CHAPTER II.
SMALL PARTIES TRAVELLING AFOOT AND CAMPING.
We will consider separately the many ways in which a party can spend a summer vacation; and first we will start into wild and uninhabited regions, afoot, carrying on our backs blankets, a tent, frying-pan, food, and even a shot-gun and fishing-tackle. This is very hard work for a young man to follow daily for any length of time; and, although it sounds romantic, yet let no party of young people think they can find pleasure in it many days; for if they meet with a reverse, have much rainy weather, or lose their way, some one will almost surely be taken sick, and all sport will end.
If you have a mountain to climb, or a short trip of only a day or two, I would not discourage you from going in this way; but for any extended tour it is too severe a strain upon the physical powers of one not accustomed to similar hard work.
AFOOT.—CAMPING OUT.
A second and more rational way, especially for small parties, is that of travelling afoot in the roads of a settled country, carrying a blanket, tent, food, and cooking-utensils; cooking your meals, and doing all the work yourselves. If you do not care to travel fast, to go far, or to spend much money, this is a fine way. But let me caution you first of all about overloading, for this is the most natural thing to do. It is the tendency of human nature to accumulate, and you will continually pick up things on your route that you will wish to take along; and it will require your best judgment to start with the least amount of luggage, and to keep from adding to it.
You have probably read that a soldier carries a musket, cartridges, blanket, overcoat, rations, and other things, weighing forty or fifty pounds. You will therefore say to yourself, "I can carry twenty." Take twenty pounds, then, and carry it around for an hour, and see how you like it. Very few young men who read this book will find it possible to enjoy themselves, and carry more than twenty pounds a greater distance than ten miles a day, for a week. To carry even the twenty pounds ten miles a day is hard work to many, although every summer there are parties who do their fifteen, twenty, and more miles daily, with big knapsacks on their backs; but it is neither wise, pleasant, nor healthful, to the average young man, to do this.
Let us cut down our burden to the minimum, and see how much it will be. First of all, you must take a rubber blanket or a light rubber coat,—something that will surely shed water, and keep out the dampness of the earth when slept on. You must have something of this sort, whether afoot, horseback, with a wagon, or in permanent camp.[2]