to be the best.  For footgear the traveller needs two pairs of stout, high hunting shoes, built on the moccasin form with soles.  Hob nails should be taken along to insert if the going is over rocky places.  It is also advisable to provide a pair of very light leather slipper boots to reach to just under the knee for wear in camp.  They protect the legs and ankles from insect stings and bites.  The traveller who enters tropical South America should protect his head with a wide-brimmed soft felt hat with ventilated headband, or the best and lightest pith helmet that can be secured, one large enough to shade the face and back of neck.  There should be a ventilating space all around the head-band; the wider the space the better.  These helmets can be secured in Rio and Buenos Aires.  Head-nets with face plates of horsehair are the best protection against small insect pests.  They are generally made too small and the purchaser should be careful to get one large enough to go over his helmet and come down to the breast.  Several pairs of loose gloves rather long in the wrist will be needed as protection against the flies, piums and boroshudas which draw blood with every bite and are numerous in many parts of South America.  A waterproof sun umbrella, with a jointed handle about six feet long terminating in a point, would be a decided help to the scientist at work in the field.  A fine-meshed net fitting around the edge of the umbrella would make it insect proof.  When folded it would not be bulky and its weight would be negligible.  Such an umbrella could also be attached, with a special clamp, to the thwart of a canoe and so prove a protection from both sun and rain.

There are little personal conveniences which sometimes grow into necessities.  One of these in my own case was a little electric flash-light taken for the purpose of reading the verniers of a theodolite or sextant in star observations.  It was used every night and for many purposes.  As a matter of necessity, where insects are numerous one turns to the protection of his hammock and net immediately after the evening meal.  It was at such times that I found the electric lamp so helpful.  Reclining in the hammock, I held the stock of the light under my left arm and with diary in my lap wrote up my records for the day.  I sometimes read by its soft, steady light.  One charge of battery, to my surprise, lasted nearly a month.  When forced to pick out a camping spot after dark, an experience which comes to every traveller in the tropics in the rainy season, we found its light very helpful.  Neither rain nor wind could put it out and the light could be directed wherever needed.  The charges should be calculated on the plan of one for every three weeks.  The acetylene lamp for camp illumination is an advance over the kerosene lantern.  It has been found that for equal weight the carbide will give more light than kerosene or candle.  The carbide should be put in small containers, for each time a box is opened some of the contents turns into gas from contact with the moist air.