The writer has met with attempts to copy the Indian patterns in tents manufactured in England; but the inveterate attachment of our tent-makers to flies formed of a single heavy waterproof cloth has rendered the best of them next door to useless, and though very pretty, none were fit to be put up anywhere outside a colonial outfitter’s show-room; so that unless the necessary delay of a couple of months be an absolute bar to doing so, novices fitting themselves out for camp life will do well to get what they require from India, or some other country where camp life is a practical everyday contingency.
When used for a living room during the day a tent can not well be too lofty, but for sleeping purposes, tents with the ridge of the inner fly not more than 8 ft. or 10 ft. high present many advantages over larger ones, as not only are they warmer and snugger, but it is far easier to keep them free from flies, which if once they gain admission, render rest during the day impossible.
It is wonderful how free a small tent of this sort can be kept from these pests, provided the chicks or blinds formed of split bamboo be kept always closed. Every night when the flies have become sluggish and sleepy as many as possible should be killed by striking at them with a towel or duster; and then the lamp should be put outside the tent door and the chicks and flies raised, while the flies are kept from settling by flecking and shaking the interior. Attracted by the light, in a very short time, all insects will be coaxed out of the tent, and the chicks and curtains being then replaced, one starts the next day with the tent free from these intruders. The same plan may be also used with large tents, but cannot so effectually be carried out, as it is difficult to reach insects that have settled in the uppermost part of the tent, but vigorous shaking will usually suffice to dislodge most of them.
Mosquito-nets for camp use should be shaped like a miniature tent, with a ridge and gable-shaped ends, so that they can be easily and quickly suspended from the tent poles by means of strings fitted to each end of the ridge, which should be strengthened with a stout piece of tape.
In selecting a site for camp, it is well to keep as far as possible from native villages, but as a rule one is obliged to pitch tolerably near them, on account of the difficulty of bringing supplies to a greater distance. In any case, however, the site chosen should be to the windward of the village, and sufficiently removed to be clear of the results of its primitive notions on the subject of conservancy. Conservancy, indeed, is always a difficulty in camp, and renders the prolonged occupation of any one camp extremely undesirable. In private marching camps and even in the tolerably large caravans of exploring parties, it may be taken for granted that any attempt at the establishment of regular latrines is doomed to failure; so that the utmost that can be done is to fix a limit of distance, within which cleanliness is enforced by punishing any detected infraction of the rule as sharply as may be practicable. Where, however, tents are pitched in standing camp, as a temporary substitute for a permanent habitation, trenches should always be established, and their use insisted upon, as otherwise it will be absolutely necessary to periodically shift the camp to a clean site.
In the matter of water supply, it should be needless to point out that its sources are always necessarily of doubtful purity, and that more than common care is therefore essential to secure that it is properly sterilised by boiling. As already remarked, it is a good plan, where possible, to send on and get the wells in advance disinfected by treatment with permanganate of potash, and this precaution is, of course, especially important in the presence of cholera.
In the sort of camp life under consideration, regular camp beds are assumed to be carried, so that there is no need to burden oneself with heavy ground sheets, ordinary cotton carpets being, for our purposes, far more comfortable and sightly; but it is nevertheless well, wherever the material is available, to lay down, beneath the floorcloth, a good layer of hay or straw, as this not only serves as a sop to the white ants, but serves the further sanitary purpose of taking up the damp that is always arising from the soil even in apparently very dry localities. As the litter is in no way damaged by its use for this purpose it is rarely necessary to buy it outright, the owners being usually satisfied with a trifle for the loan of it, sufficient to remunerate them for the trouble of bringing the straw and fetching it back. In standing camps however, litter used for this purpose should always be cleared out and dried in the sun at frequent intervals, as without this precaution it is sure to get mildewed and offensive.
There is, of course, no real difference between the rules of personal hygiene suitable to camp life, and those of dwellers in more settled habitations, and with due attention to a few special points such as those that have been touched upon in the present article, camp life, on account of the constant enjoyment of fresh air which it affords, will always be found far healthier than that passed within houses.