78 Australian Life 



his own folly, and many resolves not to repeat the 

 experience next time, he once more faces the 

 wallaby track, and the heart-breaking search for 

 work which is so difficult to obtain. 



It may be that if it were not for the bush shanty 

 and the bad liquor sold in it, the number of travel- 

 lers on the Australian bush tracks would be 

 lessened by more than half, and the pastoralist, 

 instead of complaining of the drain upon his 

 stores, would grumble at the scarcity of experi- 

 enced labour. The steady swagman usually be- 

 comes a selector in time, and marries and settles 

 down in his own bush home. The failure of his 

 crops may drive him out upon the tracks again, 

 to knock together a cheque while his wife looks 

 after the home and the stock. That, however, is 

 only a temporary expedient, and after the shear- 

 ing or the fencing contract is over, he will return 

 to his clearing with money in his pocket and 

 hopeful for better seasons. Some of the neatest 

 and most prosperous little homesteads in the Aus- 

 tralian agricultural districts have been won by 

 men who began with a cheque earned while they 

 were carrying their swags in the "back country." 



It is the drinking, improvident man who carries 

 the swag all through his life, and ends on some 

 wholly forgotten track with the crows blackening 

 the trees above him. The hardships of the life, 

 and the constant exposure to weather of all kinds, 

 must have their effect even upon the hardiest con- 

 stitutions, and the excesses indulged in play their 



