Johnson's Antidote by Andrew Barton Paterson

Down along the Snakebite River, where the overlanders camp, / Where the serpents are in millions, all of the most deadly stamp; / Where the station-cook in terror, nearly every time he bakes, / Mixes up among the doughboys half-a-dozen poison-snakes: / Where the wily free-selector walks in armour-plated pants, / And defies the stings of scorpions, and the bites of bull-dog ants: / Where the adder and the viper tear each other by the throat, / There it was that William Johnson sought his snake-bite antidote.

Johnson was a free-selector, and his brain went rather queer, / For the constant sight of serpents filled him with a deadly fear; / So he tramped his free-selection, morning, afternoon, and night, / Seeking for some great specific that would cure the serpent's bite. / Till King Billy, of the Mooki, chieftain of the flour-bag head, / Told him, 'Spos'n snake bite pfeller, pfeller mostly drop down dead; / Spos'n snake bite old goanna, then you watch a while you see, / Old goanna cure himself with eating little pfeller tree.' / 'That's the cure,' said William Johnson, 'point me out this plant sublime,' / But King Billy, feeling lazy, said he'd go another time. / Thus it came to pass that Johnson, having got the tale by rote, / Followed every stray goanna, seeking for the antidote.