Camping Out
—AFRICA, SOUTH. -To ensure the success and enjoyability of a sporting trip, it is essential that the creature comforts, as regards both food and lodging, should be carefully attended to; and a few words on the subject may be useful to those who have not had experience of the somewhat difficult task of remembering beforehand and providing every requisite for an expedition into uninhabited country far away from shops or stores.
Wagon Outfit. If it is not proposed to enter the Tse-tse fly country, the best and most comfortable mode of locomotion in South Africa is by Cape wagon. A good full tent wagon costs from £80 to £100, and in this there is ample room for two comfortable kartel beds, and the stores, rifles, and ammunition requisite for two hunters. Such a wagon requires twelve trek oxen or fourteen donkeys. The writer prefers the latter, donkeys being more tractable and very much hardier than oxen. Trek oxen cost about £9 each; donkeys, about £5. A few extra oxen or donkeys should be provided to be used when any of those in the regular teams are Although the cost of each wagon and team entails a serious outlay (£200 at least), it is cheaper in the end to buy outright than to hire, for if the wagon is a good one and stands the test of, say, six months' work, the price originally paid ought to be obtained for it at the end of the trip. sick.
It is best to regard the price paid for the teams as money sunk, for the chances are that, through sickness and accident, very few of the animals will be worth much when the journey is over. The best wagons are those made in Durban and Grahamstown. Second-hand ones are generally obtainable in Mafeking and Johannesburg, the former of which towns is the most convenient starting-point for the Kalahari and Chobe countries; the latter for a point of departure for the bush veldt of the North-east Transvaal. A piece of canvas, ten feet by fifteen feet, will be found most useful to form a shelter from the sun, either thrown over the roofs of two wagons drawn up abreast, and five or six feet apart, or rigged as a lean-to tent against the side of one wagon.
Each wagon requires one driver at about CAMPING OUT] £3 per month, and one forelouper," or leader, at about fi per month, in addition to rations. Cape boys and half-breeds make the best drivers. A boy is required to look after the horses of each member of the party, and to each wagon there should be attached a couple of boys to do odd jobs, such as collecting wood and bringing water to the camp. A cook is, of course, indispensable. When the game country is reached any quantity of natives can be engaged at IOS. a month and as much meat as they can eat (that is what they really come for), to find and track game.
Africa, wagons, oxen, horses, and dogs must be dispensed with. The party have to travel on foot, all stores, tents, &c., being carried by native carriers. If a large number of these is required, some difficulty and trouble will be experienced in obtaining them. Zanzibari or Inhambane boys are the best carriers, the latter for choice.
It is advisable to write out beforehand and get someone to engage the required number of carriers and ship them to the port from which it is proposed to start. The recognised weight of a man's load is 60 lb., but they will carry 70 lb. or more. From 20s.
A CAMP ON FLINT ISLAND.
Each member of the party should be provided with two horses, which can be obtained at from £20 to £25 apiece. “Salted” horses (i.e., horses which have taken and recovered from horse-sickness) cost from £60 to £100.
A couple of pointers should be taken for partridge and koorhaan shooting, and a pack of mongrels (the more numerous the better) for lions, leopards, &c. These mongrels can be bought at the Johannesburg dog pound at a few shillings each. on