Get it of cork, not of pith. The latter has a habit
of melting unobtrusively about your ears when it rains. A helmet
in brush is the next noisiest thing to a circus band, so it is
always well to have, also, a double terai. This is not something
to eat. It is a wide felt hat, and then another wide felt hat on
top of that. The vertical-rays-of-the-tropical-sun (pronounced
as one word to save time after you have heard and said it a
thousand times) are supposed to get tangled and lost somewhere
between the two hats. It is not, however, a good contraption to
go in all day when the sun is strong.
As underwear you want the lightest Jaeger wool. Doesn't sound
well for tropics, but it is an essential. You will sweat enough
anyway, even if you get down to a brass wire costume like the
natives. It is when you stop in the shade, or the breeze, or the
dusk of evening, that the trouble comes. A chill means trouble,
SURE. Two extra suits are all you want. There is no earthly sense
in bringing more. Your tent boy washes them out whenever he can
lay hands on them-it is one of his harmless manias.
Your shirt should be of the thinnest brown flannel. Leather the
shoulders, and part way down the upper arm, with chamois.
