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ch. in] RAVAGES OF HYENAS 
camps have been established, where those stricken by 
the dread malady can be isolated and cease to be 
possible sources of infection to their fellows. Recovery 
among those stricken is so rare as to be almost unknown, 
but the disease is often slow, and months may elapse 
during which the diseased man is still able to live his 
life much as usual. In the big camps of doomed men 
and women thus established there were, therefore, many 
persons carrying on their avocations much as in an 
ordinary native village. But the hyenas speedily found 
that in many of the huts the inmates were a helpless 
prey. In 1908 and throughout the early part of 1909 
they grew constantly bolder, haunting these sleeping- 
sickness camps, and each night entering them, bursting 
into the huts and carrying off and eating the dying 
people. To guard against them, each little group of 
huts was enclosed by a thick hedge ; but after a while 
the hyenas learned to break through the hedges, and 
continued their ravages, so that every night armed 
sentries had to patrol the camps, and every night they 
could be heard firing at the marauders. 
The men thus preyed on were sick to death, and for 
the most part helpless. But occasionally men in full 
vigour are attacked. One of Pease’s native hunters was 
seized by a hyena as he slept beside the camp-fire, and 
part of his face torn off. Selous informed me that a 
friend of his, Major R. T. Coryndon, then Administrator 
of North-Western Rhodesia, was attacked by a hyena 
but two or three years ago. At the time Major Coryndon 
was lying, wrapped in a blanket, beside his waggon. A 
hyena, stealthily approaching through the night, seized 
him by the hand and dragged him out of bed; but, as 
he struggled and called out, the beast left him and ran 
off into the darkness. In spite of his torn hand the 
