How to Camp Out

by John Mead Gould

For carrying your baggage you will perhaps prefer a knapsack, though many old soldiers are not partial to that article. There are also for sale broad straps and other devices as substitutes for the knapsack. Whatever you take, be sure it has broad straps to go over your shoulders: otherwise you will be constantly annoyed from their cutting and chafing you.

You can dispense with the knapsack altogether in the same way that soldiers do,—by rolling up in your blanket whatever you have to carry. You will need to take some pains in this, and perhaps call a comrade to assist you. Lay out the blanket flat, and roll it as tightly as possible without folding it, enclosing the other baggage[3] as you roll; then tie it in a number of places to prevent unrolling, and the shifting about of things inside; and finally tie or strap together the two ends, and throw the ring thus made over the shoulder, and wear it as you do the strap of the haversack,—diagonally across the body.

The advantages of the roll over the knapsack are important. You save the two and a half pounds weight; the roll is very much easier to the shoulder, and is easier shifted from one shoulder to the other, or taken off; and you can ease the burden a little with your hands. It feels bulky at first, but you soon become used to it. On the whole, you will probably prefer the roll to the knapsack; but if you carry much weight you will very soon condemn whatever way you carry it, and wish for a change.

A haversack is almost indispensable in all pedestrian tours. Even if you have your baggage in a wagon, it is best to wear one, or some sort of a small bag furnished with shoulder straps, so that you can carry a lunch, writing materials, guide-book, and such other small articles as you constantly need. You can buy a haversack at the stores where sportsmen's outfits are sold; or you can make one of enamel-cloth or rubber drilling, say eleven inches deep by nine wide, with a strap of the same material neatly doubled and sewed together, forty to forty-five inches long, and one and three-quarters inches wide. Cut the back piece about nineteen inches long, so as to allow for a flap eight inches long to fold over the top and down the front. Sew the strap on the upper corners of the back piece, having first sewed a facing inside, to prevent its tearing out the back.

WOOLLEN BLANKET.

Next in the order of necessities is a woollen blanket,—a good stout one, rather than the light or flimsy one that you may think of taking. In almost all of the Northern States the summer nights are apt to be chilly; while in the mountainous regions, and at the seaside, they are often fairly cold. A lining of cotton drilling will perhaps make a thin blanket serviceable. This lining does not need to be quite as long nor as wide as the blanket, since the ends and edges of the blanket are used to tuck under the sleeper. One side of the lining should be sewed to the blanket, and the other side and the ends buttoned; or you may leave off the end buttons. You can thus dry it, when wet, better than if it were sewed all around. You can lay what spare clothing you have, and your day-clothes, between the lining and blanket, when the night is very cold.

In almost any event, you will want to carry a spare shirt; and in cold weather you can put this on, when you will find that a pound of shirt is as warm as two pounds of overcoat.

If you take all I advise, you will not absolutely need an overcoat, and can thus save carrying a number of pounds.

The tent question we will discuss elsewhere; but you can hardly do with less than a piece of shelter-tent. If you have a larger kind, the man who carries it must have some one to assist him in carrying his own stuff, so that the burden may be equalized.