Raw Hides.--Dressing Hides.--Skins that have been dressed are essential
to a traveller in an uncivilised country, for they make his
packing-straps, his bags, his clothes, shoes, nails, and string,
therefore no hide should be wasted. There is no clever secret in dressing
skins: it is hard work that they want, either continual crumpling and
stretching with the hands, or working and trampling with the feet. To
dress a goat-skin will occupy one person for a whole day, to dress an
ox-hide will give hard labour to two persons for a day and a half, or
even for two days. It is best to begin to operate upon the skin half an
hour after it has been flayed. If it has been allowed to dry during the
process, it must be re-softened by damping, not with water--for it will
never end by being supple, if water be used--but with whatever the
natives generally employ: clotted milk and linseed-meal are used in
Abyssinia; cow-dung by the Caffres and Bushmen. When a skin is put aside
for the night, it must be rolled up, to prevent it from becoming dry by
the morning. It is generally necessary to slightly grease the skin, when
it is half-dressed, to make it thoroughly supple.
Smoking Hides.--Mr. Catlin, speaking of the skins used by the N. American
Indians, says that the greater part of them "go through still another
operation afterwards (besides dressing), which gives them a greater
value, and renders them much more serviceable--that is, the process of
smoking. For this, a small hole is dug in the ground, and a fire is built
in it with rotten wood, which will produce a great quantity of smoke
without much blaze, and several small poles of the proper length stuck in
the ground around it, and drawn and fastened together at the top (making
a cone), around which a skin is wrapped in form of a tent, and generally
sewed together at the edges to secure the smoke within it: within this
the skins to be smoked are placed, and in this condition the tent will
stand a day or two, enclosing the heated smoke; and by some chemical
process of other, which I do not understand, the skins thus acquire a
quality which enables them, after being ever so many times wet, to dry
soft and pliant as they were before, which secret I have never seen
practised in my own country, and for the lack of which all our dressed
skins, when once wet, are, I think, chiefly ruined." A single skin may
conveniently be smoked by sewing the edges together, so as to make a tube
of it: the lower end is tied round an iron pot with rotten wood burning
inside, the upper end is kept open with a hoop, and slung to a triangle,
as shown in the figure.
[Sketch of hide smoking apparatus as described].
Tanning Hides.--Steep them in a strong solution of alum and a little
salt, for a period dependent on the thickness of the hide. The gradual
change of the hide into tanned leather is visible, and should be watched.
If desired, thehair may be removed before the operation, as described in
"Parchment;" kid gloves are made of leather that has been prepared in
this way.
Greasing Leather.--All leather articles should be occasionally well
rubbed with fat, when used in hot, dry climates, or when they are often
wetted and dried again: it makes a difference of many hundred per cent.
in their wear. It is a great desideratum to be possessed of a supply of
fat, but it is not easy to obtain it from antelopes and other sinewy
game. The French troops adopt the following method, which Lord Lucan
copied from them, when in the Crimea:--the marrowbones of the slaughtered
animals are broken between stones; they are then well boiled, and the
broth is skimmed when cold.
To preserve Hides in a dried State.--After the hide has been flayed from
a beast, if it is not intended to "dress" it, it should be pegged out in
the sun. If it be also rubbed over with wood-ashes, or better still with
salt, it will keep longer. Most small furs that reach the hands of
English furriers have been merely sun-dried; but large hides are usually
salted, before being shipped for Europe to be tanned. A hide that has
been salted is injured for dressing by the hand, but it is not entirely
spoiled: and therefore the following extract from Mr. Dana's 'Two Years
before the Mast' may be of service to travellers who have shot many head
of game in one place, or to those who have lost a herd of goats by
distemper.
Salting Hides.--"The first thing is to put the hides to soak. This is
done by carrying them down at low tide, and making them fast in small
piles by ropes, and letting the tide come up and cover them. Every day we
put 25 in soak for each man, which with us make 150. There they lie 48
hours, when they are taken out and rolled up in wheelbarrows, and thrown
into vats. These vats contain brine made very strong, being sea-water
with great quantities of salt thrown in. This pickles the hides, and in
this they lie 48 hours: the use of the sea-water into which they are
first put being merely to soften and clean them.
"From these vats they are taken to lie on a platform 24 hours, and are
then spread upon the ground and carefully stretched and staked out, so
that they may dry smooth. After they were staked, and while yet wet and
soft, we used to go upon them with our knives, and carefully cut of all
the bad parts: the pieces of meat and fat, which would otherwise corrupt
and affect the whole if stowed away in a vessel for months, the large
flippers, the ears, and all other parts that prevent close stowage. This
was the most difficult part of our duty, as it required much skill to
take off everything necessary, and not to cut or injure the hides. It was
also a long process, as six of us had to clean 150; most of which
required a great deal to be done to them, as the Spaniards are very
careless in skinning their cattle. Then, too, as we cleaned them while
they were staked out, we were obliged to kneel down upon them, which
always gives beginners the back-ache. The first day I was so slow and
awkward that I only cleaned eight; at the end of a few days I doubled my
number, and in a fortnight or three weeks could keep up with the others,
and clean my proportion--twenty-five."