Parchment is a material which will be found useful for many purposes, such as labelling the species collected, &c.; almost any moderate-sized skin can be converted into this substance. The first step is to remove the hair from its follicles. This may be done by burying the skin in moist earth for two or three days; it should, when found seasoned, be spread, hair side out, on a barrel or round log, and well scraped, until quite clean. Four long tough peeled rods or wands should now be passed through a train of small slits, like button-holes, in the edges of the skin, all four borders of the trimmed skin being furnished with its spreading wand. The ends of the wands are now to be cut off flush with the border of the skin. A pole hoop like that figured at page 776 should now be prepared, and the stretched skin laced to its centre by cords or thongs passed inside the wand until it is as tight as a tambourine. Every particle of adhering membrane should be carefully cut away, and the skin rubbed down to the required substance with a flat-surfaced sandstone; pumice-stone, when it can be obtained, is excellent for the purpose. When the parchment has undergone preparation, and is removed from the pole hoop, it may be fitted for writing on by first thoroughly rubbing its surface with a perfectly smooth water-worn pebble, and then touching its surface lightly over with ox-gall. Catgut can be made from the intestines of almost any animal as follows: After carefully removing all impurities from the surfaces of the gut, place it in a pot of water for twenty-four hours; the outer sheath, or covering membrane, will more freely come away. Now double back a few inches of the end border of your gut tube, just as you would turn down the top border of a stocking, catching the bag thus formed between the finger and thumb; dip water up with it until the double fold is nearly full. The weight of this fluid will instantly cause the gut to become inverted, and bring its inner surface to the outside. This can now be easily freed from any adhering matter; and if the gut is intended for twisting, set up two stiff stout stakes in the earth, a little wider apart than the length of the gut under treatment. Cut a saw cut in the head of each stake. Now firmly lash each end of your gut to the notched ends of two narrow flat pieces of wood, fashioned like stout knife blades, and thin enough to enter the saw cuts in the stake heads. By alternately twisting these and fixing them in the saw cuts, to prevent their running back, the gut may be evenly and neatly twisted after the manner of a single strand cord. The twisted material thus formed becomes, when dry and after it has been rubbed smooth with a woollen rag and a little grease, excellent catgut, fit for drill bows, bowstrings, lathe bands, thread for sewing strong leather work, &c. Bladders should always be saved. They only require inflation with air and drying to preserve them.
Holes in hides, water-bags, or bladders, may be repaired by gathering up the lips of the orifice, pushing a sharp splinter or thorn through both lips, and then tying a string tightly behind the cross piece thus formed. The holes in large skins can be repaired by placing pebbles or stones, just too large to pass through, inside them. A few turns with a strip of raw hide behind the stone makes all secure and perfectly water-tight. A spherical bullet may be made use of in this manner to repair a thorn prick in a water-bag. A reference to the above illustration will serve to show how these repairs are effected. The horns of cattle can be made use of for a number of useful purposes. Soaking in boiling water softens them sufficiently to enable the ingenious operator to fashion them into almost any shape. Bones should never be heedlessly cast away; sawn up they make excellent rings for dog harness or the head-lines of fishing-nets; stilets for splicing cord, meshes for netting, &c. Tendons of animals make excellent glue, and can be easily split up into sewing thread. The swimming bladders of fish, when dried, form excellent isinglas. Sole, shark, and dogfish skins, dried and mounted on handles, make very efficient rasps and files for woodwork. Eel-skins make most durable harness ties, and, twisted or plaited together, form very serviceable whips. Hides or skins can be cut into long strips for trail rope or lasso making by cutting them spirally with a sharp knife, just as a cobbler cuts out a leather boot-lace from a circular scrap of shoe leather. Hides and objects composed of either prepared hide or leather should be frequently treated with clean, well-softened grease, in order that they may retain their flexibility and toughness of texture. Hides used in covering the frames of “bull boats,” as they are called by the traders and trappers of the north-west, who often use them, require to be frequently beached, dried in the sun, and then greased, to render them sufficiently durable to encounter the deteriorating influences brought to bear on them during a long river or lake voyage.
Fat, to treat.
Soap, to prepare.
In cutting up and trimming the carcases of large animals, considerable quantities of fat will be accumulated, provided that care is taken to prevent native fellows from appropriating it. Fat is useful for an immense number of purposes. Its value as fuel has already been explained in that portion of our work devoted to a consideration of lamps. The bones of nearly all large animals may be made to yield a considerable quantity of fatty matter by crushing them to fragments between two heavy stones; boiling the mass thus obtained in any suitable vessel, and then skinning off the eyes of grease as they appear on the surface with a large shell fastened to the end of a stick, or an ox horn fashioned into a scoop. When fat is to be stored up for use it should be first melted, and, after all fragments of membrane, &c., have been separated by a rough system of straining, poured into hide bags to cool. All blubber-bearing cetaceans yield large quantities of oil, which is to be obtained by a process known amongst whalers as “trying out.” Convenient sized pieces of the blubber are thrown into large cauldrons, which are mainly heated by the waste chip or used-up material left as a residue when the oil runs forth. The livers of sharks and other large fish also yield oil freely by treatment in the kettle. Besides being useful for wheel lubricating, leather-dressing, candle-making, and a variety of other useful purposes, fat can, by proper treatment, be made available as the principal ingredient in the manufacture of soap. Soap, to prepare. Some care and management, however, are required to manufacture a really good and useful article. Sir Samuel Baker thus writes of his experiences in the matter: “Soap-boiling is not so easy as may be imagined. It requires not only much attention, but the quality is dependent upon the proper mixture of the alkalies. Sixty parts of potash and forty of lime are, I believe, the proportions for common soap. I had neither lime nor potash, but I shortly procured both. The Hegleck tree (Balanites egyptiaca) was extremely rich in potash; therefore I burned a large quantity, and made a strong ley with the ashes. This I concentrated by boiling. There was no limestone; but the river produced a plentiful supply of large oyster-shells, that, if burned, would yield excellent lime; accordingly, I constructed a kiln with the assistance of the white ants. The country was infested by these creatures, which erected their dwellings in all directions. There were cones from six to ten feet high, formed of clay, so thoroughly cemented by a glutinous preparation of the insects that it was harder than sun-baked brick. I selected an egg-shaped hill, and cut off the top exactly as we take off the slice from an egg. My Tookrooris then worked hard, and with a hoe and their lances they hollowed it out to the base, in spite of the attacks of the ants, which punished the legs of the intruders considerably. I made a draught hole from the outside base at right angles with the bottom of the hollow cone. My kiln was perfect. I loaded it with wood, upon which I piled about six bushels of oyster-shells, which I then covered with fuel, and kept it burning for twenty-four hours. This produced excellent lime, and I commenced my soap-boiling. We possessed an immense copper pot, of Egyptian manufacture, in addition to a large and deep copper basin, called a ‘teshti.’ These would contain about ten gallons. The ley having been boiled down to great strength, I added a quantity of lime and the necessary fat. It required ten hours’ boiling, combined with careful management of the fire, as it would frequently ascend like foam, and overflow the edge of the utensils; however, at length having been constantly stirred, it turned to soap; before it became cold I formed it into cakes and balls with my hands, and the result of this manufacture was a weight of about forty pounds of most excellent soap of a very sporting description. We thus washed with rhinoceros soap; our lamp was trimmed with the oil of lions; our butter for cooking purposes was the fat of hippopotami, while our pomade was made from the marrow of buffaloes and antelopes, scented with the blossoms of mimosas. We were entirely independent, as our whole party had subsisted upon the produce of the rod and rifle.”
Sleeping-bags.
If the traveller contemplates the prosecution of explorations in cold and inhospitable regions, it will be well for him to preserve a number of sheep or goats’ skins, with the hair or wool on, which should be prepared for conversion into coverlets, sleeping-bags, mats, overcoats, &c. A variety of forms of sleeping-bags are in use in various parts of the world; some, as in the case of those used by the frontier guard between France and Spain, are so constructed as to be doubled up, strapped together, and converted into a sort of knapsack. The down of waterfowl, especially that of the eider duck, when stitched between any suitable fabric and quilted, forms a most powerful non-conductor of heat. A very useful and cheap form of sleeping-bag can be made by pasting a number of old newspapers together, giving them a coat of boiled linseed oil, and then stitching them between two sheets of any tough durable fabric. The person about to be measured for a sleeping bag should have the extreme breadth of the shoulders, width across hips, and height taken, adding eighteen inches to the head of the bag to form a flap. Cut out your two main bag pieces, or top and bottom, to the shape of two large sleeve boards such as tailors use, now cut out two long narrow slips, about twenty inches wide, and long enough to go the whole length of both sides and round the tapered rounded bottom of the bag, and up to the end-borders of the mouth, these strips are sewn in exactly as the leather is attached to the upper and lower boards of a pair of common bellows. Sleeping-bags should be made very strong, in order that they may be used to carry a variety of odd articles in.
Ruck sacks.
