TRAVEL. 53 



it is not generally difficult to keep a course by the wind. 

 Many times the nature of the country is such that it is 

 impossible to travel on compass courses. Indeed either 

 from hills, ravines, or lack of water, it is extremely rare 

 that an accurate compass course can be maintained for 

 any distance, and a compromise must almost always be 

 made. The general direction ' is kept with deviations 

 determined by the nature of the ground. Parties tra- 

 velling from one section of the country to another, a long 

 distance apart, generally keep near some principal stream 

 favourable to the course, or, where the course lies across 

 the general directions of the main streams, the lateral 

 branches are used. The courses of all the larger 

 streams of the plains are so nearly parallel that but little 

 skill is required to keep in a generally correct direction. 

 There is said to be ' cheating in all trades,' and old 

 plainsmen acting as guides frequently take vast credit to 

 themselves for doing what any one could do who simply 

 remembered the parallelism of the plains streams. 



Exploring or scouting parties of troops have gener- 

 ally a special section or direction given them, with ample 

 latitude as to all details of marches and camps, to be filled 

 at the discretion of the commanding officer. 



Parties on horseback with pack animals can go any- 

 where ; that is, however rugged and broken the country, 

 a skilled plains traveller can, with such an outfit, always 

 find means of arriving very directly at his destination. 

 Waggon trains require much greater care and nicer 

 selection of the line of march ; but an uninitiated person 

 is constantly surprised at the ease with which heavily 

 loaded waggons can be taken by a skilful plainsman over 

 what appears to be an impassable country. 



One of the great secrets of plains travel is the skilful 

 use of ' divides.' A ' divide ' is the portion of upland 

 which separates one ravine from another, whether they 

 be tributaries of the same or of different streams. Level 

 land is either mesa or ' bottom.' The term ' mesa ' is 



