March i, 1913 
FOREST AND STREAM 
265 
The bladder being a frail material compared 
to the hide substance, care must be taken against 
the leather getting hard. When tanned leather 
gets hard or horny, cracking is not far off, and 
means the ruination of the bladder for air-pillow 
or water-bottle purposes. No cement has ever 
been devised for satisfactorily patching a punc¬ 
tured bladder, as no cement will expand with 
the expanding (under air or water pressure) 
bladder, and rubber cement is worthless on the 
oil-tanned membrane. So, the bladder not being 
fool-proof — often ruined by a pin prick, even —• 
vigilance must be e.xercised against it dropping, 
or cratching against nails, or the depredations 
of grubs in warm weather (most serious course 
of all, sometimes). Even when the bottom gets 
punctured, you can firmly tie up the neck end, 
cut out the bottom, and use the bag for a couple 
more years as an all-purpose article — storm cap, 
wash-bowl, funnel (neck untied), poultice pro¬ 
tector in illness, soap bag (or any other bag) ; as 
a suspended shower bath, money or ore recep¬ 
tacle — and always waterproof. It is, however, 
no longer practicable as an air-tight vessel. 
Unfortunately, few things in this world are 
fool-proof, to repeat, unless it be a ship’s anchor, 
blacksmith’s anvil or iron barrel-hoop. Step for¬ 
ward on the latter for shin-bone proof. 
THE MULTI-USABLE NEGLIGEE CAP OF THE PYRENEE 
MOUNTAINEERS. 
There is a tiny i,ooo-year-old independent 
Republic in the East Central Pyrenees—on the 
Iberian versant of the slope—known as Andorra. 
The scribe visited the statelet in April, 1891, 
crossing the Pyrenees entirely alone, and with¬ 
out snowshoes, although there was four meters’ 
(about thirteen feet) depth of snow atop the 
Portus Pass, and about half that on the Alos 
Pass. For, by the route followed, it was neces¬ 
sary to toil over two sierras, but fortunately the 
snow was compact enough to prevent sinking 
beyond the knees. The trans-sierras trip lasted 
three days, putting up at mountain hamlets at 
night. The weather almost throughout was fine, 
and the scenery also fine and impressive, charmed 
with all the poetry of distant prospects and vast 
horizons. 
The mountaineers wear a species of hand¬ 
made tam-o’-shanter, but which is open both 
ends. It is elastic, and entirely made of the 
natural undyed black-brown worsted obtained 
from the black sheep. This nature dye will not 
crock or fade. Not alone does it serve as a 
kapo (cap), but can be used as a hand-mit or 
glove, or as a make-shift valise (holding a 
surprising lot of articles) ; or, at a shift, as bath¬ 
ing pants; or the mountaineer will tuck his baby 
comfortably into one and carry it along con¬ 
tentedly teetering up and down. 
With' half a dozen of those kapos in one's 
knapsack, the camper will have one of the most 
useful articles of campingdoni. They could be 
imported by any camping-supply store, or the 
reader could make them himself. Ask at any 
big department store where they sell piece goods 
(as for ladies’ waists) for the hollow-woven or 
tubular seamless worsted cloth, preferably the 
undyed material, made from the fleece of black 
sheep. The imported article would be somewhat 
heavier and shaggier-looking than the machine- 
made tricot (as the cloth is technically termed) of 
the American mills, so the domestic article would 
be best, as more portable and pocketable. I have 
worn these knockabout, multi-usable negligee 
caps in ]\lanhattan and elsewhere for years, and 
they look just about like any other of the cap 
tribe so common now on our city streets. 
In many a mountain fonda (inn) of the 
Pyrenees, the peasants will roll up their caps 
ring-shape, and use them in a game at quoits. 
Slip-knotted together, a dozen of them will 
make an extempore scaling-ladder, stretching 
more than double by the weight of the climber. 
Such a “rope” easily withstands a heavy man’s 
weight. 
{Continued in our next issue.) 
“Which form of sport do you prefer, hunt¬ 
ing or fishing?” “Fishing,” replied Doc Sawyer. 
“When a man has to have a fish-hook cut out, 
you know where to look for it, but bird shot 
scatters terribly.”—Philander Johnson, in the 
New York Globe. 
THE TOP RAIL. 
While fishing down a sizeable New Eng¬ 
land trout stream one day, I saw ahead of me 
a brother of the angle who seemed to be acting 
quecrly. At first I thought him some unmiti¬ 
gated fool who was trying to catch trout with 
an artificial bass minnow and a fly-rod, for I 
saw him repeatedly flail the stream with a bait 
out of all proportion to the rod he was using. 
On drawing nearer, I found he was afflicted 
of a plague of good-sized redfin minnows, which 
took his flies almost as often as they were pre¬ 
sented, and which he jerked high over his head 
into the back cast so hard that the hook was 
invariably torn from the minnow's mouth when 
the line straightened out behind him. 
I approached the man (he was a modishly 
dressed fellow of about thirty) and he nodded 
to me, but continued to jerk out the minnows. 
It was amazing, the way the little beggars took 
his flies, and I stood watching, laughing a little 
inside, perhaps. 
At last all three of the angler’s flies were 
either broken or whipped off by his vigorous 
fishing, and he stopped to bend on a new assort¬ 
ment. I could see he was vexed. 
“Looks like you’ve struck a convention,” I 
remarked, smiling my best. 
He finished tying on his flies before he 
answered, by which time I was moving on. 
I did not catch what he said, on account of 
the noise of the rift, and begged his pardon. 
He paused, and in a rather shrill voice almost 
shouted: “I’ve caught twenty-two standing right 
in this spot, d-n them. I’m going to fish 
them all out. There’s one got one of my flies 
now,” he continued, raising the tip of his rod. 
“'Watch me hoist him!” 
He made a vicious upward jerk with his rod 
arm, and—smash went his handsome bethabara 
rod in two places, the tip joint and the middle 
joint. His line had looped around a boulder 
while his attention was momentarily diverted 
by the conversation. He had tried to “hoist” 
New York State. 
I tarried there no longer, and as I fished 
on, unsuccessfully for the most part, I bethought 
me of good old Sir Izaak and of some of his 
quaint, observations, and especially those with 
reference to the virtue of patience. 
Grizzly King. 
Fast Growing Trees. 
FIard, fine-grained, durable wood usually 
grows slowly, says Popular Mechanics. A most 
remarkable exception is the eucalyptus, and this 
it is that gives the tree its great value as a 
means of reforestation. It is said that the 
eucalyptus grows five times as rapidly as any 
other tree. 
Seedlings have been observed to make an 
average growth of six inches in height a day, 
and one tree in California attained a height of 
125 feet and a diameter of thirty-six inches in 
nine 3cears. The eucalyptus will not thrive 
where there are frosts. 
A Collection of the All-pnrpose “Kapos” (Caps) of the Pyrenees and 
Andorra Republic regions in black, white, and undyed brown 
worsteds. They are “ringed,” as shown, for convenience of stow¬ 
ing in travel kit. 
The Spanish Alpagata — hemp-fiber- 
soled non-slipping shoes. In use 
in Iberia since the Arab conquest 
(hence their Arabic name). Much 
used all over the Pyrenees by 
mountaineers. 
