Also, a scout should be able to manage a boat, to bring it properly alongside the ship or pier, that is, either by rowing it or steering it in a wide circle so that it comes up alongside with its head pointing the same way as the bow of the ship or towards the current. You should be able to row one oar in time with the rest of the boat's crew, or to scull a pair of oars, or to scull a boat by screwing a single oar over the stern. In rowing, the object of feathering or turning the blade of the oar flat when it is out of the water, is to save it from catching the wind and thereby checking the pace of the boat. You should know how to throw a coil of rope so as to fling it on to another boat or wharf, or how to catch and make fast a rope thrown to you. Also you should know how to make a raft out of any materials that you can get hold of, such as planks, logs, barrels, sacks of straw, and so on, for often you may want to cross a river with your food and baggage where no boats are available, or you may be in a shipwreck where nobody can make a raft for saving themselves. You should also know how to throw a lifebuoy to a drowning man. These things can only be learnt by practice.
As a scout you must know how to fish, else you would find yourself very helpless, and perhaps starving, on a river which is full of food for you if you were only able to catch it.
MOUNTAINEERING.
A good deal of interesting mountaineering can be done in the British Isles if you know where to go; and it is grand sport, and brings out into practice all your scout-craft to enable you to find your way, and to make yourself comfortable in camp.
You are, of course, continually losing your direction because, moving up and down in the deep gullies of the mountain side, you lose sight of the landmarks which usually guide you, so that you have to watch your direction by the sun, and by your compass, and keep on estimating in what direction your proper line of travel lies.
Then, again, you are very liable to be caught in fogs and mists, which are at all times upsetting to the calculations even of men who know every inch of the country. I had such an experience in Scotland last year when, in company with a Highlander who knew the ground, we got lost in the mist. But supposing that he knew the way, I committed myself entirely to his guidance, and after going some distance I felt bound to remark to him that I noticed the wind had suddenly changed, for it had been blowing from our left when we started, and was now blowing hard on our right cheek. However, he seemed in no way nonplussed, and led on. Presently I remarked that the wind was blowing behind us, so that either the wind, or the mountain, or we ourselves were turning round; and eventually it proved as I suggested, that it was not the wind that had turned, or the mountain, it was ourselves who had wandered round in a complete circle, and were almost back at the point we started from within an hour.
Then scouts working on a mountain ought to practise the art of roping themselves together, as mountaineers do on icy slopes to save themselves from falling into holes in the snow and slipping down precipices. When roped together in this way supposing that one man falls, the weight of the others will save him from going down into the depths.
When roped together each man has about 14ft. between himself and the next man. The rope is fastened round his waist by a loop or bowline, the knot being on his left side. Each man has to keep back off the man in front of him so as to keep the rope tight all the time; then if one falls or slips the others lean away from him with all their weight and hold him up till he regains his footing. A loop takes up about 4ft. 6in. of rope and should be a "bowline" at the ends of the rope, and an "overhead knot" or a "middleman's loop" for central men on the rope.
PATROLLING.
Scouts generally go about scouting in pairs, or sometimes singly; if more go together they are called a patrol. When they are patrolling the scouts of a patrol hardly ever move close together, they are spread out so as to see more country and so that if cut off or ambuscaded by an enemy they will not all get caught, some will get away to give information. A patrol of six scouts working in open country would usually move in this sort of formation: in the shape of a kite with the patrol leader in the centre, if going along a street or road the patrol would move in a similar way, but in this formation keep close to the hedges or walls. No. 2 scout is in front, Nos. 3 and 4 to the right and left, No. 5 to the rear, and No. 6 with the leader (No. 1) in the centre.