THE SPORTSMAN IN SOUTH AFRICA. 



are not the possessor of a single picture, to obtain which you encoun- 

 tered so much difficulty and perhaps danger. 



Although far more bulky and cumbersome, ordinary slow glass 

 plates are far preferable to any description of film now in the 

 market, as we have found them to be less affected by the heat. 

 Their use certainly entails a considerable amount of trouble, while 

 the necessary folding dark box for changing the plates takes up a 

 certain amount of wagon room. However, the successful results 

 obtained will go far to outweigh the additional inconvenience, and, 

 speaking from experience,, we recommend that the plates should be 

 developed and fixed whenever suitable opportunity presents itself, 

 and safely stowed away in properly constructed receptacles. In this 

 manner, if a mistake be made in exposure on photographing some 

 special object of interest, the subject may again be retaken, and a 

 good printing negative obtained; in fact, you have always got an 

 opportunity of determining the quality of your work as you go 

 along. It is a mistake to believe that, when the word " develop- 

 ment " is mentioned, vast supplies of chemicals are necessary ad- 

 juncts, as half-a-dozen small bottles of mixed solution of hydroki- 

 none, together with an ounce of bromide of potassium and about 

 three or four pounds of hyposulphate of soda, will develop hundreds 

 of plates. We have used what is called a 6^ by 4I twin hand 

 camera with double lens, slung by a shoulder band, by which 

 accurate focussing can be conducted without the aid of the pro- 

 voking and unwieldly tripod, and after months and months banging 

 about in a wagon, the instrument (a brass bound one by Meagher, of 

 Southampton Row) has come out of the ordeal almost as good as 

 new. In the wonderfully clear atmosphere of South Africa, and 

 especially on a cloudless day, the use of an ordinary slow plate with 

 a rapid rectilinear lens, giving an exposure of one second in the 

 open, will generally be found correct. 



There are so many eminent manufacturers in the field, and 

 modern firearms have of late attained to such a degree of perfection, 

 that a choice of weapons is a difficult matter. The adoption of 

 "express'' bullets in recent years seems to have grown into a 

 certain amount of disrepute, the general complaint being (par- 

 ticularly as regards the larger antelopes) that they are inclined to 

 expand or break up too quickly, without having attained a suffi- 

 cient degree of penetration ; while for this reason the employment 

 of such against the great pachyderms is simply useless. Then, 



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