AVOIDANCE OF " ROUGHING IT " 301 



the table contents of these excellent contrivances 

 are all that may be regarded as strictly necessary, 

 they are by no means calculated, for several 

 reasons, to please the jaded senses of the tired 

 and it may be feverish wayfarer when translated 

 from the depths of the well-devised canteen to 

 ordinary use on the folding camp table. Their 

 capable but unlovely metal plates, which speedily 

 show knife-marks that fill with grease and dirt ; 

 their cups ; their unappetising knives and forks 

 and spoons ; their sauce and condiment boxes 

 and bottles, all of which are guilty of undue 

 intimacy with each other, resulting in a general 

 intermingling of each other's contents, all these 

 things completely divest the camp table of the 

 neatness and prettiness which are never so highly 

 appreciated as when they form a striking contrast 

 to rough and ready surroundings. 



Some few years ago I wrote a book^ upon 

 another portion of the Portuguese Province of 

 Mozambique, in which what the press were pleased 

 to call my sybaritic methods aroused much good- 

 natured chaff among my friends both at home and 

 abroad. I do not know if that book was the first 

 actively to advocate decency in camp life, and 

 the avoidance of what is called " roughing it," 

 but this I do know, that the perusal of my views 

 on the subject, and the surprising simpKcity of 

 my methods as described therein, gained me 

 many imitators, among whom I number at least 

 one whose relish for living in the wilds more like 

 a native than a civilised being had procured for 



1 Portuguese East Africa. 



