68 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS 



shooting is not accompanied by the smallest element of 

 risk. Poisonous snakes are fruitful sources of accident, 

 but they are actuated only by fear, and the anger born of 

 fear. The hippopotamus sometimes destroys boats and 

 kills those in them; but again there is no risk in hunting 

 him. Finally, the hyena, too cowardly ever to be a source 

 of danger to the hunter, is sometimes a dreadful curse to 

 the weak and helpless. The hyena is a beast of unusual 

 strength, and of enormous power in his jaws and teeth, 

 and thrice over would he be dreaded were fang and sinew 

 driven by a heart of the leopard's cruel courage. But 

 though the creature's foul and evil ferocity has no such 

 backing as that yielded by the angry daring of the spotted 

 cat, it is yet fraught with a terror all its own; for on oc- 

 casion the hyena takes to man-eating after its own fashion. 

 Carrion-feeder though it is, in certain places it will enter 

 native huts and carry away children or even sleeping adults; 

 and where famine or disease has worked havoc among a 

 people, the hideous spotted beasts become bolder and 

 prey on the survivors. For some years past Uganda has 

 been scourged by the sleeping sickness, which has ravaged 

 it as in the Middle Ages the Black Death ravaged Europe. 

 Hundreds of thousands of natives have died. Every effort 

 has been made by the government officials to cope with 

 the disease; and among other things sleeping-sickness 

 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 estab- 

 lished 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 1909 they grew constantly bolder, haunt- 



