H2 Wild Life in Central Africa. 



orange. The reason the leeches were so bad on the 

 garden named was that I went there when the place was 

 virgin jungle, and the land was very wet and sw r ampy. 

 With good drainage the land was dried, and the wet jungle 

 was cut down, so the leeches disappeared in the clearings. 

 I have seldom seen such a deadly place for natives, as 

 many died of cholera, dysentery, ulcers, blood poisoning, 

 and other diseases. It reminded me of a description of 

 Yambuya Camp, where Captain Nelson and his natives 

 were starved and died of disease in the Stanley Emin Pasha 

 Expedition. 



Mosquitoes teemed on that place, and they were so bad 

 that I used to sit and dine under a large mosquito net, 

 having a smaller one stretched over my bed. The " boys " 

 used to push the dishes under the large net, and a " boy " 

 inside would put them on the table and remove them in 

 the same way. The only recommendation this fever spot 

 possessed was an abundance of snipe and jungle fowl, and 

 there were a few deer about; but the jungles were so thick 

 that it was almost impossible to see them, and one made 

 such a noise creeping about that the game usually had 

 plenty of notice before it was possible to get a glimpse 

 of them. 



I remember the monkeys proved a great bother, as they 

 used to invade the young tea nurseries and eat the freshly 

 planted seed and pull out the small bushes, so I shot a 

 number with a small rook rifle. Baboons in Africa often 

 damage tobacco and other plants, but they can be 

 frightened away by shooting a few and hanging up a 

 carcase or two as scarecrows. 



The beginner at big game shooting may like to know 

 the best spot where to hit game. When shooting, he 

 should try to get the sight on a certain spot and not aim at 

 hazard. 



The two deadliest shots for game are the heart and the 

 lungs, and, of course, a bullet in the brain or the centre 

 of the neck will drop game at once ; but these are unsatis- 

 factory targets, as a bullet in the head will break the skull 



