The Nineteenth Century , No 182, Apr 1892 [‎68r] (140/244)

1892
CAMP LIFE I
625
well-furnislied apartment. Two little trestle beds, a bright coloured
rug on the ground between them, a table at the head with a candle
lamp, bright-coloured Moorish blankets on the beds; at the foot of
one bed, our portmanteau; at the foot of the other, our carpet bag ;
outside a rickety stand, with a waterproof bag as basin, made up our
tent furniture. That stand with waterproof bag I cannot call a
success; it had a habit of collapsing on no sort of pretext, and delug
ing the place with water; after it had done this twice, we bore the
thing a bitter and permanent hatred. When we had done a little
unpacking we went out into the camp again. There was a lovely
crescent moon and the stars were coming out fast; a few lanterns
were lit here and there. We wandered about paying visits to the
other tents, watching the fresh arrivals, seeing that our horses were
properly looked after, pitying them for being hobbled—pitying them
more, probably, than they pitied themselves, as they took to it very
quietly and as to the manner born: no doubt it reminded them of
olden days before they belonged to these fair-skinned people from the
north.
Then at seven o'clock came dinner, fifteen of us sitting down at a
long table in the narrow dining tent; a polyglot assemblage of
hungry people: America, England, France, Spain, Austria, and
Switzerland all represented. There were the Due de Frias and M.
Bosch, of the Spanish Legation; M. Seigue, of the French; Baron
Pereira, of the Austrian ; two American ladies, a Swiss baron and two
ladies, and six English people; truly they made the veriest Babel!
After dinner we gathered round the big camp fire and were joined by
those from the other tents, making up our numbers to twenty-four,
twelve being ladies ! Every now and then the flames burst out
afresh with a blaze and a roar; the ladies sat around toasting them
selves, the men came and went with cups of coffee in the glow, every
one talking and arranging for the next day ; and there were wonder
ful tales of former hunts, of charging boars, of wounded men or horses,
and of hairbreadth escapes. By degrees the company round the fire-
grew fewer and fewer: one by one they said ' Good night,' and
disappeared out of the firelight into the darkness ; lanterns were
moving about the camp, the tents were lighting up; and we, too,
judged it best to remember our early rise and to try how we liked our
tent beds. With the lamp lighted, our tent looked almost cosy ; it
felt rather like a cabin on board ship, only with no terrible screw
thumping away incessantly and with no dread of waking to find a
rough sea on. Among other evils we had been warned of, was the cold
in a tent, but I cannot say we suffered from it; perhaps we were too
well provided with rugs, or perhaps it was our hot-water bottles,
which were simply invaluable. So we crept into our narrow little
beds, really not at all bad ones, and lay comfortably talking to each
other and listening to the wind in the trees, to the distant sea, and