Trampers and Climbers.

Bushcraft is a fascinating science of the out-of-doors which will always be needed in such a country as New Zealand. More and more our young people are taking to the hills and the forest for their recreation, and anything that will assist them to obtain the utmost benefit from this health-giving form of pleasuring should be encouraged. Far better that kind of holidaying than knocking about the cities or sitting watching an athletic few toiling at their games. But mountain-climbing and bush-roving, while providing glorious exercise and change of scene and air and developing powers of endurance, are full of peril and trouble for the inexperienced and the incautious. The young men and women from the towns who take to the mountains with their camp gear for a brief outing are apt to underrate the possible difficulties and misadventures. From my observation, most of them are quite inadequately equipped for the work, at any rate those who undertake mountain expeditions. You will not see even the seasoned bushman, the sheep musterer, the cattle hunter, or the veteran deer stalker go into the ranges so meagrely clothed, for one thing, as most of the youngsters of both sexes who sally out light-heartedly from the city officers and colleges and schools for a quick-travel excursion into the rough high country.