You who are sportsmen and are not going to Africa, as is the case
with most, will perhaps read this, because we are always
interested in how the other fellow does it. To the few who are
intending an exploration of the dark continent this concentration
of a year's experience may be valuable. Remember to sleep off the
ground, not to starve yourself, to protect yourself from the sun,
to let negroes do all hard work but marching and hunting. Do
these things your own way, using your common-sense on how to get
at it. You'll be all right.
That, I conceive, covers the case. The remainder of your
equipment has to do with camp affairs, and merely needs listing.
The question here is not of the sort to get, but of what to take.
The tents, cooking affairs, etc., are well adapted to the
country. In selecting your tent, however, you will do very well
to pick out one whose veranda fly reaches fairly to the ground,
instead of stopping halfway.
1 tent and ground sheet
1 folding cot and cork mattress,
1 pillow, 3 single blankets
1 combined folding bath and ashstand ("X" brand)
1 camp stool
3 folding candle lanterns
1 gallon turpentine
3 lbs. alum
1 river rope
Sail needles and twine
3 pangas (native tools for chopping and digging)
Cook outfit (select these yourself, and cut out the extras)
2 axes (small)
Plenty laundry soap
Evaporation bag
2 pails
10 yards cotton cloth ("Mericani")
These things, your food, your porters' outfits and what trade
goods you may need are quite sufficient. You will have all you
want, and not too much. If you take care of yourself, you ought
to keep in good health. Your small outfit permits greater
mobility than does that of the English cousin, infinitely less
nuisance and expense. Furthermore, you feel that once more you
are "next to things," instead of "being led about Africa like a
dog on a string."
APPENDIX V. THE AMERICAN IN AFRICA
WHAT HE SHOULD TAKE
Before going to Africa I read as many books as I could get hold
of on the subject, some of them by Americans. In every case the
authors have given a chapter detailing the necessary outfit.
Invariably they have followed the Englishman's ideas almost
absolutely. Nobody has ventured to modify those ideas in any
essential manner. Some have deprecatingly ventured to remark that
it is as well to leave out the tinned carfare-if you do not like
carfare; but that is as far as they care to go. The lists are
those of the firms who make a business of equipping caravans. The
heads of such firms are generally old African travellers. They
furnish the equipment their customers demand; and as English
sportsmen generally all demand the same thing, the firms end by
issuing a printed list of essentials for shooting parties in
Africa, including carfare. Travellers follow the lists blindly,
and later copy them verbatim into their books. Not one has
thought to empty out the whole bag of tricks, to examine them in
the light of reason, and to pick out what a man of American
habits, as contrasted to one of English habits, would like to
have. This cannot be done a priori; it requires the test of
experience to determine how to meet, in our own way, the unusual
demands of climate and conditions.
And please note, when the heads of these equipment firms, these
old African travellers, take the field for themselves, they pay
no attention whatever to their own printed lists of "essentials."
Now, premising that the English sportsman has, by many years'
experience, worked out just what he likes to take into the field;
and assuring you solemnly that his ideas are not in the least the
ideas of American sportsman, let us see if we cannot do something
for ourselves.
At present the American has either to take over in toto the
English idea, which is not adapted to him, and is-TO HIM-a
nuisance, or to go it blind, without experience except that
acquired in a temperate climate, which is dangerous. I am not
going to copy out the English list again, even for comparison. I
have not the space; and if curious enough, you can find it in any
book on modern African travel. Of course I realize well that few
Americans go to Africa; but I also realize well that the
sportsman is a crank, a wild and eager enthusiast over items of
equipment anywhere. He-and I am thinking emphatically of
him-would avidly devour the details of the proper outfit for the
gentle art of hunting the totally extinct whiffenpoof.
Let us begin, first of all, with:
Personal Equipment Clothes. On the top of your head you must have
a sun helmet. 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.
