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224   Art of Travel.

pericardia ; it was pure and sweet. Blood will stand in the stead of solid food, but it is of no avail in the stead of water, on account of its saline qualities.

Vegetable Fluids.-Many roots exist, from which both natives and animals obtain a sufficiency of sap and pulp, to take the place of water. The traveller should inquire of the natives, and otherwise acquaint himself with those peculiar to the country that he visits ; such as the roots which the eland eats, the bitter water-melon, &c.

To purify water that is muddy or putrid.-With muddy water, the remedy is to filter, and to use alum, if you have it. With putrid, to boil, to mix with charcoal, or expose to the sign and air ; or what is best, to use all three methods at the same time. When the water is salt or brackish, nothing avails but distillation. (See "Distilled Water," p. 218.)

To filter Muddy Water.-When, at the watering-place, there is little else but a mess of mud and filth, take a good handful of grass or rushes, and tie it roughly together in the form of a cone, 6 or 8 inches long ; then dipping the broad end into the puddle, and turning it up, a streamlet of fluid will trickle down through the small end. This excellent plan is used by the Northern Bushmen-at their wells quantities of these bundles are found lying about. (Andersson.) Otherwise suck water through your handkerchief by putting it over the mouth of your mug, or by throwing it on the gritty mess as it lies in the puddle. For obtaining a copious supply, the most perfect plan, if you have means, is to bore a cask full of auger holes, and put another small one, that has had the bottom knocked out, inside it ; and then to fill the space between the two, with grass, moss, &c. Sink the whole in the midst of the pond ; the water will run through the augerholes, filter through the moss, and rise in the inner cask clear of weeds and sand. If you have only a single cask, holes may be bored in the lower part of its sides, and alternate layers of sand and grass thrown in, till they cover the holes ; through these layers, the water will strain. Or any coarse bag, kept open with hoops made on the spot, may be moored in the mud, by placing a heavy stone inside; it will act on

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