mullock: the tailings left after gold has been removed. In Lawson generally mud (alluvial) rather than rock myall: aboriginal living in a traditional pre-conquest manner
narked: annoyed navvies: labourers (especially making roads, railways; originally ca.n.a.ls, thus from "navigators") n.o.bbler: a drink nuggety: compact but strong physique; small but well-muscled
pannikin: metal mug peckish: hungry--usually only mildly so. Use here is thus ironic.
poley: a dehorned cow poddy-(calf): a calf separated from its mother but still needing milk
rouseabout: labourer in a (sheep) shearing shed. Considered to be, as far as any work is, unskilled labour.
sawney: silly, gormless selector: small farmer who under the "Selection Act (Alienation of Land Act", Sydney 1862 could settle on a few acres of land and farm it, with hope of buying it. As the land had been leased by "squatters" to run sheep, they were NOT popular. The land was usually pretty poor, and there was little transport to get food to market, many, many failed. (The same mistake was made after WWI when returned soldiers were given land to starve on.) shanty: besides common meaning of shack it refers to an unofficial (and illegal) grog-shop; in contrast to the legal "pub".
spieler: con artist sliprails: in lieu of a gate, the rails of a fence may be loosely socketed into posts, so that they may "let down" (i.e. one end pushed in socket, the other end resting on the ground). See "A Day on a Selection"
spree: prolonged drinking bout--days, weeks.
stoush: a fight strike: perhaps the Shearers" strike in Barcaldine, Queensland, 1891 [gjc]
sundowner: a swagman (see) who is NOT looking for work, but a "handout". Lawson explains the term as referring to someone who turns up at a station at sundown, just in time for "tea" i.e. the evening meal. In view of the Great Depression of the time, these expressions of att.i.tude are probably unfair, but the att.i.tudes are common enough even today.
Surry Hills: Sydney inner suburb (home for this transcriber) swagman (swaggy): Generally, anyone who is walking in the "outback"
with a swag. (See "The Romance of the Swag" in Children of the Bush, also a PG Etext) Lawson also restricts it at times to those whom he considers to be tramps, not looking for work but for "handouts". See "travellers".
"swelp: mild oath of affirmation ="so help me [G.o.d]"
travellers: "shearers and rouseabouts travelling for work" (Lawson).
whare: small Maori house--is it used here for European equivalent?
Help anyone?
whipping the cat: drunk