PRECAUTIONS WITH RESPECT TO HEALTH. 25 



and in dry cold countries, many have been changed 

 from invalids into strong-, hale, and hardy men. We 

 have personally met, spoken to, and questioned such 

 men literally by hundreds in our South African Colonies, 

 in America, and elsewhere. These matters will, however, 

 be referred to more particularly hereafter. 



We have made it a point throughout these pages 

 to insist, almost with obstinate iteration, upon what we 

 conceive to be the necessary precautions which ought 

 to be adopted by travellers in these matters, so that 

 a sojourn in a wild country, whether it be long or short, 

 which would otherwise, and in default of prudent 

 precautions, inevitably prove a life of hardship and 

 danger, may be made one of comparative ease and 

 comfort, nay, even of luxury for it should always be 

 a maxim among travellers that no unnecessary hardship 

 should ever be incurred. 



The object should be to make oneself as far as 

 possible at home in the wilderness, and he who makes 

 his way through a difficult country with a minimum 

 of expenditure of vital energy, is the best traveller. 



That being so, " the pushing trader " will, we fear, 

 often find the suggestions offered in these pages either 

 unpalatable or unpracticable in his case. 



To rush through a country at more than express 

 speed, as fast as the legs of horses, etc., can be got 

 to carry him, is a practice with which we must admit 

 we have little sympathy and it must be obvious our 

 remarks are addressed to quite a different class of readers. 

 At the same time, it may be all quite right, and 

 even laudable, for a business man to hurry over the 

 ground as quickly as he can; in order that he may 

 get ahead of competitors, and make money for him- 



