“Head, pale brown. Broad band before the eyes, and two large spots on cheeks; chin and front of upper lip white. Horns elongate, thick, scarcely bent forward at the tip. Throat with long black hairs.”
Again, from a head in Mr. Warwick’s collection:
“The horns are very similar to those of t. angasii, but the head is considerably larger, nearly as large as that of the koodoo, and the horns are thicker and larger; they are twenty-seven inches long in a straight line from base to tip, and nine inches in circumference at the base. The hair of the head is also paler and more uniformly colored, and with very large white spots on the cheek, much larger than those of the koodoo or of t. angasii. The throat has a distinct mane of blackish rigid hairs. The muffle is very like that of t. angasii, and larger than that of the koodoo. The skull is imperfect; it has no appearance of any suborbital pit or slit.”
[87] Some of the notions entertained of these people before the existence of the Ngami was known to Europeans are curious and amusing. Captain Messum, in an article in the Nautical Magazine on “the exploration of Western Africa,” says that he had heard the inhabitants of the Lake regions represented as monsters, with only one eye in the centre of the forehead, and feeding on human flesh, as the giants of old used to take their breakfasts. “A baby was nothing; they swallowed it whole.”
[88] Moffat.
[89] For a scientific description of this insect, see “Proceedings of the Zoological Society,” No. ccxvii.
[90] When allowed to settle on the hand of man, all it is observed to do is to insert its proboscis a little farther than seems necessary to draw blood. It then partially withdraws the dart, which assumes a crimson hue. The mandibles now appear to be agitated; the shrunken body swells; and, in a few seconds, the insect becomes quite full, and quietly abandons its prey.
[91] “One of my steeds,” says Gordon Cumming, “died of the tsetse. The head and body of the poor animal swelled up in a most distressing manner before he died; his eyes were so swollen that he could not see; and, in darkness, he neighed for his comrades who stood feeding beside him.”
[92] A dog reared on the meat of game may be hunted in tsetse districts in safety!
[93] The above wood-cut represents a native in the act of ferrying himself across the river on nothing but a bundle of reeds, with sidings and uprights of the same light materials. It is a most ingenious contrivance, and, in localities where wood is scarce, answers the purpose admirably.