Part 20 (1/2)
Still, made with Earthen Pots and a Metal Basin.--A very simple distilling apparatus is used in Bhootan; the sketch will show the principle on which it is constructed.
[Sketch of apparatus].
Salt water is placed in a pot, set over the fire. Another vessel, but without top or bottom, which, for the convenience of ill.u.s.tration, I have indicated in the sketch by nothing more than a dotted line, is made to stand upon the pot. It serves as a support for a metal basin, S, which is filled with salt water, and acts as a condenser. When the pot boils, the steam ascends and condenses itself on the under surface of the basin S, whence it drops down and is Collected in a cup, C, that is supported by a rude tripod of sticks, T, standing in the inside of the iron pot.
Occasional Means of Quenching Thirst.--A Shower of Rain will yield a good supply. The clothes may be stripped off and spread out, and the rain-water sucked from them. Or, when a storm is approaching a cloth or blanket may be made fast by its four corners, and a quant.i.ty of bullets thrown in the middle of it; they will cause the water that it receives, to drain to one point and trickle through the cloth, into a cup or bucket set below. A reversed umbrella will catch water; but the first drippings from it, or from clothes that have been long unwashed, as from a macintosh cloak, are intolerably nauseous and very unwholesome. It must be remembered, that thirst is greatly relieved by the skin being wetted, and therefore it is well for a man suffering from thirst, to strip to the rain. Rain-water is lodged for some days in the huge pitcher-like corollas of many tropical flowers.
Sea-water.--Lives of sailors have more than once been saved when turned adrift in a boat, by bathing frequently and keeping their clothes damp with salt-water. However, after some days, the nauseous taste of the salt-water is very perceptible in the saliva, and at last becomes unbearable; such, at least was the experience of the surgeon of the wrecked 'Pandora.'
Dew-water is abundant near the sea-sh.o.r.e, and may be collected in the same way as rain-water. The storehouse at Angra Pequena, in S. W. Africa, in 1850, was entirely supplied by the dew-water deposited on its roof.
The Australians who live near the sea, go among the wet bushes with a great piece of bark, and brush into it the dew-drops from the leaves with a wisp of gra.s.s; collecting in this way large quant.i.ties of water. Eyre used a sponge for the same purpose, and appears to have saved his life by its use.
Animal Fluids are resorted to in emergencies; such as the contents of the paunch of an animal that has been shot; its taste is like sweet-wort. Mr.
Darwin writes of people who, catching turtles, drank the water that was found in their Pericardia; it was pure and sweet. Blood will stand in the stead of solid food, but it is of no avail in the stead of water, on account of its saline qualities.
Vegetable Fluids.--Many roots exist, from which both natives and animals obtain a sufficiency of sap and pulp, to take the place of water. The traveller should inquire of the natives, and otherwise acquaint himself with those peculiar to the country that he visits; such as the roots which the eland eats, the bitter water-melon, etc.
To purify water that is muddy or putrid.--With muddy water, the remedy is to filter, and to use alum, if you have it. With putrid, to boil, to mix with charcoal, or expose to the sun and air; or what is best, to use all three methods at the same time. When the water is salt or brackish, nothing avails but distillation. (See Distilled Water,” p. 218.)
To filter Muddy Water.--When, at the watering-place, there is little else but a mess of mud and filth, take a good handful of gra.s.s or rushes, and tie it roughly together in the form of a cone, 6 or 8 inches long; then dipping the broad end into the puddle, and turning it up, a streamlet of fluid will trickle down through the small end. This excellent plan is used by the Northern Bushmen--at their wells quant.i.ties of these bundles are found lying about. (Anderson.) Otherwise suck water through your handkerchief by putting it over the mouth of your mug, or by throwing it on the gritty mess as it lies in the puddle. For obtaining a copious supply, the most perfect plan, if you have means, is to bore a cask full of auger holes, and put another small one, that has had the bottom knocked out, inside it; and then to fill the s.p.a.ce between the two, with gra.s.s, moss, etc. Sink the whole in the midst of the pond; the water will run through the auger-holes, filter through the moss, and rise in the inner cask clear of weeds and sand. If you have only a single cask, holes may be bored in the lower part of its sides, and alternate layers of sand and gra.s.s thrown in, till they cover the holes; through these layers, the water will strain. Or any coa.r.s.e bag, kept open with hoops made on the spot, may be moored in the mud, by placing a heavy stone inside; it will act on The same principle, but less efficiently than the casks. Sand, charcoal, sponge, and wood, are the substances most commonly used in properly constructed filters: peat charcoal is excellent. Charcoal acts not only as a mechanical filter for solid impurities, but it has the further advantage of absorbing putrid gases.
(See below, ”Putrid Water.”) Snow is also used as a filter in the Arctic regions. Dr. Rae used to lay it on the water, until it was considerably higher than its level, and then to suck the water through the snow.
Alum.--Turbid water is also, in some way as yet insufficiently explained, made clear by the Indian plan of putting a piece of alum into it. The alum appears to unite with the mud, and to form a clayey deposit.
Independently of the action, it has an astringent effect upon organic matters: it hardens them, and they subside to the bottom of the vessel instead of being diffused in a glairy, viscous state, throughout the water. No taste of alum remains in the water, unless it has been used in great excess. Three thimblefuls of alum will clarify a bucketful of turbid water.
Putrid Water should always be purified by boiling it together with charcoal or charred sticks, as low fevers and dysenteries too often are the consequences of drinking it. The mere addition of charcoal largely disinfects it. Bitter herbs, if steeped in putrid water, or even rubbed well about the cup, are said to render it less unwholesome. The Indians plunge hot iron into putrid water.
Thirst, to relieve.--Thirst is a fever of the palate, which may be somewhat relieved by other means than drinking fluids.
By exciting Saliva.--The mouth is kept moist, and thirst is mitigated, by exciting the saliva to flow. This can be done by chewing something, as a leaf; or by keeping in the mouth a bullet, or a smooth, non-absorbent stone, such as a quartz pebble.
By Fat or b.u.t.ter.--In Australia, Africa, and N. America, it is a frequent custom to carry a small quant.i.ty of fat or b.u.t.ter, and to eat a spoonful at a time, when the thirst is severe. These act on the irritated membranes of the mouth and throat, just as cold cream upon chapped hands.
By Salt Water.--People may live long without drinking, if they have means of keeping their skin constantly wet with water, even though it be salt or otherwise undrinkable. A traveller may tie a handkerchief wetted with salt water round his neck. See p. 223.
By checking Evaporation.--The Arabs keep their mouths covered with a cloth, in order to prevent the sense of thirst caused by the lips being parched.
By Diet.--Drink well before starting, and make a habit of drinking only at long intervals, and then, plenty at a time.
On giving Water to Persons nearly dead from Thirst.--Give a little at a time, let them take it in spoonfuls; for the large draughts that their disordered instincts suggest, disarrange the weakened stomach: they do serious harm, and no corresponding good. Keep the whole body wet.
Small Water Vessels.--General Remarks on Carrying Water.--People drink excessively in hot dry climates, as the evaporation from the skin is enormous, and must be counterbalanced. Under these circ.u.mstances the daily ration of a European is at least two quarts. To make an exploring expedition in such countries efficient, there should be means of carrying at least one gallon of water for each white man; and in unknown lands this quant.i.ty should be carried on from every watering-place, so long as means can possibly be obtained for carrying it, and should be served out thus:--two quarts on the first day, in addition to whatever private store the men may have chosen to carry for themselves; a quart and a half during the second day; and half a quart on the morning of the third, which will carry them through that day without distress. Besides water-vessels sufficient for carrying what I have mentioned, there ought to be others for the purpose of leaving water buried in the ground, as a store for the return of a reconnoitring expedition; also each man should be furnished with a small water-vessel of some kind or other for his own use, and should be made to take care of it.
Fill the Water-vessels.--”Never mind what the natives may tell you concerning the existence of water on the road, believe nothing, but resolutely determine to fill the girbas (water-vessels).” (Baker.)
Small Water-vessels.--No expedition should start without being fully supplied with these; for no bushman however ingenious, can make anything so efficient as casks, tin vessels or macintosh bags.
[Sketch of water-vessel].
A tin vessel of the shape shown in the sketch, and large enough to hold a quart, is, I believe, the easiest to carry, the cleanest, and the most durable of small water-vessels. The curve in its shape is to allow of its accommodating itself to the back of the man who carries it. The tin loops at its sides are to admit the strap by which it is to be slung, and which pa.s.ses through the loops underneath the bottom of the vessel, so that the weight may rest directly upon the strap. Lastly, the vessel has a pipette for drinking through, and a larger hole by which it is to be filled, and which at other times is stopped with a cork or wooden plug. When drinking out of the pipette, the cork must be loosened in order to admit air, like a vent hole. Macintosh bags, for wine or water, are very convenient to carry and they will remain water-tight for a long period when fairly used. (Mem.--Oil and grease are as fatal to macintosh as they are to iron rust.) But the taste that these vessels impart to their contents is abominable, not only at first but for a very long time; in two-thirds of them it is never to be got rid of. Never believe shopkeepers in an india-rubber shop, in their a.s.surances to the contrary; they are incompetent to judge aright, for their senses seem vitiated by the air they live in. The best shape for a small macintosh water-vessel has yet to be determined. Several alpine men use them; and their most recent patterns may probably best be seen at Carter's, Alpine Outfitter, Oxford Street. A flask of dressed hide (pig, goat, or dog) with a wooden nozzle, and a wooden plug to fit into it, is very good. Canvas bags, smeared with grease on the outside, will become nearly waterproof after a short soaking. A strong gla.s.s flask may be made out of a soda-water bottle; it should have raw hide shrunk upon it to preserve it from sharp taps Likely to make a crack. Calabashes and other gourds, cocoa-nuts and ostrich eggs, are all of them excellent for flasks. The Bushmen of South Africa make great use of ostrich sh.e.l.ls as water-vessels. They have stations at many places in the desert, where they bury these sh.e.l.ls filled with water, corked with gra.s.s, and occasionally waxed over. They thus go without hesitation over wide tracts, for their sense of locality is so strong that they never fear to forget the spot in which they have dug their hiding-place.