Then, with infinite
patience, you may be able to tease the flame. Sometimes a small dead
birch contains in the waterproof envelope of its bark a species of
powdery, dry touchwood that takes the flame readily. Still, it is easy
enough to start a blaze--a very fine-looking, cheerful, healthy blaze;
the difficulty is to prevent its petering out the moment your back is
turned.
But the depths of woe are sounded and the limit of patience reached
when you are forced to get breakfast in the dripping forest. After the
chill of early dawn you are always reluctant in the best of
circumstances to leave your blankets, to fumble with numbed fingers for
matches, to handle cold steel and slippery fish. But when every leaf,
twig, sapling, and tree contains a douche of cold water; when the
wetness oozes about your moccasins from the soggy earth with every step
you take; when you look about you and realize that somehow, before you
can get a mouthful to banish that before-breakfast ill-humour, you must
brave cold water in an attempt to find enough fuel to cook with, then
your philosophy and early religious training avail you little. The
first ninety-nine times you are forced to do this you will probably
squirm circumspectly through the bush in a vain attempt to avoid
shaking water down on yourself; you will resent each failure to do so,
and at the end your rage will personify the wilderness for the purpose
of one sweeping anathema. The hundredth time will bring you wisdom.
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