Camping and woodcraft - Scoutmastercg.com

VACATION TI^IE 21lions of a landlord, nor will he suffer himself torooted to the soil by cares of ownership or lease. Itis not possession of the land, but of the landscape,that he enjoys ; and as fo" that, all the wild parts ofthe earth are his, by a title that carries with it noobligation but that he shall not desecrate nor laythem waste.Houses, to such a one, in summer, are little betterthan cages; fences and walls are his abomination;plowed fields are only so many patches cf torn andtormented earth. The sleek comeliness of pasturesis too prim and artificial, domestic cattle have ameek and ignoble bearing, fields of grain aremonotonous to his eyes, which turn for relief tosome abandoned old-field, overgrown with thicket,that still harbors some of the shy children of thewild. It is not the clearing but the unfenced wildernessthat is the camper's real home. He isbrother to that good old friend of mine who, ingentle satire of our formal gardens and close-croppedlawns, was wont to say, " I love the unimprovedworks of God." He likes to wander in the foresttasting the raw sweets and pungencies that uncloyedpalates craved in the childhood of our race. Tohim" The shelter of a rockIs sweeter than the roofs of all the world."The charm of nomadic life Is Its freedom fromcare, its unrestrained liberty of action, and the proudself-reliance of one who is absolutely his own master,free to follow his bent in his own way, andwho cheerfully, in turn, suffers the penalties thatNature visits upon him for every slip of mind orbungling of his hand. Carrying with him, as hedoes, in a few small bundles, all that he needs toprovide food and shelter In any land, habited or uninhabited,the camper Is lord of himself and of hissurroundings.be