They Have Never Been Visited,
Even By Half-Castes; But Babisa Traders Have Come Occasionally.
Continuous Rains Kept Us For
Some time on the banks of the Chiponga,
and here we were unfortunate enough to come among the tsetse.
Mr.
J. N. Gray, of the British Museum, has kindly obliged me with
a drawing of the insect, with the ravages of which I have unfortunately been
too familiar. (For description, see p. 94-96 [Chapter 4 Paragraphs 16-20].)
No. 1 is the insect somewhat smaller than life, from the specimen having
contracted in drying; they are a little larger than the common house-fly.
No. 2 is the insect magnified; and No. 3 shows the magnified proboscis
and poison-bulb at the root.*
-
* Unfortunately, these illustrations can not be presented in this ASCII text.
Fortunately, information on the Tsetse is no longer difficult to find.
The "somewhat smaller than life" drawing is about 1 cm from head to tail,
not including wings or proboscis. - A. L., 1997.
-
We tried to leave one morning, but the rain coming on afresh
brought us to a stand, and after waiting an hour, wet to the skin,
we were fain to retrace our steps to our sheds. These rains
were from the east, and the clouds might be seen on the hills exactly as
the "Table-cloth" on Table Mountain. This was the first wetting we had got
since we left Sesheke, for I had gained some experience in traveling.
In Londa we braved the rain, and, as I despised being carried in our
frequent passage through running water, I was pretty constantly drenched;
but now, when we saw a storm coming, we invariably halted.
The men soon pulled grass sufficient to make a little shelter for themselves
by placing it on a bush, and, having got my camp-stool and umbrella,
with a little grass under my feet, I kept myself perfectly dry.
We also lighted large fires, and the men were not chilled
by streams of water running down their persons, and abstracting the heat,
as they would have been had they been exposed to the rain.
When it was over they warmed themselves by the fires,
and we traveled on comfortably.
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