"The driver paused before a bush inn."
[In Australia the word "inn" is now rare. The word "hotel" has supplanted it.]
1889. Cassell's `Picturesque Australasia,' vol. iv.p. 3:
"Not as bush roads go. The Australian habit is here followed of using `bush' for country, though no word could be more ludicrously inapplicable, for there is hardly anything on the way that can really be called a bush."
1894. `Sydney Morning Herald' (exact date lost):
"Canada, Cape Colony, and Australia have preserved the old significance of Bush—Chaucer has it so—as a territory on which there are trees; it is a simple but, after all, a kindly development that when a territory is so unlucky as to have no trees, sometimes, indeed, to be bald of any growth whatever, it should still be spoken of as if it had them."
1896. Rolf Boldrewood, in preface to `The Man from Snowy River':
"It is not easy to write ballads descriptive of the bushland of Australia, as on light consideration would appear."
1896. H. Lawson, `While the Billy boils,' p. 104:
"About Byrock we met the bush liar in all his glory. He was dressed like—like a bush larrikin. His name was Jim."