The Packer’s Art. 
Many of the more or less primitive methods 
of life used by early settlers in this country are 
passing away. Our grandmothers and great¬ 
grandmothers used whale oil lamps or moulded 
tallow candles. Our grandfathers or great¬ 
grandfathers, when they went on a journey, got 
on to a horse with their saddlebags and struck 
out for their destination. Nowadays our great¬ 
grandmothers, if they were alive, would* turn 
01T the electric light, while our great-grand¬ 
fathers, if they had to make a journey, would 
step on to a trolley car. 
In the early days of any rugged country, roads 
over which wheeled vehicles could pass were not 
common, and freight was transported on the 
backs of animals. The hunter of to-dav who 
goes into the rough mountain takes with him a 
pack train, by means of which he can travel 
wherever a horse can. go; and a horse can go 
almost anywhere, climbing up the zigzagging 
paths made by the sheep and goats in their pas¬ 
sage along the slide rock of the high moun¬ 
tains, following the narrow trails running along 
ledges, or scrambling up or sliding down very 
steep heights. In Mexico and in the mountains 
of South America much of the transportation 
of freight is still on the backs of animals, just 
as, thirty or forty years ago, it was in many 
places in the Rocky Mountains. Now, how 
ever, there is probably no systematic packing 
done within the limits of the United States. Rail¬ 
roads run almost everywhere, and wagon roads 
SADDLED. 
follow up every little valley. In the mountains 
of India, packing is still done by the Moham¬ 
medan people who are said to use saddles similar 
in type to those which have been in common use 
in this country within a generation—namely, the 
sawbuck and the aparejo. The sawbuck is said 
to be used for loading camels and the aparejo 
for mules. 
There are still places in the rugged mountains 
of western America where roads do not exist 
even to-day, and where freight must be trans¬ 
ported on pack animals. The load is tied on the 
saddle with a rope, and then saddle and load 
are again lashed to the body of the pack animal. 
If the work is properly done the load remains 
on the burdened beast which may travel over 
rough country or through forests where the 
timber stands close together, going wherever a 
SIDE PACKS ON. 
man can ride a horse. How such packing is 
done is shown in the accompanying photographs, 
taken by Mr. Rutherford Page, of this city, of 
packing scenes during a hunting trip through the 
mountains of British Columbia last year. 
The system of packing, which is still employed 
in the West, came to us from old Mexico, where 
they have been carrying loads on the backs of 
mules and burros for more than 300 years, and 
is very perfect. There are, of course, many 
ways of tying a load on a horse, and almost 
every individual has some special device or 
‘■^ink” of his own which he believes to be better 
than the method ordinarily employed; but in 
that method of packing known as the diamond 
hitch a single rope passes over and about the 
pack in a regular and symmetrical fashion, with¬ 
out any knots which can untie or. come loose, 
the rope always pulling against itself. Inci¬ 
dentally a portion of this rope passes about the 
animal’s body, binding the whole load and its 
bearer together so firmly that they cannot be 
separated. 
It is in old Mexico that packing is carried to 
its highest point of excellence—-in Mexico where 
mining machinery, pianos, kegs of water and 
boxes of dynamite are constantly packed over 
the mountains. So far as I know the diamond 
hitch lacks a historian, and its origin is buried 
in obscurity. “Whence it came or how I cannot 
tell. Possibly the old Aryans, when they poured 
into Europe from the East, lashed their house¬ 
hold goods on the backs of horses with this 
hitch, and thus transported them over the moun¬ 
tains of Transylvania/; or it may be that the 
Moors brought it from Africa into Spain ami 
that in time it came into Mexico. Perhaps it 
is a slow development, painfully worked out 
little by little after years of patient thought and 
study, or it may be that it was a brilliant in¬ 
spiration of some genius among packers. At 
all events, we have it to-day, the most satisfac¬ 
tory system fo'r lashing a load on a saddle of 
which we have any knowledge.” 
[to be concluded.1 
An Execution. 
Our Edmonton (Alberta) correspondent Me- 
copuckewan sends us a photograph of a dead 
buffalo bull, executed by order of the Govern¬ 
ment. 
The buffalo is one of the first consignment of 
buffalo shipped by Michel Pablo from the Flat- 
head Reservation to Canada, but before it 
reached the park it escaped. Many efforts were 
made to capture the animal, but all Of them were 
in vain. At last a Galician farmer succeeded in 
corraling it in his barnyard, and when this was 
known five or six mounted men endeavored to 
drive the bull to the park, some four or five 
miles away. They were wholly unable to do so; 
the bull would not be driven. 
Last fall the Canadian Government gave 
orders that the bull must be taken alive or dead, 
and Mr. Ed. Cary received the order of execution. 
He carried a .23 caliber rifle, and gave the buf¬ 
falo a fighting chance. The bull charged Mr. 
Cary with head down, tail up, and, no doubt, 
SIDE AND TOD PACKS. 
with blood in his eye. It was necessary to shoot, 
and when the soft-nosed bullet passed through 
the young bull’s heart he fell and went on to 
join the dusky hordes of his untamed ancestors 
who now feed in the happy hunting grounds. 
All the game law af the United States and 
Canada, revised to dale and nozv in force, are 
given in the Game Lazes in Brief. See adv. 
