78 
SAVAGE SUDAN 
Near Jebel Ahmed Agha I wrote:-—“The ship 
swarms with seroot. We are obliged either (i) to close 
all doors and windows and then catch with butterfly- 
nets all the seroots inboard—which is hot work at noon ; 
or (2) leave all open and live in a torrential draught. 
The seroot combines the speed of a peregrine with the 
sleuth of a weasel. Whereas the 
common house-fly alights with a buzz 
and a bump and then crawls, the 
seroot settles silent and insidious and 
goes to work at once. The victim is 
unaware of his attack till the spear 
pierces like a red-hot needle. His 
energy and power of penetration 
amaze. He gets home his sting and 
draws blood within three seconds and, 
if neglected, a serious sore results. A wash of ammonia, 
however, avoids that. The common house-fly of these 
parts also bites hard and can easily penetrate ordinary 
stockings or flannel shirts.” The latter terror belongs, 
I have since learnt, to the genus Stomoxys , probably 
of the species Calcitrans , L. 
A Lion Note. 
On one of the nights of convalescence, as the breeze 
held, I was able to sit and smoke on the poop. 
Suddenly, about ten o’clock, the stillness of night was 
shocked by the splendid sonorous roar of a lion on the 
bank hard by. Commencing with the usual soughing 
“coughs,” it developed into a series of deep-chested 
explosive volleys that seemed to shake the very atmo¬ 
sphere, magnificent in its expression of brute power. 
Half an hour later we were favoured with a second 
demonstration, this time longer and more varied. The 
effect might well be described as musical—to me, if it 
be not sacrilege to say so, no earthly music impresses 
Seroot. 
