TSETSE IN BKITISH CENTEAL AFEICA. 215 



culties of colonization would be solved, and also the 

 difficulties of that conquest which must, sooner or later, 

 take place if the slave-raiding tribes are to be kept under 

 control. At present it is only over small and widely 

 separated patches that horses and cattle can be kept free 

 from the attacks of the Tsetse-fly. For instance, there is 

 no Tsetse-fly on the road from Katunga to Zomba, a 

 distance of over sixty miles. The convenience of this 

 may be estimated from the fact that I can ride from 

 Katunga to Zomba with a change of horses in two days, 

 whereas it would take me three days hard and very 

 uncomfortable travelling to perform this journey in a 

 machilla.* On the other hand, I cannot ride over to 

 Mlanje, which is only some forty miles distant, because 

 there is a belt of Tsetse-haunted country in between. 

 Neither can I ride the short distance of twenty-one miles 

 to the Upper Shire, for the same reason. Were it not for 

 this, we could keep the whole Shire province under control 

 by a small troop of fifty mounted police. Nevertheless, 

 we may be thankful that when proper precautions are 

 taken it is quite possible, and not even very difiicult, to 

 introduce horses into the Shire highlands. The Tsetse- 

 fly appears never to go near the edge of a river or to fly 

 over a river. Consequently, when horses and cattle are 

 being brought up in steamers they are not attacked by 

 the Tsetse as long as they do not leave the river ; and, 

 inasmuch as the piece of shore between Katunga and 

 Chikwawa is free from Tsetse, we are able to land horses 

 there and send them up into the highlands, where the fly 

 is absent. By taking the horses down at night through 

 the fly-belt between Zomba and the Upper Shire to 

 Mpimbi and embarking the beasts at once, they could 

 also be got up to Lake Nyasa without being bitten. 

 There is a considerable area round Fort Johnston and 

 the south end of Lake Nyasa where there is no Tsetse-fly, 

 and nearly all the country along the eastern shore of the 

 lake is without this pest. On the contrary, the Tsetse 

 occurs in patches along the west coast, but is quite absent 

 from the north end of the lake. The southern shore of 

 Lake Tanganyika is infested with the fly, which kills even 

 dogs, goats and donkeys, the two latter beasts generally 

 * " A hammock carried by native poiteis. — H. H. J." 



