Almost of more importance than either food or kitchen gear is the sportsman’s ‘sleeping outfit,’ if I may use the jargon of the camp.
The common A tent is the one most used in America, but probably there is nothing better than that known as Whymper’s Alpine tent, made of Willesden canvas, as recommended in ‘Hints to Travellers.’ For extremely rough work I have used a little ‘tente d’abri’ into which we had to crawl on our hands and knees, but which held two men, kept them dry, and weighed with poles, pegs, ropes, and a bag to pack it in, only nineteen pounds.
I am inclined to think that even this weight might be lessened if required. But whatever the tent you use, you should in all cases have a floor to fit it, rather larger than the ground covered by the tent, and made of some stout waterproof material. This floor may be made to attach to the sides of the tent if so desired.
A sleeping bag or blankets must be taken for each person, and if blankets are used, three pairs of four-point Hudson Bay blankets if properly arranged will suffice to keep a man fairly warm, even with the thermometer 10° below zero. But they must be properly arranged, and to do this one pair of blankets should be sewn up at the bottom, along the whole of one side, and halfway up the other side, the other half to be fitted with tapes or buttons. This makes a kind of bag which effectually prevents a man from throwing off his clothes in his sleep, and keeps out those bitter little draughts which otherwise so annoyingly creep in and dispel the soundest slumbers. An inflatable air-cushion is light to pack, and handy either as a pillow or as a seat in camp. The air-cushion makes a better seat than pillow, for which the writer always uses a canvas bag packed with spare clothes, flannels, &c., carried inside the roll of blankets. The sleeping bag made of blankets, with an outside covering of tarpaulin to lace up over the blankets, and with a hood or pillow-case of tarpaulin attached to hold pillow or canvas clothes-bag, is the most convenient outfit of the kind for America. Before leaving the subject of beds, a subject of the utmost moment to the hunter, let me point out that one of the most comfortable and simplest of camp bedsteads may be made thus. Let your manteau measure 6 ft. 6 ins. by 4 ft., and let it be made of the strongest waterproof canvas, two pieces of equal size being sewn together so as to make an endless sack. In this form your manteau will do duty as a cover for the packs by day, and at night you can cut two thin poles about 7 ft. 6 ins. long, pass them lengthwise through this endless sack, take two logs about a foot in diameter and 5 ft. or more in length, and cut notches in them 4 ft. apart; then set one at your feet and one at your head, stretch out your manteau and rest the ends of the poles in the notches, and in ten minutes you will have made yourself a spring mattress above the reach of the damp. If, however, you are content with a brush bed—and the sweet aromatic balsam boughs should be good enough for any man—cut only the smaller boughs and arrange them in rows, the points of each row overlapping and covering the thick and hard butts of the row above. Hemlock makes the best of all bedding, and keeps out damp better than any other brush. It is a good plan before finally arranging your bed to lie down on it, find out where your hip-bone comes, and dig out a hollow for it to fit into. Anyone who has slept upon a hard and absolutely level surface will understand why this is recommended.
Finally, as to clothing, I have ventured to recommend a list of simple necessaries, more as a hint to those preparing for an expedition than as a rule for their guidance. In his choice of clothes, every man will to a certain extent follow his own fancy, but there are some few things essential to health, and others essential to success. For still hunting in timber I consider moccasins, or at any rate tennis shoes, essential. For a tender-footed man tennis shoes with thick red india-rubber soles are the very best of foot-gear. Except that you cannot cling with them as you can with the moccasin, they are nearly as good as the latter, and certainly save your feet as you come down hill, among sharp loose stones, in the dark; but they are hard to repair, and impossible to replace in the woods. Flannel is the best thing to wear next to your skin, and a good supply of dry flannels to put on when you come in at night is of the utmost importance. A pair of ‘rubber shoes’ to slip on in camp is well worth carrying, so that if you are obliged to go out in the snow or slush after you have made yourself comfortable for the night, you need not wet your feet again. Let your clothes be of some neutral tint; my own especial weakness is an Indian hunting-shirt made as plainly as possible of tanned deerskin. The colour of this is excellent; the material is very light and tough, and when you top a ridge to which you have painfully climbed for half an hour, the bitter wind which meets you does not go through a buckskin shirt as easily as it does through tweed or homespun. In wet weather—i.e. in real drenching rain—such a shirt is not as good by any means as tweed, as it then becomes exceedingly cold and unpleasant to wear. A broad belt of webbing (not of leather, for leather cuts you) to contain your cartridges may be used over the shirt, if it has not a great brass fastening in front as most belts have. The object of this fastening I suppose is to reflect the sun’s rays and make a dazzling spot of light on the abdomen of the hunter, about as useful in attracting the attention of every living thing as anything which the ingenuity of the gentlemen who sell ‘sporting goods’ could contrive. Metal buttons, metal watch-chains, uncovered rifle barrels, and even the end of your stalking glass, will reflect the sun’s rays in the same dangerous manner, so that though you may be otherwise unnoticed, the attention of your quarry will be drawn to what appears to him to be a little star amongst the grass on the other side of the ravine. Added to the dangers of their appearance is the danger that if you wear any metal trappings about your person, they may ring against one another terribly loud and clear just at the moment when even the beating of your own heart seems unwarrantably and absurdly noisy. For these reasons avoid metal adornments; keep a loose cover over your rifle barrels, be careful not to catch the sun’s rays with your glass when spying, use a watch-chain of buckskin, and don’t carry a lot of loose change in your trousers pocket.
Attached to your belt will probably be a knife for administering a coup de grâce, and for skinning. If you would not lose it, adopt some such plan for securing it as is suggested by the accompanying woodcut. None of the ordinary spring fastenings are proof against the rough usage of the hills.
Knife fastening
If you wear knickerbockers, have them made loose at the knee, so as not to hamper you in your stride up hill, or wear them unfastened at the knee; but though less smart in appearance, ordinary tweed or flannel trousers, with the bottoms tucked into a stout pair of woollen socks, are as workmanlike as anything ever made.