The Australian swag fashion is the easiest way in the world of carrying a load. I ought to know something about carrying loads: I’ve carried babies, which are the heaviest and most awkward and heartbreaking loads in this world for a boy or man to carry, I fancy. God remember mothers who slave about the housework (and do sometimes a man’s work in addition in the bush) with a heavy, squalling kid on one arm! I’ve humped logs on the selection, “burning-off,” with loads of fencing-posts and rails and palings out of steep, rugged1 gullies (and was happier then, perhaps); I’ve carried a shovel2, crowbar, heavy “rammer,” a dozen insulators3 on an average (strung round my shoulders with raw flax)-to say nothing of soldiering kit4, tucker-bag, billy and climbing spurs—all day on a telegraph line in rough country in New Zealand, and in places where a man had to manage his load with one hand and help himself climb with the other; and I’ve helped hump and drag telegraph-poles up cliffs and sidings where the horses couldn’t go. I’ve carried a portmanteau on the hot dusty roads in green old jackaroo days. Ask any actor who’s been stranded5 and had to count railway sleepers6 from one town to another! he’ll tell you what sort of an awkward load a portmanteau is, especially if there’s a broken-hearted man underneath7 it. I’ve tried knapsack fashion—one of the least healthy and most likely to give a man sores; I’ve carried my belongings8 in a three-bushel sack slung9 over my shoulder—blankets, tucker, spare boots and poetry all lumped together. I tried carrying a load on my head, and got a crick in my neck and spine10 for days. I’ve carried a load on my mind that should have been shared by editors and publishers. I’ve helped hump luggage and furniture up to, and down from, a top flat in London. And I’ve carried swag for months out back in Australia—and it was life, in spite of its “squalidness” and meanness and wretchedness and hardship, and in spite of the fact that the world would have regarded us as “tramps”—and a free life amongst men from all the world!
The Australian swag was born of Australia and no other land—of the Great Lone11 Land of magnificent distances and bright heat; the land of self-reliance, and never-give-in, and help-your-mate. The grave of many of the world’s tragedies and comedies—royal and otherwise. The land where a man out of employment might shoulder his swag in Adelaide and take the track, and years later walk into a hut on the Gulf12, or never be heard of any more, or a body be found in the bush and buried by the mounted police, or never found and never buried—what does it matter?
The land I love above all others—not because it was kind to me, but because I was born on Australian soil, and because of the foreign father who died at his work in the ranks of Australian pioneers, and because of many things. Australia! My country! Her very name is music to me. God bless Australia! for the sake of the great hearts of the heart of her! God keep her clear of the old-world shams13 and social lies and mockery, and callous14 commercialism, and sordid15 shame! And heaven send that, if ever in my time her sons are called upon to fight for her young life and honour, I die with the first rank of them and be buried in Australian ground.
But this will probably be called false, forced or “maudlin sentiment” here in England, where the mawkish16 sentiment of the music-halls, and the popular applause it receives, is enough to make a healthy man sick, and is only equalled by music-hall vulgarity. So I’ll get on.
In the old digging days the knapsack, or straps17-across-the chest fashion, was tried, but the load pressed on a man’s chest and impeded19 his breathing, and a man needs to have his bellows20 free on long tracks in hot, stirless weather. Then the “horse-collar,” or rolled military overcoat style—swag over one shoulder and under the other arm—was tried, but it was found to be too hot for the Australian climate, and was discarded along with Wellington boots and leggings. Until recently, Australian city artists and editors—who knew as much about the bush as Downing Street knows about the British colonies in general—seemed to think the horse-collar swag was still in existence; and some artists gave the swagman a stick, as if he were a tramp of civilization with an eye on the backyard and a fear of the dog. English artists, by the way, seem firmly convinced that the Australian bushman is born in Wellington boots with a polish on ’em you could shave yourself by.
The swag is usually composed of a tent “fly” or strip of calico (a cover for the swag and a shelter in bad weather—in New Zealand it is oilcloth or waterproof21 twill), a couple of blankets, blue by custom and preference, as that colour shows the dirt less than any other (hence the name “bluey” for swag), and the core is composed of spare clothing and small personal effects. To make or “roll up” your swag: lay the fly or strip of calico on the ground, blueys on top of it; across one end, with eighteen inches or so to spare, lay your spare trousers and shirt, folded, light boots tied together by the laces toe to heel, books, bundle of old letters, portraits, or whatever little knick-knacks you have or care to carry, bag of needles, thread, pen and ink, spare patches for your pants, and bootlaces. Lay or arrange the pile so that it will roll evenly with the swag (some pack the lot in an old pillowslip or canvas bag), take a fold over of blanket and calico the whole length on each side, so as to reduce the width of the swag to, say, three feet, throw the spare end, with an inward fold, over the little pile of belongings, and then roll the whole to the other end, using your knees and judgment22 to make the swag tight, compact and artistic23; when within eighteen inches of the loose end take an inward fold in that, and bring it up against the body of the swag. There is a strong suggestion of a roley-poley in a rag about the business, only the ends of the swag are folded in, in rings, and not tied. Fasten the swag with three or four straps, according to judgment and the supply of straps. To the top strap18, for the swag is carried (and eased down in shanty24 bars and against walls or veranda-posts when not on the track) in a more or less vertical25 position—to the top strap, and lowest, or lowest but one, fasten the ends of the shoulder strap (usually a towel is preferred as being softer to the shoulder), your coat being carried outside the swag at the back, under the straps. To the top strap fasten the string of the nose-bag, a calico bag about the size of a pillowslip, containing the tea, sugar and flour bags, bread, meat, baking-powder and salt, and brought, when the swag is carried from the left shoulder, over the right on to the chest, and so balancing the swag behind. But a swagman can throw a heavy swag in a nearly vertical position against his spine, slung from one shoulder only and without any balance, and carry it as easily as you might wear your overcoat. Some bushmen arrange their belongings so neatly26 and conveniently, with swag straps in a sort of harness, that they can roll up the swag in about a minute, and unbuckle it and throw it out as easily as a roll of wall-paper, and there’s the bed ready on the ground with the wardrobe for a pillow. The swag is always used for a seat on the track; it is a soft seat, so trousers last a long time. And, the dust being mostly soft and silky on the long tracks out back, boots last marvellously. Fifteen miles a day is the average with the swag, but you must travel according to the water: if the next bore or tank is five miles on, and the next twenty beyond, you camp at the five-mile water to-night and do the twenty next day. But if it’s thirty miles you have to do it. Travelling with the swag in Australia is variously and picturesquely27 described as “humping bluey,” “walking Matilda,” “humping Matilda,” “humping your drum,” “being on the wallaby,” “jabbing trotters,” and “tea and sugar burglaring,” but most travelling shearers now call themselves trav’lers, and say simply “on the track,” or “carrying swag.”
And there you have the Australian swag. Men from all the world have carried it—lords and low-class Chinamen, saints and world martyrs28, and felons29, thieves, and murderers, educated gentlemen and boors30 who couldn’t sign their mark, gentlemen who fought for Poland and convicts who fought the world, women, and more than one woman disguised as a man. The Australian swag has held in its core letters and papers in all languages, the honour of great houses, and more than one national secret, papers that would send well-known and highly-respected men to jail, and proofs of the innocence31 of men going mad in prisons, life tragedies and comedies, fortunes and papers that secured titles and fortunes, and the last pence of lost fortunes, life secrets, portraits of mothers and dead loves, pictures of fair women, heart-breaking old letters written long ago by vanished hands, and the pencilled manuscript of more than one book which will be famous yet.
The weight of the swag varies from the light rouseabout’s swag, containing one blanket and a clean shirt, to the “royal Alfred,” with tent and all complete, and weighing part of a ton. Some old sundowners have a mania32 for gathering33, from selectors’ and shearers’ huts, and dust-heaps, heart-breaking loads of rubbish which can never be of any possible use to them or anyone else. Here is an inventory34 of the contents of the swag of an old tramp who was found dead on the track, lying on his face on the sand, with his swag on top of him, and his arms stretched straight out as if he were embracing the mother earth, or had made, with his last movement, the sign of the cross to the blazing heavens:
Rotten old tent in rags. Filthy35 blue blanket, patched with squares of red and calico. Half of “white blanket” nearly black now, patched with pieces of various material and sewn to half of red blanket. Three-bushel sack slit36 open. Pieces of sacking. Part of a woman’s skirt. Two rotten old pairs of moleskin trousers. One leg of a pair of trousers. Back of a shirt. Half a waistcoat. Two tweed coats, green, old and rotting, and patched with calico. Blanket, etc. Large bundle of assorted37 rags for patches, all rotten. Leaky billy-can, containing fishing-line, papers, suet, needles and cotton, etc. Jam-tin, medicine bottles, corks38 on strings39, to hang to his hat to keep the flies off (a sign of madness in the bush, for the corks would madden a sane40 man sooner than the flies could). Three boots of different sizes, all belonging to the right foot, and a left slipper41. Coffee-pot, without handle or spout42, and quart-pot full of rubbish—broken knives and forks, with the handles burnt off, spoons, etc., picked up on rubbish-heaps; and many rusty43 nails, to be used as buttons, I suppose.
Broken saw blade, hammer, broken crockery, old pannikins, small rusty frying-pan without a handle, children’s old shoes, many bits of old bootleather and greenhide, part of yellowback novel, mutilated English dictionary, grammar and arithmetic book, a ready reckoner, a cookery book, a bulgy44 anglo-foreign dictionary, part of a Shakespeare, book in French and book in German, and a book on etiquette45 and courtship. A heavy pair of blucher boots, with uppers parched46 and cracked, and soles so patched (patch over patch) with leather, boot protectors, hoop47 iron and hobnails that they were about two inches thick, and the boots weighed over five pounds. (If you don’t believe me go into the Melbourne Museum, where, in a glass case in a place of honour, you will see a similar, perhaps the same, pair of bluchers labelled “An example of colonial industry.”) And in the core of the swag was a sugar-bag tied tightly with a whip-lash, and containing another old skirt, rolled very tight and fastened with many turns of a length of clothes-line, which last, I suppose, he carried to hang himself with if he felt that way. The skirt was rolled round a small packet of old portraits and almost indecipherable letters—one from a woman who had evidently been a sensible woman and a widow, and who stated in the letter that she did not intend to get married again as she had enough to do already, slavin’ her finger-nails off to keep a family, without having a second husband to keep. And her answer was “final for good and all,” and it wasn’t no use comin’ “bungfoodlin’” round her again. If he did she’d set Satan on to him. “Satan” was a dog, I suppose.
The letter was addressed to “Dear Bill,” as were others. There were no envelopes. The letters were addressed from no place in particular, so there weren’t any means of identifying the dead man. The police buried him under a gum, and a young trooper cut on the tree the words:
SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF
BILL,
WHO DIED.
点击
收听单词发音
收听单词发音 |
1
rugged
|
|
| adj.高低不平的，粗糙的，粗壮的，强健的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
2
shovel
|
|
| n.铁锨，铲子，一铲之量；v.铲，铲出 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
3
insulators
|
|
| 绝缘、隔热或隔音等的物质或装置( insulator的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
4
kit
|
|
| n.用具包，成套工具；随身携带物 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
5
stranded
|
|
| a.搁浅的，进退两难的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
6
sleepers
|
|
| n.卧铺（通常以复数形式出现）；卧车( sleeper的名词复数 )；轨枕；睡觉（呈某种状态）的人；小耳环 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
7
underneath
|
|
| adj.在...下面，在...底下；adv.在下面 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
8
belongings
|
|
| n.私人物品，私人财物 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
9
slung
|
|
| 抛( sling的过去式和过去分词 )； 吊挂； 遣送； 押往 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
10
spine
|
|
| n.脊柱，脊椎；(动植物的)刺；书脊 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
11
lone
|
|
| adj.孤寂的，单独的；唯一的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
12
gulf
|
|
| n.海湾；深渊，鸿沟；分歧，隔阂 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
13
shams
|
|
| 假象( sham的名词复数 )； 假货； 虚假的行为（或感情、言语等）； 假装…的人 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
14
callous
|
|
| adj.无情的，冷淡的，硬结的，起老茧的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
15
sordid
|
|
| adj.肮脏的，不干净的，卑鄙的，暗淡的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
16
mawkish
|
|
| adj.多愁善感的的；无味的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
17
straps
|
|
| n.带子( strap的名词复数 )；挎带；肩带；背带v.用皮带捆扎( strap的第三人称单数 )；用皮带抽打；包扎；给…打绷带 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
18
strap
|
|
| n.皮带，带子；v.用带扣住，束牢；用绷带包扎 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
19
impeded
|
|
| 阻碍，妨碍，阻止( impede的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
20
bellows
|
|
| n.风箱；发出吼叫声，咆哮（尤指因痛苦）( bellow的名词复数 )；（愤怒地）说出（某事），大叫v.发出吼叫声，咆哮（尤指因痛苦）( bellow的第三人称单数 )；（愤怒地）说出（某事），大叫 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
21
waterproof
|
|
| n.防水材料；adj.防水的；v.使...能防水 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
22
judgment
|
|
| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
23
artistic
|
|
| adj.艺术(家)的，美术(家)的；善于艺术创作的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
24
shanty
|
|
| n.小屋，棚屋；船工号子 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
25
vertical
|
|
| adj.垂直的，顶点的，纵向的；n.垂直物，垂直的位置 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
26
neatly
|
|
| adv.整洁地，干净地，灵巧地，熟练地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
27
picturesquely
|
|
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
28
martyrs
|
|
| n.martyr的复数形式；烈士( martyr的名词复数 )；殉道者；殉教者；乞怜者（向人诉苦以博取同情） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
29
felons
|
|
| n.重罪犯( felon的名词复数 )；瘭疽；甲沟炎；指头脓炎 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
30
boors
|
|
| n.农民( boor的名词复数 )；乡下佬；没礼貌的人；粗野的人 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
31
innocence
|
|
| n.无罪；天真；无害 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
32
mania
|
|
| n.疯狂；躁狂症，狂热，癖好 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
33
gathering
|
|
| n.集会，聚会，聚集 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
34
inventory
|
|
| n.详细目录，存货清单 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
35
filthy
|
|
| adj.卑劣的；恶劣的，肮脏的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
36
slit
|
|
| n.狭长的切口；裂缝；vt.切开，撕裂 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
37
assorted
|
|
| adj.各种各样的，各色俱备的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
38
corks
|
|
| n.脐梅衣；软木( cork的名词复数 )；软木塞 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
39
strings
|
|
| n.弦 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
40
sane
|
|
| adj.心智健全的，神志清醒的，明智的，稳健的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
41
slipper
|
|
| n.拖鞋 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
42
spout
|
|
| v.喷出，涌出；滔滔不绝地讲；n.喷管；水柱 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
43
rusty
|
|
| adj.生锈的；锈色的；荒废了的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
44
bulgy
|
|
| a.膨胀的；凸出的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
45
etiquette
|
|
| n.礼仪，礼节；规矩 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
46
parched
|
|
| adj.焦干的；极渴的；v.（使）焦干 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
47
hoop
|
|
| n.（篮球）篮圈，篮 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
| 欢迎访问英文小说网 |