Campaigning.—Scouts must, of course, be accustomed to living in the open; they have to know how to put up tents or huts for themselves; how to lay and light a fire; how to kill, cut up, and cook their food; how to tie logs together to make bridges and rafts; how to find their way by night, as well as by day, in a strange country, and so on.
But very few fellows learn or practise these things when they are living in civilised places because they get comfortable houses and beds to sleep in, their food is prepared and cooked for them, and when they want to know the way "they ask a policeman."
Well, when those fellows go out to a colony, or try to go scouting, they find themselves helpless duffers.
Take even the captain of your cricket eleven and put him down on the South African veldt alongside the young Colonial, and see which can look after himself. High averages and clean flannels are not much good to him there. He is only a "tenderfoot," and would be the object of continual chaff until he got some scoutcraft into him.
And scoutcraft, mind you, comes in useful in any line of life that you like to take up. Cricket doesn't matter a hang—though it is a jolly good game to play, and comes in useful to a certain extent in training a fellow's eye, nerve, and temper. But, as the American would say, "it isn't a circumstance" to scouting which teaches a fellow to be a man.
[Make each boy lay a fire in his own way and light it. After failures, show them the right way (i.e., delicate use of dry chips and shavings, and sticks in a pyramid), and make them do it again. Also teach them how to tie knots. See [Part III].]
Chivalry.—In the old days the knights were the scouts of Britain, and their rules were very much the same as the scout law which we have now. And very much like what the Japs have, too. We are their descendants, and we ought to keep up their good name and follow in their steps.
They considered that their honour was the most sacred thing to uphold; they would not do a dishonourable thing, such as telling a lie or stealing: they would really rather die than do it. They were always ready to fight and to be killed in upholding their king, or their religion, or their honour. Thousands of them went out to Palestine (the Holy Land) to maintain the Christian religion against the Mahommedan Turks.
Each knight had a small following of a squire and some men-at-arms, just as our patrol leader has his corporal and four or five scouts.
The knight's patrol used to stick to him through thick and thin, and all carried out the same idea as their leader—namely: