a roof, not a wall. What is wanted is a
dense low screen, perfectly wind-tight, as
high up as the knee above the ground. Thus,
if a traveller has to encamp on a bare
turf plain, he need only turn up a sod seven
feet long, by two feet wide ; and if he
succeeds in propping it up on its edge, it will
form a sufficient shield against the wind."

The near neighbourhood of water is
objectionable for a sleeping camp in hot
climates. One resource is to bury oneself
in sand, all but the head. "In this way
Mofiat the South African missionary passed
a comfortable night when it was bitterly
cold. The Laplanders carry bags of reindeer
skin, into which they creep, and allow
themselves to be buried in snow. Some friends of
ours, including ladies, on a visit to the North
Cape, passed twenty-four hours under the
snow, enveloped like ferrets, without any
serious inconvenience, and they all felt much
warmer than when travelling. " In making
up a bed on the ground," Mr. Galton
remarks, " the underside is as important
or even more important than the covering.
A mattress is useful not only for softness
but for warmth. The earth is generally cold
and often damp; therefore a strip of
mackintosh and a large blanket or plaid are
indispensable for camping out. Even in
the dry climate of Australia, rheumatism
punishes those who sleep out without great
precautions for being warm the night through.
Leaves, fern, heather, reeds, bundles of
faggots, or even two trunks of trees rolled close
together, are worth the trouble of collecting
and arranging, rather than trusting to mother
earth." A blanket made into a bag large enough
to hold you may also contain in the day a
leather, or, still better, a mackintosh sheet,
the most valuable of bivouacking inventions.
"Let the traveller (or soldier), when out in
trying weather, work hard at making his
sleeping place perfectly comfortable: he should
not cease until he is convinced that it
will withstand the chill of the early morning;
when the heat of the last sun is
exhausted, and that of the new sun has not
begun to be felt. It is wretched beyond
expression for a man to lie shivering, to feel
the night air becoming hourly more raw,
while the life-blood has less power to
withstand it, and to think, self-reproach fully, how
different would have been his situation if
he had simply had forethought enough to
out and draw twice the quantity of wood, and
spend another half-hour in making a snugger
berth. The omission once made becomes
irreparable; for, in the dark and cold of a
pitiless night he lacks stamina, and has
no means of coping with his difficulties."

Mansfield Parkyns says : " Some will ask,
how did you manage to sleep on the sloppy
bosom of a bog ? Every night we made ourselves
mattresses of pieces of wood, large
stones, etc., laid together until of sufficient
height to keep us well out of the wet. A
tanned hide spread upon this formed
our bed; and, when it came on to rain, our
covering also. It is not altogether luxurious
until you are used to it. It requires a little
knack and turning round like a dog, to adapt
the risings and hollows of your body to those
of the bed; but with patience, a little
management, and a hard day's work, a good
night's rest is not a difficult thing to obtain
under any circumstances." A large dog in
a cold country forms at once a companion
by day and a blanket by night. Parkyns
had his "maychal Boggo," a mastiff with
long thick coarse hair; and Pallisser had his
beautiful Ishmah, who drew a small sledge,
with food and clothes, all day, and saved his
master from being frozen to death at night.

The aboriginal natives of New South
Wales, as well as the cattle that roam at
large in its woods, invariably choose the top
of a moderately-elevated hill to sleep on
during the winter months; the hills of that
country being always warmer than the
valleys at that time of year, while in summer
the valleys are sought both by men and
animals. " I have often been surprised,"
says a traveller, " at feeling a warm current
of air on the top of a range of hills after
ascending from valleys where the breeze was
chilling. These breezes blow from the north-
west."

As to tents, a circular tent is the worst of
all, and a three-poled tent the easiest to
improvise, with two stakes driven into the
ground and a third, or a rope, at the top.
A sheet, a lot of blankets, or a mackintosh
thrown across, form no despicable tent for
the want of a better. Always get off the
ground a few inches if you can, to avoid cold,
damp, or a snake for a bedfellow. Gordon
Cumming in South Africa once, neglecting
this precaution, slept in the hole of a cobra,
and Mansfield Parkyns in Abyssinia in that
of a deadly adder. Hints, in tent pitching,
to obtain the morning sun or to secure the
most shade may be gathered from gipsies: it
is quite an art. If you are likely to make a
rude hut, it is well to have a bag with nails,
hooks, and strips of cloth or leather to put
round the walls to hang on or stick in
anything you like, to be handy.

To sleep on horseback is not difficult if you
are well packed with blankets or skins, rolled
before and behind a saddle. "About
midnight," says Mansfield Parkyns, " I thought
I would take a nap, and so rested my hands,
one on each side of the saddle, monkey-
fashion, and soon closed my eyes. Reopening
them after what appeared to me a five
minutes' doze, I found the caravan proceeding
precisely in the same order as before –
some talking, some nodding, some singing:
but on looking round the sky, I perceived
that the morning star was already a quarter
of an hour above the horizon. Gradually
the sky became bluer while I was wondering,
and the sun rose in full splendour."