here is little doubt that repeated attacks of
malaria in youth, if recovered from, do confer a kind of protection
against attacks in adult life. But this is not the case with newly
introduced disease; for the sleeping sickness that came to Uganda along
the caravan routes from the Congo, has swept away fully a million of the
natives along the shores of Lake Victoria Nyanza.

But the native has a sure sense of the unhealthiness of any locality,
and one must be prepared for trouble when one notices that the native
villages are built up on the hillsides. This was specially remarked by
us on our long trek down the Pangani, and thus we were warned of the
fever that lurked in the bright green lush meadows beside the water, and
the "fly" that soon overtook our transport mules and cattle and the
horses of General Brits' 2nd Mounted Brigade. At first we thought the
columns of smoke along the mountain-sides beside the Pangani were signal
fires for the enemy; but before long, when the roads were choked with
victims of "fly" and horse-sickness, we realised the wisdom that induced
the simple native to take his sheep and cattle up the hillsides and
above the danger zone. When one spends only a short time in some native
huts, it is quite clear how he escapes infection. For the floor is
covered with a layer of wood ashes that is usually deadly to bugs and
fleas and ticks and other crawling beasts; and the atmosphere is so full
of wood smoke that the most enterprising mosquito or tsetse-fly would
flee, as we do, choking from the acrid smoke. So the native fire that
burns within his hut day and night not only serves to cook his food and
to keep wild beasts away, but also supplies him with an excellent form
of Keating's Powder for the floor and smoke to drive the winged insects
from the grateful warmth of his fireside.

HORSE-SICKNESS

Lying beside the road with outstretched neck and a spume of white froth
on nose and muzzle are the horses of the 2nd Mounted Brigade; with
bodies swollen by the decomposition that sets in so rapidly in this sun,
and smelling to high heaven, are the fine young horses that came so
gallantly through Kahe some ten days ago. "Brits' violets" the Tommies
call them, as they seek a site to windward to pitch their tents.
"Hyacinths" they mutter, as the wind changes in the night, and drives
them choking from their blankets, illustrating the truth of the South
African "Kopje-Book" maxim, "One horse suffices t