lled new
countries a wave of English weeds follows the tide of English
emigration, and so with insects; the European house-fly chases away
the blue-bottle fly in New Zealand. Settlers have carried the
house-fly in bottles and boxes for their new locations, but what
European insect will follow us and extirpate the tsetse? The Arabs
have given the Makonde bugs, but we have the house-fly wherever we go,
the blue-bottle and another like the house-fly, but with a sharp
proboscis; and several enormous gad-flies. Here there is so much room
for everything. In New Zealand the Norwegian rat is driven off by even
the European mouse; not to mention the Hanoverian rat of Waterton,
which is lord of the land. The Maori say that "as the white man's rat
has driven away the native rat, so the European fly drives away our
own; and as the clover kills our fern, so will the Maori disappear
before the white man himself." The hog placed ashore by Captain Cook
has now overrun one side of the island, and is such a nuisance that a
large farmer of 100,000 acres has given sixpence per head for the
destruction of some 20,000, and without any sensible diminution; this
would be no benefit here, for the wild hogs abound and do much damage,
besides affording food for the tsetse: the brutes follow the ewes with
young, and devour the poor lambs as soon as they make their
appearance.

_3rd June, 1866._--The cow-buffalo fell down foaming at the mouth, and
expired. The meat looks fat and nice, and is relished by the people, a
little glariness seemed to be present on the foreleg, and I sometimes
think that, notwithstanding the dissimilarity of the symptoms observed
in the camels and buffaloes now, and those we saw in oxen and horses,
the evil may be the tsetse, after all, but they have been badly used,
without a doubt. The calf has a cut half an inch deep, the camels have
had large ulcers, and at last a peculiar smell, which portends death.
I feel perplexed, and not at all certain as to the real causes of
death.

I asked Matumora if the Matambwe believed in God, he replied, that he
did not know Him, and I was not to ask the people among whom I was
going if they prayed to Him, because they would imagine that I wished
them to be killed. I told him that we loved to speak about Him, &c. He
said, when they prayed they offered a little meal and then prayed, but
did not know much about Him.

They have all great reverence for the Deity, and the deliberate way in