General Remarks.—­Bivouacking is miserable work in a wet or unhealthy climate; but in a dry and healthy one, there is no question of its superiority over tenting.  Men who sleep habitually in the open, breathe fresher air and are far more imbued with the spirit of wild life, than those who pass the night within the stuffy enclosure of a tent.  It is an endless pleasure to lie half awake watching the stars above, and the picturesque groupings of the encampment round about, and to hear on all sides the stirrings of animal life.  And later in the night, when the fire is low, and servants and cattle are asleep, and there is no sound but of the wind and an occasional plaintive cry of wild animals, the traveller finds himself in that close communion with nature which is the true charm of wild travel.  Now all this pleasure is lost by sleeping in a tent.  Tent life is semi-civilization, and perpetuates its habits.  This may be illustrated by a simple trait; a man who has lived much in bivouacs, if there be a night alarm, runs naturally into the dark for safety, just as a wild animal would; but a man who travels with tents becomes frightened when away from its lights, or from the fancied security of its walls.

In a dangerous country there can be no comparison between the hazard of a tent and that of a bivouac.  In the former a man’s sleep is heavy; he cannot hear nearly so well; he can see nothing; his cattle may all decamp; while marauders know exactly where he is lying, and may make their plans accordingly.  They may creep up unobserved and spear him through the canvas.  The first Napoleon had a great opinion of the advantages of bivouacking over those of tenting.  He said it was the healthier of the two for soldiers. (See p. 153.)

Shelter from the Wind.—­Study the form of a hare!  In the flattest and most unpromising of fields, the creature will have availed herself of some little hollow to the lee of an insignificant tuft of grass, and there she will have nestled and fidgeted about till she has made a smooth, round, grassy bed, compact and fitted to her shape, where she may curl herself snugly up, and cower down below the level of the cutting night wind.  Follow her example.  A man, as he lies upon his mother earth, is an object so small and low that a screen of eighteen inches high will guard him securely from the strength of a storm.  A common mistake of a novice lies in selecting a tree for his camping-place, which spreads out nobly above, but affords no other shelter from the wind than that of its bare stem below.

[Sketch of sleeping man behind wall].

It may be, that as he walks about in search of shelter, a mass of foliage at the level of his eye, with its broad shadow, attracts him, and as he stands to the leeward of it it seems snug, and, therefore, without further reflection, he orders his bed to be spread at the foot of some tree.  But as soon as he lies down on the ground the tree proves worthless as a screen against the wind; it is a roof, but it is not a wall.  The real want in blowy weather is a dense low screen, perfectly wind-tight, as high as the knee above the ground.  Thus, if a traveller has to encamp on a bare turf plain, he need only turn up a sod seven feet long by two feet wide, and if he succeeds in propping it on its edge, it will form a sufficient shield against the wind.