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By far the easiest, and simplest, and best 

 mode of dying your gut is, to place your lines, 

 coiled up, in a saucer three parts full of common 

 lukewarm writing-ink. One minute's steeping 

 will be nearly sufficient to die it of the colour 

 required. The moment you withdraw the gut 

 from the ink, you must rince it in clear cold 

 water, and if, holding it between your eye and 

 the light, you find it of too pale a colour, im- 

 merse it for half a minute longer in the ink. 

 The colour produced is the best of all others, 

 namely, a water-colour.* 



mare, is not so good as that which is to be procured from 

 a four-or-five-year-old gelding ; but the best is to be had 

 from the tail of a well-grown stallion ; and those hairs are 

 generally most free from blemish which grow from the 

 middle of the tail." Bainbridge. 



*This recipe, of course, is not chemically correct; but 

 so few have been the improvements made in hair or gut 

 staining, that we believe it will be found the safest and 

 best. The receipt of our common father, Isaak Walton, 

 is a good one : " Take," says he, " a pint of strong ale, 

 half a pound of soot, and a little quantity of the juice of 

 walnut-tree leaves, and an equal quantity of alum; put 

 these together into a pipkin, and boil them half an hour ; 

 and having so done, let it cool ; and being cold put your 

 hair (or gut) into it, and there let it lie ; it will turn your 

 hair to be a kind of water or glass colour, or greenish ; 

 and the longer you let it lie, the deeper coloured it will be." 



When the water after a flood is coloured, you may use 

 gut died of a light-brown colour. The following is an easy 

 recipe : To a strong infusion of coffee, add a little pounded 

 alum; let the liquor become tepid, and steep your gut in 

 it for a minute or two. The longer you let it lie, the deeper 

 coloured it will be. A strong infusion of green tea, with a 



