172 BRITISH CENTRAL AFRICA 
we seldom failed to get two or three buck at least. As to the guinea fowl, they were 
there in swarms! It was awfully jolly sitting smoking round a huge camp fire, so 
perfectly safe and yet in such a wild country with lions roaring at intervals not far away, 
and the queer sounds of owls and tiger-cats and chirping insects coming from the thick 
bush. Our boys used to build rough shelters of branches to sleep in and try to keep up 
fires through the night, more to scare away wild beasts than for any other reason. 
Recently these little jaunts have been more charming on account of the gorgeousness 
of the wild flowers, for this is the spring of the year. I am a bit of a botanist, you 
know, but even if I was not I could not help admiring the gorgeous masses of colour 
which the different flowers produce among the young green grass, on the bushes, and on 
the big trees.” 
IN CAMP—AFTER A DAY’S SHOOTING 
“ Pazulu, February 14 th. 
“ We have had an anxious time here with young McClear. He went down the 
Upper Shire to look at some land that his father is thinking of investing in for growing 
sugar (as the sugar cane grows there in tremendous luxuriance and there is a great 
local demand for sugar), but he is a very careless chap, you know, and what with getting 
wet through with rain and exposing himself too much to the sun and drinking whatever 
water he comes across, he has fallen ill with black-water fever since he came back to 
Blantyre. Nobody can quite account for this peculiar disease. Some people say it 
comes from turning up the new soil of a very rank kind ; others—and they are generally 
doctors—assert that the germ is quite different from that in malarial fever, and enters the 
system from water, either through the pores of the skin .in bathing or through the 
stomach, if the infected water is drunk. Therefore there should be one very simple 
preventative by having all one’s washing and drinking water boiled. However it may be, 
young McClear went down with it very suddenly only two days after he got back. He 
seemed quite well in the morning, ate his breakfast as usual, and went out to the 
