CAMPING OUT. 293 



provinces, entertainingly descriptive, and sound in advice, 

 which would prove highly useful. They include "Game 

 Fish of the North," by Roosevelt ; Norris's " American 

 Angler," and Frank Forester's "Fish and Fishing." In 

 the former work some excellent receipts will be found 

 for the camp cuisine. I confess to being somewhat of a 

 Spartan as manager of this department, and, before the 

 invention of the really invaluable meat essences, if moose 

 meat, porcupine, or salmon were not in the larder, would 

 fall back upon the staples of a woodman's diet — navy 

 pork and pilot bread, from day to day, unvaryingly. A 

 Sunday dinner, however, would always comprise a boil- 

 ing of pea-soup — one of the best descriptions of camp 

 messes — made of split peas, pork bones, lots of sliced 

 onions, potatoes, and pounded biscuit, the latter being 

 added with the seasoning at the last. The utmost vigi- 

 lance is required towards the close of the performance to 

 prevent any solid crust or deposit adhering to the bottom 

 of the pot, as it would then immediately burn, and burnt 

 pea-soup is altogether uneatable. We write and read in 

 the camp, as we lie on our blankets extended over the 

 comfortable bedding of fir-boughs, by the light of a little 

 lamp filled with the American burning- fluid ; it is one 

 of the best and most portable means of lighting a camp 

 that can be taken. A wax candle stuck in a noose of 

 birch-bark drawn tightly round, and held in a split 

 stick sharpened at the end, which is planted in the 

 ground under the name of the Indian candlestick, is 

 another and more common means of illumination ; and, 

 should candles or fluid have been forgotten, the following 

 will do as a dernier ressort : — A common tin box (as a 

 percussion-cap box), with a wick passed through a hole 



