

The Sleeping Sickness. 115 



In good game haunts in Central Africa, game will often 

 swarm in certain regions during the dry weather, when all 

 the small rivers and streams have dried up. On the 

 Luangwa River in North-Eastern Rhodesia, and on the 

 Bua River in Nyasaland, game is very abundant from July 

 to the end of November, as both these rivers are perennial. 



During the months of the hard rains January to March 

 there is water in every stream and hollow, and the game 

 wanders about all over the country, although I think 

 certain game remain in one patch of country throughout 

 the year if they have not been much disturbed. It is this 

 wandering habit amongst the fauna that makes it so diffi- 

 cult to get rid of the sleeping sickness ; and to attempt to 

 exterminate the game by shooting it would do harm instead 

 of good, as most of it would only be driven into other 

 country and take the disease with them. It would, there- 

 fore, be an infinitely easier matter to remove the native 

 inhabitants into districts free of much game and tsetse flies, 

 and those suffering from the disease could be segregated 

 and attended to. As present it is quite impossible for the 

 medical authorities to hear of a tenth of the number of 

 cases that occur in sleeping sickness areas, and dozens of 

 natives die without anything being known of them. If 

 a disease area were depopulated for several years, the 

 plague would fade away and become unknown in the 

 course of time. 



Native huts are flimsy affairs ; they do not take long 

 to build, and natives seldom occupy a village for more 

 than ten years, as they change their locality to get fresh 

 ground for their gardens. 



In all British colonies and protectorates there are now 

 stringent game regulations, and it is a good thing that the 

 fauna of a country should be preserved for future genera- 

 tions of sportsmen and naturalists. As it may prove useful, 

 I will now give some information referring to the cost of 

 licences, and the number of game animals allowed to be 

 killed annually in Nyasaland, North-Eastern Rhodesia, 

 and British East Africa. 



