than a light roomy
iron pot and a large strong tin kettle. It is disagreeable to make tea in
the same pot that meat is boiled in; besides, if you have only one
vessel, it takes a longer time to prepare meals. If possible, take a
second small tin kettle, both as a reserve against accidents and for the
convenience of the thing. An iron pot, whose lid is the size of the crown
of a hat, cooks amply enough for three persons at a time, and can,
without much inconvenience, be made to do double duty; and, therefore,
the above articles would do for six men. An iron pot should have very
short legs, or some blow will break one of them off and leave a hole.
Iron kettles far outwear tin ones, but the comparative difficulty of
making them boil, and their great weight, are very objectionable. A good
tin kettle, carefully cherished (and it is the interest of the whole
party to watch over its safety), lasts many months in the bush. Copper is
dangerous; but the recipe is given, further on, for tinning copper
vessels when they require it. Have the handle of the kettle notched or
bored near the place where it joins the body of the kettle, so as to give
a holding by which the lid may be tied tightly down; then, if you stuff a
wisp of grass into the spout, the kettle will carry water for a journey.

Damaged Pots.--A pot or kettle with a large hole in its bottom, filled up
with a piece of wood, has been made to boil water by burying it a little
way in the earth and making the fire round it. A hole in the side of a
pot can be botched up with clay or wood, so as not to leave it altogether
useless.

Substitutes for Pots and Kettles.--It is possible to boil water over a
slow fire in many kinds of vessels that would be destroyed by a greater
degree of heat. In bark, wooden, skin, and even paper vessels, it is
quite possible to boil water. The ruder tribes of the Indian Archipelago
use a bamboo to boil their rice: "The green cane resisting the fire
sufficiently long for the cooking of one mass of rice." (Crawfurd.) If,
however, you have no vessel that you choose to expose to the risk of
burning, you must heat stones and drop them into the water it contains;
but sandstones, especially are apt to shiver and make grit. The Dacota
Indians, and very probably other tribes also, used to boil animals in
their own hide. The description runs thus: "They stuck four stakes in the
ground, and tied the four corners of the hide up to them, leaving a
hollow in t