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Updated: June 27, 2025
Mitchell covered his face with a piece of calico, because the moonlight and wind kept him awake. We caught up with an old swagman crossing the plain, and tramped along with him till we came to good shade to have a smoke in. We had got yarning about men getting lost in the bush or going away and being reported dead.
A man tramping in search of work is a "swagman" or "swagger," from the "swag" or roll of blankets he carries on his back. Very few words have been adopted from the vigorous and expressive Maori. The convenient "mana," which covers prestige, authority, and personal magnetism; "wharé," a rough hut; "taihoa," equivalent to the Mexican manana; and "ka pai," "'tis good," are exceptions.
He eased down the swag against a post, turned his face to the city, tilted his hat forward, and scratched the well-developed back of his head with a little finger. He seemed undecided what track to take. "Cab, Sir!" The swagman turned slowly and regarded cabby with a quiet grin. "Now, do I look as if I want a cab?" "Well, why not? No harm, anyway I thought you might want a cab."
The hospitable proprietor, whose name I never learned, did all he could to make me comfortable, and I felt inclined to stay, but despatch was imperative, for not only must the lease be applied for forthwith, but Conley and Egan must be provisioned. At Coongarrie I gave a swagman a lift, and he helped me with the camels and loads, until at last Coolgardie was reached.
At all events, impelled partly by a desire to have another look at the man, and partly, perhaps, by a morbid longing to flaunt myself before Tam, I grandly dipped my lofty belltopper under the doorway of the hut, and, without removing it, helped myself to a pannikin of tea from the bucket by the hearth, and sat down opposite the silent swagman.
'Hot! 'Hot! Pause. 'Trav'lin'? 'No, not particular! She waited for him to explain. Myers was always explaining when he wasn't raving. But the swagman smoked on. 'Have a drink? she suggested, to keep her end up. 'No, thank you, missus. I had one an hour or so ago. I never take more than two a-day one before breakfast, if I can get it, and a night-cap. What a contrast to Myers! she thought.
From a Deputy-Assistant-Sub-Inspector with the mortuary reversion of the Assistant-Sub-Inspectorship itself to a swagman, bluey on shoulder and billy in hand, is as easy as falling off a playful moke. Such is life." The longer I smoked, the more charmed I was with the rounded symmetry and steady lustre of that pearl of truth which the swagman had brought forth out of his treasury.
The swagman dodged and parried, and soon put in a swinging blow on the left temple. Nosey fell to the ground, and the stranger resumed his walk as before, uttering his war cry: "You'll find me as good a man as ever you met in your life." There were no seconds, but the rules of chivalry were strictly observed; the stranger was a true gentleman, and did not use his boots.
Here was planned the murder of Jimmy the Snob by Prettyboy and his mates, whose hut was near the end of the bridge across the river, and for which murder Prettyboy was hanged in Melbourne. In the dusk I mistook the swagman for a stray aboriginal who had survived the destruction of his tribe, but on approaching nearer, I found that he was, or at least once had been, a white man.
It looked like a bolster done up in a blanket; but it was the swag that the tramps carry in Australia, with all their earthly goods rolled up in their bedding; and the fellow was an Australian swagsman, that's what he was!" "Swagman," corrected Rachel, instinctively. "And pray what color was the blanket?" she made haste to add. "Faded blue."
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