Robert Robert - Scouting for Boys

Find the North

Scouts are posted thirty yards apart, and each lays his staff on the ground pointing to what he considers the exact north (or south), without using any instrument. He steps back three paces away from his staff. The umpire compares each stick with the compass. The one that is nearest,

wins. This is a useful game to play at night, or on sunless days as well as sunny days.

Night Patrolling

Scouts can practise hearing and seeing at night by acting as “sentries”, who stand or walk about, while other Scouts try to stalk up to them. If a sentry hears a sound he calls or whistles. The stalking Scouts must at once halt and lie still. The umpire comes to the sentry and asks which

direction the sound came from. If he is right, the sentry wins. If the stalker can creep up within fifteen yards of the sentry without being seen, he deposits some article, such as a handkerchief, on the ground at that point, and creeps away again. Then he makes a noise to cause the sentry to sound an alarm, and when the umpire comes up, he explains what he has done. This game can also be practiced by day, with the sentries blindfolded.

The Red Indians used to transport their teepees and equipment on a carrier made by lashing sticks together. It was called a “travois”.

Compass Points

Eight staffs are arranged in star fashion on the ground, all radiating from the centre. One staff should point due north.

One Scout takes up his position at the outer end of each staff, and represents one of the eight principal points of the compass.

The Scoutmaster now calls out any two points, such as S.E. and N., and the two Scouts concerned must immediately change places. To change, Scouts must not cross the staffs, but must go outside the circle of players. Anyone moving out of place without his point being named, or moving to a wrong place or even hesitating, should lose a mark. When three marks have been lost the Scout should fall out.

As the game goes on blank spaces will occur. These will make it slightly harder for the remaining boys.

To make the game more difficult sixteen points may be used instead of eight.

When played indoors the lines of the compass may be drawn in chalk on the floor.

Alarm: Catch the Thief

A red rag is hung up in the camp or room in the morning. The umpire goes round to each Scout in turn, while they are at work or play, and whispers to him, “There is a thief in the camp”. But to one he whispers, “There is a thief in the camp, and you are he—Marble Arch!” or some other well-known spot about a mile away. That Scout then knows that he must steal the rag at any time within the next three hours, and bolt with it to the Marble Arch. Nobody else knows who is to be the thief, where he will run to, and when he will steal it. Directly anyone notices that the red rag is stolen, he gives the alarm, and all stop what they may be doing at the time, and dart off in pursuit of the thief. The Scout who gets the rag or a bit of it wins. If none succeeds in doing this, the thief wins. He must carry the rag tied round his neck, and not in his pocket or hidden away.

(Like “Hostile Spy”, in The Book of Woodcraft, by E. Thompson Seton).

Surveying the Country

As soon as a camp has been pitched, the first thing to be done is to find out about the country around the camp site, and this makes an excellent subject for a Patrol competition.

Each Patrol Leader is given a sheet of paper upon which to make a sketch map of the country for perhaps two miles around. He then sends out his Scouts in all directions to survey and bring back a report of every important feature—roads, railways, streams, etc.—choosing the best Scouts for the more difficult directions. Each Patrol Leader makes up his map entirely from the reports of his own Scouts.

The Patrol whose leader brings to the Scouter the best map in the shortest time wins.

Note—many of these games and practices can be carried out in town just as well as in the country.

CAMP FIRE YARN No. 6

SEA AND AIR SCOUTING

Lifeboatmen – Swimming – Boat Cruising

Air Scouting – Sea Games

There are perhaps no greater heroes and no truer Scouts than the sailors who man the lifeboats around the coasts of the oceans of the world. During dangerous storms they must BE PREPARED to turn out at any minute, and risk their lives in order to save others. Because they do it often and so quietly we have come to look upon it almost as an everyday affair, but it is none the less splendid of them and worthy of our admiration.

I am glad that so many Boy Scouts are taking up Sea Scouting, and by learning boat management and seamanship are also learning to take their place in the service of their country as seamen in the navy, or in the merchant service, or as lifeboatmen along the coasts.

A ship can be either a heaven or a hell — it depends entirely on the fellows in her. If they are surly, inclined to grouse, and untidy, they will be an unhappy ship’s company. If they are, like Scouts, cheerily determined in make the best of things, to give and take, and to keep their place tidy and clean, they will he a happy family and enjoy their life at sea.

Swimming

Every boy should learn to swim. I’ve known lots of fellows pick it up the first time they try, others take longer. I did myself—I couldn’t at first get the hang of it. In my heart of hearts I think I really feared the water a bit, but one day, getting out of my depth, I found myself swimming quite easily. I had made too much of an effort and a stiff struggle of it before—but I found the way was to take it slowly and calmly. I got to like the water, and swimming became easy.

All you have to do is at first to try to swim like a dog, as if crawling along in the water. Don’t try all at once to swim with the breast stroke. When paddling along like a dog, get a friend to support you at first with his hand under your belly.

There is jolly good fun in bathing—but ever so much more if the bathing includes a swim. What a fool the fellow looks who has to paddle about in shallow water and can’t join his pals in their trips to sea or down the river.

But there’s something more than fun in it.

If you go boating or sailing it is not fair on the other chaps to do so if you can’t swim. If the boat capsizes and all are swimmers, it is rather a lark. But if there is a non-swimmer there, the others have to risk their lives to keep him afloat.

TOMMY THE TENDERFOOT NO. I — TOMMY AT THE LAKE

Tommy sees all of them happy but him.

They are plunging and diving—but Tommy can’t swim.

Then, too, there may come the awful time when you see someone drowning. If you are a swimmer, in you go, get hold of him the right way, and bring him ashore. And you have saved a fellow creature s life! But if you can’t swim? Then you have a horrible time. You know you ought to do something better than merely call for help while your fellow creature is fighting and struggling for his life and gradually becoming weaker before your eyes. I won’t describe it—it is a horrible nightmare, and will be all the rest of your life when you think that it was partly your fault that the poor fellow was drowned. Why your fault? Because if you had been a true Scout you would have learnt swimming and would have been able to save him.