chap, xiii WAT E R I A L L C A M I* 185 



Ultimately, they gave up the adventure, and returned melan- 

 choly toward camp. At some other time they set forth 

 straight up the hill, and were led by the harder ground into 

 a stream-bed and up a gully, which they climbed to a con- 

 siderable height. During these peregrinations, the hobbles 

 were cut away by sharp rocks, for it is a peculiarity of such 

 loose bogs that flat stones tend to stand upright out of 

 them, like knife blades, so that a rope dragged about 

 becomes easily cut. It happened that the only spare drag- 

 ropes we had for them were their reins, which thus became 

 lost. Our fruitless search for them revealed the story of the 

 ponies' wanderings, and showed how energetically they 

 must have moved about, for their tracks were everywhere. 

 When the storm was at its worst, they came back to camp 

 and took shelter close up against the tents, to our no small 

 discomfort, for they pressed their heels or their noses 

 against our dozing heads, and kept stumbling over the tent- 

 ropes. Now there is nothing more disagreeable to a man 

 in a tent than to have some one kick a tent-rope ; it jars 

 the whole place, giving a peculiar sense of insecurity, and 

 the process, if repeated, is as unpleasant as the accidental 

 tapping on a man's tall hat of the points of the opened 

 parasol of a lady sitting beside him. Spits's nose was con- 

 tinually searching in my neighbourhood for biscuits, and 

 no persuasion would induce her to transfer her attentions 

 elsewhere. 



Notwithstanding all discomforts, it had been our inten- 

 tion to stay another day at this camp, and climb some 

 neighbouring peak. There seemed little chance now of 

 carrying out the plan. The outlook from the tent door 

 was horrible. The foreground was a mere mass of sludge, 

 so soft that the foot went ankle-deep into it the first step. 

 It was all trodden about and puddled up into a filthy 

 tangle, in which sledges, boots, tins, ropes, and all else were 



