Bread, especially if it is a little stale, is much improved by toasting, which should be done by approaching it close to the fire, even throwing it on the coals and burning the outside almost black. If buttered and covered with brown sugar and eaten hot it makes an excellent dessert.
If salt pork is to be broiled, it should be cut thin, and may be soaked well in water, dipped in Indian-meal, so as to bread it, and then broiled or fried brown. It can be used in soup by being boiled in two waters.
Smoked beef is good if stewed a few minutes with a lump of butter mixed with flour and enough milk to cover the whole, which may be seasoned with pepper. Fried fish that has become cold can be revived in the same way; the flour may be omitted and some salt must be added.
An onion may be boiled in bread sauce, and removed before serving, or pepper may be added; celery chopped and cooked in a stew or sauce adds a peculiarly pleasant flavor. Tough meat of all kinds should be stewed, and except salt pork, meat should be rarely fried. The foregoing are soon acquired by practice, and experience will suggest many valuable alterations; but they are all the directions necessary to make camp life not merely comfortable, but by the aid of a good appetite extremely pleasant. Cookery is no mean science, and a knowledge of it will prove interesting and advantageous not only in the wilderness, but so long as Irish cooks shall rule our kitchens and ruin our digestions, in the realms of civilization.
To unite economy in space and weight with the utmost amount of accommodation, the following sized tents will be found to answer for two fisherman and five guides or even four fishermen.
The tent of the gentlemen should be four cloths deep, each cloth of twenty-six inches, and cut twenty feet long, so that there should be ten feet on each side of the ridge-pole; the wall takes about three feet, at the upper edge of which a small piece is tabled in where the bolt-rope passes, to shed the rain. There is an extra strip of canvas along the ridge, with two small grummets in each end, inside the tent, to receive the poles; but there is no bolt-rope except along the wall, and there must be no cross seams, as they are sure to leak. A shoulder is left on the poles, which are thrust into the grummets and a spreader is forced up between them and sustained as a ridge-pole by a notch cut in each. There are three tent ropes on each side, with a stout line and toggle, or button where they join the tent, to trice up the walls in warm weather; the doors, which are at both ends, lap well over, and are secured by a strong galvanized hook and eye, and are closed with strings. Along the bottom of the wall are rings to peg it down, and the width is the same as the depth. This tent sets up eight feet high, and is quickly pitched if the poles are retained, which can be readily done, as they are convenient in the bottom of the canoe to keep other baggage from the wet. The size may be diminished to eight feet square, but will be found rather cramped, especially in wet weather, when the fisherman is more or less compelled to stay indoors, and will not permit of what is often desirable, accommodating a visitor.
For the men, a simple strip of canvas eight feet square, with sloping sides, is all that is required. In fact, in cold weather an open tent with a fire in front is preferable to all others, and can be kept as warm as an oven. A Sibley tent has many advantages, but must be large, and is troublesome to transport. In cold weather, logs should be cut down and laid up with mud like a hut, or boards driven into the ground close together to form the foundation, and the tent set over them. It will be warmer and more roomy.
Where there is naught to be shot, and as little to be caught, no man has any business in the woods; but as bad marksmanship or scarcity of game may cause the first, or a rise of water the second, it is well to know that a pound of biscuit and a pound of pork per day is all that a man requires for his support. A fair allowance however would be, considering it merely as an addition to the proceeds of the gun and rod, a pound of biscuit or bread, and half a pound of pork. Where flour is taken the amount of bread may be reduced; but as the staff of life occasionally becomes wet and moldy, it is better to be well supplied. Half a pound of solidified milk will last one man ten days, a pound of tea thirty, and half a pound of tobacco one week. Eight pounds of brown sugar, the same of butter, a bushel of potatoes, and two gallons of molasses are sufficient for two anglers and five men one week. It is not customary to give men milk, sugar or coffee; they are carried only for the gentlemen, and the above calculations are made on that footing. These computations may be relied on, and will be found extremely useful; although the luxuries of camp life may fail, the necessaries must not be exhausted. There is no fun in having to send a couple of your best men fifty miles for provisions, when salmon are rising or a long journey is to be made. Time devoted to pleasure is precious; a day wasted is indeed a loss.
And now, good reader, farewell. In looking over this book, I perceive how far short I have fallen of my own expectations, and feel how greatly I must have disappointed yours. Much has been badly said, much omitted, and no doubt much unintentionally misstated. Opinions differ, and experience leads to contrary results. There are game fish, and modes of taking them, with which doubtless I am unacquainted, and yet I hope you will find something here that has not been written before. My aim has been to induce sportsmen to study the habits and proper designation of the different varieties of game they pursue, to apply the appropriate names and distinguish the various species. My hope is to elevate their purpose above the mere indulgence of that peculiar innate pleasure experienced in the chase, and at the same time, if possible, to press upon the attention of naturalists the vast assistance they might obtain from their humbler brethren by reducing their language to the standard of ordinary comprehension; and above all, to insist, by every consideration of humanity, upon the absolute necessity of preventing the cruel, wanton, and untimely destruction of the beautiful inhabitants of our woods and waters. These have been my objects; it is for you to judge how far I have succeeded. But, reader, let me warn you: neither praise nor dispraise overmuch. In either case I shall write another book, to justify the former or disprove the latter.