With Flashlight and Rifle ^ 



a true and sympathetic companion in good times and bad, 

 a man with his heart in the right place, and with a faculty 

 for coping with the hardships of life in the wilderness not 

 easily equalled. 



Unfortunately a number of deaths had occurred among 

 the asses at Moshi, which to my mind is just as unhealthy 

 as any other such place in East Africa. The Greek 

 merchant Meimarides, who lives there, had lost more than 

 a hundred of his native Masai asses. This did not surprise 

 me very much, as I had long known that domestic animals 

 were apt to sicken in this neighbourhood. Asses especially 

 the superior breed of Muscat asses and mules soon die 

 there, lasting only two or three years under the most favour- 

 able circumstances ; horned animals are kept by the 

 Wadshagga in closed sheds by stall-feeding, cattle allowed 

 to graze in the open invariably dying very quickly. 



This stall-feeding is not due to fear of the Masai, but 

 to the knowledge that the animals can only be kept alive 

 in these sheds of the Wadshagga, which smoke protects 

 from the gadflies. 



It was interesting to me to find here at the beginning 

 of April the species of genet (Genetta suahehca) which I 

 myself had discovered. One of these black genets was 

 killed at night by a shepherd just as it was about to fall 

 on a kid belonging to my herd of goats. This black 

 colouring is not infrequently met with among carnivora 

 in East Africa. 



It is reported from Abyssinia that it has long been 

 a practice of the Negus to bestow a black leopard's skin 



80 



