158 A HUNTER'S WANDERINGS ch. 



possession, measured 16 inches, whiich is about the 

 extreme length they ever attain. 



The number of pookoo on these flats quite 

 surprised me. Sometimes troops of more than fifty 

 of them were to be seen together, males and females 

 mixed, or again small herds of ten or fifteen old 

 rams, forming, I suppose, a sort of bachelors' club. 

 On my first arrival I found them very tame, and up 

 to the time of my visit they had evidently had but 

 very little experience of firearms. Owing to the 

 great numbers of these antelopes, I christened this 

 place the " Pookoo Flats," by which name I shall 

 henceforth refer to it. 



Although the nights were still very cold, yet in 

 the early part of the evenings, huge black mosquitoes, 

 as vicious as bull-dogs, already commenced to make 

 their presence disagreeably felt : little did I dream 

 what was in store for me during the hot weather 

 later in the season ! In the daytime, too, " tsetse " 

 flies, whose numbers increased daily as the season 

 advanced, were very troublesome. Nowhere does 

 this virulent insect exist in such numbers as to the 

 westward of the Victoria Falls, along the southern 

 bank of the Zambesi and Chobe. It is usually found 

 in great numbers near the river, becoming scarcer 

 and scarcer as one advances inland, till at a distance 

 of a few miles it disappears, except in some particular 

 patches of forest. Along the water's edge they are 

 an incredible pest, attacking one in a perfect swarm, 

 from daylight till sunset, and without a bufi^alo or 

 giraffe tail to swish them off", life would be unen- 

 durable. The well-known African traveller, Andersson, 

 says their bite has not been inaptly likened to that of 

 a flea. My experience is that it is far more severe, 

 and that about one in every ten bites (that perhaps 



