LIFE IN THE BUSH

The following handwritten account tells of Australian tramps from an American perspective of the late 1930s.

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Damn

1880s
Damn Coolgardie, damn the track

Damn it there and damn it back

Damn the country, damn the weather

Damn the goldfields altogether

On Bourke’s heat

The only message from the dead

That ever came distinctly through

Was send my overcoat to hell

It came to Bourke in 92

The Bulletin

Jingle for first issue.

The Bulletin, the Bulletin,

The journalistic javelin

The paper all the humour’s in

The paper to inspire and grin

The Bulletin, the Bulletin

Horses & The Bulletin

Whalers, damper, swag and nosebag, Johnny cakes and billy tea

Murrumburrah, meremendicoowoke, youlabudgeree

Cattle duffers. Bold bushrangers diggers, drovers, bush race courses,

And on all the other pages horses, horses, horses, horses

New Colonial songbook 1865

Thought to have been written by Phillip ‘Remos’ Somer a member of Cunningham’s exploration party

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General Bush Lore

PRICKLY PEAR

Good for fodder for cattle, jams and jellies, ink, paint and a remedy for diabetes (boil leaves and drink juice). Also heard that needles are okay for gramophones.

Navvies on a Spree

June 30 1877 Australian Star

Cheer up, Me lads, the navvies on the spree

The Company’s gone insolvent

And the railways up a tree

Advice from the Palmer State (Qld) state that hundreds of Chinese are in the last stages of destitution and those hundreds more are pressing on to the goldfields. The Wardens ask for additional police protection, owing to the threatening attitude of the Chinese outside the camps.

The Emigrant’s Manual

EDINBURGH 1852

In NSW, as in other Australian colonies, crown land is now sold at not less than 20s an acre.

Pat Keighran “Memoirs of a Stockman”

Harry Peck 1942

James Tyson was born near Campbelltown,NSW, early in the 1800s. later in life had a reputations as a ‘possum eater’ (stingy). Drank billy tea all his life after his housekeeper served him a teapot and cosy ñ too hot so threw it out the window. And had “billy tea, tea as it should be, ever since”

Until his death in 1898 he was known as the Cattle King.

Used to refer to cattle as ‘the 3 b’s’ – browns, blacks and bastards