The herald., 1898-02-13
II

| lIldL Will Apply " ali u ldNCi anu NdilP-
ing that one never thinks of until one
has wasted much time and patience.
Suppose, for instance, you have fifty
pounds of oat meal down on your list.
You would probably bother with the
extra bulk over many a league of hard
road without it ever occurring to you
that running it through the coffee mill
in your grocery store just once would
reduce it to less than half it's bulk and
not damage it in the least for food. In
the same way one will carry so many
pounds of water and tin when he carries
canned meat. And even dried meat
should be pressed into as near solid
cakes as will be safe from spelling. Well
seasoned bologna sausage specially
made according to taste, heavily smoked,
and we'll dried can be pressed solid
enough for building blocks without
danger of spelling, and will be about
the most solid thing you could carry.
There ought to be on the market dried
meat ground and pressed into cakes.
| but do not know of any. For party
intending to carry large amount for
long time it would not be much of q
task to kiln dry beef and grind and press
| it. Well seasoned and kept dry it will
last almost forever. The difference in
freight alone should repay the cost, to
say nothing of the convenience. Meat
so fixed can be eaten dry like hard
tack, and also makes fine stew with
| evaporated vegetables.
| If you will set your wits to work
you can apply like principles to many
things that will enable you to carry
twice the amount in nearly half the
space you otherwise would. The be-
setting sin of all green campers is taking
too much and too many things One
says, 81 am not going to live like hog
because I am going out of civilization" ."
He ends up by having everything so
'mussy" that he is living far more like
hog than if he had left half the rub
| bish home. Stanley bears the reputation
| of being the greatest of modern travel
ers. He certainly is How he ever got
| through Africa with that stupendous
mass of rubbish is mystery. There
are thousands of men in America and
| especially in Mexico who would have
| laughed at half his troubles. If you
want trouble make it your study to see
| what you want to take. If you want
comfort study what you can leave be-
hind. Throw out every surplus knife,
| spoon, plate, bottle, can and everything
bulky, clumsy, hard to pack, or liable
to spoil or get 'mussy," like canned milk
Go without any milk, and you might do
we'll to leave the sugar and butter be-
hind.
For you will find this principle to hold
good. If there are half decent facli-
ties FOR packing you will find milk and
sugar and butter there about as cheap
as you could carry them. If there are no
such facilities, if it is impossible to get
such things in at a reasonable price it
| will be because the road is so difficult
that you will yourself need every atom
of horse energy to get in the absolute
necessaries. After going without
sugar. milk and butter few days you
will never miss them, and they take
much more weight and room in proper
tion to their nourishing power than
many other things. 1 would as soon
| think of carrying eggs on such a trip.
The same principles may be applied to
long list, and though you may at first
groan over the deprivation, in the end
you will be a great gamer if you are in
any such bad country to travel as Alaska
has been represented.
| Another thing to avoid as much as pos
sible is too many packages, even of the
best things. For instnace, butter, sugar
| and milk would make at least three
packages. The same amount of bulk
and weight put into so much more
| bacon, beans or flour would not only be
| more substantial but would not increase
| so much the number and clumsiness of
the packages. But If you must have
| more variety use the space with choco-
| late, old dry cheese or similar substan-
| tial stuff. Few things equal chocolate
weight for weight and bulk for bulk,
| though like cheese it cannot be used
| long without something else. Whether
| you do most of your packing on foot
or on horses you will in any event find
| you have too much stuff and in too many
| packages, and that they are most all
| too clumsy The amount of time lost
| in packing and unpacking every day
on long trip, to say nothing of the
wear and tear on patience, is very great.
| Few things bother the novice like
packing a horse so that the pack will
stay we'll on rough ground, and it is one
of the things that are not very easy
to explain, except by an object lesson
The main thing is to have good pack
animals to start with, animals that will
follow the train without everlasting
chasing. and that will keep a trail, in
stead of always trying to make a new
one for themselves. Animals raised in
the city, that have had no experience in
rough country, are as helpless wretches
in mountains as one can imagine, and
| if you allow anyone to sell you such
stock you may have trouble. If they
do not understand the picket rope,
horses may burn their fetlocks and lame
themselves badly the first night out, and
do all manner of tricks when they get
on very rough ground.
Tying a horse by the fetlock is trick
that is often very useful. A very small
rope tied in a bowline knot to the fore
foot in this way will hold any horse,
provided he does not get running under
full headway before he understands it,
AS soon as he finds out it is there he
will never pull twenty pounds on it and
can be tied with a handkerchief and a
bit of twine.
| The diamond hitch, about which so
much fuss is made, is a fine thing to
make tenderfoot think high priced
guide is earning his money, but very
poor thing for a novice to begin stern
business with. 1t is first-c class hitch,
but no better in any way than the Mex
lean hitch, which you can learn in ten
minutes. get perfect on the third or