Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (Aus.) the Sydney Bulletin.

1888		Bulletin (Sydney) 15 Dec. 5/4: [heading] The Bulletin is the Bushman’s Bible.
1903		P.F. Rowland New Nation 204: A backblocks’ shearer once told him that ‘if he had only sixpence left he would buy the Bulletin with it’. Whatever may be thought of the anti-religious and separatist principles of this ‘Bushman’s Bible,’ it must be conceded to have done a very real service to Australia in the encouragement of literature.
1915		Bulletin (Sydney) 7 Jan. 14/3: Australia’s unique illustrated paper, so popular in the Bush as to be nicknamed the Bushman’s Bible – the Sydney Bulletin.
1921		Cairns Post (Qld) 4 Oct. 4/5: Some day the honest worker will see the truth in a sermon illustrated on page eight of the ‘Bushman’s Bible’ (The Bulletin of September 22nd).
1931		Townsville Daily Bull. (Qld) 6 Jan. 11/3: Many articles on the financial situation [...] have been inflicted on readers of ‘he Bushman’s Bible’.
1944		Western Mail (Perth) 28 Sept. 21/3: ‘The Bulletin,’ the Bushman’s Bible of former days, seems to have lost caste somewhat amongst these dwellers out-back.
1948		R. Raven-Hart Canoe in Aus. 187: ‘Bulletin’ [...] still influential out-back, ‘Bushman’s Bible’ .
1958		(ref. to 1900s) R. Ward Aus. Legend 207: The influence enjoyed by ‘The Bushman’s Bible’ [...] may be gained from the sales figures.
1973		R. Edwards Aus. Bawdy Ballads 4: The Sydney Bulletin, known as the ‘Bushman’s Bible’ because of its keen appreciation of outback life .

2. other publications awarded a similar role.

1888		Queenslander (Brisbane) 11 Feb. 218/2: Several years ago an able atricle appeared in the Queenslander that did great good. I find the Queenslander in the far West [...] and in many cases it ios the bushman’s bible.
1919		Worker (Brisbane) 6 Mar. 6/3: The battles that it waged during the great shearers’ strike [...] established ‘The Worker’ as ‘The Bushman’s Bible.’ The ‘Bushman’s Bible’ it has remained ever since.
1927		Sun. Times (Perth) 21 Aug. 14/3: Unable to read or write, except as regards figures in the Ready Reckoner (the Bushman’s Bible in those days).
1936		Western Mail (Perth) 24 Sept. 41/3: ‘The Corner’ [a regular column] is the bushman’s bible, or the nearest approach to it, barring cuss-words.
1940		Western Mail (Perth) 11 Jan. 2/5: With countless numbers throughout the State I have come to regard the ‘Western Mail’ as the Bushman’s Bible.
1952		Townsville Daily Bull. (Qld) 3 July 5/4: You have kept in touch with the north through the medium of the ‘North Queensland Register,’ or, as you call it, the ‘Bushman’s Bible’.

3. a newspaper.

1894

Kilmore Free Press 1 Feb. 1/1: I enjoyed a lazy day, and was reading the ‘Bushman’s Bible’ (the newspaper), when my dog pricked up his ears.

(Aus.) a look around and a cough, or any other minimal ‘breakfast’.

[1981		Sydney Morning Herald 18 Nov. 8: We must [...] applaud TCN 9’s attempt to break new ground with the Sunday morning current affairs, and I was quite prepared to have a drink of water, a good look around, and settle to a two-hour bash.].
1982		Southerly 42 437: ‘The bushman’s breakfast’, variously described as a shave and a spit and a good look around, a hitch in the belt and attention to natural requirements, a drink of water and a good look around, and so on.
1988		McGill Dict. of Kiwi Sl. 24/1: bushman’s breakfast a yawn, a stretch, a piss and a look round.
1990		G.A. Wilkes Dict. Aus. Colloquialisms (3rd edn) 62/1: bushman’s breakfast Variously described as ‘a drink of water and a good look around’, ‘a hitch in the belt and a good look around’, ‘a shave and a shit and a good look around’: echoed in the title of the Phillip Theatre review of the 1960s, ‘A cup of tea, a Bex and a good lie down’.
2003		McGill Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. [as cit. 1988].

(Aus.) a kookaburra or laughing jackass.

1846		C.P. Hodgson Reminiscences of Aus. 165: Laughing Jackass [...] is well and truly stiled the Bushman’s clock.
1853		J. Sherer Gold Finder of Australia 102: With the first peep of dawn we were roused by the laugh of the jackass-bird—an extraordinary creature, which passes by the name of the Bushman’s Clock.
1862		C. Aspinall Three Years in Melbourne 204: I heard the laughing Jackass, which is [...] from its regular habits, called the Bushman’s clock.
1880		‘Edward Howe’ Roughing It in Van Diemen’s Land 45: It is sometimes called the ‘bushman’s clock’, because it laughs before sunrise, at noon, and at sundown.
1893		Auckland Star (N.Z.) 9 Dec. 3/7: The laughing jackass is the bushman’s clock.
1919		Register (Adelaide) 16 Sept. 9/6: he is sometimes called the bushman’s clock from the regularity of his morning calls.
1922		Western Argus (Kalgoorlie, WA) 5 Dec. 35/2: Outback ‘jacky’ is regarded as the bushman’s clock, for at first streak of day this uncanny bird fills the paddock [...] with homeric peals of laughter.
1930		Brisbane Courier 22 Nov. 19/6: The laughing jackass [...] used to be the bushman’s (or settler’s) clock.
1947		Western Mail (Perth) 11 Sept. 30/3: He is also known as [...] Great Laughing Jackass, Bushman’s Clock or Settler’s Clock.
1955		N. Pulliam I Travelled a Lonely Land (1957) 231/1: bushman’s clock see laughing jackass.
1956		Argus (Melbourne) 16 Feb. 20/7: The Swaggie‘s Alarm Clock [...] We’ve called him ‘jacky’, ’laughing johnny’, ‘jacko’, breakfast bird’ and bushman’s clock’.
1962		Marshall & Drysdale Journey among Men 90: To a south-eastern Australian a kookaburra that doesn’t laugh is a bit of a fraud, for, from the earliest colonial days, the so-called bushman’s dock has held a strong place in the affections of our people.
1970		D. Butts Down Under Up Close 38: In some areas, the kookaburra is found in such numbers that his morning call is known as the ‘bushman’s clock’.

1. (S.Afr.) a large bush-cutting knife.

1880		E.F. Sandeman Eight Months in Ox-Waggon 348: A ‘Bushman’s Friend,’ as the cheap open-bladed knives are designated, which are chiefly used for skinning and killing game, and any other rough purpose [DSAE].
1907		J. Fitzpatrick Jock of the Bushveld (1909) 113: Catching the buck by the head, held it down with one knee on its neck and my Bushman’s Friend in hand to finish it [DSAE].
1964		G. Campbell Old Dusty 138: ‘No, Inkosi, I don’t want money, but if you will give me that knife in your belt, I will watch them and tell you what happens.’ I had a spare ‘Bushman’s friend’ in my kit, so agreed to the Swazi’s terms [DSAE].
1984		Bagpipe (St Andrew’s College, Grahamstown) 12 Sept. 12: What went wrong I don’t know, but Dooley burst out of his class room and dashed down the stairs, with Terry Lloyd after him with a ‘Bushman’s Friend’ [DSAE].

2. (N.Z.) any large-leafed plant that can be used as lavatory ‘paper’.

1980		R.M. Lockley House above the Sea 200: People don't much care for the way it [i.e. flannelweed] springs up [...] but it is a handsome plant with big, pointed, pale-green leaves (’the bushman’s friend’, as a tramper once called it, although this vulgar name has been applied to other large-leaved New Zealand plants – for practical reasons readers will guess) .
1985		Eve. Post (Wellington) 4 Jan. 9: Bushman’s friend, or rangiora, was not only used for letter writing and toilet paper. Tom Paul shows how the Maori used the leaves for a bandage tied with flax [DNZE].
2003		McGill Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. 40: bushman’s friend The rangiora, whose leaves are toilet-friendly to bushmen’s bums.

(Aus./N.Z.) a damper (a form of unleavened cake, baked in the ashes) and mustard.

1945		Baker Aus. Lang. 81: The bushman’s hot dinner, a meal of damper and mustard (tramps’ slang) [...] featured so often in outback life.
1988		McGill Dict. of Kiwi Sl. 24/1: bushman’s dinner mutton, damper and tea.
2003		McGill Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. [as cit. 1988].

(N.Z.) a distance that turns out to be (or seems) far further than expected.

2003

McGill Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. 40: bushman’s mile Much more than the mile you expected. From late C19.

(US drugs) khat.

2003

Microgram Bulletin XXXVI:7 158: Khat (Catha edulis) – also known as African salad, bushman’s tea, gat, kat, miraa, qat, chat, tohai, and tschat – is a flowering shrub native to northeast Africa and the Arabian Peninsula.