You have probably read that a soldier carries a musket, cartridges, blanket, overcoat, rations, and other things, weighing forty or fifty pounds.  You will therefore say to yourself, “I can carry twenty.”  Take twenty pounds, then, and carry it around for an hour, and see how you like it.  Very few young men who read this book will find it possible to enjoy themselves, and carry more than twenty pounds a greater distance than ten miles a day, for a week.  To carry even the twenty pounds ten miles a day is hard work to many, although every summer there are parties who do their fifteen, twenty, and more miles daily, with big knapsacks on their backs; but it is neither wise, pleasant, nor healthful, to the average young man, to do this.

Let us cut down our burden to the minimum, and see how much it will be.  First of all, you must take a rubber blanket or a light rubber coat,—­something that will surely shed water, and keep out the dampness of the earth when slept on.  You must have something of this sort, whether afoot, horseback, with a wagon, or in permanent camp.[2]

For carrying your baggage you will perhaps prefer a knapsack, though many old soldiers are not partial to that article.  There are also for sale broad straps and other devices as substitutes for the knapsack.  Whatever you take, be sure it has broad straps to go over your shoulders:  otherwise you will be constantly annoyed from their cutting and chafing you.

You can dispense with the knapsack altogether in the same way that soldiers do,—­by rolling up in your blanket whatever you have to carry.  You will need to take some pains in this, and perhaps call a comrade to assist you.  Lay out the blanket flat, and roll it as tightly as possible without folding it, enclosing the other baggage[3] as you roll; then tie it in a number of places to prevent unrolling, and the shifting about of things inside; and finally tie or strap together the two ends, and throw the ring thus made over the shoulder, and wear it as you do the strap of the haversack,—­diagonally across the body.

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The advantages of the roll over the knapsack are important.  You save the two and a half pounds weight; the roll is very much easier to the shoulder, and is easier shifted from one shoulder to the other, or taken off; and you can ease the burden a little with your hands.  It feels bulky at first, but you soon become used to it.  On the whole, you will probably prefer the roll to the knapsack; but if you carry much weight you will very soon condemn whatever way you carry it, and wish for a change.