The simplest way to distil, but a very imperfect one, is to light a fire among stones, near a hollow in a rock, that is filled, or can be filled with salt-water. When the stones are red-hot, drop them one by one into it: the water will hiss and give out clouds of vapour, some of which may be collected in a cloth, and wrung or sucked out of it. In the same way a pot on the fire may have a cloth stretched over it to catch the steam.
Still made with a Kettle and Gun-barrel.--There is an account of the crew of the 'Levant' packet, which was wrecked near the cosmoledo Islands, who supplied themselves with fresh water by means of distillation alone, and whose Still was contrived with an iron pot and a gun-barrel, found on the spot where they were wrecked. They procured, On the average, sixty bottles, or ten gallons, of distilled water in each twenty-four hours. "The iron pot was converted into a boiler to contain salt water; a lid was fitted to it out of the root of a tree, leaving a hole of sufficient size to receive the muzzle of the gun-barrel, which was to set as a steampipe; the barrel was run through the stump of a tree, hollowed out in the middle, and kept full of cold water for the purpose of condensation; and the water so distilled escaped at the nipple of the gun-barrel, and was conducted into a bottle placed to receive it." The accompanying sketch is taken from a model which I made, with a soldier's mess-tin for a boiler, and a tin tube in the place of a gun barrel. The knob represents the breech; and the projection, through which the water is dropping, the nipple. I may remark that there is nothing in the arrangement which would hurt the most highly-finished gun barrel; and that the trough which holds the condensing water may be made with canvas, or even dispensed with altogether.
Condensing Pipe.--In default of other tubes, a reed may be used: one of the long bones of an animal, or of a wading bird, will be an indifferent substitute for a condensing pipe.
Still, made with Earthen Pots and a Metal Basin.--A very simple distilling apparatus is used in Bhootan; the sketch will show the principle on which it is constructed.
Salt water is placed in a pot, set over the fire. Another vessel, but without top or bottom, which, for the convenience of illustration, I have indicated in the sketch by nothing more than a dotted line, is made to stand upon the pot. It serves as a support for a metal basin, S, which is filled with salt water, and acts as a condenser. When the pot boils, the steam ascends and condenses itself on the under surface of the basin S, whence it drops down and is Collected in a cup, C, that is supported by a rude tripod of sticks, T, standing in the inside of the iron pot.
Occasional Means of Quenching Thirst.--A Shower of Rain will yield a good supply. The clothes may be stripped off and spread out, and the rain-water sucked from them. Or, when a storm is approaching a cloth or blanket may be made fast by its four corners, and a quantity of bullets thrown in the middle of it; they will cause the water that it receives, to drain to one point and trickle through the cloth, into a cup or bucket set below. A reversed umbrella will catch water; but the first drippings from it, or from clothes that have been long unwashed, as from a macintosh cloak, are intolerably nauseous and very unwholesome. It must be remembered, that thirst is greatly relieved by the skin being wetted, and therefore it is well for a man suffering from thirst, to strip to the rain. Rain-water is lodged for some days in the huge pitcher-like corollas of many tropical flowers.
Sea-water.--Lives of sailors have more than once been saved when turned adrift in a boat, by bathing frequently and keeping their clothes damp with salt-water. However, after some days, the nauseous taste of the salt-water is very perceptible in the saliva, and at last becomes unbearable; such, at least was the experience of the surgeon of the wrecked 'Pandora.'
Dew-water is abundant near the sea-shore, and may be collected in the same way as rain-water. The storehouse at Angra Pequeña, in S. W. Africa, in 1850, was entirely supplied by the dew-water deposited on its roof. The Australians who live near the sea, go among the wet bushes with a great piece of bark, and brush into it the dew-drops from the leaves with a wisp of grass; collecting in this way large quantities of water. Eyre used a sponge for the same purpose, and appears to have saved his life by its use.