172 AFRICAN NATURE NOTES chap. 



it had grown very thin and was too weak to carry 

 anything, but it did not seem to suffer in any way, 

 and whenever I could observe it, was always feeding 

 on the young green grass at the river's edge. I 

 never tied it up at nights, but every evening it used 

 to come and roll in a large heap of ashes behind my 

 camp. One evening it came and rolled in the ashes 

 as usual, but was too weak to get on its legs again, 

 and on the following morning was dead. Apparently 

 it enjoyed its life to the very last. 



During 1887 some friends and I took four horses 

 and five donkeys into the "fly" country on the Angwa 

 river, in the northern part of Mashunaland. There 

 were a good man^^ buffaloes and a fair number of 

 tse-tse flies in this district at that time, but not 

 one for every hundred of either that I had met with 

 along the Chobi river in the early 'seventies. My 

 own horse cut its career short by galloping with me 

 into an open game pitfall and breaking its back, 

 and the other three, although they were well fed 

 with maize morning and evening, were too weak to 

 gallop after game in a fortnight. After a month 

 they were too weak to carry a man at all, and they 

 were then shot. The five donkeys all got thin, 

 and swelled at the navel, and ran at the eyes, but 

 none of them died, although they remained in the 

 '' fly " country for more than a month. By the end of 

 the following rainy season they had quite recovered 

 their condition and were well and strong again. 

 These same five donkeys were taken down to 

 Zumbo on the Zambesi the following year by the 

 late Bishop Knight- Bruce. But they all died from 

 the effects of this journey, during which they must 

 have suffered great hardships and also been exposed 

 to the attacks of thousands of tse-tse flies on the 

 lower Panyami river. 



When visiting the old Portuguese settlement of 

 Zumbo on the Zambesi, in 1882, I found the few 



