Part 17 (1/2)

The dressing-room was where my fis.h.i.+ng waders are hanging up to dry, together with my shaving-gla.s.s, hat, and holdalls.

Over the cot are hanging my overcoat and moccasins and towel. My drawing-room was the rug on which I sit, my writing-case lying there ready for use.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MY CAMP RESIDENCE IN NORWAY. My cot-tent will be seen in the centre of the picture.]

My bath was down below, through the trees, in the river!

My whole house was carpeted with a beautiful soft springy moss, so dry that a match dropped on to it would soon set the whole forest in a blaze.

So we had to be very careful about our camp fire.

THE CAMP FIRE.

We made our kitchen near the river, where this dry moss did not grow.

A camp fire for cooking is not a bonfire. A tenderfoot never remembers this; but an old campaigner can be recognised by the smallness of his fire; he does not waste fuel. In the woods there may be plenty of timber, but he is not going to waste time, energy, and axes in cutting down piles of firewood when he can make a few handfuls do equally well; and if he is out on the plains where firewood is almost unknown, he has to do with a few roots of gra.s.s, or bits of cow-dung, etc.

Then a big roaring fire, though it looks very cheery, sends off sparks, and in dry camping weather these are very dangerous, whether in the woods, or on the heather, or among the gra.s.s.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MY CAMP KITCHEN.]

We began our fire by, first of all, collecting a heap of firewood, chiefly dead branches from trees; then by laying a few shreds of birch-bark between two good flat stones of equal height (about six inches), and on these we laid a few bits and splinters of dry wood taken from the inside of a dead tree, and on that just two or three small dry sticks, and then set it alight. As it burnt we gradually added more small sticks till it was a good strong little fire, then we added more and more sticks, the object being to get the s.p.a.ce between the stones gradually full of glowing red-hot bits of wood to give heat to the cooking pots, which we then stood on the two stones so as to bridge over the fire.

The great art is to begin with a very _small_ fire and a _very_ dry one. You can then add to its size as you please later on, and when it is going strong you can add damper wood if dry wood is scarce. Birch-bark cannot be found everywhere, but it is the best of lighting tinder when you have it.

The channel between the stones is much better if laid so as to face the breeze. The fire can then be kept going at the mouth of it, and the heat will blow through; a bigger kind of log can be put in from the other end to catch fire and add to the heat in the channel.

Of course, there are plenty of other ways of making fires, which you can read about in _Scouting for Boys_, but this is the particular kind of cooking fire that we used in my Norwegian camp.

At night, when we had cooked our supper and the night was getting chilly, of course, we put on big logs laid across each other, and so got a big, star-shaped fire to make a blaze to warm us,

But we kept a good watch on any sparks to see that they didn't touch the moss or heather, and when we turned in, we trod out the fire and poured water over the whole of the ashes, so as to prevent any chance of embers blowing out into flame again during the night and setting light to the gra.s.s.

Scouts cannot be too careful in this matter, especially in England, where landowners are very good at lending their ground to troops for camping, but are naturally very nervous all the time lest by some carelessness a gra.s.s fire may get started, and thousands of pounds'

worth of timber or property get burnt.

Early in the morning we were to leave our rest-house near the railway in order to drive (and partly to walk) to the place where we were going to make our headquarters. This was forty-nine kilometres distant. How many miles is that?

As kilometres are generally used abroad for telling distances, a Scout ought to know how to compare the two and here is a simple way of doing it: Multiply your number of kilometres by five and divide the result by eight, and you will have the number of miles. Thus:

We want to know how many miles our forty-nine kilometres are.

49 5 --- 8)245 --- 30 5/8 or about 30 1/2 miles.

As I have said, we were to leave early, but we found that the Norwegian idea of early is not so very early as with us in England.

They thought eight o'clock breakfast very early, and the cart, which was supposed to start at nine, did not get away till 10:30.

It was a little ramshackle sort of dogcart with a very high seat, which just gave standing room for us among our baggage, while the boy in charge of the pony hung on as best he could behind.