156 AFRICAN NATURE NOTES chap. 



owing to the fact that the buffaloes had almost 

 ceased to come amongst them. In October 1877 I 

 accompanied Dr. Bradshaw from Kazungula — where 

 the Chobi joins the Zambesi — to the Victoria Falls. 

 We walked the whole way along the bank of the 

 Zambesi and found tse - tse fly very numerous 

 everywhere, especially near the Falls. At this time 

 buffaloes were already becoming scarce to the 

 eastward of the junction of the Chobi with the 

 Zambesi, most of them having already moved 

 westwards up the course of the former river. 



Eleven years later, in 1888, I travelled over the 

 old waggon road to the Zambesi for the last time. 

 Both buffaloes and tse-tse flies had then long since 

 disappeared from the stretch of country to the south 

 of Daka as well as from the " fly " belt to the north 

 of Pandamatenka, whilst they were also entirely 

 absent from the southern bank of the Zambesi near 

 the Victoria Falls. There was still, however, a 

 certain amount of game — zebras and several species 

 of antelopes — left in all these districts. 



In December 1888 I took two horses to the Falls, 

 and rode one of them all along the narrow strip of 

 open ground between the Rain Forest and the edge 

 of the chasm into which the river falls. It seemed 

 strange not to see a single *'fly" in this district, 

 where these death -dealing insects had literally 

 swarmed only eleven years earlier. 



Farther westwards, however, tse-tse flies continued 

 to haunt the southern bank of the lower Chobi river 

 in great numbers long after the buffaloes had ceased 

 to live there constantly, though these animals still 

 visited the district during the rainy seasons. At 

 such times they probably grazed down the river in 

 great numbers to within a few miles of its junction 

 with the Zambesi. 



A letter I have lately received from my old 

 friend Mr. Percy Reid, who has made many hunting 



