"Waltzing Matilda" is Australia's best-known bush ballad, and has been described as the country's "unofficial national anthem". The title was Australian slang for travelling on foot (waltzing, derived from the German auf der Walz) with one's belongings in a "matilda" (swag) slung over one's back. The song narrates the story of an itinerant worker, or "swagman", making a drink of billy tea at a bush camp and capturing a stray jumbuck (sheep) to eat. When the jumbuck's owner, a squatter (wealthy landowner), and three mounted policemen pursue the swagman for theft, he declares "You'll never take me alive!" and commits suicide by drowning himself in a nearby billabong (watering hole), after which his ghost haunts the site. Lyrics: Once a jolly swagman camped by a billabong Under the shade of a coolibah tree, And he sang as he watched and waited till his billy boiled: "You'll come a-waltzing Matilda, with me." Chorus: Waltzing Matilda, waltzing Matilda You'll come a-waltzing Matilda, with me And he sang as he watched and waited till his billy boiled: "You'll come a-waltzing Matilda, with me." Down came a jumbuck to drink at that billabong. Up jumped the swagman and grabbed him with glee. And he sang as he shoved that jumbuck in his tucker bag: "You'll come a-waltzing Matilda, with me." (Chorus) Up rode the squatter, mounted on his thoroughbred. Down came the troopers, one, two, and three. "Whose[N 1] is that [N 2] jumbuck you've got in your tucker bag? You'll come a-waltzing Matilda, with me." (Chorus) Up jumped the swagman and sprang into the billabong. "You'll never catch me alive!" said he And his ghost may be heard as you pass by that billabong: "You'll come a-waltzing Matilda, with me." (Chorus)