ed and drenching it with mud and water; and therefore a tent of
the above description is found to be unserviceable, if less than about 7
feet long, or ending in a triangle of less than 5 1/2 feet in the side.
Peat, the saddler in Bond Street, once made them; they cost 2 l. 10s.,
and weighed 9 lbs. when dry. They are liable to bag in the side when the
wind is high: a cross-pole or two sticks, following the seams of the
canvas in the above sketch, would make them tauter.

[Fig. 2].

Alpine Tent.--Mr. Whymper contrived a tent for his alpine explorations,
which he found eminently successful. It has a waterproof floor,
continuous with the sides: it is supported by poles, that slip into hems
of the cloth--two poles at either end. These tents have been used on
various occasions by Mr. Whymper's brother in Alaska, and by Mr.
Freshfield in the Caucasus, and were highly approved of, but I do not
know whether these tents would be altogether suitable for more
comfortable travel. I myself had a tent made on this principle some years
ago, but disliked it, for I found the continuity of the floor with the
sides to act unsatisfactorily; the tent retained the damp, and the weight
of the body, acting on the floor of the tent, was apt to disturb its
walls. Mr. Whymper's tent is procurable at Carter's, Alpine Outfitter,
295, Oxford Street, London.

Boating Tent.--Further on, in the chapter on "Boats," the way is shown by
which sailors make a tent out of their lug-sail, throwing it over a
framework of oars.

Gipsy Tent.--A traveller who has only a blanket, a plaid, or broad piece
of material of any kind, with which he wishes to improvise a tent, may
make a framework of long wands, planting their ends in the ground,
bending their tops together, and lashing or wattling them securely; over
this the blanket is thrown (fig. 3). If the sticks are sufficiently long
and pliant, their ends should be bent over the roof half-way down the
opposite side, as in fig. 1. This adds considerably to the strength of
the arrangement.

[Fig 1-3 as described in text].

The gipsies in England use the following excellent contrivance to save
the trouble of tying the sticks together. They carry a light bar of wood,
2 1/2 feet long, bound with string here and there to keep it from
splitting; through this, six holes, each big enough to admit the tip of
the little finger, are bored or burnt; they also carry eight hazel rods
with them, each six feet long, and arran