INSECTS 
67 
However, after the first mouthful, my zeal excited visible signs 
of distress, if not of regret, in my companion for his previous 
encouraging words and example, and I am afraid that my 
subsequently developed love for hippo shooting is not unalloyed 
by possibilities of boiled foot, not to mention grilled flank with 
‘just enough’ of pepper and salt to help it down. 
It is my duty to here make painful mention of many swampy 
offshoots from the Chobe, necessitating the offloading of refrac¬ 
tory donkeys that had to be dragged across the oozy morasses 
on their sides, decidedly opposed to all idea of making any 
effort to help themselves. Soiled clothes, bad smells, and worse 
language are the paramount impressions we carried away from 
these parts. Oh, those horrid swamps, worse for the reason that 
our donkeys were badly tsetse fly bitten, and the immersion of 
their hides in the water would inevitably hasten their death, 
although donkeys show more resistance to ‘ fly bite 5 than any 
other domestic animals. But, given such swarms of ‘ fly ’ as we 
encountered, even this hardy brute will succumb, as ours even¬ 
tually did, to the virulence of this pest. It has often been 
asserted, not without mild proof, that the donkey of all domestic 
animals is the only one that will survive the tsetse fly bite. I 
myself have seen them traverse safely the distance from Delagoa 
Bay to Lydenburg in the Z. A. R. in 1874, wdien that country 
was thickly infested with flies that killed cattle, horses, and 
even the few camels that were imported as an experiment. But 
when bitten by such overwhelming swarms as we experienced, 
poor Jack and Jenny succumb in the usual way. The most 
sensitive animal to fly bite is the horse, then the dog, next the 
ox, and last the donkey. The bites of five tsetse flies have 
been known to kill a horse, while it takes a much larger number 
to kill a dog or ox. Experiments have been made by travellers 
to counteract the effect of fly bite by a wash of ammonia or 
sheep dip. Whatever effect these may have for the moment, 
the subsequent and continuous bites generally are victorious in 
the end. My esteemed friend, Mr. Reuben Beningfield of 
Durban, however, declares that he has cured animals only 
