160 A Sportswoman in India 



and then night was upon us, for there is no twilight. 

 Back to the camp and the bright fire, by which the 

 servants appeared to sit murmuring and talking all 

 night. 



To avoid the trouble of light, and with a view 

 to making early starts, we went to bed about eight 

 in the evening. Those who only know what it is 

 to sleep under a roof between four walls, think of the 

 night as a thing apart from themselves comfortless, 

 dark, and to be avoided ; they have yet to learn 

 what it is to be of it and in it to sleep, as the 

 French so happily put it, "a la belle etoile" 



Lie in your tent with the flap tied back ; look 

 straight out into the country, restful, comforting 

 darkness all round, the black, shadowy tree-trunks 

 standing up like dark ghosts, caught sometimes by 

 the fitful flicker of the camp-fire ; a tree-beetle drones 

 occasionally ; an apple falls with a thud on your 

 tent ; overhead the beloved stars of your far-off" 

 home, the Plough and the Pole-star, gleam brightly. 

 One is never " alone " : all around is " a voiceless 

 yearning that is surely prayer ; life's strange, dumb 

 cry to Nature in her pain." The silence is full of 

 sound . . . the immediate world, breathing close 

 at hand, is only part of that great world which sleeps, 

 toils, and sorrows from the east unto the west. 



Once and once only in the night Nature awakes, 

 as all those who have lived with her know. About 

 two o'clock in the morning the cocks crow, the birds 

 chirp, the ponies and cows stray round the camp, 



