102 MANUAL FOR YOUNG SPORTSMEN. 



with clean dry tow, as much as you can force into the 

 muzzles, work it up and down as quickly and sharply as 

 you can, constantly changing the tow, until not only no 

 touch of moisture is sensible on the swab, but the barrels 

 are perceptibly heated through by the friction. 



It is not an unlaborious piece of work, I assure my 

 readers ; and if they be, like the royal Dane, in a degree 

 " fat, and scant of breath," they will puff and blow, and 

 their muscles will complain before the task is accom- 

 plished. Nevertheless, the work will be well repaid by 

 the performance. 



The tow may now be moistened, at the most, by two 

 drops of clarified oil, of which anon, and may be run down 

 each barrel. The cavities around the nipples, and all the 

 exterior grooves of the barrels about the ramrod-pipes, 

 elevated ribs, &c, should now be rubbed clean with a bit 

 of flannel, or the finger of a kid glove stretched over a 

 slip of pine wood, and then brushed lightly with a proper 

 brush — a soft tooth-brush is as good as any — moistened, 

 as before, with clarified oil, and rubbed with a piece of 

 chamois leather or buckskin until dry; the striker, and 

 above all the cavity of it, which impinges on the nipple, 

 should be cleaned out, and oiled and dried in the same 

 manner. But, unless the gun has been exposed for a long 

 time to small penetrating rain or snow, has been immersed 

 in water, or been thoroughly saturated with salt air, or 

 unless some obstacle or hitch is perceptible in their work- 

 ing, I do not recommend the removal of the locks. 



Every time they are removed and replaced, something 

 is lost of the exquisite finish and fitting, where the wood- 



