GLIMPSES OF EAST AFRICA AND ZANZIBAR 



quiries I found Kiranger had taken all ; he had one 

 large lump cooking on my fire, two huge lumps in 

 his room, and he had also had the impudence to cut 

 a good steak off one of the legs I reserved for giv- 

 ing away ! No meat had he handed over to poor 

 Googly. The evening before he came to me, too, 

 saying he was hungry and asking for an advance of 

 eight annas, and he said Baruku would not give him 

 any of the meat ! 



I do not know whether it was the result of the 

 flight of locusts, but the tennis courts of gravel 

 were covered about this time with little black-green 

 hairy caterpillars. Behind the Lines there was 

 quite a plague of them ; the grass looked as if it had 

 been burnt. I was told that they were locust 

 caterpillars, and that a year before they had ac- 

 tually held up the train as they covered the railway 

 lines, making them so slippery with their squashed 

 bodies that the wheels went round and round, but 

 the train could not proceed. 



Among snakes, puff adders are much to be feared. 

 A man told me he found one in his garden and 

 killed it with a stick which he then threw down. 

 An hour or so later he took some friends to see 

 the dead snake, and was picking up the stick 

 when another puff adder hissed and struck at him. 

 It was actually lying along the stick, and he 

 did not notice it. Evidently it was the mate of 



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