304 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS 



all the game hereabouts, and they annoyed us a little also, 

 although very far from being the plague they were on the 

 Athi Plain. Among the flies which at times tormented the 

 horses and hung around the game, were big gadflies with 

 long wings folded longitudinally down the back, not in the 

 ordinary fly fashion; they were akin to the tsetse flies, one 

 species of which is fatal to domestic animals, and another, 

 the sleeping-sickness fly, to man himself. They produce 

 death by means of the fatal microbes introduced into the 

 blood by their bite; whereas another African fly, the seroot, 

 found more to the north, in the Nile countries, is a scourge 

 to man and beast merely because of its vicious bite, and 

 where it swarms may drive the tribes that own herds entirely 

 out of certain districts. 



One afternoon, while leading my horse because the 

 ground was a litter of sharp-edged stones, I came out on a 

 plain which was crawling with zebra. In every direction 

 there were herds of scores or of hundreds. They were all 

 of the common or small kind, except three individuals of 

 the big kangani, and were tame, letting me walk by within 

 easy shot. Other game was mixed in with them. Soon, 

 walking over a little ridge of rocks, we saw a rhino sixty 

 yards off. To walk forward would give it our wind; I did 

 not wish to kill it; and I was beginning to feel about rhino 

 the way Alice did in Looking Glass country, when the ele- 

 phants "did bother so." Having spied us the beast at once 

 cocked its ears and tail, and assumed its usual absurd re- 

 semblance to a huge and exceedingly alert and interested 

 pig. But with a rhino tragedy sometimes treads on the 

 heels of comedy, and I watched it sharply, my rifle cocked, 

 while I had all the men shout in unison to scare it away. 



