A man armed with a gun or pistol has always the means of obtaining fire. If it be a flint lock, he need not even draw the charge, but, throwing out the priming on some dry surface, he may plug up the touch-hole with a bit of wet clay, wet or greasy rag, string, or wood; in fact any of these materials, even though dry, if rammed in tightly, become incombustible. The end of a bit of packthread wetted, or of raw hide reimpjie, is better than any, because the remainder can be used to pull it out with. The priming can then be rubbed on a bit of rag—dry or slightly moistened—a corner of it stuck into the pan, the gun full cocked and the trigger pulled, when most likely the sparks will be found to have ignited the tinder. With a percussion gun the charge, if it be loaded, must be drawn or fired away so as to leave the barrel empty, then a little powder must be put in, and a bit of dry rag, with powder rubbed upon it, rammed loosely into the barrel; the gun should be fired with its muzzle downwards or towards a rock or stump, that the rag may not be blown too far away.
The fire being obtained by any of these means, and secured by being communicated to a small collection of inflammable material, the next process is to build up and ignite the fuel that is to serve the traveller for warmth or culinary purposes. This will, of course, have been already collected. Prudent cooks generally tie a dry thorn branch behind their waggon on leaving their outspan, so as to have it ready as soon as they again halt; or, if fuel be scarce, they keep a bright lookout upon the way for dry sticks or the dung of tame or wild animals. Such fuel should be broken up, and the sticks roughly assorted into sizes. A small elevation will be chosen or made on a dry patch of ground, and the fire being laid on a little faggot of small sticks, others are carefully piled round it pointing upward, at an angle of 45° or more towards the centre—just as if a conical roof or a church steeple were to be built—and round these the larger ones are arranged in the same manner, and in successive sizes. (See Fig. 2, p. 551.) Thus, the property of heated air being to ascend, the flame is led naturally up along the twigs, and through the interstices, and when sticks as thick as the thumb are well kindled, others may be piled on with less attention to regularity. If the intention is to make a transient blaze as large as possible, perhaps for a night signal, dry thorn branches of the mimosa, with their large thorns and loose twigs, thrown on as lightly as possible, will answer excellently. We have seen in the Karroo veldt of South Africa a bush or shrub of which the leaves blaze up with almost a resinous flash, but of which the stem is almost incombustible. This would serve well for such a signal; but when wanted for the purposes of cooking, the fire requires constant replenishing, and from the repeated calls for fresh supplies, the shrub has acquired the expressive name of the “Bring on bush.”
A species of “prolea,” locally called “Waggon bush,” is also highly in request, as its resinous blossoms maintain a more steady heat.
If the fire is required as a day signal, large quantities of green wood, leaves, &c., should be heaped on to make as much smoke as possible; and vice versâ if concealment is desired—green wood should be avoided, and only small quantities of dry wood used.
We have often, during a night halt among the date-palm jungles, selected a tree at a convenient distance from its fellows, to form a sort of gigantic torch. The dry fronds give off in burning sufficient heat to make the whole crown of the tree inflammable; this, in turn, ignites the trunk, which burns for some time, and gives a most brilliant light.
The lighting of a fire in a hot dry climate is a matter of comparative ease when compared with the obtainment of one in the damp woods of a cold inclement region. An experienced campaigner will generally contrive to carry with him a few pieces of dry resinous wood, known as “kindling chips,” with which to start his fire. In the absence of these, look out sharply for a dead tree or hollow log, and from the lee side of it, if rain is falling, chop out a good supply of wood as a foundation for your fire. If you cannot find a dead tree or log, select the dry side of a living one; chop off the bark with your axe, and then from the exposed timber remove some long thin chips. Now, under the shelter formed by spreading your blanket or coat, proceed with your hunting knife to cut these chips into long, thin, narrow shavings, much like those used in making the Bavarian toy brooms. When a good quantity of these has been prepared gather a bundle of the very finest and most slender brushwood you can find. The largest sticks should not be stouter than wheat straws; cut these up into foot lengths; place your bunch of shavings on as dry a spot as you can find. If there are stones to be obtained, place one on each side of it. Now, with your small sticks, build a sort of cone loosely over the shavings, each stick being arranged end upwards, just as hop poles are stored for the winter; lay over and outside these a few stouter sticks and bits of bark. When your cone is complete introduce your fire to the centre of the cone’s base. A tube of bark or hollow reed, a piece of curled up dry hide, or a gun-barrel with the nipple taken out, serves for a blowpipe to gently urge on the fire with. We—as stated in the early portion of this work—endeavour, if possible, to have a small pair of bellows as part of our travelling kit. It is well, however, to know how to manage without them. Small quantities of gunpowder cautiously sprinkled in will aid considerably in setting up the first flame of a sluggish fire. The greatest care must, however, be exercised in order to guard against accidents from explosion.
We in our early days narrowly escaped the loss of a hand by strewing a little powder from the flask on some damp moss, which we were endeavouring to coax into a fire. The instant the grains of powder reached the fire they ignited, communicated with the contents of the flask, and, fortunately, blew the brass top from the copper body, without bursting the metal. On another occasion, nearly a half-charge of powder exploded in the left hand, whilst we were strewing in the powder with the right finger and thumb in a manner which we are to this day utterly at a loss to account for. When making use of gunpowder as a fire stimulant, we now invariably pour the quantity about to be used on a leaf or a piece of bark, and place the flask in a place of perfect safety, some distance from the fire, which, when once fairly established, may be treated with more boldness, and supplied with sticks of larger size. If you intend camping down for the night with your party, the first thing to do, after seeing that your fire is burning strongly, is to collect a good and sufficient store of fuel to last through the night and well up into the morning. One of the elements of fitness in the locality for camping purposes will be the close vicinity of proper firewood; and here we must caution the inexperienced against the choice of soft wood trees for a true camp fire. Pines, and other members of the coniferæ, are very ill adapted to the purpose. Ash, maple, beech, birch, and other hard woods are the sorts to be sought for. Trees of about 1ft. to 14in. in diameter are the best for the purpose. When felled with the axe, they should be cut into logs of about 12ft. in length, and all the branches chopped up short to feed the fire with. Prepare two strong heavy stakes of about 5ft. in length, sharpen the points and drive them into the earth just behind your fire, in such a way that they may stand at about 6ft. apart. Cut a notch in the rear of each near the top for the support or back stake to key into. Now place three of your fire logs one on the other, as if you were building a log wall. This forms your fire-back; now take two shorter logs and fix them at the ends as log rests, and on these lay another long fire log, when the arrangement will be complete. A fire of this kind, when once thoroughly established, will burn during the longest night, form a perfect wall of fire, and cause little trouble, as all the feeding fuel is cast in between the front log on the log rests and the fire-back. A pot, to be boiled on a fire of this kind, is conveniently suspended from a stout green pole, so placed as to rest above the fire-back, whilst its point is forced into the ground behind.
To keep a small fire steadily burning, let three logs as large as possible be laid end to end, diverging at an angle of 60° from each other (as in Fig. 1, p. 551), push their burning ends occasionally together, and they will last many hours, with but little attention. The natives of Australia take dry logs, 6ft. or more in length, and laying them down 3ft. or 4ft. apart, set them on fire in several places. Letting shorter logs meet them from the outside, and laying good-sized pebbles around them, they then stretch themselves on the ground and sleep between the two lines of fire, and when the wood is consumed the stones continue for some time to radiate the heat they have previously absorbed. Many tribes of American Indians have their own especial fashion of fire-building, so that a deserted camp fire will not unfrequently reveal the identity of the tribe by whom it was made.
In South Africa, when the flats are swamped with heavy showers, and it would seem almost impossible to kindle the scanty fuel that can be obtained, the ant-hills with which the plain is covered prove the greatest imaginable boon to the traveller. One of these hills, 3ft. or 4ft. high, is selected, its top cut flat off, and a hole dug like an oven in its side. In this the fire is kindled, the flame rushes up through the galleries, the clay becomes red hot, and the kettle or frying-pan soon begins to feel its influence. But this is not all, for the galleries are most likely full of vegetable matter as well as of ants’ eggs, and larvæ, and these help to increase the flame. Of course it is cruel, but the traveller and his followers must have food. By the exercise of a little ingenuity, hollows can be cut in it for convenience of baking bread, &c. Most farmers build a clay oven at some little distance from their houses to avoid the necessity of having a fire actually under their roof. In the Zuur veldt, in Tartary and Central India, where fuel is scarce, we have seen the cattle-dung collected and piled along the tops of all the walls and other enclosures to dry.
