nnot get damp.

[Illustration: CRUISING CANOE UNDER PADDLE.]

As to the cruise itself, it should be carefully planned beforehand.
Never start off with only a general idea of where you want to go. It is
a bad thing to trust to luck in canoeing. Plan your trip so that you
will start at the head of some river, or as near the head as you can
find good water, and cruise down. Don't attempt to cover too great a
distance in one day. Twenty-five miles a day is enough, and is more than
you will care to make if most of it has to be paddled. Further--never
hurry. Take plenty of time to fish, bathe, land, visit the country, and
eat your meals regularly. If you have only a certain number of days to
devote to your cruise, lay out the distance you must cover each day, and
try to stick to your schedule as closely as camping-grounds will allow.
Keep a record of your adventures in a log-book; this will prove not only
interesting but valuable in the future.

No one should ever think of taking a canoe cruise unless he can swim.
The canoeist gets too many upsets to risk venturing into deep water
unless he can take care of himself. It is a good thing to practise
upsetting in shallow water, so as to learn how to climb back into your
boat again. Having fallen into the stream or the lake, whichever it may
be, swim back to your canoe and seize the side nearest to you at the
middle with your left hand. Then reach across the cockpit to the
opposite gunwale with your right, and extend your body horizontally on
the surface of the water. By a quick motion you can easily draw yourself
across the cockpit and into the canoe again. It is well to keep your
paddle tied to a thwart with a stout string long enough not to interfere
with your work. Then it cannot float away when you upset.

[Illustration: A RACING CANOE.]

[Illustration: LEG-OF-MUTTON.]

The sails most commonly used on canoes are the leg-of-mutton sail and
the standing lug. On racing canoes you usually see the bat sails--but
racing canoes are mere machines that are not good things to have or to
imitate, and the better element among canoeing sportsmen to-day are
frowning them down. A leg-of-mutton sail requires a tall mast, which
some canoeists regard as a serious objection. The sail, however, runs to
such a small point aloft that there is really very little surface
exposed to the wind, and very little weight up there. It is the most
simple form of sail, too, and can be easily raised and