XXI The Tramp's Dietary

§ 45

As to food—bacon, flour, and beans are the stand-by. The curious in the matter of concentrated and portable foods will do well to consult Nansen's elaborate and carefully calculated lists of these.[23] Carry some chocolate: it staves off hunger and is nourishing. Milk, if you can get it, has wonderful staying powers, and by most people—especially under stress of prolonged exertion—is easily digested. Wear wool next the skin, and wear it loose. Let everything be loose. And see that your tailor puts pockets—deep and wide ones—in every conceivable and inconceivable part of your costume. As to books, sketching or writing materials, or a camera—every tramp has his hobby: indulge yours to the full; what are you walking for if not to enjoy life? Lastly, do not forget that, if you are not far from the haunts of men, you will over and over again be indebted to your fellow-men for little kindnesses and civilities. A pocketful of small change will make many a rough place smooth. I might mention also sotto voce that so will a flask of good whisky. To these you may add a couple of bandages, some chlorodyne, a few ounces of cognac, a small styptic, a needle and some thread, a small razor, and a cake of soap. Also, if you wear an eye-glass or glasses, by no means forget to carry some extra ones. As for the rest, a pipe, a very big pouch of tobacco (many will dip into it), a stout stick, and abundance of matches ought to make you independent of everything and everybody for days together.

§ 46

A word, too, on beverages, which are as important as is food.—Eschew alcohol in every shape or form, unless you are dog-tired at the end of a long day and must make a few miles ere nightfall. Alcoholic stimulation spells ruination to muscular exertion the moment the stimulus has passed off. It was said that on the march to the relief of Ladysmith in the South African War the drinkers could be told as plainly as if they had been labelled.

The best example I know of the wise and efficacious use of alcohol is in Edith Elmer Wood's "An Oberland Chalet." The author, her sister-in-law, and her brother, with a guide, were climbing the Strahlegg Pass.

"All the way up that eight hundred feet of rock wall, there was never a ledge large enough to rest on with the entire two feet at once!... The numbness of my hands was so great that my control over them was most uncertain. My life and that of my companions depended on the grip I should keep with those cramped, aching fingers, but though I concentrated my will power on them I felt no certainty that the next minute they would not become rigid and refuse to obey me.... After the first few minutes, I never looked downward. I was not inclined to dizziness, but the drop was too appalling.... Once we got all four on a little ledge not as wide as the length of our feet, but solid enough to stand on without balancing. We paused there to take breath, and somebody said 'Cognac.' Now our experience in the Alpine hut the night before had nearly made teetotalers of us. But at this moment we decided that stimulants might have a legitimate use. Frater produced his silver pocket flask and handed it round. We took a swallow in turn, and it was like liquid life running down our throats. I never experienced anything so magical.... I was at the very last point of endurance. I had lost faith in ever reaching the summit of the cliff. I had no more physical force with which to lift my sagging weight upward. I had lost the will power that lashes on an exhausted body. My numb hands were stiffening. My lungs were choked and labouring. I could neither go on nor go back. Then those two teaspoonfuls, or thereabouts, of fiery cognac that burned down my throat sufficed to give me back my grip on myself, physical and mental. I moved my cramped fingers and they answered. I took a deep long breath and felt strengthened. A hope, almost a confidence, crept into my heart that we might reach the top alive."[24]

§ 47

The best all-round stimulant is tea. I say it advisedly, knowing full well that to Dr Alexander Haig and the anti-uric-acid dietists tea is Anathema Maranatha. But every mining prospector, every railroad constructor, every lumberman, every out-in-the-wilds worker throughout Australia and America drinks tea—proof, surely, that it is efficacious, even if it be in a sense deleterious. In huge quantities, and constantly taken, I dare say it is deleterious. But personally I know of no pick-me-up preferable to tea, when, cold, hungry, and tired at the end of a long day's tramp, you find yourself "all in" and unable to eat.

I recall an instance of the extraordinary efficacy of tea—quite weak, but hot. It was at the end of a forty-mile walk through a monotonous country in cold, wind, and rain. We arrived tired out; and although we knew we were hungry (for we had had precious little to eat all day), the thought of food was repulsive, though the restaurant we had reached displayed a variety of viands. I ordered hot tea in the biggest teapot procurable. It was brought. We sipped I forget how many cups each. Then we supped indeed; and after supper one of the party proposed to walk the forty miles back!

Perhaps Dr Haig will say that plain hot water would have done just as well. Humph! Give me weak, but good, tea.

Hot milk, of course, is an incomparable pick-me-up. But who, on a trudge, can always, by demanding it, obtain hot milk? If you can get it, milk, in any shape or form, is unrivalled. More than once it has raised me from the depths of low spirits, produced by hunger and thirst and fatigue, to the most contented of moods.—I was walking once on a hot summer's day along a barren and dusty road where was no habitation nor signs of men. My knapsack was empty, so was my water-bottle. Not a brook or a stream could I find. It was late in the day. I was heart-sick and weary. But the miracle happened. Did I believe my eyes, or was that a man there milking cows over yonder in that field? I made straight for him, and, after passing the time of day and being generally polite (the while my tongue clave to my palate), I presently asked if I might have some of his priceless liquid—I called it simply "milk." Genially he pointed to a pail—a pail, and bade me help myself. I put that vessel to my lips, and I rather think that the vertical arc described by any given point on the periphery of the bottom of that utensil during the process of deglutition was not a small one! When I put that pail down (and a twenty-five-cent piece beside it) I was a new man, and laughed at miles and melancholy.

Very often, when walking, especially in hot weather, one finds oneself tired when only a few miles have been covered. It is not real fatigue; it is want of fluid. The skin exudes moisture; the blood thickens; the serums and synovial fluids run short; waste matter is not excreted; the muscles and tendons require lubrication. A copious draught of water will put all to rights. Not everyone knows this. I myself owe the hint to a friend.[25]

§ 48

Each walker must, however, discover for himself what is the food best suited to his needs—remembering always that it is quite possible to spoil a whole day by even trivial dietetic mistakes. If you walk to see and to enjoy, unless you possess that youth which can digest anything, and that vitality which can attack anything, take heed as to what you eat and what you attempt.—Most unfortunate is the remembrance of an otherwise lovely walk I took one day over one of the most lovely of the passes of the Jura. The day was superb; the road by the soft green pastures was superb; and superb was the climb through the tangled brushwood of the slopes. Filmy clouds formed themselves to leeward of the peaks and hid the tops of the pines; above, I gazed into a deep blue sky; beneath, I gazed into a deep green vale; and a tumbling brook sent its music up the heights. But—I had started foodless, and had stuffed into my pockets only a stodgy roll and a box of sardines. By noon I was hungry. I finished the roll and the sardines. With deplorable result. The pancreas rebelled, the senses were dulled, and all the beauties of the Jura were lost upon heu me miserum!—Fellow-tramp, take thought for your provender—and provender good old Dr Johnson defines as "dry food for brutes."—That is the diet to walk on.

§ 49

But, after all, one's impedimenta must be chosen according to one's tastes. Mr Hilaire Belloc equipped himself for his seven-hundred-mile walk from Toul to Rome with "a large piece of bread, half-a-pound of smoked ham, a sketch-book, two Nationalist papers, and a quart of the wine of Brulé"[26] (but one halfpennyworth of bread to this intolerable deal of sack!); though farther on he tells us he also carried "a needle, some thread, and a flute."[27] But then Mr Belloc's path lay through thickly-peopled districts; he rarely slept in the open; travelled in summer-time; and not once, I think, lighted a fire: and certes he reached Rome in sorry plight.