have all read of the old men who are walking across the
country from New York to California and back again and maintaining an
average of forty miles a day. There is not a horse in the world that
would have the endurance to go half the distance in the same time and
keep it up day after day. For the first week or ten days the horse
would be far ahead but, like the fable of the hare and the tortoise,
after a while the tortoise would pass the hare and get in first.

In walking for pleasure, avoid a rambling, purposeless style. Decide
where you are going and go. Walk out in the country if possible and on
roads where the automobiles will not endanger your life or blow clouds
of dust in your face. Never mind the weather. One rarely takes cold
while in motion. To walk comfortably we should wear loose clothing and
old shoes. Walking just for the sake of exercise can easily become a
tiresome occupation, but the active mind can always see something of
interest, such as wild flowers, gardens, and all the various sides of
nature study in the country, and people, houses and life in the city.

A tramping vacation of several days furnishes a fine opportunity to
see new scenes and to live economically, but near a city you may have
difficulty in persuading the farm-wife where you stop that you are not
a tramp who will burn the house in the night. If you intend to live by
the wayside, the surest way to inspire confidence is to show in
advance that you have money to pay for your accommodations. Also try
to avoid looking like a tramp, which is quite different from looking
like a tramper.

There seems to be a great difference of opinion on the question of how
fast one can walk. The popular idea is "four miles an hour" but any
one who has tried to cover a mile every fifteen minutes will testify
that such a rate of speed is more like a race than a walk and that it
will require great physical exertion to maintain it for any
considerable distance. An eighteen or twenty-mile walk is about all
the average boy should attempt in a day, and this is allowing the full
day for the task from early morning until sunset.

Short and frequent rests are much better than long stops, which have a
tendency to stiffen the muscles. The walker on a long tramp must pay
especial attention to the care of his feet. They should be bathed
frequently in cold water to which a little alum has been added. A
rough place or crease in the stocking will sometimes cause a very