It is convenient to pin the sides of
the cloth with a skewer round the ropes. Any strip of wood makes a
skewer. Earth should be banked against the lowest edge of the cloth, to
keep out the wind, and to prevent its flapping. The sticks may, on an
emergency, be replaced by faggots of brushwood, by guns, or by ropes
carried down from the overhanging branches of a large tree. (For a sail
supported by oars, see "Sail Tent" p. 108.)
Fremont, the American traveller bivouacked as follows:--His rifles were
tied together near the muzzles, the butts resting on the ground widely
apart; a knife was laid on the rope that tied them together, to cut it in
case of an alarm; over this extempore framework was thrown a large
india-rubber cloth, with which he covered his packs when on the road; it
made a cover sufficiently large to receive about half of his bed, and was
a place of shelter for his instruments.
Gordon Cumming.--The following extract is from Mr. Gordon Cumming's book
on Africa: it describes the preparations of a practised traveller for a
short excursion from his wagons away into the bush. "I had at length got
into the way of making myself tolerably comfortable in the field, and
from this date I seldom went in quest of elephants without the following
impedimenta, i.e. a large blanket, which I folded and secured before my
saddle as a dragoon does his cloak, and two leather sacks, containing a
flannel shirt, warm trousers, and a woollen night-cap, spare ammunition,
washing-rod, coffee, bread, sugar, pepper and salt, dried meat, a wooden
bowl, and a tea-spoon.
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