The Natives Asked My Permission To Capture Them, And, Having Spread Their Hunting-Nets, They Drove The Dogs As They Would Wild Animals, And Daily Secured A Great Number, Which They Trained To Hunt The Calves Of Antelopes And The Great Grass-Rat (Anlacodus Swindernianus).

Negroes have no sympathy with the young of wild animals, and I have never seen a pet animal or bird in their villages.

Although I offered two cows for every young elephant they might catch, I never could prevail upon them to spare the little ones. Five were speared ruthlessly in one day, within two or three hours' march of Fatiko. A negro is never seen without his spear, and he finds the greatest pleasure in sticking it into either something or somebody.

DISEASES.

Small-pox is prevalent, Cholera rarely attacks the country, but it is known. Dysentery is very common in the White Nile districts, but it is rare in the highlands. This complaint is generally fatal at Gondokoro. Great caution should be used, and impure water avoided. Marsh fever is the general complaint of the low ground, but is rare in the highlands of Fatiko and Unyoro.

I have never met with typhoid fevers in Central Africa, although they are common at Khartoum.

Measles, whooping-cough, scarlatina, croup, diphtheria, are quite unknown.

Blindness is only the result of extreme age, and is very rare. I never saw a case of mania, nor have I ever met more than one idiot in Central Africa.

Enter page number Go  Previous Next
Page 773 of 782
Words from 204860 to 205109 of 207249