THE CAMP.
It pays well to take some time to find a good spot for a camp. If you
are only to stop one night, it matters not so much; but even then you
should camp on a dry spot near wood and water, and where your horse, if
you have one, can be well cared for. Look out for rotten trees that may
fall; see that a sudden rain will not drown you out; and do not put your
tent near the road, as it frightens horses.
For a permanent camp a good prospect is very desirable; yet I would not
sacrifice all other things to this.
If you have to carry your baggage any distance by hand, you will find it
convenient to use two poles (tent-poles will serve) as a hand-barrow
upon which to pile and carry your stuff.
A floor to the tent is a luxury in which some indulge when in permanent
camp. It is not a necessity, of course; but, in a tent occupied by
ladies or children, it adds much to their comfort to have a few boards,
an old door, or something of that sort, to step on when dressing. Boards
or stepping-stones at the door of the tent partly prevent your bringing
mud inside.
If you are on a hillside, pitch your tent so that when you sleep, if you
are to sleep on the ground, your feet will be lower than your head: you
will roll all night, and perhaps roll out of the tent if you lie across
the line running down hill.
As soon as you have pitched your tent, stretch a stout line from the
front pole to the back one, near the top, upon which to hang your
clothes. You can tighten this line by pulling inwards the foot of one
pole before tying the line, and then lifting it back.
Do not put your clothes and bedding upon the bare ground: they grow damp
very quickly. See, too, that the food is where ants will not get at it.
Do not forget to take two or three candles, and replenish your stock if
you burn them: they sometimes are a prime necessity. Also do not pack
them where you cannot easily find them in the dark. In a permanent camp
you may be tempted to use a lantern with oil, and perhaps you will like
it better than candles; but, when moving about, the lantern-lamp and
oil-can will give you trouble. If you have no candlestick handy, you can
use your pocket-knife, putting one blade in the bottom or side of the
candle, and another blade into the ground or tent-pole. You can quickly
cut a candlestick out of a potato, or can drive four nails in a block of
wood.
If your candles get crushed, or if you have no candles, but have grease
without salt in it, you can easily make a "slut" by putting the grease
in a small shallow pan or saucer with a piece of wicking or cotton rag,
one end of which shall be in the grease, and the other, which you light,
held out of it. This is a poor substitute for daylight, and I advise you
to rise and retire early (or "_turn in_" and "_turn out_" if you
prefer): you will then have more daylight than you need.
BEDS.
Time used in making a bed is well spent. Never let yourself be persuaded
that humps and hollows are good enough for a tired man. If you cut
boughs, do not let large sticks go into the bed: only put in the smaller
twigs and leaves. Try your bed before you "turn in," and see if it is
comfortable. In a permanent camp you ought to take time enough to keep
the bed soft; and I like best for this purpose to carry a mattress when
I can, or to take a sack and fill it with straw, shavings, boughs, or
what not. This makes a much better bed, and can be taken out daily to
the air and sun. By this I avoid the clutter there always is inside a
tent filled with boughs; and, more than all, the ground or floor does
not mould in damp weather, from the accumulation of rubbish on it.
It is better to sleep off the ground if you can, especially if you are
rheumatic. For this purpose build some sort of a platform ten inches or
more high, that will do for a seat in daytime. You can make a sort of
spring bottom affair if you can find the poles for it, and have a little
ingenuity and patience; or you can more quickly drive four large stakes,
and nail a framework to them, to which you can nail boards or
barrel-staves.[9] All this kind of work must be strong, or you can have
no rough-and-tumble sport on it. We used to see in the army sometimes, a
mattress with a bottom of rubber cloth, and a top of heavy drilling,
with rather more cotton quilted[10] between them than is put into a
thick comforter. Such a mattress is a fine thing to carry in a wagon
when you are on the march; but you can make a softer bed than this if
you are in a permanent camp.
SLEEPING.
"Turn in" early, so as to be up with the sun. You may be tempted to
sleep in your clothes; but if you wish to know what luxury is, take them
off as you do at home, and sleep in a sheet, having first taken a bath,
or at least washed the feet and limbs. Not many care to do this,
particularly if the evening air is chilly; but it is a comfort of no
mean order.
If you are short of bedclothes, as when on the march, you can place over
you the clothes you take off (see p. 19); but in that case it is still
more necessary to have a good bed underneath.
You will always do well to cover the clothes you have taken off, or they
will be quite damp in the morning.
See that you have plenty of air to breathe. It is not best to have a
draught of air sweeping through the tent, but let a plenty of it come in
at the feet of the sleeper or top of the tent.
A hammock is a good thing to have in a permanent camp, but do not try to
swing it between two tent-poles: it needs a firmer support.
Stretch a clothes-line somewhere on your camp-ground, where neither you
nor your visitors will run into it in the dark.
If your camp is where many visitors will come by carriage, you will find
that it will pay you for your trouble to provide a hitching-post where
the horses can stand safely. Fastening to guy-lines and tent-poles is
dangerous.
SINKS.
In a permanent camp you must be careful to deposit all refuse from the
kitchen and table in a hole in the ground: otherwise your camp will be
infested with flies, and the air will become polluted. These sink-holes
may be small, and dug every day; or large, and partly filled every day
or oftener by throwing earth over the deposits. If you wish for health
and comfort, do not suffer a place to exist in your camp that will toll
flies to it. The sinks should be some distance from your tents, and a
dry spot of land is better than a wet one. Observe the same rule in
regard to all excrementitious and urinary matter. On the march you can
hardly do better than follow the Mosaic law (see Deuteronomy xxiii. 12,
13).
In permanent camp, or if you propose to stay anywhere more than three
days, the crumbs from the table and the kitchen refuse should be
carefully looked after: to this end it is well to avoid eating in the
tents where you live. Swarms of flies will be attracted by a very little
food.
A spade is better, all things considered, than a shovel, either in
permanent camp or on the march.
HOW TO KEEP WARM.
When a cold and wet spell of weather overtakes you, you will inquire,
"How can we keep warm?" If you are where wood is very abundant, you can
build a big fire ten or fifteen feet from the tent, and the heat will
strike through the cloth. This is the poorest way, and if you have only
shelter-tents your case is still more forlorn. But keep the fire
a-going: you _can_ make green wood burn through a pelting storm, but you
must have a quantity of it--say six or eight large logs on at one time.
You must look out for storms, and have some wood cut beforehand. If you
have a stove with you, a little ingenuity will enable you to set it up
inside a tent, and run the funnel through the door. But, unless your
funnel is quite long, you will have to improvise one to carry the smoke
away, for the eddies around the tent will make the stove smoke
occasionally beyond all endurance. Since you will need but little fire
to keep you warm, you can use a funnel made of boards, barrel-staves,
old spout, and the like. Old tin cans, boot-legs, birch-bark, and stout
paper can be made to do service as elbows, with the assistance of turf,
grass-ropes, and large leaves. But I forewarn you there is not much fun,
either in rigging your stove and funnel, or in sitting by it and waiting
for the storm to blow it down. Still it is best to be busy.
Another way to keep warm is to dig a trench twelve to eighteen inches
wide, and about two feet deep, running from inside to the outside of the
tent. The inside end of the trench should be larger and deeper; here you
build your fire. You cover the trench with flat rocks, and fill up the
chinks with stones and turf; boards can be used after you have gone a
few feet from the fireplace. Over the outer end, build some kind of a
chimney of stones, boxes, boards, or barrels. The fireplace should not
be near enough to the side of the tent to endanger it; and, the taller
the chimney is, the better it will draw if you have made the trench of
good width and air-tight. If you can find a sheet-iron covering for the
fireplace, you will be fortunate; for the main difficulty in this
heating-arrangement is to give it draught enough without letting out
smoke, and this you cannot easily arrange with rocks. In digging your
trench and fireplace, make them so that the rain shall not flood them.
FIREPLACE.
If flat rocks and mud are plenty, you can perhaps build a fireplace at
the door of your tent (outside, of course), and you will then have
something both substantial and valuable. Fold one flap of the door as
far back as you can, and build one side of the fireplace against the
pole,[11] and the other side against, or nearly over to, the corner of
the tent. Use large rocks for the lower tiers, and try to have all three
walls perpendicular and smooth inside. When up about three feet, or as
high as the flap of the tent will allow without its being scorched, put
on a large log of green wood for a mantle, or use an iron bar if you
have one, and go on building the chimney. Do not narrow it much: the
chimney should be as high as the top of the tent, or eddies of wind will
blow down occasionally, and smoke you out. Barrels or boxes will do for
the top, or you can make a cob-work of split sticks well daubed with
mud. All the work of the fireplace and chimney must be made air-tight by
filling the chinks with stones or chips and mud. When done, fold and
confine the flap of the tent against the stonework and the mantle;
better tie than nail, as iron rusts the cloth. Do not cut the tent
either for this or any other purpose: you will regret it if you do. Keep
water handy if there is much woodwork; and do not leave your tent for a
long time, nor go to sleep with a big fire blazing.
If you have to bring much water into camp, remember that two pails carry
about as easily as a single one, provided you have a hoop between to
keep them away from your legs. To prevent the water from splashing, put
something inside the pail, that will float, nearly as large as the top
of the pail.
HUNTERS' CAMP.
[Illustration]
It is not worth while to say much about those hunters' camps which are
built in the woods of stout poles, and covered with brush or the bark of
trees: they are exceedingly simple in theory, and difficult in practice
unless you are accustomed to using the axe. If you go into the woods
without an axeman, you had better rely upon your tents, and not try to
build a camp; for when done, unless there is much labor put in it, it is
not so good as a shelter-tent. You can, however, cut a few poles for
rafters, and throw the shelter-tent instead of the bark or brush over
the poles. You have a much larger shelter by this arrangement of the
tent than when it is pitched in the regular way, and there is the
additional advantage of having a large front exposed to the fire which
you will probably build; at the same time also the under side of the
roof catches and reflects the heat downward. When you put up your tent
in this way, however, you must look out not to scorch it, and to take
especial care to prevent sparks from burning small holes in it. In fact,
whenever you have a roaring fire you must guard against mischief from
it.
[Illustration]
Do not leave your clothes or blanket hanging near a brisk fire to dry,
without confining them so that sudden gusts of wind shall not take them
into the flame.
[Illustration]
You may some time have occasion to make a shelter on a ledge or floor
where you cannot drive a pin or nail. If you can get rails, poles,
joists, or boards, you can make a frame in some one of the ways figured
here, and throw your tents over it.
These frames will be found useful for other purposes, and it is well to
remember how to make them.
FOOTNOTES:
[9] Barrel-staves will not do for a double bed.
[10] It will roll up easier if the quilting runs from side to side only.
[11] This applies, as will be seen, only to tents having two uprights,
as the wall, "A," and shelter.