DONKEY DISEASE IN EAST AFIUCA. 247 



administrative centre of Uganda occupied [in 1894] under 

 favourable circumstances from three to four months, and 

 had to be performed mainly on foot owing to the difficulty 

 of conveying riding animals through the belt of country 

 near the coast infested with the Tsetse-fly " (p. 3). 



167. 1901. Dr. Max Schoeller. 



u MiTTEILUNGEN IJBER MEINE ReISE NACH AQUATORIAL- 



Ost-Afrika und Uganda, 1896-1897," Band I. ( Verlag von 

 Dietrich Reimer (Ernst Vohsen),Berlin,1901),pp. 118-120. 



In spite of careful search no Tsetse-fly was found : the 

 deaths of the author's baggage-donkeys were apparently 

 due to a disease allied to the horse-sickness of South 

 Africa (" Dikkopziekte " of the Boers). 



The author, writing of an attempt, which was being 

 made by a Berlin society at the period to which this work 

 refers, to catch zebras, and cross them with horses and 

 donkeys, at Mbuguni, between Mt. Meru and Kilima 

 Njaro, says : — • 



[Translation.] "Zebra teams would certainly have 

 had a sreat advantage over all other material which comes 

 into consideration for East Africa, in the first place 

 because the Tsetse-fly would probably here be powerless, 

 while horse and donkey succumb to it. Whether, how- 

 ever, the horse-sickness, that causes such great devastation 

 in South Africa, will keep aloof from the zebra, or zebra- 

 hybrids as the case may be, remains an open question, 

 though I believe indeed that it will do so. According to 

 the observations that we had the opportunity of making 

 in connection with the successive deaths of our donkeys, 

 we might almost believe that the disease called Dikkop- 

 ziekte (thick-head sickness) by the Boers likewise occurs 

 in the steppe regions of East Africa. The donkeys that 

 we lost in the Natron Valley, and also later, all exhibited 

 those symptoms which are mentioned as characteristic 

 of thick-head sickness. The animals died either in the 

 course of a few hours, or else, as was usually the case, in 

 that of several days. Our Wadschagga believed the sick- 

 ness to be the consequence of the bite of an insect {die 

 Folge eines Tnsektensticlies) ; they even designated the 

 pi'oducer by the name Wandorobo. We have searched in 

 vain for such an insect in the places where the disease 



