First tear off a bit of your shirt and rub it with moistened
gunpowder. Wind this in a thick roll round your ramrod just
below the point of the screw, with the rough torn edge uppermost.
Into these numerous folds sprinkle a pinch of gunpowder; then put
a cap on the point of the screw, and a slight tap with your
hunting-knife explodes it and ignites the linen.
Now, fire in its birth requires nursing like a young baby, or it
will leave you in the lurch. A single spark will perhaps burn
your haystacks, but when you want a fire it seldom will burn, out
of sheer obstinacy; therefore, take a wisp of dry grass, into
which push the burning linen and give it a rapid, circular motion
through the air, which will generally set it in a blaze.
Then pile gently upon it the smallest and driest sticks,
increasing their size as the fire grows till it is all right; and
you will sit down proudly before your own fire, thoroughly
confident that you are the first person that ever made one
properly.
There is some comfort in that; and having manufactured your own
house and bed, you will lie down snugly and think of dinner till
you fall asleep, and the crowing of the jungle-cocks will wake
you in the morning.
The happiest hours of my life have been passed in this rural
solitude. I have started from home with nothing but a couple of
blankets and the hounds, and, with one blanket wrapped round me I
have slept beneath a capital tent formed of the other with two
forked sticks and a horizontal pole - the ends of the blanket
being secured by heavy stones, thus-
This is a more comfortable berth than it may appear at first
sight, especially if one end is stopped up with boughs. The
ridge-pole being only two feet and a half high, renders it
necessary to crawl in on all-fours; but this lowness of ceiling
has its advantages in not catching the wind, and likewise in its
warmth. A blanket roof, well secured and tightly strained, will
keep off the heaviest rain for a much longer period than a common
tent; but in thoroughly wet weather any woven roof is more or
less uncomfortable.
I recollect a certain bivouac in the Angora patinas for a few
days' hunting, when I was suddenly seized with a botanical fit in
a culinary point of view, and I was determined to make the jungle
subscribe something toward the dinner. To my delight, I
discovered some plants which, from the appearance of their
leaves, I knew were a species of wild yam; they grew in a ravine
on the swampy soil of a sluggish spring, and the ground being
loose, I soon grubbed them up and found a most satisfactory
quantity of yams about the size of large potatoes - not bad
things for dinner.
