How to Camp Out | Page 4

A haversack is almost indispensable in all pedestrian tours. Even if you
have your baggage in a wagon, it is best to wear one, or some sort of a
small bag furnished with shoulder straps, so that you can carry a lunch,
writing materials, guide-book, and such other small articles as you
constantly need. You can buy a haversack at the stores where
sportsmen's outfits are sold; or you can make one of enamel-cloth or
rubber drilling, say eleven inches deep by nine wide, with a strap of the
same material neatly doubled and sewed together, forty to forty-five
inches long, and one and three-quarters inches wide. Cut the back piece
about nineteen inches long, so as to allow for a flap eight inches long to
fold over the top and down the front. Sew the strap on the upper corners
of the back piece, having first sewed a facing inside, to prevent its
tearing out the back.

WOOLLEN BLANKET.
Next in the order of necessities is a woollen blanket,--a good stout one,
rather than the light or flimsy one that you may think of taking. In
almost all of the Northern States the summer nights are apt to be chilly;
while in the mountainous regions, and at the seaside, they are often
fairly cold. A lining of cotton drilling will perhaps make a thin blanket
serviceable. This lining does not need to be quite as long nor as wide as
the blanket, since the ends and edges of the blanket are used to tuck
under the sleeper. One side of the lining should be sewed to the blanket,
and the other side and the ends buttoned; or you may leave off the end
buttons. You can thus dry it, when wet, better than if it were sewed all
around. You can lay what spare clothing you have, and your
day-clothes, between the lining and blanket, when the night is very
cold.
In almost any event, you will want to carry a spare shirt; and in cold
weather you can put this on, when you will find that a pound of shirt is
as warm as two pounds of overcoat.
If you take all I advise, you will not absolutely need an overcoat, and
can thus save carrying a number of pounds.
The tent question we will discuss elsewhere; but you can hardly do
with less than a piece of shelter-tent. If you have a larger kind, the man
who carries it must have some one to assist him in carrying his own
stuff, so that the burden may be equalized.
If you take tent-poles, they will vex you sorely, and tempt you to throw
them away: if you do not carry them, you will wonder when night
comes why you did not take them. If your tent is not large, so that you
can use light ash poles, I would at least start with them, unless the tent
is a "shelter," as poles for this can be easily cut.
You will have to carry a hatchet; and the kind known as the axe-pattern
hatchet is better than the shingling-hatchet for driving tent-pins. I may
as well caution you here not to try to drive tent-pins with the flat side of
the axe or hatchet, for it generally ends in breaking the handle,--quite

an accident when away from home.
For cooking-utensils on a trip like that we are now proposing, you will
do well to content yourself with a frying-pan, coffee-pot, and perhaps a
tin pail; you can do wonders at cooking with these.
We will consider the matter of cooking and food elsewhere; but the
main thing now is to know beforehand where you are going, and to
learn if there are houses and shops on the route. Of course you must
have food; but, if you have to carry three or four days' rations in your
haversack, I fear that many of my young friends will fail to see the
pleasure of their trip. Yet carry them if you must: do not risk starvation,
whatever you do. Also remember to always have something in your
haversack, no matter how easy it is to buy what you want.
I have now enumerated the principal articles of weight that a party must
take on a walking-tour when they camp out, and cook as they go. If the
trip is made early or late in the season, you must take more clothing. If
you are gunning, your gun, &c., add still more weight. Every one will
carry towel, soap, comb, and toothbrush.
Then there is a match-safe (which should be air-tight, or the matches
will soon spoil), a box of salve, the knives, fork, spoon, dipper,
portfolio, paper, Testament, &c. Every man also has something in
particular that "he wouldn't be without for