Each member of the family, excepting the young children, is usually provided with a knife, fork and spoon,—of sorts,—but should either, or both fork and spoon be wanting, as is not infrequently the case, no difficulty seems to be experienced in conveying any food to the mouth by the knife. It must, of course, be borne in mind that these observations apply to the tent-dwellers, their brethren of the van being generally better supplied with domestic conveniences. A basin or two, a few plates, a bucket for water and sometimes a bottle for drinking water,—even a gypsy finding it easier to drink from a bottle than from a pail—will about complete the list, but an odd saucepan or two, a frying-pan and one or more dishes may occasionally be found. A frying-pan for hanging upon the crane which we discovered upon one occasion is illustrated.[1] There are several reasons why the gypsies do not as a rule make a camp fire directly on the ground, the most obvious being perhaps that their method precludes the burning of the turf, which in some districts at least would cause trouble, and the free passage of air under the fire aids combustion to some extent, while it allows the fire and accompaniments to be rearranged under cover in the space of a few seconds, should a sudden change of weather render it advisable; moreover, it is an easy matter to obliterate traces of a recent encampment. Sheet iron—very frequently in the form of an old tea-tray—is used, upon which to build the fire; this is supported upon pieces of iron bar bent roughly to the shape of a figure 7, the longer ends of which are driven a little way into the ground. Some possess an iron stand for the purpose, shaped as shown in Fig. 14,[2] in which at points a, b, c, will be seen small studs or elevations, the purpose of which is apparently to reduce to a minimum contact between tray and stand, with a view to conserve heat. [Illustration: GYPSY TENT, SHOWING INTERIOR.] Before leaving as a topic the fire and its appurtenances, a word must be said with reference to the methods adopted by those who are not fortunate enough to possess a crane. The simplest arrangement I have seen consisted merely of part of the fairly straight branch of a tree, one end of which was thrust into the ground at an angle—crane fashion, the other end having affixed to it a hook of wire, which looked suspiciously like part of a barbed-wire fence. Another of these kettle-supports might very well have been designed by primitive man; two forked branches had been pushed into the ground two or three feet apart, and lying in the forked upper ends was another stick having upon it two or three crudely fashioned hooks. Another and even less ambitious contrivance consisted of two rough sticks thrust into the ground similarly to those just described, but, having no forked tops, the horizontal stick was tied in position with string and wire, and was furnished with the usual hooks for the kettle.