Читать книгу In Brightest Africa онлайн

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When it is finally thinned down, thoroughly dried and salted, it presents another problem. Moisture will ruin it. Salt, the only available preservative, attracts moisture. It isn't possible to carry zinc-lined cases into the forests after elephants. I tried building thatched roofs over the skins but it was not a success. I speculated on many other plans but none appeared feasible. Finally Nature provided a solution for the difficulty.

There are, in the elephant country, many great swarms of bees. I set the natives to work collecting beeswax which is as impervious to moisture as shellac. I melted the wax and used it to coat unbleached cotton cloth, known in East Africa as Americana. In this water-tight, wax-covered cloth I wrapped my dried and salted rolls of skins and packed them on the porters' heads down to the railroad.

As a matter of fact, field conditions make it so difficult to care for skins properly that only a very small percentage ever reach a taxidermy shop in perfect condition.