EXPENSES.

The expenses of camping or walking vary greatly, of course, according to the route, manner of going, and other things.  The principal items are railroad-tickets, horse and wagon hire, trucking, land-rent (if you camp where rent is charged), and the cost of the outfit.  You ought to be able to reckon very nearly what you will have to pay on account of these before you spend a cent.  After this will come the calculation whether to travel at all by rail, supposing you wish to go a hundred miles to reach the seaside where you propose to camp, or the mountains you want to climb.  If you have a horse and wagon, or are going horseback, it will doubtless be cheaper to march than to ride and pay freight.  If time is plenty and money is scarce, you may perhaps be able to walk the distance cheaper than to go by rail; but, if you lodge at hotels, you will find it considerably more expensive.  The question then is apt to turn on whether the hundred miles is worth seeing, and whether it is so thickly settled as to prevent your camping.

To walk a hundred miles, carrying your kit all the way, will take from one to two weeks, according to your age, strength, and the weather.  We have already stated that there is little pleasure in walking more than sixty miles a week.  But if you wish to go as fast as you can, and have taken pains to practise walking before starting, and can buy your food in small quantities daily, and can otherwise reduce your baggage, you can make the hundred miles in a week without difficulty, and more if it is necessary, unless there is much bad weather.

The expense for food will also vary according to one’s will; but it need not be heavy if you can content yourself with simple fare.  You can hardly live at a cheaper rate than the following:—­

ONE WEEK’S SUPPLY FOR TWO MEN.

Ten pounds of pilot-bread; eight pounds of salt pork; one pound of coffee (roasted and ground); one to two pounds of sugar (granulated); thirty pounds of potatoes (half a bushel).[26] A little beef and butter, and a few ginger-snaps, will be good investments.

Supposing you and I were to start from home in the morning after breakfast; when noon comes, we eat the lunch we have taken with us, and press on.  As the end of the day’s march approaches, we look out to buy two quarts of potatoes at a farmhouse or store; and we boil or fry, or boil and mash in milk, enough of these for our supper.  The breakfast next morning is much the same.  We cook potatoes in every way we know, and eat the whole of our stock remaining, thus saving so much weight to carry.  We also soak some pilot-bread, and fry that for a dessert, eating a little sugar on it if we can spare it.  When dinner-time approaches, we keep a lookout for a chance to buy ten or twelve cents’ worth of bread or biscuits.  These are more palatable than