The Art of Travel Part 16

a Amacou, punk, or German tinder, is made from a kind of fungus or mushroom that grows on the trunks of old oaks, ashes, beeches, etc.; many other kinds of fungus, and, I believe, all kinds of puff-b.a.l.l.s, will also make tinder. "It should be gathered in August or September, and is prepared by removing the outer bark with a knife, and separating carefully the spongy yellowish ma.s.s that lies within it. This is cut into thin slices, and beaten with a mallet to soften it, till it can easily be pulled asunder between the fingers. It is then boiled in a strong solution of saltpetre."

A Roll of Rag.--Cotton rag will easily take fire from the spark from a flint, in a very dry climate, if well struck. It must be rolled up moderately tight, so as to have the end of the roll fluffy; the rag having been torn, not cut. A rag rolled in this way is not bad tinder, if the sparks are strong, and one commences to blow it the instant one of the fibres is seen to be alight. If its fluffy end be rubbed into a little dry gunpowder, its property as tinder is greatly improved.

Cotton Lamp-wick.--A piece of it drawn through a tin tube, to s.h.i.+eld the previously charred part from being rubbed off, is excellent in dry climates. (See fig. 1, p. 180.)

Touch-paper is merely paper dipped in a solution of saltpetre, or what comes to nearly the same thing and is somewhat better, paper smeared with damp gunpowder until it is blackened. Some grains of uncrushed gunpowder should be left adhering to the paper, and a few more should be allowed to lie loosely upon it. Unsized paper, like that out of a blotting-book, is the best suited for making into touch-paper; paper is rendered unsized by being well soaked and washed in water. (See next paragraph.)

Saltpetre for Tinder.--In all cases the presence of saltpetre makes tinder burn more hotly and more fiercely; and saltpetre exists in such great quant.i.ties in the ashes of many plants (as tobacco, dill, maize, sunflower), that these can be used, just as they are, in the place of it.

Thus, if the ashes of a cigar be well rubbed into a bit of paper, they convert it into touch-paper. So will gunpowder, for out of four parts of it, three are saltpetre; damaged gunpowder may be used for making touch-paper. If it be an object to prepare a store of tinder, a strong solution of saltpetre in water should be obtained, and the paper, or rags, or fungus, dipped into it and hung to dry. This solution may be made by pouring a little water on a charge of gunpowder, or on the ashes above-mentioned, which will dissolve the saltpetre out of them. Boiling water makes a solution forty-fold stronger than ice-cold water, and about eight times stronger than water at 60 degrees Fahr.

Hair of Plants.--The silky down of a particular willow (S. lanata) was used by the Esquimaux, with whom Dr. Kane had intercourse; and the botanist Dr. Lindley once informed me that he had happened to receive a piece of peculiarly excellent tinder that was simply the hair of a tree-fern. The Gomuti tinder of the Eastern Archipelago is the hair of a palm.

Pith.--Many kinds of pith are remarkable as tinders; that whence the well-known pith hats are made, is used as tinder in India. Pieces of pith are often sewn round with thin cotton or silk, so as to form a long cord, like the cotton lamp-wick I have described above, and they are carried in tubes for the same reason.

b. We now come to the different kinds of tinder that fall into our second division, namely, those that are too friable to bear handling.

Rags.--Charred linen rags make the tinder that catches fire most easily, that burns most hotly when blown upon, and smoulders most slowly when left to itself, of any kind of tinder that is generally to be obtained.

In making it the rags are lighted, and when in a blaze and before they are burnt to white ashes, the flame is stifled out. It is usual to make this kind of tinder in the box intended to hold it; but it can easily be made on the ground in the open air, by setting light to the rag, and dropping pinches of sand upon the flaming parts as soon as it is desired to quench them. The sand is afterwards brushed away, and the tinder gently extricated.

Touch-wood is an inferior sort of tinder, but is always to be met with in woody countries.

Dry Dung.--Dry and powdered cattle dung--especially horse-dung--will take a spark, but with trouble. After it is lighted it can be kept burning with little difficulty.

Tinder-boxes.--There are three ways of striking a flint, which are best explained by sketches. Fig. 1, p. 180, shows how tinder that is tough enough to bear handling, is grasped together with the flint. When no tinder-box is at hand the more friable kinds of tinder, as touch-wood, may be enveloped in a roll of rag and be used either as in fig. 1 or in fig 3. Fig. 2 shows how tinder may be laid on the ground, and how sparks may be struck upon it. The household tinder-boxes of thirty years ago, before lucifers were invented, were for use in this way. Fig. 3 shows how sparks may be struck into a small tinder-box. It is the method most commonly adopted by travellers: for instance, it is universally used in South Africa and in North America. A hollow cylinder of wood or metal, about three inches long, and corked up at one end, is all that is essential. If it be barrel-shaped the flint lies against its sides, at the most convenient angle for striking sparks into the box, as is shown by the bottom drawing of fig. 3.

[Fig 2 and 3 as described].

Wet Weather.--In long-continued soaking weather, the best way of keeping a tinder-box dry is to put it into a small pocket hung close under the armpit.

Fuel.--Firewood.--There is a knack in finding firewood. It should be looked for under bushes; the stump of a tree that is rotted nearly to the ground has often a magnificent root, fit to blaze throughout the night.

Dry Cattle-dung.--The dry dung of cattle and other animals, as found on the ground, is very generally used throughout the world, in default of better fuel, and there is nothing whatever objectionable in employing it.

The Canadians call it by the apt name of "Bois de Vache." In North and South Africa it is frequently used; throughout a large part of Armenia and of Thibet the natives rely entirely upon it. There is a great convenience in this sort of fuel; because, as it is only in camps that fuel is wanted, so it is precisely at old encamping-places that cattle-dung is abundantly found.

Bones.--Another remarkable subst.i.tute for firewood is bones; a fact which Mr. Darwin was, I believe, the first to mention. The bones of an animal, when freshly killed, make good fuel; and even those of cooked meat, and such as have been exposed to the air for some days, will greatly increase the heat of a scanty fire. Their smell is not disagreeable: it is simply that of roast or burnt meat. In the Falkland Islands, where firewood is scarce, it is not unusual to cook part of the meat of a slaughtered bull with its own bones. When the fire is once started with a few sticks, it burns well and hotly. The flame of course depends on the fat within the bones, and therefore the fatter the animal the better the fire. During the Russian campaign in 1829, the troops suffered so severely from cold at Adrianople, that the cemeteries were ransacked for bones for fuel.

(Moltke, in the Appendix.)

Sea-weed makes a hot though not a cheerful fire. It is largely used. The vraic or sea-weed gatherers of the Channel Islands are represented in many picturesque sketches. The weed is carted home, spread out, and dried.

Peat.--Travellers must bear in mind that peat will burn, especially as the countries in which it is found are commonly dest.i.tute of firewood; and, besides that, are marshy, cold, and aguish.

Charcoal is frequently carried by travellers in sacks; they use a prepared charcoal in the East, which is made in the form of very large b.u.t.tons, that are carried strung together on a string. An Indian correspondent informs me that they are made by mixing powdered charcoal with mola.s.ses, in the proportion of ten to one, or thereabouts, rolling the ma.s.s into b.a.l.l.s, and drying them in the sun. A single ball is called a "gul." They are used for igniting hookhas: they are also burnt inside the smoothing-iron used by washermen in order to heat it. The juice or sap of many plants would probably answer the purpose of mola.s.ses in their preparation.

Small Fuel for lighting the Fire.--Shreds and Fibres.--The live spark has to be received and partly enclosed, in a loose heap or nest of finely-shredded fuel. The substances for making such a nest, are one or other of the following list:--

Dry gra.s.s of the finest kinds: leaves: moss: lichen, and wild cotton; stalks or bark, broken up and rubbed small between the fingers; peat or cattle-dung pulverised; paper that has been doubled up in many folds and then cut with a sharp knife into the finest possible shavings; tow, or what is the same thing, oak.u.m, made by unravelling rope or string; and sc.r.a.pings and fine shavings from a log of wood. The shreds that are intended to touch the live spark should be reduced to the finest fibre; the outside of the nest may be of coa.r.s.er, but still of somewhat delicate material.

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.