How to Camp Out

BEDS

Time used in making a bed is well spent. Never let yourself be persuaded that humps and hollows are good enough for a tired man. If you cut boughs, do not let large sticks go into the bed: only put in the smaller twigs and leaves. Try your bed before you "turn in," and see if it is comfortable. In a permanent camp you ought to take time enough to keep the bed soft; and I like best for this purpose to carry a mattress when I can, or to take a sack and fill it with straw, shavings, boughs, or what not. This makes a much better bed, and can be taken out daily to the air and sun. By this I avoid the clutter there always is inside a tent filled with boughs; and, more than all, the ground or floor does not mould in damp weather, from the accumulation of rubbish on it.

It is better to sleep off the ground if you can, especially if you are rheumatic. For this purpose build some sort of a platform ten inches or more high, that will do for a seat in daytime. You can make a sort of spring bottom affair if you can find the poles for it, and have a little ingenuity and patience; or you can more quickly drive four large stakes, and nail a framework to them, to which you can nail boards or barrel-staves.⁹ All this kind of work must be strong, or you can have no rough-and-tumble sport on it. We used to see in the army sometimes, a mattress with a bottom of rubber cloth, and a top of heavy drilling, with rather more cotton quilted¹⁰ between them than is put into a thick comforter. Such a mattress is a fine thing to carry in a wagon when you are on the march; but you can make a softer bed than this if you are in a permanent camp.

SLEEPING

"Turn in" early, so as to be up with the sun. You may be tempted to sleep in your clothes; but if you wish to know what luxury is, take them off as you do at home, and sleep in a sheet, having first taken a bath, or at least washed the feet and limbs. Not many care to do this, particularly if the evening air is chilly; but it is a comfort of no mean order.

If you are short of bedclothes, as when on the march, you can place over you the clothes you take off (see p. 19); but in that case it is still more necessary to have a good bed underneath.

You will always do well to cover the clothes you have taken off, or they will be quite damp in the morning.

See that you have plenty of air to breathe. It is not best to have a draught of air sweeping through the tent, but let a plenty of it come in at the feet of the sleeper or top of the tent.

A hammock is a good thing to have in a permanent camp, but do not try to swing it between two tent-poles: it needs a firmer support.

Stretch a clothes-line somewhere on your camp-ground, where neither you nor your visitors will run into it in the dark.

If your camp is where many visitors will come by carriage, you will find that it will pay you for your trouble to provide a hitching-post where the horses can stand safely. Fastening to guy-lines and tent-poles is dangerous.

SINKS

In a permanent camp you must be careful to deposit all refuse from the kitchen and table in a hole in the ground: otherwise your camp will be infested with flies, and the air will become polluted. These sink-holes may be small, and dug every day; or large, and partly filled every day or oftener by throwing earth over the deposits. If you wish for health and comfort, do not suffer a place to exist in your camp that will toll flies to it. The sinks should be some distance from your tents, and a dry spot of land is better than a wet one. Observe the same rule in regard to all excrementitious and urinary matter. On the march you can hardly do better than follow the Mosaic law (see Deuteronomy xxiii. 12, 13).

In permanent camp, or if you propose to stay anywhere more than three days, the crumbs from the table and the kitchen refuse should be carefully looked after: to this end it is well to avoid eating in the tents where you live. Swarms of flies will be attracted by a very little food.

A spade is better, all things considered, than a shovel, either in permanent camp or on the march.

HOW TO KEEP WARM

When a cold and wet spell of weather overtakes you, you will inquire, "How can we keep warm?" If you are where wood is very abundant, you can build a big fire ten or fifteen feet from the tent, and the heat will strike through the cloth. This is the poorest way, and if you have only shelter-tents your case is still more forlorn. But keep the fire a-going: you can make green wood burn through a pelting storm, but you must have a quantity of it—say six or eight large logs on at one time. You must look out for storms, and have some wood cut beforehand. If you have a stove with you, a little ingenuity will enable you to set it up inside a tent, and run the funnel through the door. But, unless your funnel is quite long, you will have to improvise one to carry the smoke away, for the eddies around the tent will make the stove smoke occasionally beyond all endurance. Since you will need but little fire to keep you warm, you can use a funnel made of boards, barrel-staves, old spout, and the like. Old tin cans, boot-legs, birch-bark, and stout paper can be made to do service as elbows, with the assistance of turf, grass-ropes, and large leaves. But I forewarn you there is not much fun, either in rigging your stove and funnel, or in sitting by it and waiting for the storm to blow it down. Still it is best to be busy.

Another way to keep warm is to dig a trench twelve to eighteen inches wide, and about two feet deep, running from inside to the outside of the tent. The inside end of the trench should be larger and deeper; here you build your fire. You cover the trench with flat rocks, and fill up the chinks with stones and turf; boards can be used after you have gone a few feet from the fireplace. Over the outer end, build some kind of a chimney of stones, boxes, boards, or barrels. The fireplace should not be near enough to the side of the tent to endanger it; and, the taller the chimney is, the better it will draw if you have made the trench of good width and air-tight. If you can find a sheet-iron covering for the fireplace, you will be fortunate; for the main difficulty in this heating-arrangement is to give it draught enough without letting out smoke, and this you cannot easily arrange with rocks. In digging your trench and fireplace, make them so that the rain shall not flood them.

FIREPLACE

If flat rocks and mud are plenty, you can perhaps build a fireplace at the door of your tent (outside, of course), and you will then have something both substantial and valuable. Fold one flap of the door as far back as you can, and build one side of the fireplace against the pole,¹¹ and the other side against, or nearly over to, the corner of the tent. Use large rocks for the lower tiers, and try to have all three walls perpendicular and smooth inside. When up about three feet, or as high as the flap of the tent will allow without its being scorched, put on a large log of green wood for a mantle, or use an iron bar if you have one, and go on building the chimney. Do not narrow it much: the chimney should be as high as the top of the tent, or eddies of wind will blow down occasionally, and smoke you out. Barrels or boxes will do for the top, or you can make a cob-work of split sticks well daubed with mud. All the work of the fireplace and chimney must be made air-tight by filling the chinks with stones or chips and mud. When done, fold and confine the flap of the tent against the stonework and the mantle; better tie than nail, as iron rusts the cloth. Do not cut the tent either for this or any other purpose: you will regret it if you do. Keep water handy if there is much woodwork; and do not leave your tent for a long time, nor go to sleep with a big fire blazing.

If you have to bring much water into camp, remember that two pails carry about as easily as a single one, provided you have a hoop between to keep them away from your legs. To prevent the water from splashing, put something inside the pail, that will float, nearly as large as the top of the pail.

HUNTERS' CAMP

It is not worth while to say much about those hunters' camps which are built in the woods of stout poles, and covered with brush or the bark of trees: they are exceedingly simple in theory, and difficult in practice unless you are accustomed to using the axe. If you go into the woods without an axeman, you had better rely upon your tents, and not try to build a camp; for when done, unless there is much labor put in it, it is not so good as a shelter-tent. You can, however, cut a few poles for rafters, and throw the shelter-tent instead of the bark or brush over the poles. You have a much larger shelter by this arrangement of the tent than when it is pitched in the regular way, and there is the additional advantage of having a large front exposed to the fire which you will probably build; at the same time also the under side of the roof catches and reflects the heat downward. When you put up your tent in this way, however, you must look out not to scorch it, and to take especial care to prevent sparks from burning small holes in it. In fact, whenever you have a roaring fire you must guard against mischief from it.

Do not leave your clothes or blanket hanging near a brisk fire to dry, without confining them so that sudden gusts of wind shall not take them into the flame.

You may some time have occasion to make a shelter on a ledge or floor where you cannot drive a pin or nail. If you can get rails, poles, joists, or boards, you can make a frame in some one of the ways figured here, and throw your tents over it.

These frames will be found useful for other purposes, and it is well to remember how to make them.

CHAPTER IX

TENTS.—ARMY SHELTER-TENT (tente d'abri)

The shelter-tent used by the Union soldiers during the Rebellion was made of light duck¹² about 31-1/2 inches wide. A tent was made in two pieces both precisely alike, and each of them five feet long and five feet and two inches wide; i.e., two widths of duck. One of these pieces or half-tents was given to every soldier. That edge of the piece which was the bottom of the tent was faced at the corners with a piece of stouter duck three or four inches square. The seam in the middle of the piece was also faced at the bottom, and eyelets were worked at these three places, through which stout cords or ropes could be run to tie this side of the tent down to the tent-pin, or to fasten it to whatever else was handy. Along the other three edges of each piece of tent, at intervals of about eight inches, were button-holes and buttons; the holes an inch, and the buttons four inches, from the selvage or hem.¹³

Two men could button their pieces at the tops, and thus make a tent entirely open at both ends, five feet and two inches long, by six to seven feet wide according to the angle of the roof. A third man could button his piece across one of the open ends so as to close it, although it did not make a very neat fit, and half of the cloth was not used; four men could unite their two tents by buttoning the ends together, thus doubling the length of the tent; and a fifth man could put in an end-piece.

Light poles made in two pieces, and fastened together with ferrules so as to resemble a piece of fishing-rod, were given to some of the troops when the tents were first introduced into the army; but, nice as they were at the end of the march, few soldiers would carry them, nor will you many days.

The tents were also pitched by throwing them over a tightened rope; but it was easier to cut a stiff pole than to carry either the pole or rope.

You need not confine yourself exactly to the dimensions of the army shelter-tent, but for a pedestrian something of the sort is necessary if he will camp out. I have never seen a "shelter" made of three breadths of drilling (seven feet three inches long), but I should think it would be a good thing for four or five men to take.¹⁴ And I should recommend that they make three-sided end-pieces instead of taking additional half-tents complete, for in the latter case one-half of the cloth is useless.

Five feet is long enough for a tent made on the "shelter" principle; when pitched with the roof at a right angle it is 3-1/2 feet high, and nearly seven feet wide on the ground.

Although a shelter-tent is a poor substitute for a house, it is as good a protection as you can well carry if you propose to walk any distance. It should be pitched neatly, or it will leak. In heavy, pelting rains a fine spray will come through on the windward side. The sides should set at right angles to each other, or at a sharper angle if rain is expected.

There are rubber blankets made with eyelets along the edges so that two can be tied together to make a tent; but they are heavier, more expensive, and not much if any better; and you will need other rubber blankets to lie upon.

If you wish for a larger and more substantial covering than a "shelter," and propose to do the work yourself, you will do well to have a sailmaker or a tent-maker cut the cloth, and show you how the work is to be done. If you cannot have their help, you must at least have the assistance of one used to planning and cutting needle-work, to whom the following hints may not be lost. We will suppose heavy drilling 29-1/2 inches wide to be used in all instances.

THE A-TENT

To make an A-tent,¹⁵ draw upon the floor a straight line seven feet long, to represent the upright pole or height of the tent; then draw a line at right angles to and across the end of the first one, to represent the ground or bottom of the tent. Complete the plan by finding where the corners will be on the ground line, and drawing the two sides (roof) from the corners¹⁶ to the top of the pole-line. This triangle is a trifle larger than the front and back of the tent will be.

The cloth should be cut so that the twilled side shall be the outside of the tent, as it sheds the rain better.

Place the cloth on the floor against the ground-line, and tack it (to hold it fast) to the pole-line, which it should overlap 3/8 of an inch; then cut by the roof-line. Turn the cloth over, and cut another piece exactly like the first; this second piece will go on the back of the tent. Now place the cloth against the ground-line as before, but upon the other side of the pole, and tack it to the floor after you have overlapped the selvage of the piece first cut 3/4 of an inch. Cut by the roof-line, and turn and cut again for the back of the tent.

In cutting the four small gores for the corners, you can get all the cloth from one piece, and thus save waste, by turning and tearing it in two; these gore-pieces also overlap the longer breadths 3/4 of an inch.

The three breadths that make the sides or roof are cut all alike; their length is found by measuring the plan from corner to corner over the top; in the plan now under consideration, the distance will be nearly sixteen feet. When you sew them, overlap the breadths 3/4 of an inch the same as you do the end-breadths.

In sewing you can do no better than to run, with a machine, a row of stitching as near each selvage as possible; you will thus have two rows to each seam, which makes it strong enough. Use the coarsest cotton, No. 10 or 12.

The sides and two ends are made separately; when you sew them together care must be taken, for the edges of the ends are cut cross-grained, and will stretch very much more than the cloth of the sides (roof). About as good a seam as you can make, in sewing together the sides and ends, is to place the two edges together, and fold them outwards (or what will be downwards when the tent is pitched) twice, a quarter of an inch each time, and put two rows of stitching through if done on a machine, or one if with sail-needle and twine. This folding the cloth six-ply, besides making a good seam, strengthens the tent where the greatest strain comes. It is also advisable to put facings in the two ends of the top of the tent, to prevent the poles from pushing through and chafing.

The bottom of the tent is completed next by folding upwards and inwards two inches of cloth to make what is called a "tabling," and again folding in the raw edge about a quarter of an inch, as is usual to make a neat job. Some makers enclose a marline or other small tarred rope to strengthen the foot of the tent, and it is well to do so. One edge of what is called the "sod-cloth" is folded in with the raw edge, and stitched at the same time. This cloth, which is six to eight inches wide, runs entirely around the bottom of the tent, excepting the door-flap, and prevents a current of air from sweeping under the tent, and saves the bottom from rotting; the sod-cloth, however, will rot or wear out instead, but you can replace it much more easily than you can repair the bottom of the tent; consequently it is best to put one on.

One door is enough in an A-tent; but, if you prefer two, be sure that one at least is nicely fitted and well provided with tapes or buttons, or both: otherwise you will have a cheerless tent in windy and rainy weather. The door-flap is usually made of a strip of cloth six to nine inches wide, sewed to the selvage of the breadth that laps inside; the top of it is sewed across the inside of the other breadth, and reaches to the corner seam. Tent-makers usually determine the height of the door by having the top of the flap reach from selvage to seam as just described; the narrower the flap is, the higher the door will be. Some make the door-flap considerably wider at the bottom than at the top, and thus provide against the many annoyances that arise from one too narrow.

The loops (or "beckets" as they are called) that fasten to the tent-pins are put in one at each side of the door and at every seam. Some makers work an eyelet or put a grommet in the seam; but, in the army-tents which are made of duck, there are two eyelets worked, one on each side of the seam, and a six-thread manilla rope is run through and held in by knotting the ends.

The door is tied together by two double rows of stout tapes¹⁷ sewed on at intervals of about eighteen inches; one inside the tent ties the door-flap to the opposite breadth, and a second set outside pulls together the two selvages of the centre breadths. Do not slight this work: a half-closed door, short tapes, and a door-flap that is slapping all the time, are things that will annoy you beyond endurance.

The upright poles of a tent such as has been described should be an inch or two more than seven feet, for the cloth will stretch. If you have a sod-cloth, the poles should be longer still.¹⁸