The first essential is a piece of ash or oak,—preferably the former, as being less likely to split,—about five feet long by three inches broad and one and a half inches thick. This should be bored with a series of five pairs of three-quarter inch holes. A gypsy would accomplish this by burning out the holes with the tapered end of the crane brought to a red heat.
Next procure twelve or thirteen green hazel or ash rods about five feet six inches in length, taper the ends of ten of these so that they may fit snugly into the ridge-piece just described, having done which, the other ends of the rods must be pushed into holes in the ground already made at proper distances by means of the crane, so that by “croming” or bending over the rods, five on each side arch-fashion, they are held firmly in position by the ridge-piece into which they fit. The skeleton of the tent will now be complete but for the two or three rods to form the framework of the end,—these rods, by the way, may be somewhat longer than those for the sides,—they should be thrust into holes in the ground at a suitable distance, bent over the first or nearest of the arched rods and pushed under the next, thus completing the framework.
When the owner of the tent has his choice of material for the covering, brown blanketing is generally selected, as very little rain water gets through, it is decidedly warm in winter, and in the form of old Army blankets is fairly cheap; it is secured in place by means of skewers, horse-shoe nails, blackthorn spines, or wood pins that have been fried in fat, a process which renders them waterproof and easy to insert.
All too frequently, however, the impecunious “gippo” has to be content with whatever he can get hold of to shield him from wind, rain and snow, and not infrequently, one finds such materials used as bits of canvas, sailcloth, old carpeting, worn-out waterproof or other garments, together with odds and ends of a variety of fabrics, the original uses of which it is impossible to even guess at. In the single tent are pieces of blanketing which during the day are turned aside, but at night are let down so as to cover the entrance and fulfil the functions of a door.
In boisterous weather a protecting sheet of canvas or blanket called the “loo” is fixed up on the windward side of the fire; in the case of the double tent such a “loo” is formed by the covering on either side of the central portion when left closed to windward while the other is uncovered, as most frequently it is in autumn and mild winter weather. The tents vary much in size but the approximate dimensions of a single one are:
Three feet six inches to six feet in length, five feet six wide, and three to four feet in height, while a double tent may be about five feet six inches wide, thirteen to fourteen feet in length and four feet in height.
Gypsies do not, as a rule, use a ground sheet, but contrive to keep tolerably dry without one. For bedding, they often use bracken or heather-tops, which are sometimes covered with sacking or pieces of canvas, at another time they will use a sack loosely stuffed with hay or straw, and not infrequently they will sleep with nothing between themselves and the otherwise bare earth but such loose rags or straw as they may have been able to bring together.
GYPSY TENT SHOWING CONSTRUCTION.