The moment you make up your mind to go on a collecting trip, even if be only into the next county, read everything you can get hold of which will tell you aught about the natural history of the country you are to visit. Ask what has been written, search library catalogues for titles of books, then get all you can, and read all you get. Only the churl will refuse to lend you a book you cannot afford to buy. Read all about the physical geography, geology, climate, inhabitants, fauna and flora, for all these will have a direct bearing on your work. If you are going to unexplored territory, about which nothing has been written, then "read up" on the adjacent countries, for even that will be very useful information.
GUIDES AND COMPANIONS.--No matter where you go, you will be obliged to have one or more companions, who know the country, to act as guides and general assistants. It may be that you can find a single person combining the necessary qualities of a guide and interpreter with those of a boatman, a teamster, or porter. The expense of such assistants must be counted upon from the very first. It may be stated as a general rule that in the tropics the services of natives can be had cheaply; while those of Europeans are generally dear in comparison with what they do.
CLOTHING AND FOOD.--These subjects I propose to leave entirely alone. They make excellent "padding" for a work of this kind when there is a lack of really useful information with which to fill up; but every man feeds and clothes himself according to the dictates of his temperament, his purse, or his own sweet will. Whether his way is the best or the worst, he will still have food and clothes more or less suitable to his needs, and time spent in advising him what to wear and to eat is time wasted. These questions are generally controlled by the locality and circumstances.
PRESERVATION OF HEALTH.--There are certain hygienic principles which apply all the world over, and since their observance becomes in the tropics a question of life and death, I will record them. Their observance has preserved my health intact in unwholesome jungles in a way that I consider nothing short of wonderful.
Never sleep on the ground in the wet portions of the tropics when possible to avoid it, but keep above the poisonous miasmatic vapors that lie close to the earth.