The Swagman and Sundowner.

Thames Star, Volume IX, Issue 3083, 4 January 1879, Page 1

The Swagman and Sundowner.

By aw Oip Bushman.

There are various descriptions of men who travel through these colonies in search of employment, and from the fact that the greater number of these travellers carry on their shoulders the larger part, if not all, of their worldly possession, in the shape of a pair of blankets and a few clothes, all pedestrians seeking for employment in the bush have long been rery generally known as .". swagmen." Many such men are bond fide labourers, and are really anxious to procure employ* ment, while a large number of those who are thus travelling, though ostensibly in search of employment—to use the words of the laboring class of men—"Are looking for work, and praying to God not to find it." Such men throughout the bush often travel for the half or three fourths of the year, doing little or no work during this period, and then for some three months afterwards work hard during the reaping, lambing, shearing, or accumulate a little money. This.money they seldom retain long, but in bush phrase, " knock it down" at one of the nearest publichouses—that is, provided they are not robbed of it at the very outset of their origes. These men now often travel over vast districts in their wanderings; such peripatetics often start from the Condamine, the Balonne, or some of the most northern heads of the Darling, and then run this latter river down, at times even to its junction with the Murray, which river they frequently cross, and wind up the season by working during the shearing somewhere in Victoria.

Shearing concluded, and their money spent, many : of these characters again turn north-ward and run up either the Lachlan or the Murrumbidgee, finishing another season by shearing somewhere in JS ew South Wales. Owing to the general prevalence of drunkenness, and the numbers who now travel through the country completely penniless from the effects of their own reckless improvidence, the hospitality of squatters is not now so generally or freely dispensed to pedestrians as it formerly wasiand consequently these migatory wayfarers suffer many privations from want of the commonest necessaries of life, when travelling long distances, as they frequently do, almost wholly depeudent upon the generosity and kindness of those squatters whom they canvass. for employment. Hospitality or assistance not being always very willingly granted to such men, they are frequently put to some curious shifts and contrivances to obtain the prireli ge of a night's food and quarters. One of the commonest and best known plans is not to show at a station where they desire a night's entertainment until after sunset, although they have been loitering, for several hours previously, in the immediate vicinity of the place. From the very common repetition of this trick such men are.also widely known by the colonial appellation of " sundowners." To ' obtain clothes the genuine " sundowner" will sometimes take a short job until he earns the price of a pair of boots, or some other equally necessary article of apparel, but he is not always very choice or conscientious in his mode of obtaining these requisites ; for if he can get an employer who is unwise enough to give him credit for a few necessaries from the stores soon after he accepts work, he often decamps without beat of drum, or in bush phrase he "bolts," without thinking for one moment of paying for things which have been given him to relieve his necessities.: This practice has latterly become so common that employers, when engaging strangers, are now very wary in giving them any goods or clothing in. advance, though their want of these things may be ever so apparent; while in times past it was very common to engage a man and at once give him an entire outfit to replace his older attire, which not infrequently had become very much dilapidated thorough debauch, or " spree" in a bush public-house. Robbing bush frut9 of rations, a practice which was formerly almost wholly unknown in these colonies, has also become a very prevalent practice in these later days; and many of the " swagmen" and " sun--1 downers" now know even the most out-of-the-way shepherd's or boundary rider's hut, in a district where they have,once been, at which they can steal a meal, or, in their own phraseology, 41 where they can shake a feed," during the absence of its despoiled and rightful owner. And the absent shepherd or boundary^rider who is thus plundered by those peripatetic philosophers may account himself most fortunate when such ' uninvited visitors content themselves with appropriating only sufficient for a single meal. For on his return to his hut, after | a long day's absence in the bush, when he goes to prepare his rnuch-r. quired supper many a shephered or boundary rider finds, to his dismay and disappointment, that the whole of his small stock of eat- | ables have entirely disappeared through the means of some prowling " sundon - n , »r" who.has done him the unsought-for fay °f visiting his lonely hut during his a.**B6llo6* mucn i" th's is the case that ncr a ve^ frequented road shepherds and boundary riders are vow very gene* rally accustomed to hide their rations from the too cur.'ous researches of the dreaded " sundowner/ either in a hole in the earth, a hollow log, or some others equally hiddenand cunningly devised place of concealment. And to effect such a '• plant," the men say that they must approach the very best contrived cache by many different routes, so as not to form any track in their daily seeretings, as the " sundowner " is an expert in discovering the faintest indication of any regular track which might lead to the smallest store of hidden ration. And the " sundowner "is also reported to be very clear and precise in his knowledge of the carte da pays as to the residences of all those more generous and hospitable among the squatters who may lie in his way through very wide

tracts of territory, and also to be similarly well informed as to the names of all the more stingy and impracticable settlers. The professional " sundowner" is also well acquainted with all the bye-ways, short cuts, and what he terms " the back tracks," meaning thereby the more unfrequented lines of road by which he may travel.

The Darling River, from its great length, is one of the most favorite haunts of the regular " sundowner,' 1 it having also another very great advantage from his point of view, namely, that a man can scarcely starve there, so long as he possesses a strong hook and line, and has industry sufficient to bait his hook and cast kis line into the water, before he retires for the night; to his fire, and an al fresco couch, beneath the shelter of some friendly gum tree; as in such a case he is pretty certain of finding a fine Murray cod on his hook in the morning, as the reward of his exertions in this matter. This alone makes the Darling a favorite resort for a lounge among those who desire to pass some of their time in pio-nicing, as a relaxation from severe labors, and it is a frequent boast of the sundowner " that he has a favourite bend of the Darling awaiting his convenience until after the shearing is over." A month or so before the commencement of the shearing on the Darling and other remote districts, the " sundowner" is very frequently in a faded and sorry plight. Very considerably frayed and tattered, and with a purse which is almost a vacuum, he then often makes a sad display of looped and windowed raggedness. But shearing haying fairly set in, the " sundowner" is at once galvanised into a spasmodic activity, and then often eets to work for a season with considerable energy and perseverance, and so soon as he can get his name on the right side of the books, he quickly sets about to rehabilitate himself, and repair his wellnigh exhausted wardrobe, and he soon assumes a very different look from that of his late worn and jaded appearance. Shearing having concluded, the " sundowner '' for a time is not at all recognisable by his own outward attire or appearance, his formerly attenuated swag is now well stocked, and has assumed hondsomer and much more imposing proportions than when it only contained one or two tattered garments, a few figs of tobacco, and some matches, or some similar assortment, with perhaps the most modest quantity of tea and sugar, as the whole stock for a journey of which he, the "swagman," scarcely knew where it might end, or whither it might lead him. With a recruited purse and a replenished swag, the formerly battered looking " sundowner" immediately assumes a freer step, a lighter foot, and a more easy, independent bearing, as who should say, " I am now a man who can pay my way in the world."

But the last possible shed of the season having been obtained for which he imagines he has any chance —and for which chance the swagmen thinks but little of tramping 60 or 70 miles, or even further—he then begins to think of the serious business of the year, and betakes himself to some favourite bush township, or petjbush hostlry. If he can get a few " pious comrades " to accompany him for a drinking bout so much the better in his opinion, and he generally does so at that particular season with but little difficulty. On entering one of the desired haunts—loud in his laughter and conversation, profuse in oath, jaunty and careless in manner, and well dressed according to his own ideas on such matters —" the sundowner " at once commences his boisterous orgies, which require no particular description here, further than to say that this class of men usually place their whole stock of money in the hands of the landlord of the public-house upon these festive occasions, and from time to time during the course of their revel they demand some particulars of the state of their account, during some of their more lucid intervals.

Ihese items the landlord furnishes, the whole being colored, embellished, and heightened in its details by a lively and artistic imagination on the part of the friendly landlord, who is most obsequious in his attentions so long as the "sundowner's " cheque holds out; but when this fails the landlord's amicable inquiries are said speedily to become less importunately pressing as to the wants and wishes of his impoverished and infatuated customer.

When their money is completely exhausted, many of the swagmen take a day to recover, and then walk off with the most exemplary coolness, being only too happy if their friend the landlord will give them, in the generosity of his heart, a bottle of the most indifferent rum or brandy for the road as a bonus on the transactions which have passed between them, and a reward for their zealous patronage and kind exertions in his favor. But when the " sundowner's " money is exhausted, should he continue to hang too long about the public-house, or become troublesome when in an impecunious or unfriended state, he is then frequently ignominiously and summarily ejected. And this happens not infrequently before a month has elapsed from the conclusion of shearing. The end of the second month after shearing usually finds him again camped in some solitary spot, probably some choice and favorite bend of the Darling, where he has full leisure to fish, and a fine opportunity of reflection on the mutability of affairs here, and the fluctuations of this loner world, the transient and temporary nature of the happiness and enjoyments of human life generally, and the very evanescent and illusory nature of the felicity of swagmen in particular. How many of such men have died directly from the effects of the demon of drink, how many of them have been killed by violence when in a condition of drunkenness, how many of them have been lost in the bush in their lonely wanderings, tortured by thirst, and perishing from hunger, and how many of them have terminated an unfortunate existence by their own hands, can never be told. Friendless, unnoticed, and uncared for, mere waifs and strays of this life, such men sink from human sight unreckoned and unknown. But could the amount of such losses be even approximately arrived at for the last 20 years, the sum total would be a large one, and would doubtless startle and astonish many who are unacquainted with the bush, its reckless dissipations, and its risks in the far interior.—-Australasian.