230 CONVEYANCE OF ANIINIALS BY WATER 



quence, it is possible to convey horses and cattle up the 

 rivers without the least danger of their being bitten, as 

 long as they remain on the boat anchored in mid-stream. 

 They are also quite safe in the middle of any collection of 

 huts or in any town. It is a fortunate thing that there is no 

 Tsetse at Katunga or Chikwawa on the Central Shire, as 

 live stock can be brought the whole way by water to this 

 place from the mouth of the Zambezi,* landed there and 

 sent up to Blantyre, and can thence be conveyed by various 

 routes which are free from Tsetse-fly to the Upper Shire 

 and so on to Lake Nyasa. Another important fact to be 

 borne in mind is that the Tsetse-fly does not bite at night, 

 therefore if a Tsetse-haunted district must be crossed it 

 should be done at night-time — by moonlight if possible. 

 It is said also that smearing the bodies of the animals with 

 cow-dung will repel the insect " (pp. 377-378). 



[Five sketches of Tsetse-flies, H times life size, are 

 given on p. 378, but are not sufficiently accurate to be 

 useful.] 



" Donkeys are far less subject to the poisonous cha- 

 racter of its bite than horses or mules ; indeed, it is said 

 that the domestic donkey of East Africa, which is only 

 one degree removed from the Abyssinian wild ass, is 

 impervious to its attacks, and certainly none of those 

 animals have died from Tsetse bite in British Central 

 Africa. Major Lugard, I believe, has found on his expe- 

 dition to Lake Ngami that his donkeys were the only 

 animals that survived the attacks of the Tsetse. Dogs 

 are killed by it, and even cats will not resist its attacks 

 when too frequent. On the Mwanza River, an affluent of 

 the Shire nearly opposite to Katunga, the Tsetse are so 

 numerous that the only domestic animals which can be 

 kept by the natives are fowls " (p. 379). 



Notes on the distribution of Tsetse-flies in Africa 

 generally, from specimens in the British Museum (p. 379). 



" In the greater part of the Nigerian, the Central and 

 the Egyptian Sudan the Tsetse is absent, thus permitting 

 a far more rapid and healthy development and conquest 

 of these countries, as horses are abundant and can be 

 employed to mount cavalry and transport travellers, while 



* " The Tsetse is apparently absent from Cbinde and Quelimane and 

 much of the Zambezi Delta." 



