With Mashli-iit and Rifle 



-♦i 



a true and sympathetic companion in ^^ood times and had, 

 a man with his heart in the right place, and with a facuk\' 

 for coping with the hardships oi Hte in the wilderness nt^t 

 easily equalled. 



Unfortunately a number of deaths had occurred among 

 the asses at Moshi, which to my mind is just as unhealth\' 

 as any other such place in I^ast Africa. The Greek 

 merchant Meimarides, who liv^es there, had lost more than 

 a hundred of his native Masai asses. This tlid n.ot surprise 

 me very much, as I had long known that domestic animals 

 were apt to sicken in this neighbourhood. Asses — especially 

 the superior breed of Muscat asses and mules — soon die 

 there, lasting only two or three years under the most favour- 

 able circumstances ; horned animals are kept by the 

 Wadshagga in closed sheds by stall-feeding, cattle allowed 

 to graze in the o|)en inxariably dying very quickly. 



This stall-feeding is not due to fear of the Masai, but 

 to the knowledge that the animals can only l:)e kept alive 

 in th(;se sheds of the Wadshagga, which smoke protects 

 from the gad Hies. 



It was interesting to me to find here at the begiiming 

 of April the species of gen(;t {(iciiclia siia/ic/ica) which 1 

 myself had discovered. One of these black genets was 

 killed at night by a shepherd just as it was about to lall 

 on a kid belonging to my herd ol goats. I his black 

 colouring is not infreciuenth' met with among carnivora 

 in East Africa. 



It is rei)orted from Abyssinia that it has long been 

 a practice of the Negus to bestow a black leopanl's skin 



80 



