Those who are dressed in flannel are far less
sensitive to these influences.
Leather is the only safeguard against the stronger kinds of thorns. In
pastoral and in hunting countries it is always easy to procure skins of a
tough quality that have been neatly dressed by hand. Also it will be easy
to find persons capable of sewing them together very neatly, after you
have cut them out to the pattern of your old clothes.
Bark Cloth is used in several parts of the work. It is simply a piece of
some kind of peculiarly fibrous bark; in Unyoro, Sir S. Baker says, the
natives use the bark of a species of fig-tree. They soak it in water and
then beat it with a mallet, to get rid of all the harder parts;--much as
hemp is prepared. "In appearance it much resembles corduroy, and is the
colour of tanned leather: the finer qualities are peculiarly soft to the
touch, as though of woven cotton."
Effect of colour on warmth of clothing.--Dark colours become hotter than
light colours in the sunshine, but they are not hotter under any other
circumstances. Consequently a person who aims at equable temperature,
should wear light colours. Light colours are far the best for sporting
purposes, as they are usually much less conspicuous than black or
rifle-green. Almost all wild beasts are tawny or fawn-coloured, or tabby,
or of some nondescript hue and pattern: if an animal were born with a
more decided colour, he would soon perish for want of ability to conceal
himself.
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