The first night we camped near a farmhouse so as to be able to get water. We did this whenever it was possible. Going to bed in a caravan proved to be an acquired art. First we had to put all the camping equipment, etc., either in front of the driving seat or outside the van covered over with a waterproof sheet (there was always a very heavy dew at night); then we let down the mattresses and arranged the bedding. Next came the difficulty of undressing, there being barely 12 inches between the mattresses when they were let down. We could not make a dressing-room of the prairie because we generally camped near a farm, and anyhow the clarity of the atmosphere and the flat ground made one visible from a long distance. This first night we sat on our mattresses and wriggled out of our clothes, there being no room in the van to stand upright. Afterwards we adopted the plan of going to bed one by one. We put up the tent for a second room whenever we stayed long enough in a place to make it worth while. We had been obliged to do this trip without our sleeping-bags, and so were very cold at night, as the temperature then falls very low even in the summer. You really need a sleeping-bag as well as blankets on the prairie. Our excellent health throughout the tour was probably largely due to our precautions in this matter. My sleeping-bag had already done much service, having been lent me by a cousin who had used it on the French and Italian fronts, and my mosquito net was a loan from a padre who had served at Salonica. This preserved me from much discomfort and blood-poisoning, as later in the summer the mosquitoes were very ferocious, especially to us newcomers. We started on our tour with a due regard for appearances, both of us armed with travelling looking-glasses. But these soon got smashed in our bumpy progress, and henceforth we contented ourselves with tidying our hair from our shadows cast on the ground or our reflections in the wind-screen, or, Hyacinth-like, gazed fondly into the sloughs.