ELEPHANT-HUNTERS AND THEIR HORSES. 183 



horse-fly, of a dull grayish colour, with bars of a piuky 

 tinge across the body ; its wings, however, do not lie in 

 the form of a pent-house, but are like those of an English 

 house-fly, only longer. Animals, such as horses and oxen, 

 that have been bitten by the ' fly ' during the dry season, 

 usually live on until the commencement of the rains, but 

 seldom survive long after the first shower has fallen. It 

 often happens that when hunting with horses outside 

 but close to the ' fly ' country, one is led in the ardour 

 of the chase into an infested district ; if such is the case, 

 and it is uncertain whether the horse has been bitten or 

 not, the truth can be ascertained by pouring a few 

 buckets of water over him, when, if he has been ' stuck ' 

 (as hunters call it), his coat will all stand on end, like 

 that of a lung-sick ox. On several occasions horses have 

 been purposely taken into parts of the ' fly ' country, 

 where elephants were known to be plentiful, in the hope 

 that, by their aid, their owners would be able to shoot 

 enough ivory to compensate for the loss entailed by their 

 inevitable death ; for, of course, in tolerably open country 

 a man ought to be able to kill very many more elephants 

 on horseback than on foot. My comrade, W., once made 

 an experiment of this sort, and he informed me that at 

 the end of two weeks his horse grew too weak to hunt 

 with, and at the end of three could not carry him at 

 all, though it did not die for some time afterwards " 

 (pp. 130-132). 



" The forest being pretty open, and the moon about 

 full, we got along well enough, and at last, about midnight, 

 we struck the river at a point at least twelve miles from 

 our camp, which we did not reach much before daylight. 

 I think it is usually believed Tsetse-fly will not bite at 

 night ; but along the Chobe river (where they swarm), 

 and by moonlight, I can feelingly say that this is a 

 mistake. They kept flying up from the ground on to my 

 naked legs, and bit as furiously as in the day-time ; and, 

 judging from the deep curses and loud slaps behind me, 

 I had no doubt they were paying similar attentions to my 

 Kaffirs" (p. 154). 



Tsetse-fly found on the Umhila Biver, Mashuna Land: 

 three flies caught in cattle kraal belonging to the author's 

 camp, and *' fly " seen not a mile from the wagons. — 



