THE TSETSE PROBLEM IN NORTH MOSSURISK. 335 



former, which is more abundant — are not such great followers of man as is morsitans, 

 and that the chance of success in such a case, without wholesale clearing of the 

 bush, is greater than w^here inorsitans is concerned. On the Sabi it was different. 

 Here the permanent fly-bush itself was destroyed to a far greater extent and the 

 fly in most parts exterminated. 



Was the Experiment intentional ? 



These concentrations of population round the King were not primarily fly- 

 measures ; they took place whether the country was fly-infested or not. But their 

 effect in fly-country was well known to the natives, and I was informed that Umzila 

 entertained considerable hopes in relation to the keeping of cattle from his successive 

 concentrations at Umpombo's, at Dongonda, and west of the Sitatongas. Success 

 was attributed to the effect on the game rather than to that on the shade, and 

 Umzila's measures against the game were stringent. His intention of colonising 

 the " Oblong " was frustrated by the depredations of lions on the settlements 

 placed there {e.g. in the Budu country), and there were difficulties connected with 

 water and an immemorial and bloody feud with regard to the Dengaza tract between 

 the chieftains Makwiana and Gogoyo ; * but he settled its borders very heavily 

 and kept the game well driven within them by means of frequent hunts. 



The Effect of the subsequent Depopulation. 



Before Gungunyana carried off the population to Bileni (near Louren^o Marques) 

 in about 1889, he had already commenced to protect the game. He had decreed 

 (fzi-zale (let them multiply), and game had become more abundant both outside and 

 inside the cattle-keeping areas. The guard-areas still opposed its passage into 

 and out of these areas and no harm resulted to the cattle. When the population 

 left, the game (in the words of my native informants) just " burst forth " (za- 

 dabuka). At the same time the wooding was let loose and soon re-established 

 itself throughout the previously settled country. 



In a very few years (by 1896 according to native information) the fly had more 

 or less regained its old wet season limit — ^not many miles east of the present political 

 boundary — ^though the bush capable of supporting it was not then so ubiquitous 

 as it is now. I myself lost a beast from fly on " Scott's Hope " (a Portugueses 

 farm on the British border) in 1900, and a tsetse was taken south of Spungabera, 

 on the tondo-covered hills west of the Buzi (spot shown on map), in the same year 

 by Drs. Wilder and LaAvrence. 



The fly caused little trouble then, but two things have happened since — a, pro- 

 gressive invasion of the upland dolerite {a) by the deciduous wooding, and (6) — more 

 important still — by game of wandering species. Buflalos and elands especially, 

 decimated by the rinderpest, are now extremely abundant, and having spread from 

 the sedimentary area into the hills, wander much more frequently than they used 

 to into the highlands. It is only in the last three years that buffalos have reached 

 the Puizisi country in any numbers. They have there tapped another brevipalpis 

 area, and the consequence has already been visible in the destruction of the cattle 

 of the Muchamba-Puizisi vaUeys. 



* Not that this was allowed to continue actively under Umzila. He decreed '' There 

 must be no more war. We are the only King (Si'nkosi sodwa) ! " 



