CH. Ill] RAVAGES OF II VEX AS 59 



camps have been established, where those stricken by 

 the dread malady can be isolated and cease to be 

 possible sources of infection to their fellows. Recovery 

 among those stricken is so rare as to be almost unknown, 

 but the disease is often slow, and months may elapse 

 during which the diseased man is still able to live his 

 life much as usual. In the big camps of doomed men 

 and women thus established there were, therefore, many 

 persons carrying on their avocations much as in an 

 ordinary native village. But the hyenas speedily found 

 that in many of the huts the inmates were a helpless 

 prey. In 1908 and throughout the early part of 1901) 

 they grew constantly bolder, haunting these sleeping- 

 sickness camps, and each night entering them, bursting 

 into the huts and carrying off and eating the dying 

 people. To guard against them, each little group of 

 huts was enclosed by a thick hedge ; but after a while 

 the hyenas learned to break through the hedges, and 

 continued their ravages, so that every night armed 

 i sentries had to patrol the camps, and every night they 

 I could be heard firing at the marauders. 

 I The men thus preyed on were sick to death, and for 

 I the most part helpless. Rut occasionally men in full 

 I vigour are attacked. One of Pease's native hunters was 

 I seized by a hyena as he slept beside the camp-fire, and 

 part of his face torn off. Selous informed me that a 

 friend of his, Major R. T. Coryndon, then Administrator 

 j of Nortli-Western Rhodesia, was attacked by a hyena 

 but two or three years ago. At the time Major Coryndon 

 was lying, wrapped in a blanket, beside his Avaggon. A 

 hyena, stealthily approaching through the night, seized 

 him by the hand and dragged him out of bed ; but, as 

 he struggled and called out, the beast left him and ran 

 off into the darkness. In spite of his torn hand the 



