There remains the second best. I have thought that perhaps if I were to attempt a series of detached impressions, without relation, without sequence; if I were to suggest a little here the beauty of a moon-beam, there the humour of a rainstorm, at the last you might, by dint of imagination and sympathy, get some slight feeling of what the great woods are. It is the method of the painter. Perhaps it may suffice.
For this reason let no old camper look upon this volume as a treatise on woodcraft. Woodcraft there is in it, just as there is woodcraft in the Forest itself, but much of the simplest and most obvious does not appear. The painter would not depict every twig, as would the naturalist.
Equally it cannot be considered a book of travel nor of description. The story is not consecutive; the adventures not exciting; the landscape not denned. Perhaps it may be permitted to call it a book of suggestion. Often on the street we have had opened to us by the merest sketches of incident limitless vistas of memory. A momentary pose of the head of a passer-by, a chance word, the breath of a faint perfume--these bring back to us the entirety of forgotten scenes. Some of these essays may perform a like office for you. I cannot hope to give you the Forest. But perhaps a word or a sentence, an incident, an impression, may quicken your imagination, so that through no conscious direction of my own the wonder of the Forest may fill you, as the mere sight of a conch-shell will sometimes till you with the wonder of the sea.
[SUGGESTIONS FOR OUTFIT.]
In reply to inquiries as to necessary outfit for camping and woods-travelling, the author furnishes the following lists:--
1. Provisions per man, one week.
7 lbs. flour; 5 lbs. pork; 1-5 lb. tea; 2 lbs. beans; 1 1-2 lbs. sugar; 1 1-2 lbs. rice; 1 1-2 lbs. prunes and raisins; 1-1-2 lb. lard; 1 lb. oatmeal; baking-powder; matches; soap; pepper; salt; 1-3 lb. tobacco--(weight, a little over 20 lbs.). This will last much longer if you get game and fish.
2. Pack one, or absolute necessities for hard trip.
Wear hat; suit woollen underwear; shirt; trousers; socks; silk handkerchief; cotton handkerchief; moccasins.
Carry sweater (3 lbs.); extra drawers (1 1-2 lbs.); 2 extra pairs socks; gloves (buckskin); towel; 2 extra pairs moccasins; surgeon's plaster; laxative; pistol and cartridges; fishing-tackle; blanket (7 1-2 lbs.); rubber blanket (1 lb.); tent (8 lbs.); small axe (2 1-2 lbs.); knife; mosquito-dope; compass; match-box; tooth-brush; comb; small whetstone--(weight, about 25 lbs.); 2 tin or aluminium pails; 1 frying-pan; 1 cup; 1 knife, fork, and spoon--(weight, 4 lbs. if of aluminium).