164 LAEGE GAME. chap. iii. 



ever you like to your feet, ought to keep you pretty 

 warm. 



I have already spoken of our "mats," and as they 

 are the most indispensable and characteristic article 

 carried by the African traveller or hunter, it is worth 

 while to describe them and their contents. The word 

 ''mat" includes bed, bedding, clothing, and everything 

 not food, taken with one, and is a long roUed-up bundle, 

 mats outwards, borne on the head of the " utibe " or 

 " mat-bearer," the number of whom depends on the 

 luxuriousness of the traveller and their own capabili- 

 ties, as they are often mere boys of ten or twelve years of 

 age. Personally, when actually hunting, and continually 

 shifting my sleeping ground, I used one strong man for 

 the purpose, with as light a bundle as I could manage 

 with ; and though sometimes we lost one another, yet, as 

 a general rule, although he seldom knew in the morning 

 where we should sleep at night, and was unable from his 

 load to follow our hunting line, he usually managed to 

 turn up about dark, attracted by the sound of our guns 

 or seeing the smoke of our fires, and so generally enabled 

 us to have a good night's rest — a thing that I attach much 

 importance to, always feehng that though after my exer- 

 tions I could be sure enough of actual slumber under any 

 cu'cumstances, yet that up to a certain point increased 

 comfort implied greater real rest, and with me, better 

 form for the next day's work. 



The mats themselves, of which I had two, were formed 

 of thick soft grass, woven by the Zulus, and measuring 

 eleven or twelve feet long by three or four feet wide. One 

 end was turned back for a couple of feet, and the sides sewed 



