ng, we took off our clothes and sat on
them; if riding, they were placed under the leathern shabraque of the
mule's saddle, or under any article of similar material, bed or bag, that
lay on the camel's pack. A good shower-bath did none of us any harm; and
as soon as the rain was over, and the moisture on our skins had
evaporated, we had our garments as warm, dry, and comfortable as if they
had been before a fire. In populous districts, we kept on our drawers, or
supplied their place with a piece of rag, or a skin; and then, when the
rain was over, we wrapped ourselves up in our 'quarry,' and taking off
the wetted articles, hung them over the animal's cruppers to dry."
Another traveller writes:--

"The only means we had of preserving our sole suit of clothes dry from
the drenching showers of rain, was by taking them off and stuffing them
into the hollow of a tree, which in the darkness of the night we could do
with propriety."

Mr. Palliser's boatmen at Chagre took each a small piece of cloth, under
which they laid their clothes every time that they stripped in
expectation of a coming storm.

Dipping clothes wetted with rain, in Sea-water.--Captain Bligh, who was
turned adrift in an open boat after the mutiny of the 'Bounty,' writes
thus about his experience:--"With respect to the preservation of our
health, during a course of 16 days of heavy and almost continual rain, I
would recommend to every one in a similar situation the method we
practised, which is to dip their clothes in the salt water and wring them
out as often as they become filled with rain: it was the only resource we
had, and I believe was of the greatest service to us, for it felt more
like a change of dry clothes than could well be imagined. We had occasion
to do this so often, that at length our clothes were wrung to pieces; for
except the few days we passed on the coast of New Holland, we were
continually wet, either with rain or sea."

Washing Clothes.--Substitute for Soap.--The lye of ashes and the gall
of animals are the readiest substitutes for soap. The sailor's recipe for
washing clothes is well known, but it is too dirty to describe. Bran, and
the meal of many seeds, is good for scouring: also some earths, like
fuller's-earth. Many countries possess plants that will make a lather
with water. Dr. Rae says that in a very cold climate, when fire, water,
and the means of drying are scarce, it will be found that rubbing
andbeating in snow cleanse