Jan. 9, 1904.1 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
S3 
At old Itaskaskia such sales as there were recorded 
at the store: Tin cups, chocolate, sugar, silk hand- 
kerchiefs, indigo and Spanish brown, rum and whiskey, 
wine, flour, saddles, holsters, bridles (plated), blue 
beads, blue calico, pink silk, straw bonnets, fur hats, 
fiddle strings by the dozen, fine toothed— tucking — and 
side-combs, shaving soap, wide plaids, gingham, looms, 
ribbons — these sold to such as Louis Lemieux, An- 
toine Lachapelle, Nathaniel Pope (per daughter), etc. — 
put together all that has been said of Old Kaskaskia, 
the storekeeper at St. Genevieve, dapper and polite, 
the tall girl whose soft eyes redeemd a colorless, oval 
face, the Indian woman who dressed skins, the Indian 
who killed deer, the trapper with his year's furs, fur 
hats, silk handkerchiefs and fiddle strings. They say 
the artist has his picture in mind when he lays the 
paint on the canvas; he has conceived his picture and 
then draws it — there at the foot of a willow-grown 
sand bar, on top a caving bank, in a river warehouse 
one may build his picture from account books, even 
though he be not an artist. 
Bluffs, wide waters and green willows, liar, despot 
and corporation— it's a good, big, lovable, picturesque 
Mississippi after alh Raymond S. Spears. 
Two Years' Outirgf Across Siberia. 
The Wolves and Wolf Orgs of C.bJrk. 
None of the wolves we read about were seen by the 
\v"iter at large during the couple of y'fears' tournee over . 
/c.rdom, but all the same they exist in packs in isolated 
parts- of the regions passed through. Wolf-dogs are do- 
. mesticated in all the towns and villages, but are usually 
unfriendly to strangers. 
In the yard or natio of the house where I stayed some 
six weeks at the town of Irkutsk, central Cibiria, a real- 
v'olf of the giant Cibirian type was kept to guard the 
I'hce. He was locked up in a big hutch all day, in almost 
oismal solitude, but let loose nights. Consequently he 
was brutalized to savagery of the most unpleasant type. 
The first night I stayed in that house was my first ex- 
perience with him. I had gone out momentarily on to 
the stoop balcony overlooking the natio, to look at the 
krisanthenums. He espied me! With a roar he d.nshed 
tor the stoop steps. Quick as thought 1 seized a heavy 
chunk of timber from the wood-pile built up on one side 
of the bplcony, and hurled it at the brute. -This gave him 
something to think about — but only for a flash of .1 
moment; for pluckily, with a savage howl, did he rush for 
the stoop steps again, was half way up — the low gate only 
interposed between me and his leap — when another log 
went crashing at him. It missed ! Now thoroughly en- 
raged, and probably thinking I was trying to steal the 
firewood instead of trying to brain him, he returned to the 
charge — all the time keeping up a pandemonium wolfish 
howl. But, as all this was going on, I had backed across 
the balcony to the door, and, as he made his final lunge 
and spring at the low gate, I had slipped within and 
closed the door in a twinkling. Probably I never acted 
so nimbly before in my life. "Discretion is the better 
part of valor," etc. 
Of course all this happened in a few seconds — in much 
less time than I can take to tell it to you here; but as I 
recall and write the incident, the pen even now slightly 
• quivers at the recollection of what was a "close shave" 
with a Cibirian wolf, and "what might have been." 
Why Does the Indian Seep on bis Sumach? 
Nomadic tribes all over the globe have certain habits 
in common. While among the Apache and Yaqui In- 
dia;hs (friendly) of northwestern Mexico, the Gauchos 
and Guaranis of the Plata, the Kanakas of the old Port- 
Filip district, meridianal Australia, the Maoris of Zea- 
landia, the Celones in the Kolombo hill country, i>.e 
Butans and Cikimes of the Himalayas and headwaters of 
the sporting Bramaputra, the Gulis of the Ycypi, extreme 
eastern Cibiria; the Lakyts and Bypiats of the Baikal, 
central Cibiria, etc., etc. : among all these tribes did I 
notice a habit in common of, when bivouacking on the 
ground for the night, finally turning round on to their 
stomachs for the night's sleep. 
Why? It took me a long time to find out, because the 
replies varied— "Habit," "Used to it," "Our fathers did 
it," and so on; in fact, a deal more of explanation that 
r did not grasp, for the simple reason that I did not un- 
derstand their language. Finally a Cibiri_an medikc 
■ with much experience among the Asiatic tribes solved the. 
problem for me. 
"The Indian sleeps on his stomach," said he, "to prevent 
catching cold." He thus protects himself unconsciously — 
without even knowing that it is nature's hint for his self- 
preservation. Only some of the old tribal chiefs can give 
a -rational explanation for the practice — that it is to escape 
"ills," i. e., maladies. In short, h is to escape chills, or 
' malaria, the concomitant evils — or, if you will, to prevent 
catching cold. 
"It stands to reason," he went on, "that this, nature's 
hint to the tribes, is a wise one. For, if sleeping on the 
back, are not the vital parts more exposed to attack from 
the insidious influences of damp ground than if sleep- 
ing on the front, or chest, where a breastwork of bone 
and tissue are a natural protection against sudden chill?" 
Shaved Himself with his Revolver. 
The Russian bayonet-revolver is not seen in this coun- 
try; but travelers and officers use it in Cibiria, as a la-;t 
resort, in case of need. The tiny bayonet lies edgewise 
on top of the barrel, and is sprung into position by with- 
drawing a spring-catch. Supposing a traveler has ex- 
, pended all his bullets over a pack, of wolves, or has not 
, time to reload : here the razor-like bayonet comes in 
handy, and a dexterous plunge of it into,, and the ripping 
up of, the stomach of a leaping wolf, would probably have 
a salutory effect on the others. But I never saw it used 
in this capacity; but one day caught the military engineer, 
Lapomichef, at his house on the river Xop. about mid- 
distance between Bladiboctok and Kabapofck, actually 
shaving himself with that .38 caliber revolver! My fir^t 
impression was. that he was carefully surveying himself 
in the glass preparatory to lodging a bullet in his brain— 
or his gullet. But, looking further, I perceived he was 
rapidly shaving himself with the razor-edge of that pro- 
jecting blued steel miniature bayonet. The reader can 
judge what superb cutting steel this must be, when I 
mention that the shave was entirely and quickly per- 
formed without soap or water — a dry shave, pure and 
simple. 
Automatic But'er Making. 
The Cibiriak mujik has to be a man of resources, for 
he lacks the conveniences known to the American farming 
community. Thus, the Asiatic tiller of the soil has no 
churn for making butter, so he makes it automatically — 
saves his cream till market day, then fills the tubs half 
full, covers them tight, and goes jogging off on his telega 
the score versti or so to market. Arrived there, the jolt- 
ing has converted half the cream into pure, hard, well 
flavored butter. I used to notice the butter formed not 
into one mass chunk, nor into many nodules, but into 
seven or eight fist-sized approximately spherical balls', 
weighing about a pound apiece. The acidulous butter- 
milk is either sold at market or taken home again and 
coagulated for cheese. 
For making small family use chunks of butter, the 
mujik rigs up a small box affair pocket churn, holding 
of an aluminum cup, for instance, is turned over and in 
against the edge. This is always a mistake, for the dirt 
and grease collects thereunder in time, and is quite a 
task to remove. The cup should be, in manufacture, left 
with its edge perfectly flush— as also should be all other 
aluminum items, like plates, saucers, mugs, pans, trays, 
etc. It may look "prettier" to have your aluminum 
service articles "finished" with turn-over edges, but it is 
not conducive to cleanliness. Of course I am writing here 
for the benefit of those out-campers who do— or take the-.r 
turn at doing— the "washing up" when outing; the.se re- 
marks will indeed be unappreciable by those who always 
delegate the task to others. 
With flush-finished aluminum goods you can always be 
quickly through and thoroughly clean in your ablution of 
the aluminum kit; but this is next to impossible wiih the 
ordinary turned-over edges characteristic of the general 
run of aluminum articles on the market, except at the 
expenditure of a deail of unnecessary labor. And no 
camper-out wants unnecessary work. It is always work 
enough for him to be on the shift every day, with the 
monotony of the daily packing-up to get through, and the 
constant vigilance to prevent anything being forgotten 
and left behind. And, despite this care, things will be, 
here and there, left behind; and when many miles off be- 
SIBERIAN TYPES. 
By courtesy of tlie Tliotographic Times Bulletin. 
about (half filled) one pound of thick cream. This he 
either places jn one of his capacious pockets and walks 
around with it, while doing farm work, for a couple of 
hours, or places it on the handle bar of his working plow. 
In either case a half-pound pat of butter results. 
How Many Words of Rjssian N<;ed a Traveler Know? 
By keeping "tally" in my pocket lexicon of all Russian 
words referred to during, the twenty-four months' jour- 
neying hither and thither over Cibiriadom, I can say just 
how many words a tourist should know if traveling 
through the domain of Tolstoi. My practice was to lead- 
pencil under every word looked up, so to help mentalize 
it. In this way, after a couple of years, it was found 
that turning a couple of thousands words, it was found 
lined. This is not many, considering with that number a 
fore the loss is discovered, often deemed not worth while 
leturning for. ^ 
Leavirg Things Bch nd. 
But sometimes an article is left which must be sent 
back for. For instance, one of a party of three left th.3 
hatchet behind. He had suspended it momentarily on a 
tree-fork, and quite forgot all about it. When' seven 
miles off the loss Was noted. So the responsible delin- 
quent had to go back for it seven miles, then cover that 
seven miles again getting back to his waiting companions, 
thus doing twenty-one miles of hard tramping himself 
that day, yet delaying the progress of the whole party, 
who had counted on making about a score of miles on 
the day in question, but only made seven. For when R. 
came in with the needed hatchet he was too tired and 
SIBERIAN TYPES. 
By courtesy of the Photographic Times Bulletin. 
person can converse freely in Russian, including engineer- 
ing, mechatiical, and other technical terms. 
But, in ordinary travel and speech, it is not necessary 
to know 2,000 words. By no means. A knowledge of 
400 words suffices for all general intercourse. 
A pocket dictionary is the best. Phrase-books, seem- 
ingly useful in theory, are worthless in practice. 
Prolonged Experience with AI mintm Travel Kits. 
Fortunately, aluminum cannot be successfully soldered, 
and the result is we have seamless alumintim travel arti- 
cles. A seam is always a fault: for if a weak point de- 
velops it is at the seam. (In this world there is only one 
good seam — a gold seam.) So aluminum manufacturers 
now fulfil a long-felt want in supplying camping-outers 
with seamless cooking utensils. 
, Aluniinum traveling outfits are now fairly common in 
the Cibirian towns. They are mostly imported from 
Teutonic burgs. The writer had a couple of years' daily 
traveling outing experience with aluminum rigouts in 
Asia, _3nd knows some of the light metal's disadvantages 
—as its liability to itself ineradicably stain and tarnish, 
and "pin-holing" by exposure in salt marsh regions, or by 
contact with limes and acids, or even table condimenis 
like salt and (perhaps most destructive of all) vinegar. 
But, unfortunately, most of the light metal cuisine arti- ' 
cles are "finished off" a little too ornately. The top rim 
hungry to proceed further that day, so the party made 
camp in situ, and "rested till the following day." 
So all aluminum goods that are quickly cleanable, that 
save work— in fact, all improvements that (if you will) 
promote laziness— are blessings to the camper-out, who, 
however, often does harder work in the woods than many 
a day laborer. 
To clean aluminum, common wood ashes are better 
than ordinary soap. All ashes contain a certain amount 
of salts and potash, and, combined with the grit in the 
ash, serve as a better scouring agent than soap for re- 
moving dirt and grease. 
Aluminum goods mto which the hand cannot be in- 
serted for cleaning— as water canteens- are best avoided. 
Ihey become coated inside with slime before you are 
aware of it, except by a foul odor; and then you have a 
lively dancing time trying with sand or shot or pebbles to 
scour it clean ! 
Aluminum camping-out outfits have been a great deal 
"cracked up" by parties interested in selling. It is un- 
blushingly asserted "food does, not burn in them," 
whereas, ,if not , narrowly watched, your dinner will be 
qviicker burned and spoiled in them than in any other 
utensil. Again, when new, they siaiii the hands for a few 
days almost hke lead. 
Still, aluminum is the be.st metal for the outing man, 
solely on account of its lightness, L. Lopiaj*. 
