s all clothing remarkably well, particularly
woollens. When preparing for a regular day's washing, it is a good plan
to boil an abundance of ashes in water, strain off the lye, adding the
gall of any animal you may have killed, and let the clothes soak in it.
Next morning, take them to the water-side, and wash and beat them with a
flat piece of wood, or lay them on a broad stone and knead and wring them
with the hands.

Lye of Ashes.--In choosing plants to burn for ashes (whence the lye is
to be made by pouring hot water on them), it must be recollected that all
plants are not equally efficacious: those that contain the most alkali
(either potash or soda) are the best. On this account, the stalks of
succulent plants, as reeds, maize, broom, heath, and furze, are very much
better than the wood of any trees; and twigs are better than timber. Pine
and fir-trees are the worst of woods. The ashes of most kinds of seaweed
yield abundance of alkali. Potash is the alkali that is obtained from the
ashes of land plants, and soda from those of marine plants.

10,000 parts of pine or fur.......contain.... 4 parts of alkali.
" poplar " 7 "
" beech-wood " 14 "
" oak " 15 "
" willow " 28 "
" elm, maple,
and wheat straw. " 39 "
" thistles, flax-stems,
and small rushes " 50 "
" large rushes " 72 "
" stalk of maize " 175 "
" bean-stalks " 200 "

Soap is made by keeping fat constantly simmering in lye of ashes (see
preceding paragraphs) for some days; adding fresh lye as fast as the
water boils away, or is sucked up by the fat. After one or two trials,
the knack of soap-making is easily caught. The presence of salt makes the
soap hard; its absence, soft; now many ashes contain a good deal of salt,
and these may make the soap too hard, and will have to be mixed with
other sorts of ashes before being used: experience must guide the
traveller in this. A native woman will be probably be found without
difficulty, who will attend night and day to the pot-boiling for a small
payment. Inferior soap may be made by simply putting some grease into a
tub of very strong lye, and let