FAUXA OF EAST AFRICA. 3 



marabou storks in myri.ads, all gorged to repletion. Occasionally- 

 dead giraffe, waterbnck, and IdusIi buck were seen ; the eland also 

 snftered, and I am told that kudu and roan wei'e also attacked. 



From the bufialo the disease spread to the cattle, and at 

 Ngomeni in North-East Kitui, which was a great cattle centre 

 before the epidemic, we were shown some 20 odd beasts, the 

 sole survivors of many thousand head, and the desiccated carcases 

 of the victims were piled up as a wall outside the villages. 



It was during that journey that we happened to follow a day 

 behind a. large hiijn of Laikipia Masai which was engaged in 

 raiding the Embu and Mbe tribes. I will not dwell on the 

 •evidences of ruthless slaughter we witnessed, but some fifteen years 

 later I was recalling the incident to the chief of the Laikipia 

 Masai, and he laconically told me that he was a "morau" or 

 vv'arrior at the time and had participated in the raid ; he paren- 

 thetically added that it was an unfortunate ventui'e, for some of 

 the captured cattle were infected with rinderpest, and so they 

 took the disease back to their own herds on Laikipia and practi- 

 ■callv all perished. Nemesis indeed I 



This outbreak was the woi'st epidemic known in the recent 

 history of Africa.; it spread rapidly south through what was then 

 'German East Africa, crossed the Zambezi, reached Buluwayo 

 about 1895, and by the end of 1896 it had reached the Cape. 

 During the last year of the visitation its progress was remarkably 

 rapid, viz., about 1000 miles ; it was probably spread to a great 

 extent by the transport riders. Since that devastating attack we 

 have had minor epidemics of the disease; in 1904 I saw eland 

 dying of it near Naivasha, and the Masai then lost over 600 head 

 of stock. Although sporadic outbreaks still occur, this disease is 

 now well in hand. 



In very dry years, when grazing is scarce and the plains are 

 very dusty, outbreaks of anthrax occur among the game, the 

 principal species to suffer being Coke's hartebeest ; the last 

 serious outbreak which was identified was in 1905, when several 

 thousand heaxl of game died on the Athi Plains. 



Pleuro-pneumonia is rarely absent from the herds of Masai 

 cattle grazing in the South Reserve ; but, curiously enough, there 

 is no record of the disease a,ttacking the game, and the Game 

 Warden has stated that cases are known where eland and buffalo 

 graze over the same land as cattle infected with this disease and 

 ■are apparently unaffected. 



About 1906 an epidemic of what is believed to be distemper 

 broke out among the jackals on the Athi Plains, and large numbers 

 died ; a year or two later the same disease was recorded from the 

 Rift Yalley, and then from Laikipia. It is not, however, known 

 whether the disease is endemic, or whether it has been introduced 

 by civilization. 



Wild game is in some areas infected to a considerable extent 

 Avith intestinal parasites. I have frequently observed the intra- 

 muscular cysts of what is commonly called ''measles" in mpala, 



r* 



