HINTS TO SPORTS MKX. 25 



cific Ocean are always cool, owing to the rapid radiation 

 of heat after sunset the result of the absence of clouds. 

 Some people prefer to sleep on the ground rolled up in 

 their blankets, and with their feet toward the fire, to the 

 softest couch; but I have found that a bed or a hammock 

 is the most comfortable, and the safest also, as its height 

 prevents snakes and other crawling things from becoming 

 unwelcome bedfellows. An excellent, convenient, and ex- 

 ceedingly portable bed, which can be rolled up into a very 

 small compass, is now made in New York specially for 

 camp purposes; and this I found to fully supply all the re- 

 quirements of such an article, as it has a gentle slope from 

 head to foot, so that one does not need a pillow, and it may 

 be set up in less than a minute. 



I have also found an air-bed made of rubber very con- 

 venient when I could not pitch a tent and was compelled 

 to sleep on wet ground; but I thought it too heavy for 

 transportation, unless I was travelling by canoe, and my 

 cheeks often ached in trying to fill it. It has its advan- 

 tages, however; and if a person had the means at command 

 for carrying it, he would find it a matter of difficulty to 

 get any bed to equal it in comfort, it being both soft and 

 water-proof. If one must sleep on the ground, a rubber 

 blanket should be placed upon it to keep out the damp- 

 ness ; and with another over the woollen blankets he may 

 repose soundly, even while the rain pours down upon him. 



The most comfortable means of keeping warm in a tent 

 either night or day, and also the readiest for cooking food, 

 is to use a neat camp-stove made of sheet-iron, which has a 

 length of about two feet, a breadth of thirteen or fourteen 

 inches, a height of, say, fifteen inches, and contains an oven 

 nine or ten inches in length, and occupying the whole width 

 of the apparatus. There should be two holes in the top for 

 kettles, and their covers ought to be saucer-shaped, to pre- 

 vent them from being warped by the heat. The pipe should 

 be made in small sections, for the sake of portability; and 

 where it passes through the tent the hole should be protect- 

 ed by a plate of sheet-iron or tin, to prevent the camp from 



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