lyS UNDER THE AFRICAN SUN 



but they distrusted my appearance and scampered off without 

 my getting within range, though they did not mind the Makraka 

 in the least. 



At Hoima I had a case of sporadic small-pox, and quite a 

 crowd of itch patients. It is the female itch parasite which 

 causes all the trouble. She burrows under the skin to deposit 

 her eggs ; her favourite site is between the fingers, but I have 

 had patients with the whole of the lower part of their body 

 one mass of sores. Cleanliness is a great preventive. The eggs 

 take three days to hatch, consequently a single application of 

 unguentum sulphuris is not enough to cure ; it is as well to 

 repeat the treatment to make quite sure of destroying the whole 

 brood. The male parasite only wanders about the human body 

 in search of a spouse. 



On the 9th of September 1897, at 12.30 noon, at Masindi 

 Fort, in Unyoro, a very powerful shock of earthquake occurred. 

 I was sitting in my room, and the officer commanding the 

 district was at the open door, leaning against one of the door- 

 posts and chatting with me. My tent-loads, to be out of reach 

 of white-ants, happened to be slung from a bamboo-pole 

 stretched across the room. My companion first became aware 

 of the earthquake. He saw the suspended loads swaying 

 pendulum-fashion, and the next moment the whole house rocked 

 and shook. To me, sitting in a chair, the sensation communi- 

 cated to the feet was exactly the same tremulous movement 

 which one experiences in an express train going at full speed. 

 The illusion was the stronger, owing to a rumbling noise very 

 similar in sound, which accompanied the shock. It lasted 

 perhaps a minute. The natives in the fort also noticed it. I was 

 told that in September 1896 a similar shock was experienced in 

 this very hut. 



My hut at Hoima was more picturesque than comfortable. 

 A number of the props which supported the narrow verandah 

 had sprouted and formed a living enclosure of young trees. 

 The reed-work which closed up the verandah breast-high pre- 

 vented access of air, and the condition of the interior could be 

 gathered by the many toad-stools which were flourishing in the 

 room. The hut was rendered still more damp, dark, and dismal 

 by a reed-screen run across the room to screen off a recess to 

 serve as a bedroom. 



Amongst the prisoners at Hoima there was a man sent 



