VISIT TO SOUTH AFRICA. 
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now. I hardly saw one in the whole 600 miles, notwithstanding the 
fact that there are dead animals lying in every direction. 
Some people explain it as being brought about by the rinderpest 
poison, stating that these animals having gorged themselves at the 
beginning of the rinderpest, have largely died ; I just give it to you for 
what it is worth, but there is undoubtedly a great absence of these 
creatures. They would be very useful at this present time. 
Remember that an African wagon has from eighteen to twenty 
oxen. Consider the thousands of wagons there are ; now all the oxen 
have died. You can then imagine the fearful state of the roads. 
It was unnecessary to use the sense of vision, the sense of smell was 
frequently sufficient. 
I believe the rinderpest has worked right down from north of the 
Zambesi, and has come down as I show you on the map, keeping away 
from the sea. 
Sir Hely Hutchinson, governor of Natal, told me that a remarkable 
point about the rinderpest is that it has not made its appearance within 
150 miles of the sea, and he was in great hopes of being able to keep it 
out of Natal and out of Zululand. 
When I came away the rinderpest had got to the Orange River, where 
it had been checked. 
There are wire fencings erected at the cost of thousands of pounds 
to the various governments, and those wire fencings are stretched the 
whole way along the Orange River and all round Natal and Zululand. 
There are also very stringent regulations preventing natives, horses, 
carriages, or indeed anything, passing the line of fencing without a 
considerable amount of fumigating. Cattle, of course, may not pass at all. 
I was fumigated three times. The fumigating is not particularly 
unpleasant. They put your rugs into a sulphur box, which makes them 
smell for a time, and they dip your boots into Jeyes’ disinfecting fluid; 
that is how I was disinfected, except when I was going into Natal. 
There they conducted me to a lavatory with a large number of basins 
ranged round, and I was very gravely requested to “ use a nail brush.” 
I was glad to use it, for I had been travelling for some time and was 
very pleased to have a wash ; but there was an old Boer who came in 
behind me, and I think one might have asked him to have swallowed 
a charge of dynamite and he would have been less surprised. 
The Boers are apparently rough in the way they disinfect the Kaffirs, 
they not only put them in a sulphur box as they do in the colony, and 
keep them there for five minutes, but on the Mafeking side some men 
were soused in carbolic and dragged through the river. Two men, 
according to the papers, were killed, and the attention of the High 
Commissioner directed to the case. It seems an effectual treatment for 
infection. 
It is a curious thing that in S. Africa they do not seem, to have fairly 
tried the camel. I believe it has been tried in German territory. 
In this country in its present state, transport having broken down, 
the camel would be of the greatest possible use if it is not liable to 
rinderpest ; and even if it is, rinderpest is only a temporary affliction. 
It would at any rate, if not for transport, be useful for keeping up 
communication with the lakes and Barotze country, where there are 
pioneers absolutely cut off from communication. 
To get back to the road again, the next place of any interest was 
Palla ; your maps are not quite right here because one comes quite 
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