Part 16 (2/2)
Cook should collect them.--It is the duty of a cook, when the time of encamping draws near, to get down from his horse, and to pick up, as he walks along, a sufficiency of dry gra.s.s, little bits of wood, and the like, to start a fire; which he should begin to make as soon as ever the caravan stops. The fire ought to be burning, and the kettle standing by its side, by the time that the animals are caught and are ready to be off-packed.
Small Sticks.--There should be abundance of small sticks, and if neither these nor any equivalent for them are to be picked up, the traveller should split up his larger firewood with his knife, in order to make them. It is a wise economy of time and patience to prepare plenty of these; otherwise it will occasionally happen that the whole stock will be consumed and no fire made. Then the traveller must recommence the work from the very beginning, under the disadvantage of increasing darkness. I have made many experiments myself, and have seen many novices as well as old campaigners try to make fires; and have concluded that, to ensure success, the traveller should be provided with small bundles of sticks of each of the following sizes:--1st, size of lucifer-match; 2nd, of lead pencil; 3rd, smaller than little finger; 4th, size of fore-finger; 5th, stout stakes.
In wet Weather, the most likely places to find wherewithal to light a fire, are under large stones and other shelter; but in soaking wet weather, little chips of dry wood can hardly be procured except by cutting them with an axe out of the middle of a log. The fire may then be begun, as the late Admiral the Hon. C. Murray well recommended in his travels in North America, in the frying-pan itself, for want of a dry piece of ground.
To kindle a Spark into a Flame.--By whirling.--1st. Arrange the fuel into logs; into small fuel, a.s.sorted as described above, and into shreds and fibres. 2nd. Make a loose nest of the fibre, just like a sparrow's nest in shape and size, and let the finer part of the fibres be inwards.
3rd. Drop the lighted tinder in the next. 4th. Holding the ”nest” quite loosely in the half-closed hand, whirl the outstretched arm in vertical circles round the shoulder-joint, as indicated by the dotted line in the diagram. In 30 seconds, or about 40 revolutions, it will begin to glow, and will shortly after burst out in a grand flame. 5th Drop it, and pile small twigs round it, and nurse the young fire carefully, bearing in mind the proverb that ”small sticks kindle a flame, but large ones put it out.”
By blowing.--Savages usually kindle the flame by blowing at the live spark and feeding it with little bits of stick, just so much as is necessary. But it is difficult to acquire the art of doing this well, and I decidedly recommend the plan I have described in the foregoing paragraph, in preference to it. When the wind blowssteadily and freshly, it suffices to hold up the ”nest” against the wind.
Sulphur matches are so very useful to convert a spark into a flame, and they are so easily made, in any quant.i.ty, out of split wood, straw, etc., if the traveller will only take the trouble of carrying a small lump of sulphur in his baggage, that they always ought to be at hand. The sulphur is melted on a heated stone, or in an old spoon, bit of crockery, bit of tin with a dent made in it, or even a piece of paper, and the points of the pieces of wood dipped in the molten ma.s.s. A small chip of sulphur pushed into the cleft end of a splinter of wood makes a fair subst.i.tute for a match. (See ”Lucifer-matches.”)
Camp Fires.--Large Logs.--The principle of making large logs to burn brightly, is to allow air to reach them on all sides, and yet to place them so closely together, that each supports the combustion of the rest.
A common plan is to make the fire with three logs, whose ends cross each other, as in the diagram. The dots represent the extent of the fire. As the ends burn away, the logs are pushed closer together. Another plan is to lay the logs parallel with the burning ends to the windward, then they continue burning together.
In the pine-forests of the North, at winter time, it is usual to fell a large tree, and, cutting a piece six or eight feet long off the large end, to lay the thick short piece upon the long one, which is left lying on the ground; having previously cut flat with the axe the sides that come in contact, and notched them so as to make the upper log lie steady.
The chips are then heaped in between the logs, and are set fire to; the flame runs in between them, and the heat of each log helps the other to burn. It is the work of nearly an hour to prepare such a fire; but when made, it lasts throughout the night. In all cases, one or two great logs are far better than many small ones, as these burn fast away and require constant looking after. Many serious accidents occur from a large log burning away and toppling over with a crash, sending a volley of blazing cinders among the sleeping party. Savages are always getting burnt, and we should take warning from their carelessness: sometimes they find a single scathed tree without branches, which they have no means of felling; this they set fire to as it stands, and when all have fallen off to sleep, the tree tumbles down upon them. Indeed, savages are seldom free from scars or severe burns; they are so cold during the night that they cannot endure to be an inch further from the fire than necessary, and consequently, as they turn about in their sleep, often roll into it.
[Diagram as described following].
Logs to cut up, with a small axe or knife.
Let A O be the log. Cut two notches (1), (2), on opposite sides. Hold the log by the end A, and strike the end violently against the ground; the piece O, 1, 2, will fly off. Then make the cut (3) on the side opposite to (2), and again strike, and the piece 1, 2, 3, will fly off. So again with cut (4), etc. (Peal.)
Brushwood.--If in a country where any a number of small sticks and no large logs can be collected as firewood, the best plan is to encamp after the manner of the Ovampos. These, as they travel, collect sticks, each man his own f.a.ggot, and when they stop, each takes eight or nine stones as large as bricks, or larger, and sets them in a circle; and within these he lights up his little fire. Now the party make their fireplaces close together, in two or more parallel lines, and sleep in between them; the stones prevent the embers from flying about and doing mischief, and also, after the fires have quite burnt out, they continue to radiate heat.
Charcoal.--If charcoal be carried, a small chafing-dish, or other subst.i.tute for a fireplace, ought also be taken, together with a set of tin cooking-utensils.
Fireplaces in Boats.--In boating excursions, daub a lump of clay on the bottom of the boat, beneath the fireplace--it will secure the timbers from fire. ”Our primitive kitchen was a square wooden box, lined with clay and filled with sand, upon which three or four large stones were placed to form a hearth.” (Burton's 'Medinah.')
Fireplaces on Snow.--On very deep snow, a hearth has to be made of a number of green logs, upon which the fire may be made. (See ”Esquimaux Cooking Lamp.”)
Cooking-fires.--See chapter on ”Cooking.”
Fires in the early Morning.--Should your stock of fuel consist of large logs and but little brushwood, keep all you can spare of the latter to make a blaze, when you get up to catch and pack the cattle in the dark and early morning. As you travel on, if it be bitter cold, carry a firebrand in your hand, near your mouth, as a respirator--it is very comforting; then, when the fire of it burns dull, thrust the brand for a few moments in any tuft of dry gra.s.s you may happen to pa.s.s by, which will blaze up and give a new life to the brand.
FOOD.
The nutritive Elements of Food.--Many chemists have applied themselves in recent years, to discover the exact percentage of nutriment contained in different substances, and to determine the minimum nutriment on which human life can be supported. The results are not very accordant, but nevertheless a considerable approximation to truth has been arrived at.
It is now possible to tell whether a proposed diet has any great faults of excess or deficiency, and how to remedy those faults. But it also must be recollected that the stomach is an a.s.similating machine of limited performance, and must be fed with food that it can digest; it is not enough that the food should contain nutritious matter, if that matter should be in an indigestible form. Burke and Wills perished from sheer inability to digest the seeds upon which the Australian savages lived; and Gardiner's party died of starvation in Tierra del Fuego, because they could not digest the sh.e.l.l-fish which form a common article of diet of the natives of that country. The question of diet must then be limited to food that is perfectly digestible by the traveller. It remains to learn how much nourishment is contained in different kinds of digestible food.
Dr. Smith has recently written an elaborate essay on this subject, applying his inquiries chiefly to the food of the poor in England; but for my more general purpose, as it is impossible to do justice to a large and imperfectly understood subject, in the small s.p.a.ce I can give to it, it will be better that I should reprint the results given in my previous edition. These are princ.i.p.ally extracted from a remarkable paper by Dr.
Christison, inserted in the Bluebook Report of the Commission of Inquiry on Crimean matters, in which the then faulty dietary of our soldiers was discussed. It appears 1st, that a man of sedentary life can exist in health on seventeen ounces per day of real nutriment; that a man engaged in active life requires fully twenty-eight ounces per day; and, during severe labour, he requires thirty ounces, or even more. 2ndly, that this nutriment must consist of three-quarters, by weight, of one cla.s.s of nutritive principles, (C), and one quarter of another cla.s.s of nutritive principles, (N); 3rdly, that all the articles of common food admit of being placed, as below, in a Table, by which we see at a glance how much nutriment of cla.s.s C, and how much of cla.s.s N, is found in 100 parts, gross weight of any of them. Thus, by a simple computation, the effective value of a dietary may be ascertained. Cla.s.s C, are the carboniferous principles, that maintain respiration; Cla.s.s N, are the nitrogenous principles, that repair waste of tissue. N will partly replace C, but at a great waste: C will not replace N.
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