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Bivouac.   135

may be built as a support to cloths, whose office it is to render the walls wind-tight, and also by lapping over their top, to form a partial roof. Wti'e have already spoken of a broad sod of turf propped up on edge.

" The Thibetan traveller cares for no roof overhead if he can shelter himself from the wind behind a three-foot wall. Hence the numerous little enclosures clustered together like cells of a honeycomb at every halting-place, with one side always raised against the prevailing wind. (Shaw.) These walls are built round shallow pits, each with its rough fireplace in the middle.

Cloths.-Any cloth may be made to give shelter by an arrangement like that in the sketch. The corners of the cloth

should be secured by simple hitches in the rope, and never by knots. The former are sufficient for all purposes of security, but the latter will jam, and you may have to injure both cloth and string to get them loose again. It is convenient to pin the sides of the cloth with a skewer round the ropes. Any strip of wood makes a skewer. Earth should be banked against the lowest edge of the cloth, to keep out the wind, and to prevent its flapping. The sticks may, on an emergency, be replaced by faggots of brushwood, by guns, or by ropes carried down from the overhanging branches of a large tree. (For a sail supported by oars, see "Sail Tent," p. 108.)

Fremont, the American traveller, bivouacked as follows:His rifles were tied together near the muzzles, the butts resting on the ground widely apart ; a knife was laid on the rope that tied them together, to cut it in case of an alarm; over this extempore framework was thrown a large india-rubter