Knives.--Hunting-knife.--A great hunting-knife is a useless
encumbrance: no old sportsman or traveller cares to encumber himself with
one; but a butcher's knife, carried in a sheath, is excellent, both from
its efficient shape, the soft quality of The steel, its lightness, and
the strong way in which the blade is set in the haft.
Pocket-knife.--If a traveller wants a pocket-knife full of all kinds of
tools, he had best order a very light one of 2 3/4 inches long, in a
tortoise-shell handle, without the usual turnscrew at the end. It should
have a light "picker" to shut over its back; this will act as a
strike-light, and a file also, if its under surface be properly
roughened. Underneath the picker, there should be a small triangular
borer, for making holes in leather, and a gimlet. The front of the knife
should contain a long, narrow pen-blade of soft steel; a cobbler's awl,
slightly bent; and a packing-needle with a large eye, to push thongs and
twine through holes in leather. Between the tortoise-shell part of the
handle and the metal frame of the knife, should be a space to contain
three flat thin pieces of steel, turning on the same pivot. The ends of
these are to be ground to form turnscrews of brass instruments: when this
excellent contrivance is used, it must be opened out like the letter T,
the foot of which represents the turnscrew in use and the horizontal part
represents the other two turnscrews, which serve as the handle.
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