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All of us required as much sleep as we could get. As soon as supper was over, we set the watch and lay down under our lean-to's, which were, should have said, at a sufficient distance from the water to avoid the risk of any of us being carried off by a hungry crocodile. I had been some hours asleep, forgetting entirely where we were, when I was awakened by a tremendous crash of thunder.
"King say `No good," observed Aboh, while his majesty put on a knowing look; and we had to yield to circumstances. Next day it rained, and we were compelled to keep beneath the shelter of our lean-to's, with nothing to do except to listen to the unintelligible jokes of the king, many of them we suspected at our expense, although Aboh was too polite to say so.
So it came about that, copying the example set by the fellaheen and black soldiers, "Tommy Atkins" also built himself shelters, and "lean-to's" of reeds, palm leaves and straw. Drills and field exercises were relaxed, and the troops had time to rig up alfresco stages and theatres and to enjoy variety entertainments provided by comrades with talent for minstrelsy and the histrionic arts.
There was no dairy to be seen, and I suppose the milk was set in one of the two skillion rooms, or lean-to's behind the hut, the other was 'the boys' bedroom'. The Spicers kept a few cows and steers, and had thirty or forty sheep. Mrs Spicer used to drive down the creek once a-week, in her rickety old spring-cart, to Cobborah, with butter and eggs.
Poor Pat was of course treated in the same manner, and I took Bouncer in between my legs the first time in his life he had ever enjoyed the honour of being dragged by his fellow-creatures. The camp was soon reached. A party of men had gone on before to make preparations. Tents had been put up for the ladies, lean-to's near the fires to shelter the gentlemen.
Our camp was formed in the usual manner with lean-to's, beneath which we sheltered ourselves, and fires in front of them, the smoke of which contributed to keep off the stinging insects which abounded, and the bright light was calculated to scare the savage animals of the forest. We had now become so familiarised to this sort of life, that we thought nothing of it.
Before long we reached the forest, through which we proceeded for several hours, occasionally having to cut our way where the thick vines which hung from all the trees impeded our progress. Towards evening we arrived at the spot where the king had determined to halt. His people immediately set about forming the camp, by collecting wood and putting up shelters, which consisted of lean-to's.
Our lean-to's were speedily blown down. In a short time the rain came down in torrents, and had we not just before made up the fire it would at once have been put out. Fortunately Iguma's hut stood, and she invited us all in to take shelter beneath its roof, which, being composed of several layers of large leaves, fastened down by vines, sheltered us from the pitiless storm.
To make the picture perfect, you must remember the dark forest in the background, the tents covered with red-tanned skins, and the groups of children and dogs scuttling about in front of them, with the stakes, and the lean-to's, and sheds of different sorts, on or in which the spoils of the chase and other provisions were hung to dry or smoke.
Its roofs were roughly shingled or rudely boarded and battened, and the rafters of some of its "lean-to's" were simply covered with tarred canvas. As if to settle any doubt of the impossibility of this heterogeneous mass ever taking upon itself any picturesque combination, a small building of corrugated iron, transported in sections from some remoter locality, had been set up in its centre.
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