434 
BRITISH CENTRAL AFRICA 
bay. This African pariah dog has a certain attachment to its native master, but 
it is always suspicious, furtive and cringing. Europeans they dread strangely, 
but though they growl angrily they are much too cowardly to bite. They have 
one good negative quality : they cannot bark. 
The domestic cat is (unless in or near European settlements) of that lanky, 
thin-tailecl, small-headed Indian type. It is evidently closely related to the 
wild native cat (Felis Caffrd) with which it freely interbreeds. The cat is by 
no means universally met with as a domestic animal in Central Africa. There 
is always a suspicion about its being a foreign introduction from Europe, India, 
or North-East Africa. 
The domestic fowl is a most useful bird. It is small—not much larger than 
a bantam—shortdegged, 1 inclining to the game-cock breed but for its full comb. 
This bird can be excellent eating if a little attention is paid to its fattening. It 
is not a good layer from our point of view, the hens laying about every two or 
three days for some eight months in the year. They sit well and are good 
mothers, especially in rearing foster-children such as young turkeys, geese, or 
ducks. 
There is no such thing as a domestic goose throughout all Africa (except in 
European settlements) from the borders of Egypt to the Cape. The Portuguese 
have in their East and West African possessions done much to try and domesti¬ 
cate the spur-winged goose and the Vulpanser, 2 but the idea has not caught on 
among the natives. The Muscovy duck, introduced by the Portuguese from 
Brazil, has, however, come into favour among the negroes of Nyasaland, 
Mozambique, East Africa, West Africa, and the Congo Basin as a domestic 
bird. 
The common blue pigeon (with white, mottled, dark-slate-coloured and fawn 
varieties) is kept as a domestic bird in the Shire Highlands, on the east and 
west coasts of Nyasa, and on part of the Nyasa Tanganyika plateau and the 
south coast of Tanganyika ; also in all the Arab settlements. But it is not 
found far away from villages which are in touch with European or Arab 
civilisation. 
From the foregoing list (which with the addition of the horse, donkey, camel, 
pig, and turkey may be made in varying degree to apply to all Tropical Africa) 
it will be seen that as in plants so in animals nothing indigenous has been 
tamed, adapted, cultivated by the negro. 
With the exception of the donkey all the beasts and birds above enumerated 
are Asiatic, European, or American in their origin. Cattle, goats, sheep, came 
down through Egypt in very ancient time. Earlier still from Arabia and India 
came the pariah dog. 
The pig was introduced by the Portuguese. 
The cat was brought here (probably from India) by the Arabs and Portu¬ 
guese. Farther north in Tropical Africa the cat may have found its way 
southwards and westwards from Egypt. From Egypt also came the domestic 
fowl. 3 The Muscovy duck and turkey were introduced by the Portuguese ; and 
the same people, together with the Arabs, brought the pigeon. 
The very guinea fowl, though domesticated after a fashion by the Berbers, 
Libyans, Egyptians and Arabs in the early part of the Christian era, and by 
1 Except where infected by that awful long-legged Indian variety introduced by the Arabs and 
Portuguese. 
2 “Egyptian goose,” “Zambezi duck”—a bird which is a connecting-link between the ducks and 
geese. 
3 Which the Egyptians received from Persia and the Persians from India. 
