a
tent is a pocket sewn inside of each wall, for boots, books, and such
small articles. The pocket should not be filled with anything so heavy
as to cause the walls to sag. Another convenience with a tent is a
leather strap stretched from pole to pole, upon which to hang clothes,
and another is a strap to be buckled around the front tent-pole, and
which is studded with projecting hooks for your lantern, water-bottle,
and field-glasses. This latter can be bough ready-made at any military
outfitter's.

Many men object to the wooden tent-pin on account of its tendency to
split, and carry pins made of iron. With these, an inch below the head
of the pin is a projecting barb which holds the tent rope. When the pin
is being driven in, the barb is out of reach of the mallet. Any
blacksmith can beat out such pins, and if you can afford the extra
weight, they are better than those of ash. Also, if you can afford the
weight, it is well to carry a strip of water-proof or oilcloth for the
floor of the tent to keep out dampness. All these things appertaining to
the tent should be tolled up in it, and the tent itself carried in a
light-weight receptacle, with a running noose like a sailor's kit-bag.

The carry-all has already been described. Of its contents, I consider
first in importance the folding bed.

And second in importance I would place a folding chair. Many men scoff
at a chair as a cumbersome luxury. But after a hard day on foot or in
the saddle, when you sit on the ground with your back to a rock and your
hands locked across your knees to keep yourself from sliding, or on a box
with no rest for your spinal column, you begin to think a chair is not a
luxury, but a necessity. During the Cuban campaign, for a time I was a
member of General Sumner's mess. The general owned a folding chair, and
whenever his back was turned every one would make a rush to get into it.
One time we were discussing what, in the light of our experience of that
campaign, we would take with us on our next, and all agreed, Colonel
Howze, Captain Andrews, and Major Harmon, that if one could only take one
article it would be a chair. I carried one in Manchuria, but it was of
no use to me, as the other correspondents occupied it, relieving each
other like sentries on guard duty. I had to pin a sign on it, reading,
"Don't sit on me," but no one ever saw the sign. Once, in order to rest
in my own chair, I weakly established a precedent by g