Tent

“ We are really very glad, though, when we come in sight of Camp. Even the loveliest drive won't satisfy a boy who is anxious to get to his tent. He wants to get out of his city clothes, and into Camp attire. What a beautiful scene opens before us! The lake, like a sheet of polished silver, rows of tents waiting for tenants, the tables already set for dinner, all the house help on hand smiling a welcome, and willing to make every one feel quickly at home. ”

“ Groups of well-dressed people were scattered here and there over the greensward: the branching trees lent a delicious shelter from the fierce rays of the summer sun; and a glimpse that could be caught by the curious of the interior of the tent disclosed an array of plates, dishes, and glasses that would have caused the heart of a fasting man to dance with anticipated bliss. ”

“ I have known men, awake for a long time, who have gone on to sleep during just such morning speculations, when the flames grew bright and brighter and crackled up through the little heap of dry branches and sent that glow of luxury into the tent. ”

“ Hundreds of white tents gleamed out among them: tents with poles; tents made by spreading sail-cloth over the tops of bushes; round tents; square tents; big tents; little tents; and for every tent a camp fire; hundreds of white-topped wagons also, at rest for the night, their great poles propped up by sticks, and their mules and drivers lying and standing in picturesque groups around them. ”

“ However, camping out, even though it be in a gorgeous tent, makes one fresh and lively in the morning—especially if the air you are breathing is the cool, fresh air of the mountains.
I was dressed within the ten minutes, and came out. The saloon tent had been stripped of its sides, and had nothing left but its roof; so when we sat down to table we could look out over a noble panorama of mountain, sea and hazy valley. And sitting thus, the sun rose slowly up and suffused the picture with a world of rich coloring. ”

“ The abandoned tent was nine miles ahead, the sledge on which life depended bravely bore every strain, the new floe was gained, and the traveling improved, so that good hope was entertained that the tent, its covert and rest, would be gained. ”

“ In front of the tent, a huge fire of logs had been burning for more than an hour, heating the ground and the air of the tent, the doors of which were thrown wide open to receive the genial warmth. We were soon enjoying, in a wearied soldier's slumber, all of these judicious arrangements, and awoke next morning in prime condition for anything before us. ”

“ It is only a bad attack of influenza. I lie here in a dim, brown holland coloured twilight. A large marquee of double folded canvas keeps out the sun; a few shafts of light twinkle through here and there. Through three entrance gaps I catch glimpses, crossed by a web of tent ropes, of other surrounding tents, each neatly enclosed by a border of whitened stones, the purpose of which is to prevent people at night from tripping over the ropes. Everything is scrupulously neat and clean. Orderlies run from tent to tent minding their patients. ”

“ Now, a short distance from where we were camped, there was a grog-shanty—not one of your new-fangled, weather-boarded hotels, with a grand bar all set out with swell decanters full of bad liquor, but a jolly great tent, well put up, with a good fly over it, lined throughout with green baize, and a sod chimney to it that would hold an eight-foot log—as comfortable a crib as a man could wish to set foot in who was content to pour good stuff out of a black bottle, and drink it out of a pannikin. ”

“ Emerging from a small ravine I came upon an opening in the wood on the edge of which was a cluster of three tents, one apparently for the occupancy of a luxurious owner; a plainer one for servant or servants and a third for a kitchen with a stove pipe projecting through its apex. In front of the principal tent was a sort of porch or shed covered with light boards to keep out the rain, and over-topped with boughs giving it a sylvan character.
I walked toward the tent when a huge old mastiff, fat and unwieldily, sprang toward me with a bark and growl which brought me to a sudden halt. ”

“ I don't know if I really like a tent to live in. The floor is covered with straw, and then a carpet is stretched over it, which makes a particularly bulgy, uneven surface to stand dressing-tables and things on. The straw, too, is apt to stick out where it is least expected, and gives one rather the feeling of being a tinker sleeping in a barn. At night a tent is an awesome place. It is terrible to have no door to lock, and to be entirely at the mercy of anything that creeps and crawls ”

“ In the foreground stands the shepherd, and in the distance his tent, consisting of skins of beasts stretched on poles, and in the tent door a woman sits pounding a fleece into felt. The shepherd, his flocks and herds, his tent, and the woman in the tent door, vanish like the mists of morning, and where the shepherd was, the husbandman is seen harvesting the golden grain; and in the shadow of the cottage which has replaced the tent a woman is grinding corn. The scene again changes—the plain has become the site of a great city. ”

“ The dark brown, smoke-tinted leather tents or lodges, have a certain air of comfort and peacefulness about them, which is in no wise diminished, by the smoke curling up from the aperture at the top, or the voices of children running in and out from the tent door. ”

“ Most of them live in tents made of some rags of felt, or of goat-skins framed on a wretched woodwork. Everything about these tents is so old and dirty, so tattered with time and storms, that you would with difficulty suppose they could serve as abodes for human beings. Whenever we happened to pitch our tent near these poor habitations, we were sure to be visited by a crowd of wretches who prostrated themselves at our feet, rolled on the earth, and gave us the most magnificent titles, in order to extract something from our charity. ”

“ So, slipping down from the box, he tiptoed in and out through the sleeping forms, passed to the open space between the little white tent and all the bigger tents, picked his way among the gayly dressed men and the women who drowsed in the chairs or lay stretched on the grass and, once clear of them, skipped away as fast as ever his two legs would carry him in the direction of the great tent where lived the monkeys, and tigers, and lions, and things. ”

“ The two other tents are of the same pattern and the same gaudy colours within: each of them contains two little iron bedsteads, two Turkish rugs, two washstands, one dressing-table, and such baggage as we had imagined necessary for our comfort, piled around the tent-pole,—this by way of precaution, lest some misguided hand should be tempted to slip under the canvas at night and abstract an unconsidered trifle lying near the edge of the tent.
Of our own men I must say that we never had a suspicion, either of their honesty or of their good-humour. ”

“ A tent, above all for a solitary traveller, is troublesome to pitch, and troublesome to strike again; and even on the march it forms a conspicuous feature in your baggage. A sleeping-sack, on the other hand, is always ready—you have only to get into it ”

“ But then that horrid old wretch the sun comes ranting up; the tents get baked through; and all through the camp there is a general moulting of fur shoes and merino and shawls, then an outcry for muslin, and then for a Punkah to give us breath. We cannot go out till it is nearly dark; and then about dinner-time, when we cross over from our private tents to the great dining-room, we want cloaks and boas and all sorts of comforts again. Those cold hours of the day are very English and pleasant.
I hate my tent and so does George. ”

“ A large tent is a great comfort and not much trouble. A separate tent should of course be taken for your men, and another simple one for a make-shift and a dining-room. To arrange the latter is your first care on arriving at your permanent camping-ground, the table is of bark, either birch or spruce, nailed fast to posts, and shielded by some protection from the rain; the seats are either a large log or the barrels you have brought with you to carry stores and fish, or else stools ingeniously chipped from the trunks of trees with the branches for legs. ”

“ Fig. 15.—Tent on the beach at Utkiavwĭñ.
Inside of the tent there is much less furniture than in the iglu, as the lamp is not needed for heating and lighting, and the cooking is done outdoors on tripods erected over fires. The sleeping place is at the back of the tent, and is usually marked off by laying a log across the floor, and spreading boards on the ground. Not more than one family usually occupy a tent. ”

“ Do not think, however, that such camps are common, even in that land of outdoors, where tents are open for business in the streets of the towns, and where every householder sets up his own canvas in his yard, for the invalids to sleep in, from June to November. The little settlement of tents was an evolution, the gradual growth of the tent idea in the mind of one comfort-loving woman. She went there seven or eight years before, bought a grove under the shadow of Cheyenne, put up a tent, and passed her first summer thus. ”

“ A large tent is certainly more comfortable in fine weather; but you can make a small one sufficiently cheerful, and have a sense of security in it that you cannot feel in one larger. But, if you will have a large tent, make it of something heavier than drilling.
If you have two tents of the same height, you can connect the tops with a pole, and throw a fly, blanket, or sheet over it on pleasant days. ”

“ They have covered us up in every direction, just as if we were native women; and, besides that, there is a wall of red cloth, eight feet high, drawn all round our enclosure, so that, even on going out of the tent, we see nothing but a crimson wall.
Inside each tent were our beds—one leaf of a dining-table and three cane chairs. Our pittarrahs and the camel-trunks were brought in; and in about half an hour the nazir came to say they must all, with our books, dressing-cases, &c., be carried off to be put under the care of a sentry, as nothing is safe in a tent from the decoits ”

“ Another form of tent which I used in Mafeking and South Africa, and still use for sleeping out in, in England, is one which you would hardly call a tent. It is really a slungcot, with a movable canvas roof to it. It is called the "Ashanti Hammock."
[Illustration: A BIVOUAC SHELTER.]
It packs up quite small, and is put up in a few minutes. Requires no pegs. Keeps you off the wet ground. And when the gale comes and all the tents in camp blow down, you lie there swinging gently in the breeze, the envy of all the rest. It also forms an excellent stretcher if you are ill and have to be carried ”

“ An anteroom, again, leads into the dining-room. The tents for the remainder of the party are ranged on either side of the pavilion.
Here we are in far greater luxury than in any Indian hotel, and save for the supporting-pole in the centre, and the pebbles crunching under the carpet, we might think ourselves in a comfortable room. All around there are the cheerful sounds of camp-life, the chattering of servants, the stamping of the picketed horses, or the whistling proceeding from your opposite neighbour's tent. ”

“ Our tent was pitched among a low sort of scrub, the only apology for fire-wood procurable, and here we soon had a fine carpet of fresh snow, which put the unfortunate coolies, and the servants, and the three goats and the four ducks, and, in fact, everybody but F. and myself, who now begin to feel thoroughly at home, to considerable discomfort and inconvenience. ”

“ P. and the jemadar carried me in a chair into mine, and there I was left alone in my glory. He and L. E. took the durbar tent, their own tents having a foot of water in them.
Captain D. went to live with his brother, who has a bungalow here, which he very kindly offered me. It is pouring so again to-night that I wish I had taken it; but then if I had carried off the cook and the dining-tables and the lamps, &c., I thought the aides-de-camp would be wretched, and L. E. is not well enough to go out; but to be sure, these tents! ”

“ The tent was large enough to hold fifty men, if required, so we brought our bedding and chests and all our cooking apparatus on shore, made a fire-place outside the tent with the little cabouse we had on board of the vessel, sent a man to obtain water from the hole, and put on some meat to boil for our dinners. ”

“ Just at this minute a prayer-meeting and revival is going on in the next tent to ours and the groaning and shouting is enough to drive one crazy. The tent is crowded full of women and children, and I don't know which jump the highest or make the most noise. ”

“ Each member of a party of four or six is supposed to carry his share of the tent, which consists of one sheet, three tent pegs, and the half of a round wooden staff ferruled in the centre like a fishing-rod. ”

“ As I enjoyed the reviving night-breezes and thought of you poor girls tossing in warm rooms, I wondered how we might have an out-door place and still feel secluded from prying eyes. Then I remembered the small tents we left with Bill on the farm. Those of you who have roof-space can erect a tent just outside your bed-room window. The tent-opening can be directly opposite the window so that you can slip in and out without dread of being seen by the public. ”