HINTING FOR BIG GAME.

Otago Witness, Issue 3018, 17 January 1912, Page 99

HINTING FOR BIG GAME.

OFFICIAL CAMPAIGN AGAINST THE BUFFALO. (By Sir Henry Seton-Karr, C.M.G.) The frontier between Rhodesia and Portuguese East Africa is crossed at Umtali, whence the line drops downward through mountain gorges, thickly and beautifully wooded, from the elevated Rnodesian tableland, 5000 ft above sealevel, to the Pungwe flats, jungly, fertile, but not too healthy, to the Portuguese port of Beira, which is built on a spit of sand at the mouth of the Pungwe River.

We were only four hours late when I made the run. owing to the derailment of a luggage train in front. But the traveller on African lines cannot expect a London and North-western railway service a present. "Are your trains always late?" I asked a conductor on the line north of Livingstone.

" Not always, but invariably," was the cryptic response. I frankly confess that I was agreeably surprised with Beira. It had been described to me as a hot. steamy, feverish hole—no doubt by one who had spent the wet season there, and whose liver was not in the best working order in consequence. I arrived early in July, probably the most healthy month of the year on the East Coast, and found a most comfortable and well-appointed hotel—quite a pleasant and. for the latitude and elevation, cool climate; an excellent and hospitable little English club; and one of the best golf courses in South Africa. owing largely to the zeal and good management of Colonel Arnold, of the Mo za mb i que Co mpa ny.

The Black Nurse.—

I was much interested to observe that Beira is by way of being a health resort for Southern Rhodesia. The wives and young families of Rhodesian settlers and officials were to be seen in numbers. Bonny, healthy young while children and babies were being tended and carried about by Beira black boys of 16 or 17 years of age. and I noticed that the small babies seemed to be quite happy with and fond of their black male nurses. How is it, I asked myself, that the young, untutored savage, the woolly, darkskinned son of Ham, could adapt himself po naturally and easily to this kind of domestic service for the alien white, and even appear to enjoy it? I greatly doubt whether any mother at home would care to entrust her babies -to the charge of any lad in his 'teens, a paid servant. But the same mother does this thine without fear, and with results, in an alien land, and among an alien-coloured, inferior race.

I left Pe'ra, after a few days' stay, for Mozambique, a few hundred miles north, passing Chinde, at the mouth of •the Zambesi, on the way. Here we both discharged and took on quite a number of British passengers, for the port of Chinde is one of the- doorways to British Nyas/saland. and the high tableland of Blantyre and vicinity, which boasts a little railway of its own. Settlers here are doing " well, and cotton-growing, among other agricultural pursuits, is stated to be quite successful so far as they have got at present. Among other cotton-growers in t2io Nyassaland Protectorate is a grandeon of Livir.gstesi*, ■who thsrc owns a large, estate.

Dieaded Fly.— Bvt the current, talk among Nvassaland c-ettlers whom J* met was largely of the feared encroachment of the tsetse flv, and -even worse—the possible dark shadow of. the dreaded sleeping sickness. The siaiple facts, as narrated to me, were that tlV\j tsetes fly had made its appearance an the neighbourhood of Blantyre, which is the xail-head and the capital of the Nya&saland Protectorate, and had practically put an end to ox-transport between Blantyre and Zomba, 40 miles to thf north. One settler had lost 100 head o\ cattle, another 200 head. Hitherto th< Blantyre tableland had been considered free from " fly," and a good stock country.

But there was worse to come. A case or two of sleeping sickness have been reported from within 15 miles of Port Johnston, 60 miles north of Zomba, on the south-west corner of Lake Nyasea. The two facts taken together—namely, the ■appearance of the tsetse fly on the Blari-tyre-Zomba road, and sleeping sickness 60 miles north, were considered a very serious matter. They might mean not only the destruction of the Nyassa tableland as a stock country, but also tho possible incursion of sleeping sickness into the hitherto healthy Blantyre-Zomba district. Under these circumstances a certain amount of nervous apprehension on tho part of Nyassaland settlers was not surprising.

Reserves Thrown Open.—

Space will not permit my here enlarging on the subjects of tsetse fly and sleeping sickness, nor do I feel competent to do so. But it is quite possible that the dread significance of these names to all dwellers in Africa is not fully realised at Home. There are some beautifully fertile islands in the north end of the Victoria Nyanza Lake, which a few years ago supported a teeming and healthy native population. These islands are now depopulated and desolate, something.like 200,004 natives (if I remember the figure given me aright) having died of sleeping sickness since 1903 or 1904. . My informant was a doctor I met in Mozambique, wh« had just come down from Uganda, wher« he had been, like many others of .his profession in South Africa, investigating sleeping sickness and visiting "sickness" camps. His account of these camps waa most depressing. I turn for a moment to a phase of the subject of much interest to naturalists and big game-hunters. It is reported that the Governor of Nyassaland, Sir William Manning, has determined to exterminate all big game, In one, or, possibly, two portions of the Protectorate near the southwest shore of Lake Nyassa by means o£ large organised drives into pits, with the object of ascertaining whether big game do or do not bring and spread the fly, and whether tlfeir extermination in any given area where both big game and fly exist will also abolish the fly in such area. Meantime- the cost of a license to kill game in the Protectorate has, I am told, been materially reduced, and the buffalo reserve near the Blantyre railway practically thrown open to hunters. The buffalo is well known to be a favourite " host " for fly. There is a strong difference of opinion among experts as to whether big game do or do not 'spread fly. While one school maintain that big game, and especially buffalo, not only harbour fly, but cause its spread, and so may—this is an inference —cause the spread of sleeping sickness, the opposing school affirm, and cite evidence in support, that the destruction of big game will have no effect upon fly, and—again inferentially —will have no effect one way or the othier, on the spread of sickness. The main points of the latter case ore that there, are big game districts which contain no fly, as well as fly districts and also sickness areas which contain no big game. Also that it is not yet etabhshed, as I have already pointed out, that the bite of the infected fly is the sole cause of the sickness.

In the light of this controversy, and in view of the admitted uncertainty of the case against the big game, it is possible that many naturalists and big gamehunters, among whom I venture to include myself, may deprecate the reported intended action of the Governor of Nyassaland, at all events until more time has been given thoroughly to consider all ita consequences as well as its efficacy, and until expert opinion has been more directlyconsulted on the point, If it be a case of property and oombly of human life against big game, the latter, of course, must go. But It is, I submit, by no means established that this is a correct statement of tho CBS"-G. It is far from certain that the proposed extermination will be effective or will achieve its object. Many experts will tell us that, even if the proposed game extermination be thoroughly carried out, bv no means an easy task, we shall be no nearer a solution than before while iniurv will have been done to the wild life of the country, possibly irreparable in that particular district, and a loss of licence revenue incurred, all to no practical purpose. Unless absolutely trorough, the proposed extermination, as a «£ ientlfic experiment will be useless. But i freely confess that I write al this witfi some diffidence and hesitation.