When you
want it at all, you want it warm and substantial. Stick on all
the pockets possible, and have them button securely.
For wet weather there is nothing to equal a long and voluminous
cape. Straps crossing the chest and around the waist permit one
to throw it off the shoulders to shoot. It covers the hands, the
rifle-most of the little horses or mules one gets out there.
One can sleep in or on it, and it is a most effective garment
against heavy winds. One suit of pajamas is enough, considering
your tent boy's commendable mania for laundry work. Add
handkerchiefs and you are fixed.
You will wear most of the above, and put what remains in your
"officer's box." This is a thin steel, air-tight affair with a
wooden bottom, and is the ticket for African work.
Sporting. Pick out your guns to suit yourself. You want a light
one and a heavy one.
When I came to send out my ammunition, I was forced again to take
the other fellow's experience. I was told by everybody that I
should bring plenty, that it was better to have too much than too
little, etc. I rather thought so myself, and accordingly shipped
a trifle over 1,500 rounds of small bore cartridges.
Unfortunately, I never got into the field with any of my numerous
advisers on this point, so cannot state their methods from
first-hand information. Inductive reasoning leads me to believe
that they consider it unsportsmanlike to shoot at a standing
animal at all, or at one running nearer than 250 yards.
Furthermore, it is etiquette to continue firing until the last
cloud of dust has died down on the distant horizon. Only thus can
I conceive of getting rid of that amount of ammunition. In eight
months of steady shooting, for example-shooting for trophies, as
well as to feed a safari of fluctuating numbers, counting
jackals, marabout and such small trash-I got away with
395 rounds of small bore ammunition and about 100 of large. This
accounted for 225 kills. That should give one an idea. Figure out
how many animals you are likely to want for ANY purpose, multiply
by three, and bring that many cartridges.
To carry these cartridges I should adopt the English system of a
stout leather belt on which you slip various sized pockets and
loops to suit the occasion. Each unit has loops for ten
cartridges. You rarely want more than that; and if you do, your
gunbearer is supplied. In addition to the loops, you have leather
pockets to carry your watch; your money, your matches and
tobacco, your compass-anything you please. They are handy and
safe. The tropical climate is too "sticky" to get much comfort,
or anything else, out of ordinary pockets.
In addition, you supply your gunbearer with a cartridge belt, a
leather or canvas carrying bag, water bottle for him and for
yourself, a sheath knife and a whetstone. In the bag are your
camera, tape line, the whetstone, field cleaners and lunch. You
personally carry your field glasses, sun glasses, a knife,
compass, matches, police whistle and notebook. The field glasses
should not be more than six power; and if possible you should get
the sort with detachable prisms. The prisms are apt to cloud in a
tropical climate, and the non-detachable sort are almost
impossible for a layman to clean. Hang these glasses around your
neck by a strap only just long enough to permit you to raise them
to your eyes. The best notebook is the "loose-leaf" sort. By
means of this you can keep always a fresh leaf on top; and at
night can transfer your day's notes to safe keeping in your tin
box. The sun glasses should not be smoked or dark-you can do
nothing with them-but of the new amberol, the sort that excludes
the ultra-violet rays, but otherwise makes the world brighter and
gayer. Spectacle frames of non-corrosive white metal, not steel,
are the proper sort.
To clean your guns you must supply plenty of oil, and then some
more. The East African gunbearer has a quite proper and
gratifying, but most astonishing horror for a suspicion of rust;
and to use oil any faster he would have to drink it.
Other Equipment. All this has taken much time to tell about, it
has not done much toward filling up that tin box. Dump in your
toilet effects and a bath towel, two or three scalpels for
taxidermy, a ball of string, some safety-pins, a small tool kit,
sewing materials, a flask of brandy, kodak films packed in tin, a
boxed thermometer, an aneroid (if you are curious as to
elevations), journal, tags for labelling trophies, a few yards of
gun cloth, and the medicine kit.
The latter divides into two classes: for your men and for
yourself. The men will suffer from certain well defined troubles:
"tumbo," or overeating; diarrhaea, bronchial colds, fever and
various small injuries. For "tumbo" you want a liberal supply of
Epsom's salts; for diarrhaea you need chlorodyne; any good
expectorant for the colds; quinine for the fever; permanganate
and plenty of bandages for the injuries. With this lot you can do
wonders. For yourself you need, or may need, in addition, a more
elaborate lot: Laxative, quinine, phenacetin, bismuth and soda,
bromide of ammonium, morphia, camphor-ice, and asperin. A
clinical thermometer for whites and one for blacks should be
included. A tin of malted milk is not a bad thing to take as an
emergency ration after fever.
By this time your tin box is fairly well provided. You may turn
to general supplies.
End of The Land of Footprints, by Stewart Edward White
