Brushwood.--If in a country where any a number of small sticks and no large logs can be collected as firewood, the best plan is to encamp after the manner of the Ovampos. These, as they travel, collect sticks, each man his own faggot, and when they stop, each takes eight or nine stones as large as bricks, or larger, and sets them in a circle; and within these he lights up his little fire. Now the party make their fireplaces close together, in two or more parallel lines, and sleep in between them; the stones prevent the embers from flying about and doing mischief, and also, after the fires have quite burnt out, they continue to radiate heat.
Charcoal.--If charcoal be carried, a small chafing-dish, or other substitute for a fireplace, ought also be taken, together with a set of tin cooking-utensils.
Fireplaces in Boats.--In boating excursions, daub a lump of clay on the bottom of the boat, beneath the fireplace--it will secure the timbers from fire. "Our primitive kitchen was a square wooden box, lined with clay and filled with sand, upon which three or four large stones were placed to form a hearth." (Burton's 'Medinah.')
Fireplaces on Snow.--On very deep snow, a hearth has to be made of a number of green logs, upon which the fire may be made. (See "Esquimaux Cooking Lamp.")
Cooking-fires.--See chapter on "Cooking."
Fires in the early Morning.--Should your stock of fuel consist of large logs and but little brushwood, keep all you can spare of the latter to make a blaze, when you get up to catch and pack the cattle in the dark and early morning. As you travel on, if it be bitter cold, carry a firebrand in your hand, near your mouth, as a respirator--it is very comforting; then, when the fire of it burns dull, thrust the brand for a few moments in any tuft of dry grass you may happen to pass by, which will blaze up and give a new life to the brand.
FOOD.
The nutritive Elements of Food.--Many chemists have applied themselves in recent years, to discover the exact percentage of nutriment contained in different substances, and to determine the minimum nutriment on which human life can be supported. The results are not very accordant, but nevertheless a considerable approximation to truth has been arrived at. It is now possible to tell whether a proposed diet has any great faults of excess or deficiency, and how to remedy those faults. But it also must be recollected that the stomach is an assimilating machine of limited performance, and must be fed with food that it can digest; it is not enough that the food should contain nutritious matter, if that matter should be in an indigestible form. Burke and Wills perished from sheer inability to digest the seeds upon which the Australian savages lived; and Gardiner's party died of starvation in Tierra del Fuego, because they could not digest the shell-fish which form a common article of diet of the natives of that country. The question of diet must then be limited to food that is perfectly digestible by the traveller. It remains to learn how much nourishment is contained in different kinds of digestible food. Dr. Smith has recently written an elaborate essay on this subject, applying his inquiries chiefly to the food of the poor in England; but for my more general purpose, as it is impossible to do justice to a large and imperfectly understood subject, in the small space I can give to it, it will be better that I should reprint the results given in my previous edition. These are principally extracted from a remarkable paper by Dr. Christison, inserted in the Bluebook Report of the Commission of Inquiry on Crimean matters, in which the then faulty dietary of our soldiers was discussed. It appears 1st, that a man of sedentary life can exist in health on seventeen ounces per day of real nutriment; that a man engaged in active life requires fully twenty-eight ounces per day; and, during severe labour, he requires thirty ounces, or even more. 2ndly, that this nutriment must consist of three-quarters, by weight, of one class of nutritive principles, (C), and one quarter of another class of nutritive principles, (N); 3rdly, that all the articles of common food admit of being placed, as below, in a Table, by which we see at a glance how much nutriment of class C, and how much of class N, is found in 100 parts, gross weight of any of them. Thus, by a simple computation, the effective value of a dietary may be ascertained. Class C, are the carboniferous principles, that maintain respiration; Class N, are the nitrogenous principles, that repair waste of tissue. N will partly replace C, but at a great waste: C will not replace N.
A large number of diets such as those of various armies and navies, of prisons and infirmaries, and of the ordinary diets of different classes of people, have been examined by aid of this Table, with surprisingly uniform results. But these diets chiefly refer to temperate climates; it would therefore be a matter of great interest if travellers in distant lands would accurately observe and note down the weight of their own rations and those of the natives. It is a great desideratum to know the lightest portable food suitable to different countries. Any such reports, if carefully made and extending over a period of not less than two months, would be very acceptable to me. To make them of any use, it is necessary that every article consumed should be noted down; and that the weight and state of health, at the beginning and at the end of the period, should be compared.