i62 AFRICAN NATURE NOTES chap. 



through all the country farther north for more than 

 twenty years, and I have been lately informed that 

 a waggon road has been cut from Denukani to 

 Libebe's, and from thence to the Quito, the whole 

 length of which is entirely free from tse - tse fly, 

 which insects there seems every reason to believe 

 have died out owing to the disappearance of the 

 buffaloes from their former haunts. 



But the facts which I have already stated, and 

 which seem to me to show that in Africa to the 

 south of the Zambesi there has always been a 

 close connection between the buffalo and the tse-tse 

 fly, by no means exhaust the evidence on this 

 point. 



When Sebitwane, the great chief of the Makololo, 

 and Umziligazi, the founder of the Matabele nation, 

 led their clans, the one to Linyanti between the 

 Chobi and Zambesi rivers, the other to the high 

 plateau near the sources of the Gwai and Umzingwani 

 rivers, they found the whole country south of the 

 Zambesi, between the Daka and the Gwai, occupied 

 by an unwarlike and agricultural people akin to the 

 Makalaka, and if any value can be placed on native 

 testimony, these people were rich in cattle. 



Attacked first by the Makololo and later on by 

 the Matabele, these unfortunate people were killed 

 in great numbers and gradually dispossessed of 

 their lands, all their cattle being taken from them. 

 Those that escaped death fled across the Zambesi, 

 where their descendants are living to this day. 



Now I have no doubt that long ago, before the 

 country between the Gwai and the Daka rivers was 

 settled up by natives, it had been a " fly "-infested 

 country full of buffaloes. At any rate, as soon as 

 the natives had been killed or driven out of it, 

 buffaloes and all other kinds of game took possession 

 of it, moving in no doubt from the countries both 

 to the east and the west, and with them came a few 



