Part 27 (1/2)
[Fig. 2].
That is to say, look at your compa.s.s and start in any direction you please; we will say to the south, as represented in the drawing. Travel for a distance, P D; then supposing you have not crossed the path, turn at right angles, and start afresh--we will suppose your present direction to be west--travel for a distance 4/10 of P D, which will take you to 1; then turn to the N.W. and travel for a distance 8/10 of P D, which will take you to 2; then to the N. for a similar distance, which will take you to 3; and so on, till the octagon has been completed. If you know B to eight points, and not C, adopt the L M system; also, if you know A and C, and B to within thirteen points (out of the sixteen that form the semicircle), you may still adopt the L M system; but not otherwise. A rough diagram scratched on the ground with a stick would suffice to recall the above remarks to a traveller's recollection.
CACHES AND DEPOTS.
Caches.--It is easy enough to choose a spot, which you yourself shall again recognise, for digging a hole, where stores of all kinds may be buried against your return: neither is it difficult to choose one, so that you may indicate its position to others, or else leave it to a party who are travelling in concert, to find it out for themselves. But excessive caution in the mode of depositing the stores is, in every case, required, as hungry and thieving natives keep watch on all the movements of a party; they follow their tracks and hunt over their old camping-places, in search of anything there may be to pick up. And hyenas, wolves, wild dogs, and all kinds of prowling animals, guided by their sharp scent, will soon scratch up any provisions that are buried carelessly, or in such a way as to taint the earth.
The natives in Ceylon, when they wish to make a depot of game, jerk it, put the dry meat into the hollow of a tree, fill up the reservoir with honey, and plaster it over with clay.
Some dried plants of M. Bourgeau, the botanist attached to Captain Palliser's expedition to the Rocky Mountains, remained underground for ten months without injury.
Newly disturbed Ground sinks when Wetted.--If a cache be made in dry weather, and the ground be simply levelled over it, the first heavy rain will cause the earth to sink, and will proclaim the hidden store to an observant eye. Soldiers, in sacking a town, find out hastily-buried treasures by throwing a pailful of water over any suspected spot: if the ground sinks, it has surely been recently disturbed.
Best place for a Cache.--The best position to choose for a cache is in a sandy or gravelly soil, on account of its dryness and the facility of digging. Old burrows, or the gigantic but abandoned hills of white ants, may be thought of, if the stores are enclosed in cases of painted tin: also clefts in rocks: some things can be conveniently buried under water.
The place must be chosen under circ.u.mstances that admit of your effacing all signs of the ground having been disturbed. A good plan is to set up your tent and to dig a deep hole in the floor, depositing what you have to bury wrapped in an oil-cloth, in an earthen jar, or in a wooden vessel, according to what you are able to get. It must be secure against the attacks of the insects of the place: avoid the use of skins, for animals will smell and dig them out. Continue to inhabit the tent for at least a day, well stamping and smoothing down the soil at leisure. After this, change the position of the tent, s.h.i.+fting the tethering-place or kraal of your cattle to where it stood. They will speedily efface any marks that may be left. Travellers often make their fires over the holes where their stores are buried; but natives are so accustomed to suspect fireplaces, that this plan does not prove to be safe. During summer travel, in countries pestered with gnats, a smoke fire for the horses (that is, a fire for keeping off flies), made near the place, will attract the horses and cause them to trample all about. This is an excellent way of obliterating marks left about the cache.
Hiding Small Things.--It is easy to make a small cache by bending down a young tree, tying your bundle to the top, and letting it spring up again.
A spruce-tree gives excellent shelter to anything placed in its branches.
(See also what is said on ”Burying Letters,” p. 303.)
Hiding Large Things.--Large things, as a wagon or boat, must either be pushed into thick bushes or reeds and left to chance, or they may be buried in a sand drift or in a sandy deposit by a river side. A small reedy island is a convenient place for such caches.
Double Caches.--Some persons, when they know that their intentions are suspected, make two caches: the one with a few things buried in it, and concealed with little care; the other, containing those that are really valuable, and very artfully made. Thieves are sure to discover the first, and are likely enough to omit a further search.
To find your Store again, you should have ascertained the distance and bearing, by compa.s.s, of the hole from some marked place--as a tree--about which you are sure not to be mistaken; or from the centre of the place where your fire was made, which is a mark that years will not entirely efface. If there be anything in the ground itself to indicate the position of the hole, you have made a clumsy cache. It is not a bad plan, after the things are buried, and before the tent is removed, to scratch a furrow a couple of inches deep, and three or four feet long, and picking up any bits of stick, reeds, or straw, that may be found at hand lying upon the ground, to place them end to end in it. These will be easy enough to find again by making a cross furrow, and when found will lead you straight above the depot. They would never excite suspicion, even if a native got hold of them; for they would appear to have been dropped or blown on the ground by chance, not seen and trampled in. Mr. Atkinson mentions an ingenious way by which the boundaries of valuable mining property are marked in the Ural, a modification of which might serve for indicating caches. A trench is dug and filled with charcoal beat small, and then covered over. The charcoal lasts for ever, and cannot be tampered with without leaving an unmistakable mark.
Secreting Jewels.--Before going to a rich but imperfectly civilised country, travellers sometimes buy jewels and bury them in their flesh.
They make a gash, put the jewels in, and allow the flesh to grow over them as it would over a bullet. The operation is more sure to succeed if the jewels are put into a silver tube with rounded ends, for silver does not irritate. If the jewels are buried without the tube, they must have no sharp edges. The best place for burying them is in the left arm, at the spot chosen for vaccination. A traveller who was thus provided would always have a small capital to fall back upon, though robbed of everything he wore.
A Chain of gold is sometimes carried by Arabs, who sew it in dirty leather under their belt. They cut off and sell a link at a time.
(Burton)
The gun-stock is a good receptacle for small valuables. Unscrew the heel-plate and bore recesses; insert what you desire, after wrapping it tightly in cloth and plugging it in; then replace the heel-plate. (Peal.)
Depositing Letters.--To direct Attention to the Place of Deposit.--When you make a cache in an inhabited land, for the use of a travelling party who are ignorant of your purpose, there is of course some difficulty in ensuring that their attention should be directed to the place, but that the natives should have no clue to it. If you have means of gas.h.i.+ng, painting or burning characters, something of this sort (see fig.), they will explain themselves.
[Sketch of direction plate].
Savages, however, take such pains to efface any mark they may find left by white men, entertaining thoughts like those of Morgiana in the 'Arabian Nights' tale of the Forty Thieves, that it would be most imprudent to trust to a single mark. A relief party should therefore be provided with a branding-iron and moveable letters, and with paints, and they should mark the tree in many places. A couple of hours spent in doing this would leave more marks than the desultory efforts of roving savages would be likely to efface. A good sign to show that Europeans have visited a spot is a saw mark (no savages use saws): it catches the eye directly.
A system occasionally employed by Arctic expeditions, of making a cache 10 feet true north (and not magnetic north) from the cairn or mark, deserves to be generally employed, at least with modifications. Let me therefore suggest, that persons who find a cairn built of a tree marked, so as to attract notice, and who are searching blindly in all directions for further clue, should invariably dig out and examine that particular spot. The notice deposited there may consist of no more than a single sentence, to indicate some distant point as the place where the longer letter is buried. I hope it will be understood, that the precaution of always burying a notice 10 feet true north of the cairn mark is proposed as additional to and not in the place of other contrivances for giving information. There will often arise some doubt as to the exact point in the circ.u.mference of the cairn or mark whence the 10 feet measurement should be made. This is due to the irregularity of the bases of all such marks. Therefore, when searching for letters, a short trench, running to the north, will frequently have to be dug, and not a mere hole. I should propose that the short notice be punched or p.r.i.c.ked on a thin sheet of lead, made by pouring two or three melted bullets on a flat stone, and that the plate so made and inscribed should be rolled up and pushed into a hole bored or burnt through the head of a large tent peg. The peg could be driven deeply in the ground, quite out of sight, without disturbing the surrounding earth. It might even suffice to pick up a common stone and to scratch or paint upon it what you had to say, and to leave it on the ground, with its written face downwards, at the place in question.
To secure Buried Letters from Damp.--They may be wrapped in waxed cloth or paper, if there be no fear of the ravages of insects. Lead plate is far more safe: it can be made easily enough by a traveller out of his bullets. (See ”Lead.”) A gla.s.s bottle (with something that insects cannot eat, such as lead-plate, sealing-wax or clay, put carefully over the cork) or an earthen jar may be used. The quill of a large feather will hold a long letter, if it is written in very small handwriting and on thin paper, and it will preserve it from the wet. After the letter has been rolled up and inserted in the quill, the open end of the latter may be squeezed flat between two stones, heated sufficiently to soften the quill (see ”Horn”) but not so hot as to burn it, and then, for greater security against wet, the end of the quill should be twisted tight. Wax affords another easy means of closing the quill.
Picture-writing.--A very many excellent bushrangers are unable to read, rude picture-writing is often used by them, especialy in America. The figure of a man with a spear or bow, drawn as a child would draw, stands for a savage; one with a hat or gun for a European; horses, oxen, and sheep are equally to be drawn; lines represent numbers, and arrow-heads direction. Even without more conventional symbols, a vast deal may be expressed by rude picture-writing.
Reconnoitring Barren Countries by help of Porters and Caches.--The distance to which an explorer can attain in barren countries depends on the number of days' provisions that he can carry with him. Half of his load supports him on his way out, the other half on his way home. But if he start in company with a laden porter, he may reserve his own store and supply both himself and the porter from the pack carried by the latter.