Chapter V: Organization and Conduct of Walking Clubs 103 (2)

_Care of feet._ Always wash the feet thoroughly at the end of a tramp, and dry carefully, particularly between the toes. If the skin cracks and splits between the toes, wash at night with boric acid and soften with vaseline. It is better to allow toenails to grow rather long, and in trimming cut them straight across.

When resting at noon take off shoes and stockings, and, before putting them on again, turn the stockings inside out. If the weather be mild, let the feet remain bare until about to set out again; if there be water available, bathe the feet immediately on stopping. If, on the march, the arch of the foot should grow tired, consciously “toe in.”

If there is rubbing, binding, squeezing, with consequent tenderness at any point, stop at once, take off shoe and stocking, and consider what is to be done. It may suffice to protect the tender spot, applying a shred of absorbent cotton secured with a strip of adhesive tape; perhaps the thickness of the stocking may be changed, or the lacing of the shoe be eased or tightened. By _tighter_ lacing sometimes the play of the foot within the shoe may be diminished and undesirable rubbing or squeezing overcome. Talcum powder sprinkled on the foot will help to relieve rubbing, and soap rubbed on the stocking outside, above the tender place, is efficacious.

Sometimes, in spite of forethought, one may find one’s self walking in ill-fitting shoes; for example, the shoes though broad enough may be too short, and one’s toes in consequence may be cramped and squeezed in the toe of the shoe--particularly on down grades--until they become tender and even blistered. If then other expedients fail, one has to examine his shoe carefully, determine precisely where the line of binding strain lies, and then--remembering that the shoe as it is, is worthless to him--slit leather and lining through, in a line transverse to the line of strain.

Should a blister, in spite of care, develop, let it alone, if possible. Don’t interfere with nature’s remedial processes. But, if one must go on walking with the expectation that the blister unless attended to will tear open, then one should drain it--not by pricking it through, however. Take a bright needle, sterilize it in the flame of a match, and run it under the skin from a point to one side, and so tap the blister. Then cover the area with adhesive tape. If there is abrasion, paint the spot with iodine, or apply a few crystals of permanganate of potassium and a drop or two of water, then cover with absorbent cotton and adhesive tape.

Be careful, on setting out in the morning, that any soreness or lameness of the preceding day has been met by the measures described.

Corns are caused by wearing tight or ill-fitting shoes. If one has a corn, he should get rid of it before attempting distance walking, and should thereafter wear shoes such as to assure him immunity.

For _sunburn_, use talcum powder or cocoa butter. Do not expose large areas of the body to sunburn.

A _cramp_ in the side may easily be relieved by drawing and retaining a deep breath, and bending over.

The _bowels_ should be kept open, and will be, if one orders his food aright. Constipation is to be carefully guarded against. One may, in spite of himself, after hard walking in hot weather, find difficulty. A harmless emergency relief is an enema of a few ounces of the colorless inert oil now sold under such names as “Russian” oil and “Nujol” (the Standard Oil Company’s preparation).

_Medicines_ are to be used only in emergency: cascara for constipation, or, in case of a sudden violent onset of illness, calomel; capsicum plaster for internal inflammation. But hot water within and without will generally relieve distress, and is the best remedy. But _do not experiment_; if a physician is available, call him.

Ammonia is an antidote for insect stings.

Snake-bites are, newspaper reports to the contrary, very, very rare. The bite of a poisonous serpent (rattlesnake or copperhead) requires heroic treatment. Suck the wound, cut it out immediately with a sharp knife, fill the incision with permanganate of potassium crystals and drop water upon the permanganate.

_Care of clothing._ Underclothes and stockings worn today may be washed tomorrow at the noon hour. Shirt, trousers--and underclothing too--should go to the tub every few days, as opportunity offers.

Shoes should be cleaned each day, washed in cold water and greased. If wet they should be carefully dried in gentle heat. Leather is easily ruined by scorching; never dry a shoe in heat unendurable to the hand. Shoes packed in newspaper overnight will be measurably dried by absorption. Keep the leather pliant with grease or oil, but not saturated. If one is going to walk through bogs, or in shallow water, then his shoes should be copiously oiled, but ordinarily one should oil his shoes with sparing hand.

COMPANIONS

Dr. Finley, President of the University of the State of New York, and Commissioner of Education, finely says:[1] “It is figurative language, of course, to speak of God’s ‘walking’ with man. But I do not know where to find a better expression for the companionship which one enjoys when walking alone on the earth. I should not speak of this if I thought it was an experience for the patriarchs alone or for the few. A man does not know one of the greatest satisfactions of life if he has not had such walks.”

The prophets of the cult--Hazlitt and Stevenson--are quite eloquent on the point, that the first joys of walking are reserved for those who walk alone; even Emerson cynically observes that a dog may on occasion be better company than a man. But the solitary Thoreau admits that he sometimes has a companion, while sociable Lawrence Sterne prettily says, “Let me have a companion of my way, were it but to remark how the shadows lengthen as the sun declines.”

Ordinarily, we prefer--most of us--to walk in company; if the tour is an extended one, continuing through many days, we certainly do. And nothing is more important than the choice of companions. A mistake here may be a kill-joy. Daily, hourly intercourse rubs individuality upon individuality, till every oddity, every sensitive point, is worn to the quick. Be forewarned, then, and be sure of one’s companions. Conversely, let a man be sure of himself, resolutely refusing to find offense, or to lose kindliness, good humor, and good will. “’Tis the best of humanity,” says Emerson, “that goes out to walk.”

A common interest in things seen, stimulated perhaps by reading matter carried along, may be the selective process in making up a party; but friendship underlies all.

A proved company of two, three, or four is best. With greater numbers, the party loses intimacy and coherence; furthermore, if dependent on hospitality by the way, difficulties arise. A housewife who willingly provides for two, may hesitate to entertain six.

If there be one in the party who has an aptitude for it, let him keep a _journal_ (in the form of letters home, perhaps). Such a record, illustrated by photographs, is a souvenir to afford long-continued delight.

When walking in out-of-the-way places it is the part of prudence always to have a companion; for, otherwise, in case of mishap, a man might be in sorry plight, or even in actual danger.

WHEN TO WALK

THE VAGABOND[2]

Give me the life I love,
Let the lave go by me,
Give the jolly heaven above
And the byway nigh me.
Bed in the bush with stars to see,
Bread I dip in the river--
There’s the life for a man like me,
There’s the life for ever.

Let the blow fall soon or late,
Let what will be o’er me;
Give the face of earth around
And the road before me.
Wealth I seek not, hope nor love,
Nor a friend to know me;
All I seek the heaven above
And the road below me.

Or let autumn fall on me
Where afield I linger,
Silencing the bird on tree,
Biting the blue finger.
White as meal the frosty field--
Warm the fireside haven--
Not to autumn will I yield,
Not to winter even!

Let the blow fall soon or late,
Let what will be o’er me;
Give the face of earth around
And the road before me.
Wealth I ask not, hope nor love,
Nor a friend to know me.
All I ask the heaven above
And the road below me.

Robert Louis Stevenson.

II

WHEN TO WALK

Any day--every day, if that were possible. Says Thoreau, “I think that I cannot preserve my health and spirits, unless I spend four hours a day at least [in the open]”; and, again, he says of himself that he cannot stay in his chamber for a single day “without acquiring some rust.”

Recall Thoreau’s Journals. Their perennial charm lies largely in this, that he is abroad winter and summer, at seedtime and at harvest, in sun and rain, making his shrewd observations, finding that upon which his poetic fancy may play, finding the point of departure for his Excursions in Philosophy.

AT WHAT SEASON

“The first care of a man settling in the country should be to
open the face of the earth to himself by a little knowledge of
Nature, or a great deal, if he can; of birds, plants, rocks,
astronomy; in short, the art of taking a walk. This will draw
the sting out of frost, dreariness out of November and March,
and the drowsiness out of August.”

--Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Resources.”

_The Daily Walk._ Walking is to be commended, not as a holiday pastime, merely, but as part of the routine of life, in season and out. Particularly to city-dwellers, to men whose occupations are sedentary, is walking to be commended as recreation. Will a man assert himself too busy?--his neighbor plays a game of golf a week; he himself, perhaps, if he will admit it, is giving half a day a week to some pastime--may be a less wholesome one.

It is worth a man’s while to reckon on his walking every day in the week. It may well be to his advantage, in health and happiness, to extend his daily routine afoot--perhaps by dispensing with the services of a “jitney” from the suburban station to his residence, perhaps by leaving the train or street car a station farther from home, perhaps by walking down town to his office each morning.

_The Weekly Walk._ The environs of one’s home can scarcely be too forbidding. A range of ten miles out from Concord village satisfied Thoreau throughout life. Grant the surroundings of Concord exceptional--Thoreau’s demands were exceptional. Those who will turn these pages will be for the most part city folk; the resident of any of our cities may, with the aid of trolley, railway, and steamboat, discover for himself a dozen ten-mile walks in its environs--many of them converging to his home, some macadam paved and so available even in the muddy season, and any one of them possible on a Saturday or a Sunday afternoon.

What could a pedestrian ask more? A three-hour walk of a Saturday afternoon--exploring, perhaps, some region of humble historic interest, studying outcroppings of coal or limestone, making new acquaintance with birds, bees, and flowers, and enjoying always the wide sky, the sweep of the river, the blue horizon. No other recreation is comparable to this.

It is pleasurable to walk in fair, mild weather; but there is pleasure on gray, cold, rainy days, too. To exert the body, to pit one’s strength against the wind’s, to cause the sluggish blood to stream warm against a nipping cold, to feel the sting of sleet on one’s face--to bring all one’s being to hearty, healthful activity--by such means one comes to the end, bringing to his refreshment gusto, to his repose contentment.

The consistent pedestrian will score to his credit, every week throughout the year, ten miles of vigorous, sustained tramping. Five hundred miles a year makes an impressive showing, and is efficacious: it goes far to “slam the door in the doctor’s nose.”

_The Walking Tour._ Apart from, or, better, in addition to the perennial weekly walking about one’s home, there is the occasional walking tour: a two or three-day hike, over Labor Day, perhaps, or Washington’s Birthday; and then there is the longer vacation tour of two or three weeks’ duration.

With important exceptions, we, in our northern latitudes, arrange our walking tours in summer time. And, so far as concerns the exceptions, it will here suffice to remind ourselves of mountain climbing on snowshoes in winter, of ski-running and skating, and of the winter carnivals of sport held in the Adirondacks, in the Alps, and in the Rocky Mountains. In our southern states, however, no disadvantage attaches to winter; to the contrary, over a great part of that region, winter is the pleasanter season for the pedestrian. But summer is the season of vacations, and is, generally speaking, the time of good roads, fair skies, and gentle air. Then one can walk with greatest ease and freedom.

The choice of the particular fortnight for the “big hike” may be governed by all sorts of considerations; if the expedition be ornithological, and there is free choice, it will be taken in May or June, or perhaps in September; if to climb Mt. Ktaadn, it will preferably be in August. Again, one’s employer may, for his own reasons, fix the time. It is well, therefore, to formulate general statements, helpful in making choice of place, when once the season has been fixed.

In early summer, from the time the snow melts till mid July, the north woods are infested with buzzing, stinging, torturing mosquitoes; to induce one to brave these pests, large countervailing inducements must needs appear. Mountaineering in temperate latitudes is less advisable in the early summer than later; there is more rain then, and nights are cold, and, in the high mountains, soft snow is often an impedance. Throughout much of our country, June is a rainy month. In May and June, accordingly, and early July, one should by preference plan his walk in open settled country, in the foothills of mountain ranges, or across such pleasant regions as central New York or Wisconsin.

Late July, August and September are, for the most part, hot and dusty. At that season, accordingly, the great river basins and wide plains should be avoided; one should choose rather the north woods, the mountains, or the New England coast.

For the pedestrian September in the mountains and October everywhere are the crown of the year; the fires of summer are then burning low, storms are infrequent, the nip in the air stirs one to eagerness for the wide sky and the open road.

“The world has nothing to offer more rich and entertaining
than the days which October always brings us, when after the
first frosts, a steady shower of gold falls in the strong south
wind from the chestnuts, maples and hickories: all the trees
are wind-harps, filling the air with music; and all men become
poets, and walk to the measure of rhymes they make or remember.”

--Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Country Life.”

If one is so fortunate as to have his holiday abroad, he will find the Italian hills or the Riviera delightful either in early spring or in late autumn; he will find the Alps at their best in midsummer; and, at intermediate seasons, there remain the Black Forest and the regions of the Seine, the Rhine, and the Elbe. As for Scotland and Ireland, no one has ventured to say when the rains are fewest.

THE HOURS OF THE DAY

“Can you hear what the morning says to you, and believe _that_?
Can you bring home the summits of Wachusett, Greylock, and the
New Hampshire hills?”

--Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Country Life.”

It is well, and altogether pleasantest, on the hike, to be under way early in the morning; and sometimes--particularly if the day’s march be short--to finish all, without prolonged stop. Ordinarily, it is preferable to walk till eleven or twelve o’clock, then to rest, wash clothing, have lunch, read, sleep, and, setting out again in the middle of the afternoon, to complete the day’s stage by five or six o’clock. Afterward come bath, clean clothes, the evening meal, rest, and an early bed.

But one’s schedule should not be inflexible; one should have acquaintance with the dawn, he should know the voices of the night. One forgets how many stars there are, till he finds himself abroad at night in clear mountain air. An all-night walk is a wonderful experience, particularly under a full moon; and, in intensely hot weather, a plan to walk by night may be a very grateful arrangement.

Dr. John H. Finley, of the University of the State of New York, writes in the _Outlook_[3] reminiscently of walking by night:

“But the walks which I most enjoy, in retrospect at any rate,
are those taken at night. Then one makes one’s own landscape
with only the help of the moon or stars or the distant lights
of a city, or with one’s unaided imagination if the sky is
filled with cloud.

“The next better thing to the democracy of a road by day is the
monarchy of a road by night, when one has one’s own terrestrial
way under guidance of a Providence that is nearer. It was in
the ‘cool of the day’ that the Almighty is pictured as walking
in the garden, but I have most often met him on the road by
night.

“Several times I have walked down Staten Island and across
New Jersey to Princeton ‘after dark,’ the destination being
a particularly attractive feature of this walk. But I enjoy
also the journeys that are made in strange places where one
knows neither the way nor the destination, except from a map
or the advice of signboard or kilometer posts (which one reads
by the flame of a match, or, where that is wanting, sometimes
by following the letters and figures on a post with one’s
fingers), or the information, usually inaccurate, of some other
wayfarer. Most of these journeys have been made of a necessity
that has prevented my making them by day, but I have in every
case been grateful afterward for the necessity. In this
country they have been usually among the mountains--the Green
Mountains or the White Mountains or the Catskills. But of all
my night faring, a night on the moors of Scotland is the most
impressive and memorable, though without incident. No mountain
landscape is to me more awesome than the moorlands by night, or
more alluring than the moorlands by day when the heather is in
bloom. Perhaps this is only the ancestors speaking again.

“But something besides ancestry must account for the others.
Indeed, in spite of it, I was drawn one night to Assisi, where
St. Francis had lived. Late in the evening I started on to
Foligno in order to take a train in to Rome for Easter morning.
I followed a white road that wound around the hills, through
silent clusters of cottages tightly shut up with only a slit of
light visible now and then, meeting not a human being along the
way save three somber figures accompanying an ox cart, a man at
the head of the oxen and a man and a woman at the tail of the
cart--a theme for Millet. (I asked in broken Italian how far
it was to Foligno, and the answer was, ‘_Una hora_’--distance
in time and not in miles.) Off in the night I could see the
lights of Perugia, and some time after midnight I began to see
the lights of Foligno--of Perugia and Foligno, where Raphael
had wandered and painted. The adventure of it all was that when
I reached Foligno I found that it was a walled town, that the
gate was shut, and that I had neither passport nor intelligible
speech. There is an interesting walking sequel to this journey.
I carried that night a wooden water-bottle, such as the Italian
soldiers used to carry, filling it from the fountain at the
gate of Assisi before starting. Just a month later, under the
same full moon, I was walking between midnight and morning in
New Hampshire. I had the same water-bottle and stopped at a
spring to fill it. When I turned the bottle upside down, a few
drops of water from the fountain of Assisi fell into the New
England spring, which for me, at any rate, has been forever
sweetened by this association.

“All my long night walks seem to me now as but preparation for
one which I was obliged to make at the outbreak of the war
in Europe. I had crossed the Channel from England to France,
on the day that war was declared by England, to get a boy of
ten years out of the war zone. I got as far by rail as a town
between Arras and Amiens, where I expected to take a train on
a branch road toward Dieppe; but late in the afternoon I was
informed that the scheduled train had been canceled and that
there might not be another for twenty-four hours, if then.
Automobiles were not to be had even if I had been able to pay
for one. So I set out at dusk on foot toward Dieppe, which was
forty miles or more distant. The experiences of that night
would in themselves make one willing to practice walking for
years in order to be able to walk through such a night in whose
dawn all Europe waked to war. There was the quiet, serious
gathering of the soldiers at the place of rendezvous; there
were the all-night preparations of the peasants along the way
to meet the new conditions; there was the pelting storm from
which I sought shelter in the niches for statues in the walls
of an abandoned château; there was the clatter of the hurrying
feet of soldiers or gendarmes who properly arrested the
wanderer, searched him, took him to a guard-house, and detained
him until certain that he was an American citizen and a friend
of France, when he was let go on his way with a ‘_Bon voyage_’;
there was the never-to-be-forgotten dawn upon the harvest
fields in which only old men, women, and children were at work;
there was the gathering of the peasants with commandeered
horses and carts in the beautiful park on the water-front at
Dieppe; and there was much besides; but they were experiences
for the most part which only one on foot could have had.”

In answer to a request for a contribution to this handbook, Dr. Finley replies generously, and to the point:

“I have never till now, so far as I can recall, tried to set
down in order my reasons for walking by night. Nor am I aware
of having given specific reasons even to myself. It has been
sufficient that I have enjoyed this sort of vagrancy. But since
it has been asked, I will try to analyze the enjoyment.

“1. The roads are generally freer for pedestrians by night.
One is not so often pushed off into the ditch or into the
weeds at the roadside. There is not so much of dust thrown
into one’s face or of smells into one’s nostrils. More than
this (a psychological and not a physical reason) one is not
made conscious by night of the contempt or disdain of the
automobilist, which really contributes much to the discomfort
of a sensitive traveler on foot by day. I have ridden enough
in an automobile to know what the general automobile attitude
toward a pedestrian is.

“2. Many landscapes are more beautiful and alluring by
moonlight or by starlight than by sunlight. The old Crusader’s
song intimates this: ‘Fair is the sunlight; fairer still the
moonlight and all the twinkling starry host.’ And nowhere in
the world have I appreciated this more fully than out in Asia
Minor, Syria, and Palestine, where the Crusaders and Pilgrims
walked by night as well as by day. But I have particularly
agreeable memories, too, of the night landscapes in the Green
Mountains.

“3. By night one is free to have for companions of the way whom
one will out of any age or clime, while by day one is usually
compelled, even when one walks alone, to choose only from the
living and the visible. In Palestine, for example, I was free
to walk with prophet, priest, and king by night, while by day
the roads were filled with Anzacs and Gurkhas and Sikhs, and
the like. Spirits walk by day, but it takes more effort of
the imagination to find them and detach them. One of my most
delightful night memories is of a journey on foot over a road
from Assisi that St. Francis must have often trod.

“4. There is always the possibility of adventure by night.
Nothing can be long or definitely expected, and so the
unexpected is always happening. I have been ‘apprehended’--I do
not like to say ‘arrested’--several times when walking alone
at night. Once, in France, I was seized in the street of a
village through which I was passing with no ill intent, taken
to a guard-house and searched. But that was the night of the
day that war was declared. Once, and this was before the war, I
was held up in Rahway, toward midnight, when I was walking to
Princeton. I was under suspicion simply because I was walking,
and walking soberly, in the middle of the road.

“5. By day one must be conscious of the physical earth
about one, even if there is no living humanity. By night,
particularly if one is walking in strange places, one may take
a universe view of things. Especially is this true if the stars
are ahead of one and over one.

“6. Then it is worth while occasionally to see the whole circle
of a twenty-four hour day, and especially to walk into a dawn
and see ‘the eye-lids of the day.’ I had the rare fortune to be
on the road in France when the dawn came that woke all Europe
to war. And I was again on the road one dawn when the war was
coming to its end out in the East.

“7. There are as many good reasons for walking by night as by
day. But no better reason than that one who loves to walk by
night can never fear the shadow of death.

“You will ask if I have any directions to give. I regret to
say that I have not. I seldom walk with else than a stick, a
canteen of water, and a little dried fruit in my pocket--and a
box of matches, for sometimes it is convenient to be able to
read signboards and kilometer posts even by night.”

SPEED AND DISTANCE

Stevenson speaks contemptuously of “the championship walker in purple stockings,” and indeed it is well to heed moderate counsel, lest, in enthusiasm for _walking_, one misses after all the supreme joys of a _walk_. At the same time, there is danger of too little as well as of too much. To loiter and dilly-dally (to borrow again Stevenson’s phrase) changes a walk into something else--something more like a picnic.

Really to walk one should travel with swinging stride and at a good round pace. Ten or twenty miles covered vigorously are not half so wearying to body nor to mind as when dawdled through. One need not be “a champion walker in purple stockings” covering five miles an hour and fifty miles a day.

If one is traveling without burden, he should do three and a half to four miles an hour; if he carries twenty pounds, his pace should be not more than three and a half; and if he carries thirty, it should be three miles an hour, at most. When traveling under a load, one has no mind to run; on an afternoon’s ramble, one may run down gentle grades “for the fun of it,” but on the hike it is best always to keep one foot on the ground. The perennial, weekly, conditioning walk should require about three hours; and the distance covered should be at least ten miles. On a tour, continued day after day, one should ordinarily walk for five, six, or seven hours a day, and cover, on the average, fifteen to twenty miles. With three weeks to spare, one has, say, ten to fifteen walking days--rain may interfere, there are things to be seen, one does not want to walk every day. At the average rate of twenty miles a day--which one can easily do under a fifteen-pound pack--the distance covered should be 200 to 250 miles. If one carries thirty pounds, he travels more slowly, and makes side trips, and covers a stretch of say a hundred miles of country.

The figures given are applicable to walking in comparatively level regions; in mountain climbing, of course, they do not hold. To ascend three thousand feet in elevation, at any gradient, is at the least a half-day’s work; it may be much more. Furthermore, in mountaineering at great and unaccustomed altitudes--8,000 feet and upwards--great care must be taken against over exertion. One who has had experience in ascending Alpine peaks will remember that, under the leadership of his guides, he was required to stop and rest for fifteen minutes in each hour, to eat an Albert biscuit, and to drink a swallow of tea mixed with red wine.

Professor William Morris Davis, in “Excursions around Aix-les-Bains,” gives the following notes upon speed in mountain-climbing:

“While walking up hill, adopt a moderate pace that can be
steadily maintained, and keep going. Inexperienced climbers are
apt to walk too fast at first and, on feeling the strain of a
long ascent, to become discouraged and “give it up”; or if
they persist to the top, they may be tempted to accept bodily
fatigue as an excuse for the indolent contemplation of a view,
the full enjoyment of which calls for active observation. Let
these beginners remember that many others have shared their
feelings, but have learned to regard temporary fatigue as
a misleading adviser. There is no harm done if one becomes
somewhat tired; exhaustion is prevented by reducing the pace
when moderate fatigue begins. Let the mind rest on agreeable
thoughts while the body is working steadily during a climb;
when the summit is reached, let the body rest as comfortably
as possible while the mind works actively in a conscious
examination of the view. Avoid the error of neglecting the view
after making a great effort in attaining the view point.

“An ascent of 400 or 475 m. [1300-1550 feet] an hour may
ordinarily be made on a mountain path; where paths are wanting,
ascent is much slower; where rock climbing is necessary, slower
still. Descent is usually much shortened by cutoffs at zigzags
in the path of ascent: the time of descent may be only a half
or a third of that required for ascent.”

One should not set out on any tour, whether in the mountains or elsewhere, and, without preparation, undertake to do twenty miles a day. During the weeks preceding departure, one should be careful not to miss his ten-mile weekly hike; and he should, if possible, get out twice a week, and lengthen the walks.

In planning his itinerary, he will not fix the average distance and walk up to it each day. Let him go about the matter gradually--fifteen miles the first day, twenty the second; on the third day let him lie by and rest, and on the fourth do twenty again. With the fourth day he will find his troubles ended. The second day is, usually, the hardest--ankles tired, feet tender, shoulders lame from the burden of the knapsack; but, by sticking at it bravely through the afternoon, the crest of difficulty will be overpassed.

In this matter of speed and distance, figures are to be accepted with freedom. Individuals vary greatly in capacity. The attempt has been made to give fair estimates--a rate and range attainable by a fairly vigorous, active man, with clear gain. The caution should be subscribed, “Do not try to do too much.”

STUNT WALKING

These are tests of endurance in speed, in distance, or in both; the play of the habitual pedestrian. Discussion of the matters of _speed_ and _distance_ gives opportunity for the introduction, somewhat illogically, of this and the following sections.

There is, in the environs of a certain city, a walk of ten miles or better, a favorite course with a little company of pedestrians. No month passes that they do not traverse it. Normally, they spend two hours and a half on the way; if some slower-footed friend be of the party, it requires an hour more; their record, made by one of their number, walking alone, is two hours and twelve minutes.

Fired by the example of a distinguished pedestrian, who in the newspapers was reported to have walked seventy-five miles on his seventy-fifth birthday, one of the company just mentioned essayed to do the like--a humbler matter in his own case. He is, however, so far advanced into middle age that he won with a good margin the trophy of the League of Walkers, given to every member who covers thirty miles afoot in a single day.

CHAMPIONSHIP WALKING--WORLD’S RECORDS

EVENT TIME HOLDER NATION DATE

1 mile--6m. 25 4-5s. G. H. Goulding Canada June 4, 1901
2 miles--13m. 11 2-5s. G. E. Larner England July 13, 1904
3 miles--20m. 25 4-5s. G. E. Larner England Aug. 19, 1905
4 miles--27m. 14s. G. E. Larner England Aug. 19, 1905
5 miles--36m. 1-5s. G. E. Larner England Sept. 30, 1905
6 miles--43m. 26 1-5s. G. E. Larner England Sept. 30, 1905
7 miles--50m. 50 4-5s. G. E. Larner England Sept. 30, 1905
8 miles--58m. 18 2-5s. G. E. Larner England Sept. 30, 1905
9 miles--1h. 7m. 37 4-5s. G. E. Larner England July 17, 1908
10 miles--1h. 15m. 57 2-5s. G. E. Larner England July 17, 1908
15 miles--1h. 59m. 12 3-5s. H. V. Ross England May 20, 1911
20 miles--2h. 47m. 52s. T. Griffith England Dec. 30, 1870
25 miles--3h. 37m. 6 4-5s. S. C. A. Schofield England May 20, 1911
1 hr.--8 miles 438 yards. G. E. Larner England Sept. 20, 1905
2 hrs.--15 miles 128 yards. H. V. L. Ross England May 20, 1911

COMPETITIVE WALKING

Mr. George Goulding, the Canadian world’s champion, has generously contributed the following paragraphs on Competitive Walking. The definition of a “fair gate,” taken by Mr. Goulding for granted, is, “one in which one foot touches the ground before the other leaves it, only one leg being bent in stepping, namely, that which is being put forward.”

“In the present mad scramble of the business world, men forget
the need of exercise; they are intent on rapid transit, but
give little thought to walking. Walking is the natural mode of
travel, it is one of the best forms of exercise, and should be
engaged in by everyone, and by most people in larger degree.

“If ordinary walking for health and recreation has fallen
into disuse, so has speed walking in competition. There are,
however, still a few of the old school left, in Weston,
O’Leary, Ward, and others, who remind us of the time when the
art of fast walking was more highly esteemed in the athletic
world.

“You have asked me to give my ideas on fair heel and toe
walking for competition, or speed walking, and in replying I
ask you at the outset to take Webster’s Dictionary from your
shelf and see what the definition of _walk_ is: ‘To proceed
[at a slower or faster rate] without running or lifting one
foot entirely before the other is set down.’ Based on that
definition, a set of rules has been drawn up to govern the
sport, differentiating a fast walk from a running trot. The
chief thing for the novice just starting is to get thoroughly
acquainted with the rules and stick to them, never violating
them in the slightest.

“I cannot here make minute comment upon all the rules of
championship walking, but I will do my best to bring out in
a brief way the essentials. To simplify and make vivid what
I have in mind to say, let the reader accompany me to some
athletic track and see with me a bunch of walkers in action.

“It is a principle of walking which I have set before myself,
to economize effort, to attain maximum speed with minimum
expenditure of strength; but you do not see that principle
carried out by all the walkers before you on the track. One
fellow over there is twisting his body on the back stretch
in an awful contortion, showing he is not a natural walker.
Another, just behind him, is jumping in a jerky way all the
time, owing to the fact that he is not using his hips to
advantage. But look at this young chap just taking the turn,
how smoothly he works! What freedom of action he has! Look at
his hop motion! In order to get a better view, let us step
out upon the track. Now see how his hip is brought well round
at each stride, the right being stretched out a little to the
left, and the left in the next stride to the right, in order
that he can bring his feet, one directly in front of the other.
Notice that he walks in a perfectly straight line. That is to
say, if a direct line were drawn around the track, he would
place each foot alternately upon it. Bear in mind that the
shortest distance between any two points is a straight line. By
this time the walker has passed us, and we get a view of him
from the field. In contrast with the other contestants, he does
not seem to have any hip action. That is because his stride
is perfectly straight, no overlapping; his stride shoots out
right from the waist; he gets into it every possible inch, and
yet there is no disturbance of the smoothness of his action.
And with his perfect stride note how he works his feet to
advantage: the right foot comes to the ground heel first, and
as the left leg is swung in front of the right, the ball of the
right comes down; then, as the right foot rises to the toe
position, the heel of the left strikes the ground and in turn
takes the weight of the body. Notice how one foot is on the
ground all the time; there is no possibility of a lift. A good
test, to judge whether a walker is ‘lifting’ or not, is to note
whether his head moves in a straight line; for, when one lifts,
the head moves up and down.

“Now notice the difference in the way the different men ‘lock’
their knees. The knee should be perfectly straight or ‘locked’
as the foremost foot reaches the ground, and should continue
so through the beginning of the stride. It is easier to reach
forward with a straight knee than with a bent one. As the heel
comes to contact with the ground, the weight of the body is
shifted from the rearward to the forward foot, and the leg
that has just swung forward now begins to propel the body.
The straightened knee is at this instant locked. The ‘lock’
should be decided and complete. Remember this clearly, that
the knee should be first straight and then locked. A knee bent
throughout the stride is not to be approved. The rules call for
a fair heel and toe walk, with a stiff knee, and we have got to
live up to them.

“With our walkers still in view as they go around the track,
let us study their arm motion. Notice how that fellow is
slashing away across his chest. That is not necessary. Neither
is the action of the man just ahead of him, who is throwing his
arms away out laterally from the hips. Now look at the fellow
with the freedom of action we have already noted. His arms are
fairly low, they do not rise higher than the breast. On the
forward swing of his arm the elbow does not pass the hip, and
on the backward swing the hand does not pass the hip. The man
does not carry corks. (The less concentration of mind upon the
action of muscles the better.)

“I think I have illustrated the chief points involved in
walking according to the rules laid down. Perhaps a summary of
the rules for fair heel and toe walk will be useful:

“_Hip motion_: Just enough twist or curve given to bring the
feet alternately in one straight line.

“_Leg action_: Below the waist shoot the leg out in a straight
clean drive to its full, natural limit: hip locked, knee
locked, and free play given the foot.

“_Foot action_: The heel of the right foot strikes the ground
first. As the left leg is swung in front of the right, the foot
of the right comes down flat, then, as it is raised to toe
position, the heel of the left strikes the ground and in turn
takes the weight of the body.

“_Carriage of the body_: To be perfectly upright, with the
center of gravity on the heels, the head all the time traveling
in a straight line.

“_Knee action_: Knee to be straight at first and afterwards
locked.

“_Arm action_: Arms act with the shoulders to give good
balance. Keep them fairly low, not ascending any higher than
the nipples; good even swing; hand and elbow alternately
reaching the hips.

“_Hands_: Recommended to be kept loose, corks not necessary.

“Having pointed out to you wherein individuals differ, and
having indicated what constitutes a fair heel and toe walk, a
few hints on training may be helpful. My first advice to any
athletic aspirant is to undergo a medical examination, in order
to find out if he is strong enough constitutionally to risk
strenuous track work without injury to his health. I would
further suggest that such an examination be an annual affair.

“What is the purpose of training? We train to gain efficiency
in whatever branch of sport we enter. To train properly one
must concentrate attention upon whatever pertains to his
particular sport. Through such attention one strengthens
the muscles and nerves, gains knowledge of the strength he
possesses, so that he can use it in the right way and at the
right time, to attain the maximum amount of speed with the
minimum amount of effort. Training increases strength of mind,
self-confidence, strong nerves, patience, thinking power, and
character.

“The amount of track work needed to prepare for a walking-match
will depend upon the individual, but remember that staying in
bed and reading a set of rules will not do. There is a lot of
hard work ahead. To start with, I would never think of entering
a race without at least three months’ preparation, be it daily
or three times per week. A long and careful training is far
better than a short and severe one, and so I would recommend
easy work for the first month, with a gradual increase of speed
as one goes along. Do not bother with a stop watch until the
second month at the earliest.

“Let me also suggest that one do a little morning calisthenics.
These exercises should focus on developing alertness and
endurance; consequently, light, rapid movements that give the
muscles tone and firmness are the qualities to seek in such
individual exercise.

“I have always found deep breathing a great help when training
for a contest. I always practice deep breathing when out for a
street walk, inhaling through about eight steps, exhaling for a
like period.

“One of the things I learned early in my career was the value
of sun baths. The blood needs light, and one needs pure blood
to win a race. The direct rays of the sun on one’s body will
give it. Of course one should use discretion in taking a sun
bath.

“One should not forget that he needs a lot of sleep--eight
full hours of it. Sleep is necessary for resting not the body
only; it should also be a rest for the mind and the nervous
system. Remember that sleep is not mere rest in the sense of
inaction; sleep is a vital process in repairing and rebuilding
used-up nerve and brain cells, so you see it is essential that
the brain be at rest in order to gain full recuperation.

“As one becomes more advanced in the sport he will realize how
large a part the mind plays in a race. Mental action has a
great deal to do with winning. A man should not be bluffed; let
him make up his mind he is going to win, and that he must not
get rattled; let him have his thoughts well collected, and he
will be all right.”

WHERE TO WALK

TREES

I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the earth’s sweet flowing breast;

A tree that looks at God all day
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;

A tree that may in Summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;

Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.

Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.

Joyce Kilmer.

III

WHERE TO WALK

Anywhere. Surely the pedestrian may claim for his recreation this advantage: it may be enjoyed when one will and wherever one may be. But this does not mean that there is no choice, no preference. Says Thoreau again, “If you would get exercise, go in search of the springs of life. Think of a man’s swinging dumb-bells for his health, when those springs are bubbling up in far-off pastures unsought by him!” And Emerson has this fresh, breezy comment:

“The true naturalist can go wherever woods or waters go; almost
where a squirrel or a bee can go, he can; and no man is asked
for leave. Sometimes the farmer withstands him in crossing his
lots, but ’tis to no purpose; the farmer could as well hope to
prevent the sparrows or tortoises. It was their land before it
was his, and their title was precedent.”

Stevenson would make the surroundings a matter of small import; the landscape, he says, is “quite accessory,” and yet, within a page after, he rallies Hazlitt, and playfully calls him an epicure, because he postulates “a _winding_ road, and three hours to dinner.”

CHOICE OF SURROUNDINGS

There is the region about home, the region one knows best. For muddy weather, macadam; but, when they are at all negotiable, then always country roads by preference. The macadam road is all that is unpleasant--hard, dry, glaring, straight, monotonous; overrun with noisy, dusty, evil-smelling machines, with their curious and often unpleasant occupants. It is bordered, not with trees, as a road should be, but with telephone poles; a fine coating of lime dust lies like a death pallor on what hardy vegetation struggles to live along its margin; it is commercial, business-like, uncompromising, and unlovely. But the country road belongs to another world--a world apart--and is traveled by a different people. It, too, has its aim and destination, but it is deliberate in its course; it neither cuts through the hills nor fills the valleys, but accommodates itself to the windings of streams and to the steepness of slopes. It is soft underfoot, shaded by trees; it finds and follows the mountain brooks; rabbits play upon it, grouse dust themselves in it, birds sing about it, and berries hang from its banks black and sweet. The people who live in the country travel upon it; it is instinct with the life of a hundred years.

If the day be clear, seek the hilltops; if not, the wooded valleys. The pedestrian learns the by-paths, too, and the short cuts across lots. He can find the arbutus in its season, the blackberries and the mushrooms in theirs. Here is a suggestive page from Thoreau’s Journal (August 27, 1854):

“Would it not be well to describe some of those rough all-day
walks across lots?--as that of the 15th, picking our way over
quaking meadows and swamps and occasionally slipping into
the muddy batter midleg deep; jumping or fording ditches
and brooks; forcing our way through dense blueberry swamps,
where there is water beneath and bushes above; then brushing
through extensive birch forests all covered with green lice,
which cover our clothes and face; then, relieved, under larger
wood, more open beneath, steering for some more conspicuous
trunk; now along a rocky hillside where the sweet-fern grows
for a mile, then over a recent cutting, finding our uncertain
footing on the cracking tops and trimmings of trees left by
the choppers; now taking a step or two of smooth walking
across a highway; now through a dense pine wood, descending
into a rank, dry swamp, where the cinnamon fern rises above
your head, with isles of poison-dogwood; now up a scraggy hill
covered with scrub oak, stooping and winding one’s way for
half a mile, tearing one’s clothes in many places and putting
out one’s eyes, and find[ing] at last that it has no bare
brow, but another slope of the same character; now through
a corn-field diagonally with the rows; now coming upon the
hidden melon-patch; seeing the back side of familiar hills
and not knowing them,--the nearest house to home, which you
do not know, seeming further off than the farthest which you
do know;--in the spring defiled with froth on various bushes,
etc., etc., etc.; now reaching on higher land some open
pigeon-place, a breathing-place for us.”

Another page, too, is worth quoting (July 12, 1852):

“Now for another fluvial walk. There is always a current of air
above the water, blowing up or down the course of the river,
so that this is the coolest highway. Divesting yourself of all
clothing but your shirt and hat, which are to protect your
exposed parts from the sun, you are prepared for the fluvial
excursion. You choose what depths you like, tucking your toga
higher or lower, as you take the deep middle of the road or
the shallow sidewalks. Here is a road where no dust was ever
known, no intolerable drouth. Now your feet expand on a smooth
sandy bottom, now contract timidly on pebbles, now slump in
genial fatty mud--greasy, saponaceous--amid the pads. You scare
out whole schools of small breams and perch, and sometimes a
pickerel, which have taken shelter from the sun under the pads.
This river is so clear compared with the South Branch, or main
stream, that all their secrets are betrayed to you. Or you meet
with and interrupt a turtle taking a more leisurely walk up the
stream. Ever and anon you cross some furrow in the sand, made
by a muskrat, leading off to right or left to their galleries
in the bank, and you thrust your foot into the entrance, which
is just below the surface of the water and is strewn with
grass and rushes, of which they make their nests. In shallow
water near the shore, your feet at once detect the presence of
springs in the bank emptying in, by the sudden coldness of the
water, and there, if you are thirsty, you dig a little well in
the sand with your hands, and when you return, after it has
settled and clarified itself, get a draught of pure cold water
there.…

“I wonder if any Roman emperor ever indulged in such luxury as
this,--of walking up and down a river in torrid weather with
only a hat to shade the head. What were the baths of Caracalla
to this?”

It might seem that all the joys of walking are rural; but it is not so; the city dweller knows as well as his country cousin how to make his surroundings serve his need. Doctor Finley, veteran pedestrian though he be, delighting to walk to the ends of the earth, has no word of disdain for the streets of the city of his home. The following passage is taken from a paper of his which appeared in the _Outlook_ and from which quotation has already been made:

“My traveling afoot, for many years, has been chiefly in busy
city streets or in the country roads into which they run--not
far from the day’s work or from the thoroughfares of the
world’s concerns.