OCR Rendition - approximate

166   Art of Travel.

hand, the friction of the grains of sand tends to increase the difficulty of movement. The arrangement shown in the diagram, of a spring weighing-machine tied to the end of a lever, is that which I have used in testing the strain the dateram will resist, under different circumstances. The size of the dateram is not of much importance, it would be of still less importance in the theoretical case. Anything that is more than 4 inches long seems to answer. The plan succeeds in a dry soil of any description, whether it be shingly beach or sand.

Bushing a Tent means the burying of bushes in the soil, so far as to leave only their cut ends above the ground, to which a corresponding number of the tent-ropes are tied.

Tent-poles,-When a tent is pitched for an encampment of some duration, it is well to lay aside the jointed tent-pole, and to cut a stout young tree to replace it : this will be found far more trustworthy in stormy weather. If the shape of the tent admits of the change, it is still better to do away with the centre pole altogether ; and, in the place of it, to erect a substantial framework of poles, which are to be planted just within the rim of the tent, and to converge to a point, under its peak. A tent-pole can be lengthened temporarily, by lashing it to a log, with the help of a Toggle and strop (which see). A broken tent-pole can be mended permanently, by placing a splint of wood on either side of the fracture, and by whipping the whole together, with soft cord or with the untwisted strand of a piece of rope.

To prevent Tent poles from slippin('-When the tent is pitched in the ordinary way on a smooth rocky surface, there is considerable danger that the foot of the pole may slip whenever a gust of wind or other sudden. impulse sways the tent. This danger is to be obviated on precisely the same principle as that by which builders secure their scaffoldingpoles upon the smooth footways of a street : they put the foot of each pole into a bucket, filled with sand. As the base of the bucket is broad, the scaffolding is much less liable to slip, than if the narrow bases of the poles had rested directly upon the pavement.

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