i 9 o MEMORIES OF MY LIFE 



all the turmoil sank below, leaving a starlit sky 

 above. 



Sleeping-bags were customary in the Pyrenees. 

 Mr. George Bentham told me that when he botanised 

 in the little Republic of Andorre some years 

 previously, there was not a bed in the place, and he 

 was lent a sleeping-bag. They were familiar to 

 Arctic travellers,but had not been thought of by Alpine 

 climbers, so I published my experiences. In conse- 

 quence, at an amusing dinner of the Alpine Club, of 

 which I was a member for a few years, I was toasted 

 by Mr. Wm. Longman as the greatest "bagman" in 

 Europe. It is very difficult to arrange any sleeping 

 gear that shall satisfy those who rough it rarely. 

 Luxury is out of place. I read in some well-known 

 book that one of the Camerons of Lochiel, when 

 bivouacking with his son in the snow, noticed that 

 the lad had rolled up a snowball to make a pillow. 

 He thereupon rose and kicked it away, saying sternly, 

 " No effeminacy, boy." 



Bears were not infrequent. We reached, I think 

 it was Cauteret, after passing a small plantation near 

 the town. During the table d'hote there was a rush 

 to the windows to see the dead body of a big bear 

 cub which had just been killed at that very plantation. 

 Its mother, who was with it, escaped. I often saw 

 their human-like tracks. They occasionally kill oxen. 

 Once, when near a cattle station, while watching the 

 cattle returning home in file, each in its turn executed 

 a fantastic sort of war-dance as it passed a particular 

 spot, such as I had frequently, but by no means 

 invariably, witnessed in Africa, when a line of my 

 cattle passed over the place where I had shot an ox 



