THE CLOAK. 



13 



It forms a comfort- 

 able cloak for riding 

 or walking, by putting 

 it on and slipping the 

 head through the hole 

 in the centre, the cor- 

 ners buttoning up in 

 the inside if in the way. 

 In travelling through 

 mangrove swamps on 

 the West Coast of 

 Equatorial Africa, 

 where there was no 

 The Cloak. solid ground on which 



to pitch a tent, I used to sleep in a hammock slung 

 between trees, and whilst following up the spoor 

 of a herd of elephant, or when surrounded by 

 hostile tribes, and I dare not clear a few yards 

 of bush in the forest lest the sounds of the axe 

 should be heard and give the alarm, my poncho, 

 rigged up like a pent roof, in this fashion, afforded 

 me a shelter impervious to the weather. 



