left shoulder,
over the right on to the chest, and so balancing the swag behind. But a
swagman can throw a heavy swag in a nearly vertical position against his
spine, slung from one shoulder only and without any balance, and carry
it as easily as you might wear your overcoat. Some bushmen arrange their
belongings so neatly and conveniently, with swag straps in a sort of
harness, that they can roll up the swag in about a minute, and unbuckle
it and throw it out as easily as a roll of wall-paper, and there's the
bed ready on the ground with the wardrobe for a pillow. The swag is
always used for a seat on the track; it is a soft seat, so trousers
last a long time. And, the dust being mostly soft and silky on the long
tracks out back, boots last marvellously. Fifteen miles a day is the
average with the swag, but you must travel according to the water: if
the next bore or tank is five miles on, and the next twenty beyond, you
camp at the five-mile water to-night and do the twenty next day. But
if it's thirty miles you have to do it. Travelling with the swag in
Australia is variously and picturesquely described as "humping bluey,"
"walking Matilda," "humping Matilda," "humping your drum," "being on the
wallaby," "jabbing trotters," and "tea and sugar burglaring," but most
travelling shearers now call themselves trav'lers, and say simply "on
the track," or "carrying swag."

And there you have the Australian swag. Men from all the world have
carried it--lords and low-class Chinamen, saints and world martyrs,
and felons, thieves, and murderers, educated gentlemen and boors who
couldn't sign their mark, gentlemen who fought for Poland and convicts
who fought the world, women, and more than one woman disguised as a
man. The Australian swag has held in its core letters and papers in
all languages, the honour of great houses, and more than one national
secret, papers that would send well-known and highly-respected men to
jail, and proofs of the innocence of men going mad in prisons, life
tragedies and comedies, fortunes and papers that secured titles and
fortunes, and the last pence of lost fortunes, life secrets, por