In wet Weather, the most likely places to find wherewithal to light a fire, are under large stones and other shelter; but in soaking wet weather, little chips of dry wood can hardly be procured except by cutting them with an axe out of the middle of a log.  The fire may then be begun, as the late Admiral the Hon. C. Murray well recommended in his travels in North America, in the frying-pan itself, for want of a dry piece of ground.

To kindle a Spark into a Flame.—­By whirling.—­1st.  Arrange the fuel into logs; into small fuel, assorted as described above, and into shreds and fibres. 2nd.  Make a loose nest of the fibre, just like a sparrow’s nest in shape and size, and let the finer part of the fibres be inwards. 3rd.  Drop the lighted tinder in the next. 4th.  Holding the “nest” quite loosely in the half-closed hand, whirl the outstretched arm in vertical circles round the shoulder-joint, as indicated by the dotted line in the diagram.  In 30 seconds, or about 40 revolutions, it will begin to glow, and will shortly after burst out in a grand flame. 5th Drop it, and pile small twigs round it, and nurse the young fire carefully, bearing in mind the proverb that “small sticks kindle a flame, but large ones put it out.”

By blowing.—­Savages usually kindle the flame by blowing at the live spark and feeding it with little bits of stick, just so much as is necessary.  But it is difficult to acquire the art of doing this well, and I decidedly recommend the plan I have described in the foregoing paragraph, in preference to it.  When the wind blowssteadily and freshly, it suffices to hold up the “nest” against the wind.

Sulphur matches are so very useful to convert a spark into a flame, and they are so easily made, in any quantity, out of split wood, straw, etc., if the traveller will only take the trouble of carrying a small lump of sulphur in his baggage, that they always ought to be at hand.  The sulphur is melted on a heated stone, or in an old spoon, bit of crockery, bit of tin with a dent made in it, or even a piece of paper, and the points of the pieces of wood dipped in the molten mass.  A small chip of sulphur pushed into the cleft end of a splinter of wood makes a fair substitute for a match. (See “Lucifer-matches.”)

Camp Fires.—­Large Logs.—­The principle of making large logs to burn brightly, is to allow air to reach them on all sides, and yet to place them so closely together, that each supports the combustion of the rest.  A common plan is to make the fire with three logs, whose ends cross each other, as in the diagram.  The dots represent the extent of the fire.  As the ends burn away, the logs are pushed closer together.  Another plan is to lay the logs parallel with the burning ends to the windward, then they continue burning together.