It is not always necessary to thatch the wall; a number of green boughs
with leaves adhering may be rested against the cliffs and will answer for
that purpose. Set the boughs upside down so that they will shed the rain
and not hold it so as to drip into camp. Use your common sense and
gumption, which will teach you that all the boughs should point downward
and not upward as most of them naturally grow. I am careful to call your
attention to this because I lately saw some men teaching Boy Scouts how to
make camps and they were placing the boughs for the lads around the
shelter with their branches pointing upward in such a manner that they
could not shed the rain. These instructors were city men and apparently
thought that the boughs were for no other purpose than to give privacy to
the occupants of the shelter, forgetting that in the wilds the wilderness
itself furnishes privacy.
Fig. 8. Fig. 9. Fig. 10.
[Illustration: The half-cave shelter.]
The half cave was probably the first lean-to or shelter in this country,
but overhanging cliffs are not always found where we wish to make our camp
and we must resort to other forms of shelter and the use of other material
in such localities.