These receptacles held our wardrobes, when we
possessed such things, and the sundry personals we brought with us from
England years ago, and imported up here.

We have long got over the feeling that it is imperative to hoard up
clothes and things in boxes; in fact, we have no longer any clothes and
things that require such disposal. But in the bush everything must serve
some purpose or other; and so all these now disused trunks are turned to
use. One grand old imperial is now a brine-tub, within whose dank and
salt recesses masses of beef and pork are always kept stored ready for
use. Other cases hold sugar, salt, flour, and so on; a uniform case is
now our bread-basket; each has its proper purpose, and is accomplishing
its final destiny. There is a fine leather portmanteau, or what was once
such, now the residence of a colley bitch and her litter of pups.
Mildewed and battered as it is, it still seems to recall to mind faint
memories of English country-houses, carriages, valets, and other
outlandish and foreign absurdities. There must be magic in that old
valise, for, the other day, Dandy Jack was looking at the pups that
live in it, and remarked their kennel. A fragment of schoolboy Latin
came into his head, and, to our astonishment, he murmured, "_Sic transit
gloria mundi!_"

To avoid the possibility of any mistakes arising from an admission just
made, I hereby beg to state that we do _not_ consider clothing as
entirely superfluous. But we no longer regard it from any artistic or
ornamental point of view; that would be to derogate from our character
as bushmen. We are not over-burdened with too large a choice of
clothing. Such as we have is pretty much held in common, and all that is
not in immediate use finds a place on the partition-rack, or the shelves
upon it. We are supposed to possess _another_ change of garments apiece,
but no one knows exactly how he stands in this matter, unless it be the
Little'un, whose superior amplitude of limb debars him from the fullest
exercise of communal rights.

Our ordinary costume consists of flannel shirt and moleskin breeches,
boots, socks, leggings, belt, and hat. In chilly and wet weather we
sling a potato-sack, or some ancient apology for a coat, round our
shoulders. When we visit the township, or our married neighbours, we
clean ourselves as much as possible, and put on the best coat we can
find in the shanty. We do not entirely dispense with such things as
towels and h