Hunting -- West (U.S.); Outdoor life; West (U.S.) -- Description and travel
You have now your personal things for eating, sleeping and riding. It
remains but to clothe yourself and you are ready to start. Provide
yourself with two or three champagne baskets covered with brown
waterproof canvas, with stout handles at each end and two leather straps
going round the basket to buckle the lid down, and a stronger strap going
lengthwise over all. Or if you do not mind a little more expense,
telescopes made of leatheroid, about 22 inches long, 11 inches wide and 9
inches deep, with the lower corners rounded so they will not stick into
the horse, and fitted with straps and handles, make the ideal travelling
case; for they can be shipped from place to place on the railroad and can
be packed, one on each side of a horse. They are much to be preferred to
the usual Klondike bag for convenience in packing and unpacking one's
things and in protecting them.
It is hardly necessary to say that clothes have to be kept down to the
limit of comfort. Into the telescopes or baskets should go warm flannels,
extra pair of heavy boots, several flannel shirt waists, extra riding
habit and bloomers, fancy neck ribbons and a belt or two--for why look
worse than your best at any time?--a long warm cloak and a chamois jacket
for cold weather, snow overshoes, warm gloves and mittens too, and some
woollen stockings. Be sure you take flannels. This is the advice of one
who never wears them at any other time. A veil or two is very useful, as
the wind is often high and biting, and I was much annoyed with wisps of
hair around my eyes, and also with my hair coming down while on
horseback, until I hit upon the device of tying a brown liberty silk veil
over the hair and partially over the ears before putting on a sombrero.
This veil was not at all unbecoming, being the same color as my hair, and
it served the double purpose of keeping unruly locks in order and
keeping my ears warm. A hair net is also useful.
Then you must not forget a rubber bath tub, a rubber wash basin, sponge,
towels, soap, and toilet articles generally, including camphor ice for
chapped lips and pennyroyal vaseline salve for insect bites. A brown
linen case is invaluable to hold all these toilet necessaries, so that
you can find them quickly. A sewing kit should be supplied, a flask of
whiskey, and a small "first-aid" outfit; a bottle of Perry Davis pain
killer or Pond's extract; but no more bottles than must be, as they are
almost sure to be broken. In your husband's box, ammunition takes the
place of toilet articles. I shall pass over the guns with the bare
mention that I use a 30.30 Winchester, smokeless. For railroad purposes
all this outfit for two goes into two trunks and a box--one trunk for all
the bedding and night things: the other for all the clothing, guns,
ammunition, eating things, and incidentals. The box holds the saddles,
bridles, and horse things.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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