Handbook for Light Artillery

by A. B. Dyer

Salt, sugar, coffee, and beans are double-sacked, and lashed in one-hundred-pound packages. Bacon, in one-hundred-pound packages, is packed in from five to eight pounds of clean straw or hay, double-sacked and lashed firmly.

The yeast-powder cases should be opened and hay or straw stuffed closely around the boxes to prevent shaking, and, with other articles, lashed into one-hundred-pound packages.

Each cargo is in two side-packs of about one hundred to one hundred and twenty-five pounds each, and should match in size, shape, and weight as nearly as practicable, each side-pack having, as nearly as may be, the following proportions: width one half more than thickness, length nearly one half more than the width; e. g., 12 inches by 18 inches by 25 inches.

All the salt, sugar, coffee, and beans should not be placed in one cargo. Ammunition should be in cargoes.

Pads or cushions of hay 26 inches by 44 inches may be placed under the cincha to keep long and rough packs from the animal's hips and shoulders.

TO LOAD CARGO.

The packers should work by threes, designated Nos. 1, 2, and 3. No. 1 is on the near side, No. 2 on the off side of the mule; when No. 3 works with No. 1 he is nearest the croup; when with No. 2 he is opposite the mule's shoulders.

The mule is placed near to and with its left side next to the cargo by No. 2, who then puts on the blind.

No. 1, on the near side, passes the centre of the sling-rope over the saddle to the off side far enough to allow the rope to pass over the off-side pack and come back within his reach, the parts of the rope separated by six to twelve inches. Nos. 2 and 3 take the off-side pack, place it well up on the saddle; No. 2 grasps the loop of the sling-rope with his right hand, brings the rope up against the pack and lets the loop drop over his right shoulder in readiness to pass it over the pack; No. 2 holds the pack in place.

No. 3 passes to the near side and with No. 1 takes the near-side pack and places it, flat side next the mule, well up on the saddle, lapping the upper edge well over the upper edge of the off-side pack. No. 1, with his back to the mule's shoulder, takes the end of the front part of the sling-rope, passes it from the outside through the loop, and pulls it down with the right hand; he now grasps the rear end of the sling-rope with the left hand, and ties the ends together in a square bow-knot, the packs high up.