The Australian swag fashion is the easiest way in the world of carrying aload. I ought to know something about carrying loads: I've carriedbabies, which are the heaviest and most awkward and heartbreaking loadsin this world for a boy or man to carry, I fancy. God remember motherswho slave about the housework (and do sometimes a man's work in additionin the bush) with a heavy, squalling kid on one arm! I've humped logs onthe selection, "burning-off," with loads of fencing-posts and rails andpalings out of steep, rugged gullies (and was happier then, perhaps);I've carried a shovel, crowbar, heavy "rammer," a dozen insulators on anaverage (strung round my shoulders with raw flax)--to say nothing ofsoldiering kit, tucker-bag, billy and climbing spurs--all day on atelegraph line in rough country in New Zealand, and in places where a manhad to manage his load with one hand and help himself climb with theother; and I've helped hump and drag telegraph-poles up cliffs andsidings where the horses couldn't go. I've carried a portmanteau on thehot dusty roads in green old jackeroo days. Ask any actor who's beenstranded and had to count railway sleepers from one town to another!he'll tell you what sort of an awkward load a portmanteau is, especiallyif there's a broken-hearted man underneath it. I've tried knapsackfashion--one of the least healthy and most likely to give a man sores;I've carried my belongings in a three-bushel sack slung over myshoulder--blankets, tucker, spare boots and poetry all lumped together. Itried carrying a load on my head, and got a crick in my neck and spinefor days. I've carried a load on my mind that should have been shared byeditors and publishers. I've helped hump luggage and furniture up to, anddown from, a top flat in London. And I've carried swag for months outback in Australia--and it was life, in spite of its "squalidness" andmeanness and wretchedness and hardship, and in spite of the fact that theworld would have regarded us as "tramps"--and a free life amongst menfrom all the worldThe Australian swag was born of Australia and no other land--of the GreatLone Land of magnificent distances and bright heat; the land ofself-reliance, and never-give-in, and help-your-mate. The grave of manyof the world's tragedies and comedies--royal and otherwise. The landwhere a man out of employment might shoulder his swag in Adelaide andtake the track, and years later walk into a hut on the Gulf, or never beheard of any more, or a body be found in the bush and buried by themounted 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, butbecause I was born on Australian soil, and because of the foreign fatherwho died at his work in the ranks of Australian pioneers, and because ofmany things. Australia! My country! Her very name is music to me. Godbless Australia! for the sake of the great hearts of the heart of her!