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rather thinly scattered on a sandy soil. There are also big patches of mopani, and one finds mopani trees mixed in the "gusu."
The elevation is between 2,000 and 2,500 feet.
Most of the area is gently undulating, with broad valleys and gentle slopes between. The western half is hilly in places, and the Sijalila Hills, near the northern border, form a kind of turned up edge of the high land, with the Zambesi valley below.
There is a large plain stretching, with some interruptions, from Sipali along the Busi to near Siandola.
Along the Sengwe there are some more of the same kind of flats, which here pass into a belt of open thorn bush along the river.
Elsewhere the vleis, which occur here and there along the valleys, are small and not numerous. Those most frequented by game are at Sinasitonka and Manzatuba. All the streams in the fly area are dry at this time of year, with the exception of the Sengwe, which is permanent most years. This year it has dried up, but the water is generally close to the surface, and there are numerous pools. Elsewhere there is very little water. There are small swamps at Sipali, Sinasitonka, and Manzatuba. Some of the tributaries of the Lubu are little running streams.
There must be water in the Sijalila Hills at the places where Siachungwe's and Siabuwa's people are encamped.
Near the streams one finds large evergreen trees, of which the best for shade are the fig tree and the musikiti. Next come the German sausage tree (mufungwira), and the muchenja, a tall tree with dark-coloured bark. There are also different kinds of large mimosas.
As a rule these shade trees are isolated, and it is quite rare to see continuous shade along a stream bank. The only streams which I can call to mind where there is thick shade are the Swabula, where the road from Kariyangwe to Buwampu or Sinomba crosses it, and about three miles west of that the stream which runs under Mbelele Hill, and there are also patches of thick shade on the Busi.
The Sengwe has, as a rule, very low banks, bordered by reeds, without any trees at all.
We have found it impossible to correlate the boundary of the fly area with any physical feature.
Game.-Game is plentiful. Of the large animals the commonest are eland, zebra, and sable. Eland and sable are met with in large herds; zebra are not generally in such large herds, but are more frequently met with than any other species. Next come sassaby and waterbuck. Roan is rather less common.
Of the smaller animals, mpala is very abundant, while warthog and reedbuck are plentiful in small parties. Duykers and little buck pop up everywhere. I did not see any bushbuck.
Elephants occur along the Sengwe, and there must be a fair number of rhino- ceroses up and down the river. There is a herd of buffalo between Nyonyunka and Mpikaninyomba, just on the edge of the fly. Another herd goes from Manzatuba to
the Busi.
The connection between fly and game seems to be that in the fly area as a general rule fly is thickest where game is most numerous; (but at Buwampu, where fly is very plentiful, there seems to be no game during the dry season. We found a breeding place there which may possibly account for their presence).
Generally speaking, in the flatter eastern half of the area game and fly are more plentiful than in the more hilly western half.
One finds game plentiful on the edge of the fly belt, where fly is scarce, as at Sipali and Nyika, and between Bandala and Nyenyunka; and also just outside the fly, where one would think the animals must go into the fly and out again, as at Gwampongo and Nyenyunka.
Inhabitants. There are no white inhabitants except Government officials. Natives. The people are Batonka, except along the Sengwe, which is the western border of Mashankwa country.
The population in the district settled in or on the edge of the fly is probably something over 3,000, in an area of roughly 2,500 square miles (between 1 and 15 persons to the square mile).
The characteristics of the Batonka seem to be :-They live in a primitive way. There are no big villages, but one chief or headman has under him a group of half & dozen to a dozen little kraals, each of 10 to 20 huts. In a rich valley these little kraals Lay be close enough together for their gardens to form a continuous large
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clearing, as at Sibala's, but more often one finds them half a mile to a mile apart, or even further.
When
I saw
They are poor agriculturists, and often suffer from famine (as this year) this occurs they live on roots, fruit, and trapped game, and appear to do well very few thin people, though it is certain they have to depend on indigenous food.
They keep large herds of sheep and goats.
There is not much social intercourse between the different villages. They are much under the influence of their women,
A man who wants to marry goes to his mother-in-law's village to hoe, and when married lives at his wife's village. They generally marry at a neighbouring kraal under the same chief.
Native doctors, who are often women, have great influence among them. The people are very reticent about their affairs, so that it is hard to get trust- worthy information. No doubt the prevalent belief in witchcraft has much to do with this.
History. It is generally agreed among the old chiefs that before the rinderpest fly was more numerous than now. All our informants connected its disappearance with the extermination of the buffalo (Sinasitonka, Siandola, Nkoka, and Manjola all had fly and buffalo close to their kraals before the rinderpest). At Manjola fly is now scarce, where it is said to have been common. At Saboda, on the other hand, fly is found now, though the inhabitants say there was none before the rinderpest.
According to the testimony of several chiefs goats did well before the rinderpest, in spite of the fly. Sheep have. I believe, been recently introduced into this country. The people never possessed cattle, the country not being suitable.
When the country was first entered by white men, after the rinderpest and the rebellion, fly was found,only in quite a small area round Manzatuba. The spread to its present area is quite recent. According to native information the fly was first seen at :--
Mlonko, on the Sikomela, in
Buwampu
Siachungwe
Ngunyanka
Nkoka Bandala
1909
1907 1906
1905 or 1906 1910
1909
Soon after the reappearance of the tsetse domestic stock began to die. Sheep are now scarce in the fly; dogs die at once; goats are more resistant. One chief (Nkoka) told us they had stopped dying, another (Minamsanzwa) that they die in the rains, but not in the dry season.
The human disease, as far as we can gather, seems to have no native name, and does not appear to have been recognised among them as a distinct disease. This, if true, is surprising, and would lead one to infer that the disease is a new one. (The Native Commissioner points out that these people have no name for fever except small-pox, chicken-pox, and measles, which are accompanied by a rash. In any case of internal illness the question they ask is not "What is the nature of this sickness?"
Who has bewitched this man to make him sick?"
but
Evidence which, so far as it gues, points in the same direction is :--
(1) That goats seem to have done well in the fly before the rinderpest.
(2) That the only trypanosome so far found in a wild animal was obtained
from a sickly individual.
Seeing that out of 11 cases found 9 were men, I thought that a comparison of the male and female deaths reported from year to year might furnish some information. I found, however, that throughout the register male deaths have
greatly outnumbered female. The reasons for this seem to be →
(1) All men are tax payers, but women are only tax payers if they are second wives. Hence failure to report a male death leads to trouble, whereas a female death unreported may not be noticed.
(2) A large number of deaths occur at the mines, presumably due to the
conditions prevailing there.
Distribution of sickness.-Seven out of our eleven cases of sickness were found along the Busi River from Ngunyanka to Siandola. These are all Sinasitonka's people. Just in this area of Sinasitonka's villages there is much fly, much game, and also a fair population—(we examined over 500 people).
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Of the two cases found among Simsau's people on the Lubu, one was most likely infected in Sinasitonka's district and the other is doubtful.
Pashu's people on the Sikonola
Sinasitonka's
Silubu's
Nkoka's
Man-zola's
Siabuwa's
Nyenyunka's
Kariyangwe Station
O2700TIO
400
476
567
336
139
232-
1
135
1
55
2,340
11