And yet these preliminary details did not half conclude our shopping preliminaries in London. There were camping rugs, blankets, cork mattresses, pillows and pillow cases, bed bags, towels, lanterns, mosquito boots, whetstones, hunting and skinning knives, khaki helmets, pocket tapes to measure trophies, Pasteur anti-venomous serum, hypodermic syringes, chairs, tables, cots, puttees, sweaters, raincoats, Jaeger flannels, socks and pajamas, cholera belts, Burberry hunting clothes, and lots of other little odds and ends that seemed to be necessary.
The clothes were put up in air-proof tin uniform cases, small enough to be easily carried by a porter and secure enough to keep out the millions of ants that were expected to seek habitation in them.
Part of the Equipment
Most of our equipment, especially the food supplies, had been ordered by letter, and these we found to be practically ready. The remaining necessities, guns, ammunition, camera supplies, medical supplies, clothes, helmets, and so on, we assembled after two days of prodigious hustling. There was nothing then to be done except to hope that all our mountainous mass of equipment would be safely installed on the steamer for Mombasa. This steamer, the Adolph Woermann, sailed from Hamburg on the fourteenth of August, was due at Southampton on the eighteenth and at Naples on the thirtieth. To avoid transporting the hundred cases of supplies overland to Naples, it was necessary to get them to Southampton on the eighteenth. It was a close shave, for only by sending them down by passenger train on that morning were they able to reach Southampton. Fortunately our hopes were fulfilled, and at last we received word that they were on board and were careening down toward Naples, where we expected to join them on the thirtieth.
After disposing of this important preliminary, we then had time to visit the zoo at South Kensington and the British museum of natural history, where we carefully studied many of the animals that we hoped to meet later under less formal conditions. We picked out the vital spots, as seen from all angles, and nothing then remained to be done but to get down to British East Africa with our rifles and see whether we could hit those vital spots.
Studying the Lion's Vital Spots