tors of mail coaches are in the habit of administering doses
of arsenic to their horses and mules, which are said to operate in
lessening the death rate and to favour the salting process.

As safeguards for horses and mules, the following rules have been found
to minimise losses in dangerous tracts where the low clinging miasmatic
vapours are so deadly during the night and earlier parts of the morning.
(During rainfall there is hardly any danger, nor is there after a
night's rain for the day following):--

Do not traverse low suspicious tracts during the hours between 9 p.m.
and, say, two hours after sunrise, lest poisonous vapours be
encountered and inhaled by man or horse.

Choose the most elevated spots for camping out at night. No grazing to
be allowed from 10 p.m. to about 10 or 11 a.m., unless it is raining.
Dewy grass is fatally poisoned; the heavy moist air close to the surface
is also suspected. Grazing is only safe after the soil and grass are
dried of all dewy moisture.

Avoid all water of at all a stagnant nature; rather let the animals
remain thirsty.

If the animals have been fed with dry fodder during the night, let the
first morning stage be moderate and not exhausting. With empty stomachs
the task might be somewhat increased, but even then it should be less
than any other succeeding stage. When the first symptoms of sickness are
noticed they may pass over if the animal is at once freed from work and
allowed to rest, or is at most led when marching. Among the most
dangerous places for horse sickness and for fever to human beings are
the luxurious dongas, ravines, and valleys which abound along the long
stretches of mountains and broken country immediately below the high
plateaux.

The passes leading up to the high veldt are few in number, and so
precipitous as to be almost impracticable for vehicles. Of late years
those roads have been allowed to fall into disrepair, in order, it may
be supposed, to check wagon traffic and to promote that by railway;
apart from the railway, communication with Delagoa Bay would now be
impossible. What with the fever climate in summer, and the formidable
mountain barriers, the Transvaal high veldt is well protected from
aggression from the direction of Delagoa Bay. A few thousand men
distributed at the few mountain passes, blocking the tunnel at one of
these (at Waterval Boven), and breaking up some few bridges, would
effectually arrest the progress of any invading