Not until night was drawing upon us did our caravan halt
beside a tarn, and here I learned that we would sup and sleep,
although it was distressing to observe how remote we were from proper
surroundings. There was no shelter and no modern conveniences; not
even a wash-hand-stand or water-jug. There was, of course, no central
heating, and no electricity for one's smoothing-iron, so that one's
clothing must become quite disreputable for want of pressing. Also the
informal manner of cooking and eating was not what I had been
accustomed to, and the idea of sleeping publicly on the bare ground
was repugnant in the extreme. I mean to say, there was no _vie
intime_. Truly it was a coarser type of wilderness than that which
I had encountered near New York City.
The animals, being unladen, were fitted with a species of leather
bracelet about their forefeet and allowed to stray at their will. A
fire was built and coarse food made ready. It is hardly a thing to
speak of, but their manner of preparing tea was utterly depraved, the
leaves being flung into a tin of boiling water and allowed to
_stew_. The result was something that I imagine etchers might use
in making lines upon their metal plates. But for my day's fast I
should have been unequal to this, or to the crude output of their
frying-pans.
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