So we let the great beasts be, only shooting one
or two in self-protection. In this district, the elephants,
being unacquainted with the hunter and his tender mercies, would
allow one to walk up to within twenty yards of them in the open,
while they stood, with their great ears cocked for all the world
like puzzled and gigantic puppy-dogs, and stared at that new
and extraordinary phenomenon -- man. Occasionally, when the
inspection did not prove satisfactory, the staring ended in a
trumpet and a charge, but this did not often happen. When it
did we had to use our rifles. Nor were elephants the only wild
beasts in the great Elgumi forest. All sorts of large game abounded,
including lions -- confound them! I have always hated the sight
of a lion since one bit my leg and lamed me for life. As a consequence,
another thing that abounded was the dreadful tsetse fly, whose
bite is death to domestic animals. Donkeys have, together with
men, hitherto been supposed to enjoy a peculiar immunity from
its attacks; but all I have to say, whether it was on account
of their poor condition, or because the tsetse in those parts
is more poisonous than usual, I do not know, but ours succumbed
to its onslaught. Fortunately, however, that was not till two
months or so after the bites had been inflicted, when suddenly,
after a two days' cold rain, they all died, and on removing the
skins of several of them I found the long yellow streaks upon
the flesh which are characteristic of death from bites from the
tsetse, marking the spot where the insect had inserted his proboscis.
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