Francis Galton

“ MANAGEMENT OF SAVAGES.
General Remarks.--A frank, joking, but determined manner, joined with an air of showing more confidence in the good faith of the natives than you really feel, is the best. It is observed, that a sea-captain generally succeeds in making an excellent impression on savages: they thoroughly appreciate common sense, truth, and uprightness; and are not half such fools as strangers usually account them. If a savage does mischief, look on him as you would on a kicking mule, or a wild animal, whose nature is to be unruly and vicious, and keep your temper quite unruffled. ”

“ In the flattest and most unpromising of fields, the creature will have availed herself of some little hollow to the lee of an insignificant tuft of grass, and there she will have nestled and fidgeted about till she has made a smooth, round, grassy bed, compact and fitted to her shape, where she may curl herself snugly up, and cower down below the level of the cutting night wind. Follow her example. A man, as he lies upon his mother earth, is an object so small and low that a screen of eighteen inches high will guard him securely from the strength of a storm. ”

“ In a dangerous country there can be no comparison between the hazard of a tent and that of a bivouac. In the former a man's sleep is heavy; he cannot hear nearly so well; he can see nothing; his cattle may all decamp; while marauders know exactly where he is lying, and may make their plans accordingly. They may creep up unobserved and spear him through the canvas. ”

“ It always seems to me that a hard-worked woman is better and happier for her work. It is in the nature of women to be fond of carrying weights; you may see them in omnibuses and carriages, always preferring to hold their baskets or their babies on their knees, to setting them down on the seats by their sides. A woman, whose modern dress includes I know not how many cubic feet of space, has hardly ever pockets of a sufficient size to carry small articles; for she prefers to load her hands with a bag or other weighty object. ”

“ Men on shore can rescue a man who is being washed to and fro in the surf, by holding together, very firmly, hand-in-hand, and forming a line down to the sea: the foremost man clutches the swimmer as soon as he is washed up to him, and holds him firmly while the wave is retiring. The force of the indraught is enormous, and none but strong men can withstand it.
Floats.--If a traveller can swim pretty well, it is a good plan to make a float when he wishes to cross a river, and to lay his breast upon it, while his clothes and valuables are enclosed in a huge turban on his head. ”

“ Bush Law.--It is impossible but that a traveller must often take the law into his own hands. Some countries, no doubt, are governed with a strong arm by a savage despot; to whom or to whose subordinates appeals must of course be made; but, for the most part, the system of life among savages is--
"The simple rule, the good old plan-- That they should take, who have the power; And they should keep, who can."
Where there is no civil law, or any kind of substitute for it, each man is, as it were, a nation in himself ”

“ It may be, that as he walks about in search of shelter, a mass of foliage at the level of his eye, with its broad shadow, attracts him, and as he stands to the leeward of it it seems snug, and, therefore, without further reflection, he orders his bed to be spread at the foot of some tree. ”

“ Then remembering how the traditional maxims and methods of travelling in each country differ from those of others, and how every traveller discovers some useful contrivances for himself, it appeared to me, that I should do welcome service to all who have to rough it--whether explorers, emigrants, missionaries or soldiers,*--by collecting the scattered experiences of many such persons in various circumstances, collating them, examining into their principles, and deducing from them what might fairly be called an "Art of Travel." ”

“ After making several experiments, I think the explanation of the difficulty and the way of overcoming it are as follows:--If a man walks on a level surface, guided by a single conspicuous mark, he is almost sure not to travel towards it in a straight line; his muscular sense is not delicate enough to guard him from making small deviations. If, therefore, after walking some hundred yards towards a single mark, on ground that preserves his track, the traveller should turn round, he will probably be astonished to see how sinuous his course has been. ”

“ In compasses consisting simply of a needle, the north end of the needle should have a conspicuous arrow-head. It is extraordinary how much the power of seeing a compass or a watch at night is increased by looking nearly at it through a magnifying-glass. Thus, young people who can focus their vision through a wide range may be observed poring with their eyes close to their books when the light wanes. So again, at night-time, a placard, even in large type, is illegible at a short distance, but easily read on approaching it. ”

“ Cooking Utensils.--Cookery books.--A book on cooking is of no use at all in the rougher kinds of travel, for all its recipes consist of phrases such as "Take a pound of so-and-so, half a pound of something else, a pinch of this, and a handful of that." Now in the bush a man has probably none of these things--he certainly has not all of them--and, therefore, the recipe is worthless. ”

“ The traveller must settle in his own mind what his scale of punishments should be; and it will be found a convenient principle that a culprit should be punished in proportion to the quantity of harm that he has done, rather than according to the presumed wickedness of the offence. Thus, if two men were caught, one of whom had stolen an ox, and the other a sheep, it would be best to flog the first much more heavily than the second; it is a measure of punishment more intelligible to savages than ours. ”

“ Some savages--as, for instance, those of Timor--when in want of bullets, use stones two or three inches long. Some good sportsmen insist on the advantage, for shooting at very close quarters, of cleaving a conical bullet nearly down to its base, into four parts; these partly separate, and make a fearful wound. I suppose that the bullet leaves the gun with the same force as if it were entire; and that it traverses too short a distance for the altered form to tell seriously upon the speed: when it strikes, it acts like chain-shot. ”

“ Wagons.--A traveller's wagon should be of the simplest possible construction, and not too heavy. The Cape wagons, or, at all events, those of a few years back, undoubtedly shared the ponderousness of all Dutch workmanship. Weight is required only when crashing through a bushy country, where a wagon must break down all before it: in every other case it is objectionable. It is a saving of labour to have one large wagon, rather than two small ones, because a driver and a leader are thereby spared. ”

“ But the speed of a springing animal is undeniably the same as that of a ball, thrown so as to make a flight of equal length and height in the air. The corollary to all this is, that, if charged, you must keep cool and watchful, and your chance of escape is far greater than non-sportsmen would imagine. The blow of the free paw is far swifter than the bound. ”

“ The teacher may sit in a punt or on a rock, with a stout stick of 6 or 10 feet in length, at the end of which is a cord of 4 feet or so, with loops. The learner puts himself into the loops; and the teacher plays him, as a fisherman would play a fish, in water that is well out of his depth: he gives him just enough support to keep him from drowning. After six or a dozen lessons, many boys require no support at all, but swim about with the rope dangling slack about them. When a boy does this, he can be left to shift for himself. ”

“ There is even a flash of light when the velocity of the ball is very high. When bullets are fired with heavy charges at a target, the lead is just melted by the heat of impact, and it "splashes," to use a common phrase. It is obvious from these two examples, that no velocity which the hand of man is able to give to a steel, when striking a flint, or to one stick rubbing against another stick, will be competent to afford a red-hot temperature unless the surface against which impact or friction is made be very small, or unless great care be taken to avoid the wasteful dissipation of heat. ”

“ It is a common idea among men who are preparing to travel for the first time, that all the bed-clothing about which they need concern themselves, is a sufficiency to cover them, forgetting that a man has an under as well as an upper side to keep warm, and must therefore have clothing between him and the earth, as well as between him and the air. Indeed, on trying the experiment, and rolling oneself up in a single blanket, the undermost side in a cold night is found to be by far the colder of the two. The substance of the blanket is compressed by the weight of the sleeper ”

“ Again, in selecting a place for bivouac, we must bear in mind that a gale never blows in level currents, but in all kinds of curls and eddies, as the driving of a dust-storm, or the vagaries of bits of straw caught up by the wind, unmistakably show us. Little hillocks or undulations, combined with the general lay of the ground, are a chief cause of these eddies; they entirely divert the current of the wind from particular spots. Such spots should be looked for; they are discovered by watching the grass or the sand that lies on the ground. ”

“ Tethers, Hobbles, and Knee-halters.--Cattle may be secured at night by being tethered, hobbled, knee-haltered, or driven into an enclosure made of bushes. The nature of the country, and what dangers are apprehended, determine which plan is most advisable. A knee-haltered horse has a good change of escape if he scents a wild beast that is creeping up to him; for he can gallop, though with labour, to a short distance. A hobbled horse has no chance at all; though, indeed, they have been known to fight desperately with their teeth and feet, and learn to be cunning and watchful. ”

“ No cleanliness of the individual seems to diminish this remarkable odour: indeed, the more civilised the man, the more subtle does it appear to be; the touch of a game-keeper scares less than that of the master, and the touch of a negro or bushman less than that of a traveller from Europe. ”

“ By Rocks.--In the cruel climate of Thibet, Dr. Hooker tells us that it is the habit to encamp close to some large rock, because a rock absorbs heat all day, and parts with it but slowly during the night-time. It is, therefore, a reservoir of warmth when the sun is down, and its neighbourhood is coveted in the night-time. Owing to the same cause, acting in the opposite direction, the shadow of a broad rock is peculiarly cool and grateful, during the heat of the day, in a thirsty land. ”

“ Reluctant Servants.--Great allowance should be made for the reluctant co-operation of servants; they have infinitely less interest in the success of the expedition than their leaders, for they derive but little credit from it. They argue thus:--"Why should we do more than we knowingly undertook, and strain our constitutions and peril our lives in enterprises about which we are indifferent?" It will, perhaps, surprise a leader who, having ascertained to what frugal habits a bush servant is inured, learns on trial, how desperately he clings to those few luxuries which he has always had. ”

“ If a novice thinks he will trap successfully by such artless endeavours as putting a bait on the plate of a trap that is covered over with moss, or by digging a pitfall in the middle of a wild beast's track, he is utterly mistaken. ”

“ I will speak of these four methods of encamping, --the bivouac, the hut, the sleeping-bag, and the tent, in that order.
General Remarks.--Bivouacking is miserable work in a wet or unhealthy climate; but in a dry and healthy one, there is no question of its superiority over tenting. Men who sleep habitually in the open, breathe fresher air and are far more imbued with the spirit of wild life, than those who pass the night within the stuffy enclosure of a tent. ”

“ In that country the traveller has, or had a few years ago, to take everything with him, for there were no civilised settlers, and the natural products of the country are of as little value in supplying his wants as those of any country can be. Again, South African wants are typical of those likely to be felt in every part of a large proportion of the region where rude travel is likely to be experienced, as in North Africa, in Australia, in Southern Siberia, and even in the prairies and pampas of North and South America. ”

“ Spring frosts are always more severely felt in hollows. Therefore, in a broad level plain, especially if the night be clear and calm, look out for some slightly rising ground for an encampment. The chilled stratum of air drains from off it, and is replaced by warmer air. Horses and cattle, as the night sets in, always draw up to these higher grounds, which rise like islands through the sea of mist that covers the plain. ”

“ Recollection of a Path.--It is difficult to estimate, by recollection only, the true distances between different points in a road that has been once travelled over. There are many circumstances which may mislead, such as the accidental tedium of one part, or the pleasure of another; but besides these, there is always the fact, that, in a long day's journey, a man's faculties of observation are more fresh and active on starting than later in the day, when from the effect of weariness, even peculiar objects will fail to arrest his attention. ”