Fit as Fiddles and as Hard as Nails

another an endless war. Often in camp I wandered out with a lantern to seek the creatures that haunt the desert night. At one camp, as I watched within ten years of my tent I observed snakes, lizards, centipedes, scorpions and Solpugid spiders pass in succession before the light. It was a loathsome and repulsive fauna which that night swarmed about our tents. We christened the place scorpion camp, thought snake, spider, or centipede camp would have been equally applicable. The officer, who shared in the watch for venomous creatures, became almost hysterical at the sight of the horrible companions that might; at any moment, interrupt his slumbers. I thought how apt would be the morning salutation of the Celestial Empire, “vou-to-