184 In the Heart of Africa 
early morning hours, formed the sole point of attraction for the 
roving eye. 
The force stationed at Kasindi consists of about a hundred 
men, who are quartered in a special village (Askaridorf) near by. 
We only saw a small number of them, as the remainder had been 
despatched to re-erect the St. Gustave Mission Station, which lies 
a few hours away to the north. 
As we had some time in hand before our conference with the 
other members of the expedition at Christmas, and as reports and 
mail matter had been attended to, we used the few days at our 
disposal to make excursions on the Semliki. From reports of the 
natives of “ many sick people ” and of the tsetse-fly being preva¬ 
lent, we expected to find many cases of sleeping sickness, and 
resolved to devote our outing to an examination of the blood of 
the inhabitants of the Semliki valley. 
As we also hoped to come across a good many elephants and 
much game, we took a sufficient number of test tubes with us, 
such as are used in medicine, for collecting specimens of blood 
from cuts or wounds for microscopical examination. 
It was very important that we should use all the means in our 
power to examine the blood of any elephants we might kill, 
and discover whether it contained the germs of sleeping sickness. 
Through Raven’s efforts, ably assisted by Weidemann, many 
hundreds of the shore dwellers on Lake Albert Edward, particu¬ 
larly on the Semliki side, were subjected to examination. Indica¬ 
tions of trypanosoma^ however, were not discovered. Unfor¬ 
tunately we were unable to carry out the examination of the 
elephants, as Raven met with an accident just as he was about 
to begin the microscopic investigation, and was confined to his 
couch for months. 
There can be no doubt as to the activity and danger of the 
sleeping sickness in these districts, for in an isolated little house 
in Kasindi there were two patients, husband and wife, whom we 
visited daily and in whom Raven interested himself a good deal. 
The wasting effect of the terrible disease could be clearly observed 
on this couple. When we first arrived the patients were able to 
