ENCAMPMENTS IN HILL WARFARE. 
245 
customary for a stone wall or an entrenchment some 2 feet high to be 
dug some yards outside the tents. If time allowed this wall or entrench¬ 
ment was increased into an obstacle and breastwork : or more generally 
was supplemented by an abattis of thorn bushes. 
The centre road and cross roads supplied communications and the 
various guard tents watched the passages by which any suspicious 
character might attempt to get into camp. In-lying picquets were 
proportionately supplied by regiments with adequate regimental 
arrangements for occupying their portion of the perimeter should they 
be called away to reinforce the threatened point. The artillery usually 
had a section told off for this duty of in-lying picquet. The outside 
picquets and out-posts concentrated at a few points and varied very 
much in strength from day to day. Each corps was told how many 
men it would supply for this duty early in the day so as to arrange its 
perimeter line of defence accordingly. 
This perimeter line of defence required some adjustment; as though 
the “ normal ” distance between tents was usually adhered to, still at 
any moment a corps might be asked to supply a further strength for 
picquet, in which case its tents would have to be more spread 
apart to occupy the ground or at times a picquet might be withdrawn, 
when a portion of the perimeter line of tents 
already measured and marked out might have 
to be doubled. 
The great advantages of this formation of 
camp and what I will call the “ centre line 33 
method of alignment are its flexibility and adapt¬ 
ability to all natures of ground; the centre 
line may even be a zigzag but this is a rarity. 
Each corps rapidly used to “ peg out ” its portion 
and the staff officer having the centre line as a 
“ constant ” can adjust any difficulties caused by 
scarcity of ground either in any individual camp 
or in the camp as a whole very much more 
rapidly than when he works from a frontal align¬ 
ment. As regards principles involved; zeribas 
and laagers are accepted as orthodox and the 
form of encampment herein advocated is simply 
another form of the same defensive tactics. 
Strength of Brigade :— 
1 Mountain Battery, 1 Squadron Cavalry, 
3 Battalions (600 men each, of which 4 
o companies are out of camp on out-post 
m duties) and various detachments. 
APPENDIX. 
Explanation of Figures in Plan. 
Three battalions of infantry are marked respectively “ A 33 “ G 33 “ E 33 
It will be noted that “ A 33 and (( E 33 are pitched on the same principle, 
but that owing to “ E 33 having a greater number of men absent on 
