ix CATTLE REPLACED BY BUFFALOES 165 



the iron tyres and nave bands of waggon wheels. 

 At that time the surrounding country had been un- 

 inhabited for some fifteen years, and I found great 

 herds of buffaloes grazing undisturbed all round 

 and over the site of Linyanti, where once had 

 pastured the cattle of the Makololo. With the 

 buffaloes too had come the tse - tse flies, which 

 swarmed all over this district, though when the 

 former left the forest and bush and went into the 

 reed beds and open grass lands between the two 

 main branches of the Chobi, the latter did not 

 follow them. There can be no doubt, however, 

 that when the Makololo first crossed from Sesheke 

 on the Zambesi to the northern branch of the Chobi 

 river, they must have found both buffaloes and tse- 

 tse Hies numerous in the district where later on 

 their chief Sebitvvane built his principal town. The 

 buffaloes must have first been driven to the west, 

 and the fly must subsequently have died out, before 

 the natives were able to introduce cattle into this 

 part of the country. After the destruction of the 

 native population about 1864, the buffaloes moved 

 back into the country from which they had whilom 

 been driven, and the tse-tse flies came with them. 

 The rinderpest which passed through the country 

 in 1896, I believe, killed all the buffaloes left any- 

 where near Linyanti, and probably the tse-tse fly 

 has also long since died out in that district, 1 into 

 which cattle may have been once more introduced 

 by the natives, though I do not know that this is 

 the case. 



But although it would seem, from the historical 

 facts I have just related, that in Africa, to the 

 south of the Zambesi river, Glossina morsitans has 

 always been dependent upon the Cape buffalo for 



1 A reference to the letter I have already quoted from my friend Mr. Percy 

 Reid shows that in 1899 he found neither buffaloes nor tse-tse flics in the 

 neighbourhood of Linyanti, where both were very numerous on the occasion 

 of my visit in 1879. 



