BRITISH EAST AFRICA 



drinking it, and is careful not to sit around in wet clothes 

 in the evening, he has no reason to fear any attack of 

 malarial fever. 



The only insects that are bothersome on these plains 

 are the ticks, with which the sportsman becomes literally 

 covered from morning to night. Fortunately these ticks, 

 although extremely disagreeable, do not seem to cause 

 any " tick fever," as the dangerous Uganda ticks do. 

 Another very unpleasant experience that many have had 

 on these plains is to be attacked by the hardly noticeable 

 little sand fly, or " funza," the special trick of which is to 

 work its way in under some toe nail, and there, without 

 the knowledge of the toe's owner, deposit a great number 

 of eggs. As soon as this is done, itching generally sets in, 

 and a slight inflammation becomes noticeable, which in- 

 stantly should be followed by an ' operation," generally 

 performed to perfection by the Swahili " boys," who, with 

 a needle, dig out the flea and scoop out the eggs, which 

 otherwise, if hatched, would cause serious trouble, and 

 sometimes even loss of the toe. 



By being careful to wash my feet every evening, never 

 to walk around, even on the tent's ground cloth, with bare 

 feet, and using pajamas with " stocking extensions," I 

 fortunately escaped this unpleasant experience. But some 

 people I met, who had been hunting on these plains, had 

 tales of misery to tell about their contact with the " funza." 

 An American hunter, whom I saw in Nairobi, late in 1909, 

 told me that he had not been able to walk properly for 

 several weeks after such an " attack," as the " opera- 

 tion " had been performed rather late, and perhaps not as 

 thoroughly as necessary. 



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