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