The selection of a suitable headgear for tropical wear is a matter of the utmost importance, and no material appears to be as effective in intercepting the peculiar vibrations which cause sunstroke, whatever they may be, as the pith of the solah, or Indian rush, from which the well-known tropical sun-hat is made. Next to this in efficiency, I think, comes felt, and after this cork; but the latter material, when adequately supported to give sufficient strength, is really too heavy for comfortable wear; and if any concession to “smartness” is desired, stiffened felt is to be preferred, such as, for example, the well-known “Elgin helmet.” But those who are wise, will abjure such compromises, and stick to pith, either in the ordinary mushroom form, or in that of the admirable “Cawnpore tent club” hats. Let it be freely admitted, that either contrivance is as ugly as well may be, but it is better to keep one’s brain clear for the appreciation of artistic beauty elsewhere, than to have them permanently muddled for this and other less æsthetic purposes in the effort to maintain a becoming exterior. Further, the sun is never more treacherous than just after it rises, and before it sets; because just then the nearly horizontal rays can reach the temples and other parts of the head that are well protected by any ordinary sun hat when it is higher above the horizon. In fact, as long as the sun is above it, it is a mistake to go abroad in European head gear, though in the morning and evening a soft felt hat, which can be bent and manipulated so as to shield the particular side exposed to the sun, is better than a solah hat, which of course cannot be adapted in this way. For really tropical climates, in the heat of the day, no other material but solah pith is at all adequate; but in South Africa and other sub-tropical climates a less clumsy and more comfortable covering for the head may be safely adopted, and for such purposes the broad-leafed Boer felt hat, so familiar to us of late in the drawings in the _Illustrated London News_, and _Graphic_, is hard to beat. I do not of course refer to the melodramatic brigand arrangement that, in feeble imitation of our late foes, was inflicted on the Imperial Yeomen by the would-be smart military male milliner, but to the real article, as worn by the real Boer and, it may be added, by everyone else who has work to do in the open in that climate, after he has been out there sufficiently long to have discarded the “helmet,” decked out with a pugaree finished off with a pair of long tails down the back, with which his London Colonial outfitter has probably provided him. The true Boer hat is an admirable example of adaptation of costume to special climatic exigencies; but though they are, I presume, manufactured somewhere in Europe to suit the Colonial market, I doubt if such a thing can be purchased in England, for as is well known the English manufacturer insists on his customers