On the Wallaby Track 73 



would probably surprise the city cyclist. It is on 

 record that one of these men rode seven hundred 

 miles in eleven days on a bicycle which, with the 

 belongings he had fastened upon it, weighed more 

 than a hundred pounds. No bush track is too 

 rough for the shearer cyclist, and the impromptu 

 repairs sometimes effected in an emergency, if 

 somewhat unorthodox, nevertheless bear testi- 

 mony to the ingenuity and versatility of the 

 Australian bushman. 



But the real hero of the wallaby track is the 

 footman, who, with his swag slung over his 

 shoulder and his billy in his hand, tramps from 

 one edge of the continent to the other with a pa- 

 tient courage that is not always recognised. The 

 man who can camp with a couple of these travel- 

 lers, sharing their billy of tea and halving with 

 them his plug of tobacco, may go away enriched 

 by many a story grimly humorous or charged 

 with valuable human experience. The man with 

 the swag faces the hardship of his life with a 

 brave jest, as the very argot of the wallaby track 

 will testify. He declares, with a rueful look at 

 his swag, that he is "waltzing with Matilda," 

 calling up by the quaint simile a laughable vision 

 of some heavy-footed bush girl unskilled in the 

 dance. The rags that serve him for socks are 

 " Prince Alberts "; he lodges each night in "the 

 Moon and Stars Hotel, ground floor." He illus- 

 trates the uneventfulness of his life and the taci- 

 turnity it induces by a story which may be heard 



