How I Found Livingstone Travels, Adventures And Discoveries In Central Africa Including Four Months Residence With Dr. Livingstone By Sir Henry M. Stanley
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The Place Selected
For It Was Near A Long Straggling Sluice, Having An Abundance Of
Water During The Rainy Season, Draining As It Does Two Extensive
Slopes.
No sooner had we pitched our camp, built a boma of
thorny acacia, and other tree branches, by stacking
Them round
our camp, and driven our animals to grass; than we were made aware
of the formidable number and variety of the insect tribe, which
for a time was another source of anxiety, until a diligent
examination of the several species dispelled it.
As it was a most interesting hunt which I instituted for the
several specimens of the insects, I here append the record of it
for what it is worth. My object in obtaining these specimens was
to determine whether the genus _Glossina morsitans_ of the
naturalist, or the tsetse (sometimes called setse) of Livingstone,
Vardon, and Gumming, said to be deadly to horses, was amongst
them. Up to this date I had been nearly two months in East
Africa, and had as yet seen no tsetse; and my horses, instead of
becoming emaciated - for such is one of the symptoms of a tsetse
bite - had considerably improved in condition. There were three
different species of flies which sought shelter in my tent, which,
unitedly, kept up a continual chorus of sounds - one performed the
basso profondo, another a tenor, and the third a weak contralto.
The first emanated from a voracious and fierce fly, an inch long,
having a ventral capacity for blood quite astonishing.
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