"They are more resourceful, and very bright in suggesting fresh ideas, but they are not so willing to submit to discipline. They are more ready to copy a corps of roughriders than a Roman cohort. No doubt it is owing to the way they are brought up. Very few of them spend their early life in the charge of nurses and governesses. From babyhood they are taught to take care of themselves, to be prepared for emergencies, and to throw up whatever they may have in hand and go to the assistance of a neighbour who needs them. It is a training that makes them helpful and energetic, but perhaps a little too independent to accord entirely with the standards we keep at home. Our girls are more sheltered and guarded, and it is only natural that they should have a different style from those who must hold their own. I wish I could have introduced you to some of my bright young Australian friends. I think you would find the same charm about them that I do." Miss Barlow had many hints to give them on the subject of camp cookery. She showed the girls the quickest and most practical way to build a fire, and the right situation to choose for it as regards shelter. "I wish we could have stayed here for a whole day and prepared our own dinner," she said. "It is wonderful how much can be done with a three-legged iron pot and some gorse to burn under it. We would have made a most delicious stew. I should have liked to teach you to build a camp oven, but we should need a spade for that. One has to dig a hole nearly a yard deep and wide, line it with stones, light a fire in it, then pop one's iron pot on to the mass of hot ashes, and cover the whole with a roof of sticks and sods. I have often baked bread this way out in the bush. Then you ought to know how to wrap up your food in cases of green leaves and wet clay, to be cooked in the ashes round an ordinary camp fire; and how to mix flour and water cakes when there is no yeast to be had for bread." "If only we could come and camp out with you here for a week!" sighed the girls. "It would be ripping fun!"