Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 18, 2025
"Almost as hot as in Australia," he said, languidly, but watching her out of the tail of his eye. "I suppose you were never there, Miss Heron? Nor have I been; but I've got a letter in my pocket from a very great friend of mine who is roughing it on a cattle-run, and he has so often described the country to me, that I almost feel as if I knew it. By the way, I think you know him.
"I wouldn't give a cent for a person who was so soft they couldn't stand roughing it a little. That's the trouble with you Easterners. Soft! No red blood. Too many street cars, and high buildings, and restaurants. Chop down a few trees and fry your own bacon, and make your own camp, and saddle your own horses that's what I call living. I'm going back to it some day, see if I don't."
For the time my wild rovings were over. The bivouac in the glorious forest and robber-steak cooked by the camp fire the pleasures of "roughing it" were exchanged for the charms of society. And society is very charming in Transylvania. Nearly all the ladies speak English well, and are extremely well read in our literature.
When our delightful sojourn with the kind friends at Fort Crawford came to an end, we started in our open vehicle, which had been made as comfortable as possible for our long ride of several days to our final destination, and, as there were no public houses on the road, our dependence for accommodations, was upon the thinly scattered settlers, who for the most part were "roughing it," and had few conveniences, scarcely any comforts to offer the weary traveler.
"It would give him a splendid chance to wander around just whenever and wherever he wanted to go, and nobody to ask questions. Then, when he got hungry, why, he could drop in at the farm. Perhaps he don't like camping out as well as the other fellow; perhaps his health is too delicate to stand roughing it.
They set out accordingly, Hendrick and Strongbow alternately leading, and, as it is styled, beating the track, while the rest followed in single file. It was a long, hard journey, but our travellers were by that time inured to roughing it in the cold. Every night they made their camp by digging a hole in the snow under the canopy of a tree, and kindling a huge fire at one end thereof.
All the bright and genial weather had departed. Their happy days in the woods and fields were over, and there was nothing for them but to spend the whole day in their attic bedroom. Here the wind howled fiercely. The badly-fitting window in the roof not only shook, but let in plenty of rain. And Maurice cried from cold and fright. In his London home he had never undergone any real roughing.
Such roughing can be kept up for a week or two, but it is not a real economy of means to make it permanent. A compromise must be found in which the wholesome cooking of food and the shelter in a rainstorm, without which no dispatches can be written or records kept, may be made to consist with the lightness of transportation which active campaigning requires.
We did not mind much, for we had come to see Goa, and were used to roughing it better out of doors than inside. There was little to be bought in Goa; but all that the residents had to give they offered with alacrity. It is the worst climate I ever was in, and I have experienced many bad ones. The thermometer was not nearly so high as I have known it in other places, but the depression was fearful.
In "Roughing It" the author tells us how he finally was dismissed from the "Call" for general incompetency, and presently found himself in the depths of hard luck, debt, and poverty. But this is only his old habit of making a story on himself sound as uncomplimentary as possible.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking