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. This is to
protect your precious garment against the thorns when you dive through
them. On the back you have buttons sewed wherewith to attach a spine
pad. Before I went to Africa I searched eagerly for information or
illustration of a spine pad. I guessed what it must be for, and to an
extent what it must be like, but all writers maintained a conservative
reticence as to the thing itself. Here is the first authorized
description. A spine pad is a quilted affair in consistency like the
things you are supposed to lift hot flat-irons with. On the outside it
is brown flannel, like the shirt; on the inside it is a gaudy orange
colour. The latter is not for aesthetic effect, but to intercept actinic
rays. It is eight or ten inches wide, is shaped to button close up under
your collar, and extends halfway down your back. In addition it is well
to wear a silk handkerchief around the neck; as the spine and back of
the head seem to be the most vulnerable to the sun.

For breeches, suit yourself as to material. It will have to be very
tough, and of fast colour. The best cut is the "semi-riding," loose
at the knees, which should be well faced with soft leather, both for
crawling, and to save the cloth in grass and low brush. One pair ought
to last four months, roughly speaking. You will find a thin pair of
ordinary khaki trousers very comfortable as a change for wear about
camp. In passing I would call your attention to "shorts." Shorts are
loose, bobbed off khaki breeches, like knee drawers. With them are worn
puttees or leather leggings, and low boots. The knees are bare. They are
much affected by young Englishmen. I observed them carefully at every
opportunity, and my private opinion is that man has rarely managed to
invent as idiotically unfitted a contraption for the purpose in hand.
In a count