tramping
tramping
CHAPTER THREE
THE KNAPSACK
IT is wonderful how much you can carry when it is for pleasure. Soldiers grumble like camels at the loads put on their shoulders. Under some one’s orders they shall march with packs on their backs to such a point to-day, to such another point
With your best foot first and the road a-sliding past,An’ every bloomin’ camping ground exactly like the last.
With your best foot first and the road a-sliding past,An’ every bloomin’ camping ground exactly like the last.
With your best foot first and the road a-sliding past,An’ every bloomin’ camping ground exactly like the last.
With your best foot first and the road a-sliding past,
An’ every bloomin’ camping ground exactly like the last.
The camel groans, the soldier grouses, but the gay tramp puts ever something more into his capacious rucksack for pleasure or profit.There’s a hunk of tobacco, there’s his favorite volume of poems, his sketchbook—his danger is in putting in too much and not putting in the right things.
I assume he is to be equipped for sleepingà la belle étoile. I may mention one or two things he might overlook. First, the pack itself should be well made. I have found in the past that Germans and Austrians make the best rucksacks, and even the best in London seemed to be imported from these countries. The one I have now was purchased some years ago in Vienna, but I think it was the best to be found there. There were many shoddy ones about. The shopkeeper pretended that the one I chose was not for sale, and I spent twelve hours getting it. Not that it is remarkable, but it is a genuinely well made article. Exterior pockets which will not burst are a necessary; interior pockets are also useful.
The worst of the interior of a rucksack is that after a while everything in it gets mixed. Spare boots and linen get sprinkled with coffee; different foods mingle. Some paperwrapper bursts and the sugar spills over everything. Then writing papers, books, or notebooks get greasy. But this is avoided if one provides oneself with half-a-dozen cotton bags which tie with tapes. If these are not obtainable at home they are to be found in some sort of form at a Woolworth’s or a cheap draper’s. It is a small detail, but a matter of comfort: if you feel so disposed you wash out these little cotton bags when they get dirty.
Another valuable extra to put in the rucksack is a few yards of mosquito netting which can be bought quite cheaply, sometimes called brides’ veil in the shops, sometimes leno, sometimes butter-muslin. With this you can defy the mosquito at nights, and by day you can enjoy the luxury of a sun-bath siesta watching the flies which cannot bite your nose. Apropos of the mosquito netting the choice of hat is important. Do not take a cap. You need a brim. And do not take a straw hat. You cannot lie down comfortably with a straw hat on. A tweed hat is best. The brim has a double use. It shields your eyes from the sun, but also, when you lie down where fliesand mosquitoes abound, you had best sleep in your hat and use the brim to lift the mosquito net an inch from your face. N.B.—A tramping hat does not get old enough to throw away. The old ones are the best. Of course, once you have slept a night wearing your hat it is not much more use for town wear. It has become more tramp than you are.
I am in favor of carrying a blanket. It is less cumbersome than a sleeping sack and more hygienic. If, however, insects are very troublesome, as in the tropics, and there are “land crabs” and scorpions and tarantulas and what not about, a light sleeping sack may be improvised by sewing together three sides of a pair of small sheets. This I have done: it gets rather airless and smelly. It is best to turn it inside out in the morning and give it plenty of sun. But a blanket will do: take a couple if you are chilly. This makes weight on the back, but it is also a softening comfort and fits the rucksack upon the shoulders on a long hike.
There is no point whatever in carrying an overcoat, though a waterproof cape or an oilskincomes in useful. A blanket and a cape form a useful combination. One can sleep on the cape with the blanket over one.
In one of the little cotton bags you will carry your toilet requisites, soap and towel and comb. Some men like to let their beard grow on a long tramp and thus dispense with razor and brush. Still, there are few things more refreshing than the cold shave at dawn, the rushing stream, the lather scattering itself on ferns and flowers, the brandishing arm, the freshening cheek.
A vital consideration at that time in the morning is the coffeepot. I am in favor of carrying an ordinary metalcafetière; some prefer a kettle, but it bumps too much on the back; others a pail, but the water in it is apt to get smoky. In the United States there are so many clean empty cans lying about that it is perhaps unnecessary to carry anything of the kind. The cowboys never carry anything in the nature of a coffeepot. They confidently reckon on finding a lard can. Indeed, if you make camp in the West or South where some have camped before you, you may find carefullypreserved the coffee can used by the last party. All America is camping out in the summer, so it is a simple matter to find the black patch of some one else’s erstwhile sleeping pitch.
However, I dislike the places where people have been before, their orange peel and biscuit wrappings, their trampled grass and jaded scrub. Give me a virginal patch of woodland or moorland, or a happy grassy corner of the long dusty road, and there startle the earwigs and the birds with the crackle of a first bonfire. Therefore, I consider it ideal to take a coffeepot with you, a metal one that gets blacker and blacker as you go along. It can best be carried outside the knapsack, angling from the center strap and resting in the hollow between the bulging pockets.
I had forgotten the enamel mug, the knife and the spoon. But you must not. Do not carry a fork; it is unnecessary. A small enamel plate is useful. Pepper and salt mixed to taste may be carried in a little bag. Some sort of safe box for butter is to be recommended. Take plenty of old handkerchiefsor worst quality new ones; they come in useful. Remember a glove for taking the coffeepot off the fire. If you do not you will be burning all your handkerchiefs, your hat, your shirt, or anything else that you may be tempted to use. There are occasions when the coffeepot seems to get almost red hot before it boils. There are giddy moments when it loses its balance and will topple over and spill its precious contents unless you are ready to dash in with gloved hand to save it.
For the rest of the contents of your knapsack you will be guided by your special desires and aims. Loaded and bulging in the morning, it will gradually feel lighter and look more shapely as movement sorts the various things into their best positions. At night you turn out many things and use what remains as a pillow. Some carry a pillow, but it is too bulky. An air pillow is not to be despised, but it generally seems to let you down during the night. Your knapsack will grudge being left in the dew. It will feel happier with your head resting upon it.