few of the upper branches have been cleared away.

If

insufficient, towards the middle of the river, to bear the weight of men crossing, a few stakes, with forks left near their heads, may be thrust down through the branches of the trees to support them." (Sir H. Douglas.)

Weak ice.-Water that is slightly frozen is made to bear a heavy waggon by cutting reeds, strewing them thickly on the ice, and pouring water upon them; when the whole is frozen into a firm mass, the process must be repeated.

LINE OF ROAD ACROSS COUNTRY.

§ 1. Roads, to mark and find.

§ 2. Accidents by the way.

§ 3. Points of the Compass.
§ 4. Climbing.

§ 1. Roads, to mark and find.—What is termed in bush language a "blaze" is nothing more than notches or slices cut off the bark of trees to mark the line of road.

These blazes are

of much use as finger-posts on a dark night. They are best made by two persons; one chipping the trees on his right, and the other those on his left. If the axes are quite sharp they only need to be dropped against the tree in order to make the chip. Doing so hardly retards a person in his walking.

The earth of an old and well-trodden road has a perceptible smell, from the dung, &c., of animals passing over it. It is usual at night, when a guide doubts whether or no he is in the track, to take up handfuls of dirt and smell it. It is notorious that cattle can smell out a road.

Where the track is well marked, showers of sparks, struck with a flint and steel, are sufficient to show it, without taking the pains of making a flame.

If you arrive at the steep edge of a ridge, and have to take your caravan down into the plain, and there appears a likelihood of difficulty in finding a road, descend first yourself as well as you can, and seek about for a good road as you climb back again. It is far more easy to succeed in doing this as you ascend than as you descend, for the reason, that when at the

bottom of a hill, its bold bluffs and precipices face you, and you can at once see and avoid them; but when at the top of the hill, these are precisely the parts that you overlook and do

not see.

Signals. To attract the notice of a division of your party five, ten, or more miles off, glitter a bit of looking-glass in the sun towards where you expect them to be. It is quite astonishing at how great a distance this signal will catch the sharp eyes of a bushman who has learnt to know what it is. It is now a common signal in the North American prairies.

§ 2. Accidents by the way.-If you fairly lose your way in the dark, do not go on blundering hither and thither till you are exhausted, but make a comfortable bivouac, and start at daybreak fresh on your search.

The banks of a watercourse, which is the best of clues, afford the worst of paths, and are quite unfit to be followed at night. The ground is always more broken in the neighbourhood of a river than far away from it, and the vegetation is more tangled. An exploring party travels easier by keeping far away from the banks of streams; they have fewer broad tributaries and deep ravines to cross.

your

If in the daytime you find that you have quite lost way, set systematically to work to find it. I mean that you should from that moment keep a careful log, by observing and writing down the directions in which you ride, and the time and estimated distances; else you may wander away from all help. The object, if you cannot follow back your tracks, is to ride in a circle, until the path of the caravan is crossed. First calculate coolly how far, at the utmost, you can be from your party-you have been so many hours riding, and at such and such paces, since you left them. 'Then make this

distance the radius of your circle or "cast," and keep to your system pretty carefully. Thus, if you ride to one side, hoping to find some clue, and do not, ride back again in a sloping direction, and regain the circle further on. In fine, if you have lost your way at all, do not make the matter doubly perplexing by wandering further: and be careful to ride in such places as to leave clear tracks behind you. Marks scratched

on the ground to tell the hour and day that you passed by, will guide a relieving party.

A man who loses himself, especially in a desert, is sadly apt to find his presence of mind forsake him; the sense of desolation is so strange and overpowering; but he may console himself with the statistics of his chance, viz. that travellers, though constantly losing their party, have hardly ever been known to perish unrelieved.

Faintly-marked paths over grass (blind paths) are best seen from a distance.

Prairie on fire.-The line of fire is very narrow, so that a man could almost jump across it. Even if a line of 12 feet broad be burnt, it is sufficient to stop the progress of the fire. Travellers accordingly do this to the windward of their camp, beating down the fire with blankets if it extends too far, and then the camp is made secure and the grass is saved for the cattle. (Paliser.)

§ 3. Points of the compass.-The confusion between true and magnetic bearings is puzzling and endless. Sir Thos. Mitchell's exploring party nearly sustained a loss by mistaking one for the other. I should certainly recommend that the points of the compass, viz. North, N.N.E., &c., should be used for none except true bearings; and that the degrees, as 25° (or N. 25° E.), for none except magnetic. There is no reason why the two nomenclatures should interfere with one

another, for a traveller's recollection of the lay of a country depends entirely upon true bearings-on sunrise, sunset, and the stars; but his surveying data, which find no place in his memory, but are simply consigned to his note-book, are invariably registered in degrees. To carry out this principle I should advise a little round of paper to be pasted in the middle of the traveller's pocket-compass card, almost large enough to hide the rhumbs in the centre of it, but leaving the degrees round its rim quite untrespassed upon. On this the points of the compass should be so marked as to be as true as possible for the country about to be visited.

It will be found a great advantage to have the bottom of the compass, as well as the top, made of glass, and an arrowhead cut in the card parallel to the due north and south line; for at night, by holding up the compass between the eye and the sky, the position of the cut can plainly be seen. Otherwise in the dark, which is precisely the time when a compass is most needed, it is impossible to consult it; the light of a pipe or cigar being insufficient. The pivot on which the card turns can be fixed in a hole drilled through the bottom glass, but I have found it better to have it fixed into a slight cross-bar, which the bottom glass protects from injury.

Bearings by moss, &c.-The moss that grows strongest on the north side of firs and other trees, in the latitude of Europe, gives, as is well known, a clue by which a course may be directed through a forest. For, looking on the surrounding masses of trees, much more moss will be observed in some one direction than in any other, and that moss, lying as it does on the north side of the several trees, is of course due south with reference to the observer. And as he walks on, and fresh trees come constantly in sight, he is able to correct any slight error of