One of my most enjoyable Sea Scouts experiences was a river cruise I made with two of my brothers. We took a canvas folding boat up the Thames as far as we could get her to float. We got right up in the Chiltern Hills where no boat had ever been seen before. We carried our cooking kit, tent and bedding with us and camped out nights.
When we reached the source of the river we carried the boat over the watershed and launched her again on the stream which ran down to the westward and which in a few miles became the Avon.
Through Bath and through Bristol we journeyed, rowing, sailing, poling, or towing, as circumstances required, until we reached the mighty waters of the Severn.
Across this we sailed with centre board down, till we successfully reached Chepstow on the other side. Here we made our way up the rapids of the Wye through its beautiful scenery, to our home near Llandogo.
From London to Wales, almost all the way by water, with loads of adventure and lots of fun!
Learn to row a boat properly, and to “scull” with one oar
But it was no more than any of you could do if you liked to try. So, come along, Scouts—make yourselves efficient, and if you enjoy your Sea Scouting as much as I enjoyed mine you will have a wonderful time.
Air Scouts
When the first Scout camp was held at Brownsea Island in the English Channel in 1907, very few people thought that the aeroplane would conquer the air. They had heard of some queer experiments carried out in America by Wilbur and Orville Wright with gliders and of their attempts with some kind of air-machine. But no one dreamt of what the aeroplane would mean within such a short span of time.
With good reason we are apt to think of the aeroplane as a weapon of destruction. But it has many valuable uses for civilisation:
For instance, in Canada vast tracts of unexplored territory in the north have been photographed and mapped. Mining machinery has been transported to out-of-the-way places. Traders and settlers, who are cut off by great distances from supplies and friends, can receive food, letters
and newspapers by plane.
In Australia, doctors travel enormous distances by plane to help sick people, and flying ambulances bring them to hospitals.
Fires in great forest areas can be spotted quickly by the airman and the best means devised for fighting the fires. Even fishermen can be helped because from a height it is possible for the airman to see where the shoals of fish are to be found.
Insect pests which attack and ruin crops can be killed by dusting from the air. Rice and grass seeds have been sown over vast areas in a short time.
All kinds of interesting discoveries have been made not only about unexplored parts of the earth, but about the past, for some things—markings of ancient dwellings and settlements, for instance—show up more clearly when seen and photographed from the air.
So you see there is plenty of pioneering and romance in the new element man has conquered!
Air Scouts are now part of our Scout organization in many countries. But just like Sea Scouts, they have to be as well trained as all other Scouts in ordinary Scouting on land, for all Scouts need to be observant and resourceful.
SEA GAMES
Smuggler.
(For night or day)
One party of smugglers from the sea endeavour to land and conceal their goods ( a brick or stone per man) in a base called the “Smugglers’ Cave”, and get away in their boat again. Another party of revenue men is distributed to watch the coast a long distance with single Scouts.
As soon as one revenue man sees the smugglers land he gives the alarm, and collects the rest to attack, but the attack cannot be successful unless there are at least as many revenue men on the spot as smugglers. The revenue men must remain bivouacked at their station until the alarm is given by the look-out men.
The whale is made of a big log or wood with a roughly-shaped head and tail. Two boats will usually carry out the whale hunt, each boat manned by one Patrol—the Patrol Leader acting as captain, the Second as bowman or harpooner, the remainder of the Patrol as oarsmen. Each boat belongs to a different harbour, the two harbours being about a mile apart. The umpire takes the whale and lets it loose about half-Way between
the two harbours, and on a given signal, the two boats race out to see who can get to the whale
first.
Whale Hunt
The harpooner who first arrives within range of the whale drives his harpoon into it, and the boat promptly turns round and tows the whale to its harbour.
The second boat pursues, and when it overtakes the other, also harpoons the whale, turns around, and endeavours to tow the whale back to its harbour.
In this way the two boats have a tug-of-war, and eventually the better boat tows the whale, and possibly, the opposing boat into its harbour. (The game is similar to one described in Ernest Thompson Seton’s Birchbark of the Woodcraft Indians.)
CAMP FIRE YARN NO. 7
SIGNALS AND COMMANDS
Hidden Dispatches - Signal
Fires - Sound Signals
Words of Command- Whistle and Flag Signals
Scouts have to be clever at passing news secretly from one place to another, or in signalling to each other. Before the siege of Mafeking, which I told you about in my first yarn, I received a secret message from some unknown friend in the Transvaal, giving me news of the enemy’s plans, the number of his men, horses, and guns. This news came in a very small letter rolled up in a little ball the size of a pill, then put inside a tiny hole in a rough walking stick, and plugged in there with wax. The stick was given to a native, who merely had orders to come into Mafeking and give me the stick as a present. Naturally, when the black native brought me the stick and said it was from a white man, I guessed there must be something special about it, and soon found the hidden letter.
I received a secret letter from another friend once. He had written it in the Hindustani language, but in English lettering. Anybody else studying it would have been quite puzzled about the language in which it was written, but to me it was clear as daylight.
When we sent letters out from Mafeking during the siege, we gave them to natives, who were able to creep out between the Boer outposts. Once through the line of sentries, the Boers mistook the natives for their own, and took no further notice of them. They carried the messages in this way: The letters were written on thin paper, and half a dozen or more were crumpled up tightly into a little ball, then rolled up into a piece of lead paper, such as tea is packed in. The native scout would carry a number of these little balls in his hand, or hanging round his neck loosely on strings. If he saw he was in danger of being captured by an enemy, he would notice landmarks round about him and drop all the balls on the ground, where they looked like small stones. Then he would walk boldly on until accosted by the enemy, who, if he searched him, would find