Fig. 28.
The tent with its two comfortable bunks was placed a little to one side, the remaining space being used as a dining and sitting room all through the summer. Except in occasional seasons of heavy rain, when we were saved the trouble of washing our dishes, the tent was only used for sleeping purposes, and as a storehouse for clothes and perishable provisions. I have “dwelt in marble halls” since then, but never was food sweeter or sleep sounder than in the old bush bungalow.
A BUSH BED.
To make a comfortable bush bedplace, take four forked posts about 3 ft. 6 in. long and 2 to 3 in. in diameter at the top; mark out your bedplace accurately and put a post at each corner, about 1 ft. in the ground. Take two poles about 7 ft. long, and having procured two strong five-bushel corn sacks, cut holes in the bottom corners, put the poles through, bringing the mouths of the sacks together, and secure them there with a strong stitch or two. Put your poles on the upright forked sticks, and you have a couch that even Sancho Panza would have envied. It is as well to fix stretchers or cross stays between the posts at head and foot [(Fig. 29)].
Fig. 29. Bush Stretcher.
In malarial countries, sleeping on the ground is distinctly dangerous, and as such districts are usually thickly timbered, the Northern Territory hammock is an admirable device, more particularly where mosquitoes abound.