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Mosquitoes are seldom so numerous as to disturb the slumbers of a weary man. But, though this region is free from common insect plagues, and from tsetse, it has others. Feeling something running across my forehead as I was falling asleep, I put up the hand to wipe it off, and was sharply stung both on the hand and head; the pain was very acute.
One large village is placed at Gonye, the inhabitants of which are required to assist the Makololo to carry their canoes past the falls. The tsetse here lighted on us even in the middle of the stream. This we crossed repeatedly, in order to make short cuts at bends of the river.
Another chief, who died a number of years ago, believed that he had discovered a remedy for tsetse-bitten cattle; his son Moyara showed us a plant, which was new to our botanist, and likewise told us how the medicine was prepared; the bark of the root, and, what might please our homoeopathic friends, a dozen of the tsetse are dried, and ground together into a fine powder.
Mr Welbourn had a good stock of ammunition, and with the supply we brought it was considered that we had sufficient to enable us to continue the journey northward into a region where elephants abounded. The cattle were in good condition, and, provided we could escape the tsetse and were not cut off by savage enemies, we might expect to obtain full loads of tusks.
Herdsmen and their cattle cover the steppes and highlands, save where the tsetse fly prevents. In the open forests and grassy highlands are the agriculturists. Among the forest farmers the village is the center of life, while in the open steppes political life tends to spread into larger political units.
Bearing in mind what has been so frequently asserted, namely, that no horses could live in the interior of Africa because of the tsetse, I had him opened, and the stomach, which I believed to be diseased, examined.
"What is it, Swart?" inquired his master. "Mein baas! mein baas! der duyvel um da dar skellum is da `tsetse!" "And what if it be the tsetse?" "Mein baas! all dead dead ebery horse!"
Cross Loéla, thirty feet wide and one deep, and meet with tsetse fly, though we have seen none since we left Chitapangwa's. Kasonso gave us a grand reception, and we saw men present from Tanganyika; I saw cassava here, but not in plenty. 28th March, 1867. Set-in rain and Chuma fell ill. There are cotton bushes of very large size here of the South American kind.
Over this skin he tied a string of catgut, which was fastened at the middle to another similar string passing through the whole length of the tabour. Erik had only to rub this string with a glove smeared with resin and, according to the manner in which he rubbed it, he imitated to perfection the voice of the lion or the leopard, or even the buzzing of the tsetse fly.
So we lotted out the land, of which there is enough for hundreds, and began to build rude houses. "Then trouble came upon us. The Kaffirs stole most of our horses, although they have not dared to attack us, and except two belonging to Hernan, the rest died of the sickness, the last of them but yesterday. The oxen, too, have all died of the tsetse bites or other illnesses.
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