To rig the above, two trees are chosen 7 to 8 feet apart, or two stayed poles can be erected if no trees are available. The bed is rigged about 3 feet from the ground by taking the rope round the trees or poles, and pulling the canvas taut by means of the metal eyelet. Then the lashings at the extremities of the sticks are fixed about 3 feet further up the trees and you have a bed something between a hammock and a standing bed. The mosquito net is fixed above the hammock in a similar manner, except that it does not require the centre stay (Fig. 31). [Illustration: FIG. 31. NORTHERN TERRITORY HAMMOCK (SET UP).] An old friend of mine once had a rather startling experience which caused him to swear by the Northern Territory hammock. He was camped near the banks of a muddy creek on the Daly River, and had fortunately hung his “meat safe” about four feet high. The night was very dark, and some hours after retiring he heard a crash among his tin camp utensils, and the noise of some animal moving below him. Thinking his visitor was a stray “dingo,” or wild dog, he gave a yell to frighten the brute away, and hearing it go, he calmly went to sleep again. Had he known who his caller really was, he would not have felt so comfortable. In the morning on the damp ground below, he found the tracks of a fourteen foot alligator, which was also out prospecting, but which, fortunately, had not thought of investigating the “meat safe.” PURIFYING WATER. There is not a more fertile disease distributor, particularly in a new country, than water. The uninitiated generally take it for granted that so long as water looks clear it is necessarily pure and wholesome; as a matter of fact the contrary is more usually the case, except in very well watered countries, and such, as a rule, are not those in which gold is most plentifully got by the average prospector. I have seen foolish fellows, who were parched with a long tramp, drink water in quantity in which living organisms could be seen with the naked eye, without taking even the ordinary precaution of straining it through a piece of linen. If they contracted hydatids, typhoid fever, or other ailments, which thin our mining camps of the strong, lusty, careless youths, who could wonder? The best of all means of purifying water from organic substances is to boil it. If it should be very bad, add carbon in the form of the charcoal from your camp fire. If it be thick, you may, with advantage, add a little of the ash also.