A, B, are two pegs driven into the ground and standing about a foot out of it.  A stake, A B, is lashed across them; a row of pegs, E, are driven into the ground, parallel to A, B, and about 6 inches apart.  Two sets of strings are then tied to A B; one set are fastened by their loose ends into clefts, in the pegs E, and the other set are fastened to the stick, C D. If there be ten strings in all, then 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, are tied to C D, and 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, to A B. By alternately raising and depressing C D, and by pushing in a handful of rushes between the two sets of strings after each of its movements, and, finally, by patting them home with a flat stick, this rough sort of weaving is carried on very successfully.  Mats are also plaited in breadths, and the breadths are stitched together, side by side.  Or a thicker kind of mat may be made by taking a wisp of straw and working it in the same way in which straw beehives are constructed.  Straw is worked more easily after being damped and beaten with a mallet.

Malay hitch.—­I know no better name for the wonderfully simple way (shown in the figure) of attaching together wisps of straw, rods, laths, reeds, planks, poles, or anything of the kind, into a secure and flexible mat; the sails used in the far East are made in this way, and the moveable decks of vessels are made of bamboos, joined together with a similar but rather more complicated stitch.

[Sketch of fastening].

I may remark that soldiers might be trained to a great deal of hutting practice in a very inexpensive way, if they were drilled at putting together huts, whose roofs and walls were made of planks lashed together by this simple hitch, and whose supports were short scaffolding poles planted in deep holes, dug, as explained in the chapter on “Wells,” with the hand and a small stick.  The poles, planks, and cords might be used over and over again for an indefinite time.  Further, bedsteads could be made in a similar way, by short cross-planks lashed together, and resting on a framework of horizontal poles, lashed to uprights planted in the ground.  The soldier’s bedding would not be injured by being used on these bedsteads, as much as if it were laid on the bare ground.  Kinds of designs and experiments in hutting could be practised without expense in this simple way.

Tarpaulings are very suitable for roofs.  Those made after the method used by sailors are much superior to others in softness and durability.  The plan is as follows:—­As soon as the canvas has been sewn together, it is thoroughly wetted with sea-water; and, while still wet, it is smeared over on one of its sides with tar and grease, boiled together—­about two parts tar and one of grease.  After being hung up till it is dry, it is turned; and the other side, being a second time well wetted, is at once painted over with the tar and grease, just as the first side had been before.  The sailors say that “the tar dries in, as the water dries out;” a saying which I confess I cannot understand.