530 LEWIS'S AMERICAN SPOETSMAN. 



inanders who have made the earth tremble with their great deeds 

 allotted but two or three hours of the twenty-four to sleep, even 

 during the fatigues of the most exciting campaigns. Napoleon and 

 Frederick the Great are both instances of this fact. 



GALLED HEELS. 



If by any mishap your heel should get galled, the inconvenience 

 can often be remedied by adopting the plan recommended by 

 Hawker, but which we, as well as many others, adopted before 

 reading it in the colonel's work : Take a small particle of gold- 

 beaters' skin, and apply it over the wounded surface ; when this is 

 perfectly dry, and adheres well without wrinkling when the foot is 

 set in motion from the ankle-joint, take a piece of court-plaster cut 

 perfectly round, or, what is better, stamped with a wadding-punch, 

 so that there be not the slightest irregularity or inequality on its 

 circumference ; wet it with the tongue, and, holding it to the fire 

 for a moment, apply it directly over the gold-beaters' skin. Hold 

 the foot still till the court-plaster is perfectly dry, then rub it over 

 with a little sweet-oil, tallow candle, or any other kind of grease 

 more convenient; this latter application repels the moisture and 

 consequently prevents the loosening of the plaster. A galled heel 

 thus treated, with a change made in our boots, need give us no 

 trouble, as the plaster will stick as tightly as possible through a 

 whole day's hard work, if it be not immediately rubbed with a con- 

 tracted heel, which will not allow the foot to go down into it, but 

 keeps it seesawing up and down at every step we take. 



If we should suffer from having our ankles occasionally galled 

 with a wrinkle in the boot, as we have suffered more than once, the 

 plan proposed by Hawker will remedy the evil. We have tried it 

 and found it to answer a good purpose. It is in fact the only 

 plan to pursue. In the absence of the pad, one's own ingenuity 

 can construct something analogous. The colonel says, "Get a 

 square silk pad similar to a kettle-holder. Then have sewed on 

 the opposite corners of it pieces of list long enough to go twice 

 around and tie on the ankle. No wrinkle of a water-boot can 



