Every camping-tent should have a fly—that is, an extra canvas roof—for no matter how good the canvas of which it is made, it will become thoroughly soaked in a heavy rain; but if protected by a fly the latter will lead the water off and receive the greater part of the wetting. Such a fly is shown clearly in the illustration of the large camping-tent. Fig. 7.
The fly should always be a trifle wider than the tent is long, and in length it should be long enough to cover the roof of the tent and extend a foot or eighteen inches beyond the sides, where it rests on the stanchion-ropes and is lashed fast to pegs in the ground. The overhang, or extension, leads the water out beyond the apron of the tent and prevents the ground from becoming wet close to the tent.
Another use for this overhang is to prevent the rain driving against the aprons of the tent and wetting them close to the cots. In fair weather, when it is possible to dine outside the tent, the fly can be used as a canopy, if drawn over a ridge-pole and held up at the ends by means of poles and stanchion-ropes.
A canopy of this kind is shown in Fig. 10, where it is erected over a table and seats. It is always well, indeed, to have two flies to a tent, so that one can be used for a canopy or an auxiliary tent, under which a fire can be built and meals cooked and eaten when it is raining.
For a small camp a fly or canopy, twelve feet wide and eighteen feet long, will prove very useful in many ways; but for a larger camp it should measure fifteen by twenty-five feet. Under one of this size a party of ten or twelve people can be comfortably seated, with plenty of room all around.
Flies or canopies should be bound with rope all around the edges, and at distances from twelve to eighteen inches apart three-quarter-inch galvanized rings should be made fast. Through these stanchion-ropes may be reared wherever it is necessary to attach the sheet to branches or poles set in the ground.
A House-tent
One of the latest features in the modern camp is the house-tent, in which the lower part is floored and boarded half-way up, while the balance of the sides and the roof are of canvas. This style of camp-tent has become very popular in California and through the Southwest, where at least six months of each year are spent out-of-doors. For the boys who are about to build a permanent camp for several years’ use, a house-tent such as shown in Figs. 11 and 12 will prove very satisfactory, and more desirable than the plain pitched tent.
Fig. 11 shows the house-tent closed in stormy weather or at night, while in Fig. 12 the house is open for fair-weather living. One wooden side is let down to form a piazza, and the canvas side above it is propped out with poles so as to act as a canopy or sunshade.
The frame is twelve feet long, eight feet wide, and nine feet high from the roof to the peak. The wood sides are three feet and six inches above the floor, and out beyond the sides of the house the joist may extend to support one or both of the wooden sides, which can be let down by means of hinges along the bottom. When the sides are lowered they act as piazzas and nearly double the floor space of the house-tent; while the canvas sides, when propped out with long, slim poles, add equally to the roof area in the way of sunshades.