IN traveling with pack animals it is not always convenient or practicable to transport tents, and the traveler’s ingenuity is often taxed in devising the most available means for making himself comfortable and secure against winds and storms. I have often been astonished to see how soon an experienced voyager, without any resources save those provided by nature, will erect a comfortable shelter in a place where a person having no knowledge of woodcraft would never think of such a thing.
Almost all people in different parts of the world have their own peculiar methods of bivouacking.
In the severe climate of Thibet, Dr. Hooker informs us that they encamp near large rocks, which absorb the heat during the day, and give it out slowly during the night. They form, as it were, reservoirs of caloric, the influence of which is exceedingly grateful during a cold night.
In the polar regions the Esquimaux live and make themselves comfortable in huts of ice or snow, and with no other combustible but oil.
The natives of Australia bury their bodies in the sand, keeping their heads only above the surface, and thus sleep warm during the chilly nights of that climate.
Fortunately for the health and comfort of travelers upon the Plains, the atmosphere is pure and dry during the greater part of the year, and it is seldom that any rain or dew is seen; neither are there marshes or ponds of stagnant water to generate putrid exhalations and poisonous malaria. The night air of the summer months is soft, exhilarating, and delightful. Persons may therefore sleep in it and inhale it with perfect impunity, and, indeed, many prefer this to breathing the confined atmosphere of a house or tent.
During the rainy season only is it necessary to seek shelter. In traveling with covered wagons one always has protection from storms, but with pack trains it becomes necessary to improvise the best substitutes for tents.
A very secure protection against storms may be constructed by planting firmly in the ground two upright poles, with forks at their tops, and crossing them with a light pole laid in the forks. A guttapercha cloth, or sheet of canvas, or, in the absence of either of these two, blankets, may be attached by one side to the horizontal pole, the opposite edge being stretched out to the windward at an angle of about forty-five degrees to the ground, and there fastened with wooden pins, or with buckskin strings tied to the lower border of the cloth and to pegs driven firmly into the earth. This forms a shelter for three or four men, and is a good defense against winds and rains. If a fire be then made in front, the smoke will be carried away, so as not to incommode the occupants of the bivouac.
Half-Faced Camp
This is called a “half-faced” camp.
Another method practiced a great deal among mountain men and Indians consists in placing several rough poles equidistant around in a half circle, and bringing the small ends together at the top, where they are bound with a thong. This forms the conical frame-work of the bivouac, which, when covered with a cloth stretched around it, makes a very good shelter, and is preferable to the halffaced camp, because the sides are covered.
Conical Bivouac
When no cloths, blankets, or hides are at hand to be placed over the poles of the lodge, it may be covered with green boughs laid on compactly, so as to shed a good deal of rain, and keep out the wind in cold weather. We adopted this description of shelter in crossing the Rocky Mountains during the winter of 1857-8, and thus formed a very effectual protection against the bleak winds which sweep with great violence over those lofty and inhospitable sierras. We always selected a dense thicket for our encampment, and covered the lodges with a heavy coating of pine boughs, wattling them together as compactly as possible, and piling snow upon the outside in such a manner as to make them quite impervious to the wind. The fires were then kindled at the mouths of the lodges, and our heads and bodies were completely sheltered, while our feet were kept warm by the fires.
The French troops, while serving in the Crimea, used what they call the tente d’abri, or shelter tent, which seems to have been received with great favor in Europe. It is composed of two, four, or six square pieces of cloth, with buttons and buttonholes adjusted upon the edges, and is pitched by planting two upright stakes in the ground at a distance corresponding with the length of the canvas when buttoned together. The two sticks are connected by a cord passed around the top of each, drawn tight, and the ends made fast to pins driven firmly into the ground. The canvas is then laid over the rope between the sticks, spread out at an angle of about forty-five degrees, and the lower edges secured to the earth with wooden pins. This makes some defense against the weather, and was the only shelter enjoyed by the mass of the French army in the Crimea up to October, 1855. For a permanent camp it is usual to excavate a shallow basement under the tent, and to bank up the earth on the outside in cold weather. It is designed that upon marches the tente d’abri shall be taken to pieces and carried by the soldiers.
A tent has recently been prepared by Mr. John Rider, 165 Broadway, New York, which is called the "tent knapsack.” It has been examined by a board of army officers, and recommended for adoption in our military service.
Conical Bivouac
This tent is somewhat similar to the tente d’abri, and is pitched in the same manner, but it has this advantage, that each separate piece may be converted into a water-proof knapsack.
The following extracts from the Report of the Board go to show that this tent knapsack will be useful to parties traveling on the prairies with pack trains:
“It is a piece of gutta-percha 5 feet 3 inches long, and 3 feet 8 inches wide, with double edges on one side, and brass studs and button-holes along two edges, and straps and buckles on the fourth edge; the whole weighing three pounds; two sticks, 3 feet 8 inches long by 1 1/4 inches in diameter, and a small cord. When used as a knapsack, the clothing is packed in a cotton bag, and the gutta-percha sheet is folded round it, lapping at the ends. The clothing is thus protected by two or three thicknesses of gutta-percha, and in this respect there is a superiority over the knapsack now used by our troops. Other advantages are, that the tent knapsack has no seams, the parts at which those in use wear out soonest; it adapts itself to the size of the contents, so that a compact and portable bundle can be made, whether the kit be entire or not; and, with the cotton bag, it forms a convenient, commodious, and durable receptacle for all a soldier’s clothing and necessaries.
“On a scout a soldier usually carries only a blanket, overcoat, and at most a single shirt, pair of drawers, and a pair of socks, all of which can be packed in the tent knapsack in a small bundle, perfectly protected from rain, and capable of being suspended from the shoulders and carried with comfort and ease during a march.
"2d. As a shelter. The studs and eyelets along two edges of the tent knapsack are for the purpose of fastening a number of them together, and thus making a sheet of larger dimensions.
“A sheet formed by fastening together four knapsacks was exhibited to the Board, stretched upon a frame of wood. When used in service the sheet is to be stretched on a rope supported by two poles, or by two rifles, muskets, or carbines, and pinned down at the sides with six pins, three on each side.
Comanche Lodge
The sheet of four knapsacks is 10 feet 6 inches long, and 7 feet 4 inches wide, and when pitched on a rope 4 feet 4 inches above the ground, covers a horizontal space 6 feet 6 inches wide, and 7 feet 4 inches long, which will accommodate five men, and may be made to shelter seven. The sheet can also be used on the ground, and is a great protection from dampness, and as a shawl or talma; indeed, a variety of advantageous uses to which the gutta-percha sheet may be put will suggest themselves to persons using it.
“The Board is satisfied with its merits in all the uses to which it is proposed to be put, and is of opinion that the gutta-percha tent knapsack may be adopted in the military service with advantage.”
The usual tenement of the prairie tribes, and of the traders, trappers, and hunters who live among them, is the Comanche lodge, which is made of eight straight peeled poles about twenty feet long, covered with hides or cloth. The lodge is pitched by connecting the smaller extremities of three of the poles with one end of a long line. The three poles are then raised perpendicularly, and the larger extremities spread out in a tripod to the circumference of the circle that is to form the base of the lodge. The other poles are then raised, laid into the forks of the three first, and spread out equidistant upon the circle, thus forming the conical framework of the structure. Nine or ten poles are generally used in one lodge.
The long line attached to the tripod is then wound several times around the top, where the poles intersect, and the lower end made fast at the base of the lodge, thus securing the frame firmly ill its position. The covering, made of buffalo hides dressed without the hair, and cut and sewed together to fit the conical frame, is raised with a pole, spread out around the structure, and united at the edges with sharpened wooden pegs, leaving sufficient space open at the bottom for a doorway, which may be closed with a blanket spread out with two small sticks, and suspended over the opening.
The lower edge of the lodge is made fast to the ground with wooden pins. The apex is left open, with a triangular wing or flap on each side, and the windward flap constantly stretched out by means of a pole inserted into a pocket in the end of it, which causes it to draw like a sail, and thus occasions a draught from the fire built upon the ground in the centre of the lodge, and makes it warm and comfortable in the coldest winter weather. Canvas makes a very good substitute for the buffalo-skin covering.
