The Nineteenth Century , No 182, Apr 1892 [‎69r] (142/244)

1892
CAMP LIFE I
G27
face tlie beast; and then, for a few minutes, there was a wild skurry-
ing backwards and forwards; the pig charging at the horses, and the
horses backing and plunging, and then again pursuing. And then
presently it was all over, and a black object lay still on the sands;
and the rain that had been threatening for the last hour came down
in perfect sheets. There was nothing for it but to get back to the
camp; there would assuredly be no more pigsticking that day unless
the weather changed. The horses were brought up, mackintoshes and
umbrellas produced, and a bedraggled and damp company started
back for the tents. To speak of personal experience, my mackintosh
was a delusion; it was of a shape invented by myself for the occasion,
by way of keeping my skirt dry, and it entirely declined to do any
thing of the kind. The flap intended for that purpose waved gaily in
the wind, leaving my skirt to get drenched through and through,
while it undertook to blow about and scare my horse with its playful
vagaries. I was reduced to holding it quiet with one hand, which
was also struggling with an umbrella, while with the other I tried
to guide my horse over the rough stony ground and through the
bushes and undergrowth—altogether sadly uncomfortable and incon
venient. What with wind, rain, umbrella, mackintosh, and wet reins,
I was heartily glad when I bumped slowly at a heavy trot into the
camp.
And now the next few hours, I must allow, had their drawbacks.
It rained hard and steadily, only occasionally varying the monotony
by coming down in a solid sheet; the camp became a swamp, and
the move from one tent to another anything but pleasant. We
gathered together in the dining tent, and had luncheon. By degrees
the other men arrived, who had been in the detachment with the
beaters; they, too, wanted luncheon, and we heard how two pigs had
been killed by them, and who had got the first spear, and who the
second ; and from that we got to other pigsticking expeditions, and
then to other subjects, and so the afternoon wore on. And towards
sunset the sky cleared up in a half-hearted kind of way; glimpses of
sunshine, and a rainbow, and a golden, though watery-looking, sun
set. Then we paddled out to look after the horses ; fed them with
bread and sugar, got the Moors to wipe the wet from their heads and
ears ; unhobbled my dear Sultan and had him led off for a walk.
Then we looked in on our neighbours; heard into whose tents the rain
had made its way; found a fire on which cooking was going on, and
rushed off to fetch some of the wettest and most essential of our wet
garments, to see if we could dry them. And so the sunset faded
away and night came on, with all the usual difficulties of avoiding
ropes and pegs, to which were now added mud and puddles. Then
there was dinner, and, joy of joys, the rain still kept off, and we were
able to have our camp fire and rejoice in a thorough toast: it seemed
to me I had never really enjoyed a fire before. All through that