“I taught several of them to wash my shirts, and they did it well, though their teacher had never been taught that work himself. Frequent changes of linen and sunning of my blanket kept me more comfortable than might have been anticipated, and I feel certain that the lessons of cleanliness rigidly instilled by my mother in childhood, helped to maintain that respect which these people entertain for European ways. It is questionable if a descent to barbarous ways ever elevates a man in the eyes of savages.”
The Two Dogs or None.
The explorer’s greatest care, however, while camping out in the forest at night—his fires, his watchmen, and his watch-dogs—will not invariably secure him from danger, if there happen to be wild animals in the neighbourhood; leopards especially, insignificant in size as compared with the lion and the tiger,—there are few things so daring that a hungry leopard will not attempt them. As instanced elsewhere (see “Wild Sports of the World”), he will not scruple to enter a house and drag off a sleeping man; he has no fear of one dog, or even of two. The scene depicted on the preceding page is illustrative of a fact, and happened to a well-known Indian hunter. The labours of the day were at an end and all made snug and right in “camp.” So little apprehension did there exist of an attack by savage beasts, that the hounds set to keep guard were coupled together with a short length of chain. In the night, however, a tremendous uproar suddenly broke in on the stillness, and it was speedily discovered that a leopard had surprised the canine guard and pounced on one with the intention of carrying him off; even when the daring brute discovered that he must take both dogs, or none, he was nothing daunted, but hauled the pair of them along and was so discovered and shot.
There must not be omitted from the catalogue of evils likely to accrue to the African traveller—at least he of Southern Africa—the terrible tsetse fly, which in a single hour may devastate the explorer’s necessary cattle and leave him utterly helpless.
This insect, “Glossina morsitans” of the naturalist, is not much larger than the common house fly, and is nearly of the same brown colour as the honeybee. The after part of the body has three or four yellow bars across it. It is remarkably alert and evades dexterously all attempts to capture it with the hand at common temperatures.
In the cool of the mornings and evenings it is less agile. Its peculiar buzz when once heard can never be forgotten by the traveller whose means of locomotion are domestic animals, for its bite is death to the ox, horse, and dog. In one of Dr. Livingstone’s journeys, though the traveller watched the animals carefully and believed that not a score of flies were ever upon them, they destroyed forty-three fine oxen. A most remarkable feature is the perfect harmlessness of their bite in man and wild animals, and even calves, so long as they continue to suck the cows, though it is no protection to the dog to feed him on milk.
The poison does not seem to be injected by a sting, or by ova placed beneath the skin, for when the insect is allowed to feed freely on the hand it inserts the middle prong of the three portions into which the proboscis is divided somewhat deeply into the true skin. It then draws the prong out a little way and it assumes a crimson colour as the mandibles come into brisk operation. The previously shrunken belly swells out, and if left undisturbed the fly quietly departs when it is full. A slight itching irritation follows the bite. In the ox the immediate effects are no greater than in man, but a few days afterwards the eye and nose begin to run, and a swelling appears under the jaw and sometimes at the navel, and although the poor creature continues to graze, emaciation commences accompanied with a peculiar flaccidity of the muscles. This proceeds unchecked until perhaps months afterwards, purging comes on, and the victim dies in a state of extreme exhaustion. The animals which are in good condition often perish soon after the bite is inflicted, with staggering and blindness as if the brain were affected. Sudden changes of temperature produced by falls of rain seem to hasten the progress of the complaint, but in general the wasting goes on for months.
When the carcase is opened the cellular tissue beneath the skin is found injected with air, as if a quantity of soap bubbles were scattered over it. The blood is small in quantity, and scarcely stains the hands in dissection. The fat is of a greenish yellow colour and of an oily consistence. All the muscles are flabby and the heart is often so soft that the fingers may be made to meet through it. The lungs and liver partake of the disease. The stomach and bowels are pale and empty, and the gall bladder is distended with bile. These symptoms seem to indicate poison in the blood, the germ of which enters when the proboscis is inserted.
The mule, ass, and goat enjoy the same immunity from the tsetse as man. Many large tribes on the Zambesi can keep no domestic animals except the goat in consequence of the scourge existing in their country. Human beings are frequently bitten yet suffer no harm, and zebras, buffaloes, pigs, pallahs, and other antelopes feed quietly in the very habitat of the fly. There is not so much difference in the natures of the horse and zebra, the buffalo and ox, the sheep and antelope, as to afford any satisfactory explanation of the phenomenon. Is not man as much a domestic animal as a dog? The disgust which the tsetse shows for animal excreta is turned to account by some of the doctors. They mix droppings of animals, human milk, and some medicines together, and smear the animals that are about to pass through an infested district. This though a preventive at the time is not a permanent protection. Inoculation does not insure immunity, as animals which have been slightly bitten in one year may perish by a greater number of bites in the next. It is probable that with an increase of guns the game will perish as has happened in the south, and tsetse deprived of food may become extinct simultaneously with the larger animals. The ravages it commits are sometimes enormous. Sebituane once lost nearly the entire cattle of his tribe, amounting to many hundreds, by unwittingly intruding upon the haunts of this murderous insect.