CHAPTER XII. 



TREK AND CAMP. 



A LIFE of trekking and camping is a most enjoyable one. Exactly why this 

 should be so I cannot say, for the petty worries and discomforts connected 

 with such a life are countless. It would be easy to fill several chapters 

 on these trifles, but the charm of camp life is less easy to describe. It consists 

 in the absence of all the restraints of a super-civilised existence and surrounds one 

 with the presence of wild life. It is this close touch with wild nature that prevents 

 the outdoor existence from ever becoming monotonous ; it is no small thing to 

 walk in paths made by elephants, drink from streams reserved for the beasts of 

 the forest, and to hear the lions roar at night. Trekking with porters has many 

 disadvantages, including the usual annoyances of travelling in uncivilised countries, 

 and adding a few which are especially its own. To compensate for these latter 

 it also possesses advantages which other forms of travel lack. Not the smallest 

 of these is the complete freedom of movement that is enjoyed. You can start at 

 whatever hour you please, halt whenever and wherever you like, move in any 

 direction, and bring all your belongings required for a temporary home to any spot 

 selected as suitable, the only necessities to allow for being the water supply and 

 firewood, and having a comparatively flat spot on which to pitch your tent. 



With any form of wheel-transport you are confined to the actual roads or 

 flat country, and with pack-transport you are hampered to some extent by the 

 requirements for zarebaing and grazing the animals, and besides, certain types of 

 country are impractical even to pack-transport. Travelling with porters is a slower 

 mode of transit of course, but you obtain a very intimate knowledge of the country 

 passed through. 



I must admit that continually "footing it" is apt to become boresome after 

 a time, especially on a return journey of any distance, or when there is little game 

 about or other objects of interest. But then, what journey, performed for the 

 mere sake of arriving at a particular place, is not apt to become dull ? 



To the student of nature, or the student of the customs and languages of 

 different peoples, there is seldom a moment that does not produce something fresh 



