Of course there is in the shanty a litter of cans, kegs, old packing-cases, and the like, which come into use in various ways. Among them are the remains of former state, in the shape of certain trunks, portmanteaus, and boxes. These receptacles held our wardrobes, when we possessed such things, and the sundry personals we brought with us from England years ago, and imported up here.
We have long got over the feeling that it is imperative to hoard up clothes and things in boxes; in fact, we have no longer any clothes and things that require such disposal. But in the bush everything must serve some purpose or other; and so all these now disused trunks are turned to use. One grand old imperial is now a brine-tub, within whose dank and salt recesses masses of beef and pork are always kept stored ready for use. Other cases hold sugar, salt, flour, and so on; a uniform case is now our bread-basket; each has its proper purpose, and is accomplishing its final destiny. There is a fine leather portmanteau, or what was once such, now the residence of a colley bitch and her litter of pups. Mildewed and battered as it is, it still seems to recall to mind faint memories of English country-houses, carriages, valets, and other outlandish and foreign absurdities. There must be magic in that old valise, for, the other day, Dandy Jack was looking at the pups that live in it, and remarked their kennel. A fragment of schoolboy Latin came into his head, and, to our astonishment, he murmured, "_Sic transit gloria mundi!_"
To avoid the possibility of any mistakes arising from an admission just made, I hereby beg to state that we do _not_ consider clothing as entirely superfluous. But we no longer regard it from any artistic or ornamental point of view; that would be to derogate from our character as bushmen. We are not over-burdened with too large a choice of clothing. Such as we have is pretty much held in common, and all that is not in immediate use finds a place on the partition-rack, or the shelves upon it. We are supposed to possess _another_ change of garments apiece, but no one knows exactly how he stands in this matter, unless it be the Little'un, whose superior amplitude of limb debars him from the fullest exercise of communal rights.