MARKS FOR THE WAY-SIDE.
Marks on Trees--Cutting Marks.--A very excellent "tree-line" is made by cutting deep notches in a line of trees, starting from some conspicuous object, so that the notches will face the men that are to be guided by it: the trees must be so selected that three, or at least two of them, are in sight at once. The notch or sliced bark of a tree is called a "blaze" in bush language. These blazed trees are of much use as finger-posts on a dark night. They are best made by two persons; one chipping the trees on his right, and the other those on his left. If the axes are quite sharp, they only need to be dropped against the tree in order to make the chip. Doing so, hardly retards a person in his walking. Another way more suitable to some kinds of forests, is to strike the knife into the left side of the tree, to tear down a foot of bark, and to leave the bark hanging, for a double extent of white surface is shown in this way. Also, to break down tops of saplings and leave them hanging: the undersides of the leaves being paler than the upper, and the different lines of the reversed foliage make a broken bush to look unnatural among health trees, and it quickly arrests the attention. If you want a tree to be well-scored or slashed, so as to draw attention to it without fail, fire bullets into it, as into a mark, and let the natives cut them out in their own way, for the sake of the lead. They will effect your purpose admirably, without suspecting it.
Stamping Marks on Trees.--The keepers of some of the communal forests in Switzerland are provided with small axes, having the back of the axe-head worked into a large and sharp die, the impression of the die being some letter or cipher indicating the commune. When these foresters wish to mark a tree, they give it first a slice with the edge of the axe, and then (turning the axe) they deal it a heavy blow with the back of the axe-head. By the first operation they prepare a clean surface for their mark; and, by the second, they stamp their cipher deeply into the wood.
Branding Trees.--Some explorers take branding irons, and use them to mark each of their camping-places with its number. This is especially useful in Australian travel, where the country is monotonous, and there are few natives to tell the names of places.
Faggot hung to a Tree.--A bundle of grass or twigs about 2 feet long, slung by its middle athwart a small tree, at the level of the eye, by the side of a path, is well calculated to catch the attention. Its lines are so different to those seen elsewhere in the forest, that it would be scarcely possible to overlook it.
Boat or Canoe Routes through lakes well studded with islands, can be well marked by trimming conspicuous trees until only a tuft of branches is left at the top. This is called, in the parlance of the "Far West," a "lopstick."
Wooden Crosses.--A simple structure like fig. 1 is put together with a single nail or any kind of lashing. It catches the attention immediately.
Marks with Stones.--Marks cut on Stone.--I have observed a very simple and conspicuous permanent mark used in forest-roads, as represented in fig. 2. The stone is 8 inches above ground, 3 1/2 wide, 8 inches long: the mark is black and deeply cut. An arrow-head may be chiselled in the face of a rock and filled with melted lead. With a small "cold" chisel, 3 inches long and 1/4 inch wide, a great deal of stone carving may be readily effected.
Piles of Stones.--Piles of stones are used by the Arabs in their deserts, and in most mountain-tracts. "An immense length of the road, both in the government of the Don Cossacks and in that of Tambov, is marked out on a gigantic scale by heaps of stones, varying from 4 to 6 feet high. These are visible from a great distance; and it is very striking to see the double row of them indicating the line of route over the Great Steppe - undulations which often present no other trace of the hand of man." (Spottiswoode.)
Gipsy Marks.--When gipsies travel, the party that goes in advance leaves marks at cross-roads, in order to guide those who follow. These marks are called "patterans;" there are three patterans in common use. One is to pluck three large handfuls of grass and to throw them on the ground, at a short distance from one another, in the direction taken; another is, to draw a cross on the ground, with one arm much longer than the rest, as a pointer--a cross is better than any other simple mark, for it catches many different lights. (In marking a road, do not be content with marking the dust--an hour's breeze or a shower will efface it; but take a tent-peg, or sharpened stick, and fairly break into the surface, and your mark will be surprisingly durable.) The third of the gipsy patterans is of especial use in the dark: a cleft stick is planted by the road-side, close to the hedge, and in the cleft, is an arm like a signpost. The gipsies feel for this at cross-roads, searching for it on the left-hand side. (Borrow's 'Zincali.') A twig, stripped bare, with the exception of two or three leaves at its end, is sometimes laid on the road, with its bared end pointing forwards.
Other similar marks of direction and locality, in use in various parts of the world are as follows:--Knotting twigs; breaking boughs, and letting them dangle down; a bit of white paper in a cleft stick; spilling water, or liquid of any kind, on the pathway; a litter made of paper torn into small shreds, or of a stick cut into chips, or of feathers of a bird; a string, with papers knotted to it, like the tail of a boy's kite--tie a stone to the end of it, and throw it high among the branches of a tree.
Paint.--Whitewash (which see), when mixed with salt, or grease, or glue size, will stand the weather for a year or more. It can be painted on a tree or rock: the rougher the surface on which it is painted, the longer will some sign of it remain.
Black for Inscriptions is made by mixing lamp-black (which see) with some kind of size, grease, wax, or tar. Dr. Kane, having no other material at hand, once burnt a large K with gunpowder on the side of a rock. It proved to be a durable and efficient mark. When letters are chiselled in a rock, they should be filled with black to make them more conspicuous.
Blood leaves a mark of a dingy hue, that remains long upon a light-coloured, absorbent surface, as upon the face of sandy rocks.