Waltzing Matilda is the most famous of Australian songs and an important part of Australian culture. The poet Banjo Paterson wrote the words to the song in 1895. He based the words on a story told to him by Robert Macpherson, the owner of the Dagworth Station in central Queensland. The story concerns a swagman (traveling farmhand) who camps by a billabong (water hole) and kills a jumbuck (sheep). When challenged by a squatter (a person who raises cattle) and three troopers (policemen on horseback), he jumps into the billabong and drowns himself rather than be captured. The expression "waltzing Matilda" means carrying a swag (belongings wrapped into a cylinder shape).