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PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
C.O.
Reference :-
885/25
PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON;
ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH—NOT TO BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC-
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On 23rd May I reached Lolkissale, and on 27th received instructions to For thirty-seven proceed in search of tsetses along the road as far as Ufiomi. miles of more or less open country no flies were encountered, but thereafter, to mile forty-four, at the Tarengere River, 4,000 feet, morsitans was fairly abundant. It was necessary then to point out that, though to the south of the river there was a very considerable plain and good grazing, it was the practice to outspan animals on both sides, even among the thorn bushes on the north infested with the flies. The desirability of night travel and outspanning always to the south was duly emphasized in a report dated 1st June. Judging, however, by the large number of animals outspanned in the fly area on my return, no action could have been taken.
Along a further stretch of the road, fifteen miles, to Ufiomi, only scattered flies, probably carried by the transport from the area mentioned, were found.
5. At Ufiomi I was further instructed to survey the road for tsetses as far as Kondoa Trangi, fifty miles, a task which I completed by 10th June, finding none. I here found lively operations in progress between General Van Deventer's forces and the main German body, and as the food question was rather a pressing one, both for myself and my carriers, I was not sorry when on 17th June I received instructions to return and report myself to General Headquarters at Moshi.
Between Ufiomi and Lolkissale I travelled by a more northern route, a German track, used for many weeks by our transport, but later abandoned, on account of its rough nature, in favour of the more southern route by which I had come down. On this old road, for a stretch of about twenty miles, ten to the north and ten to the south of the Tarengere River, morsitans swarmed and were very troublesome.
6. An increasing feature the nearer one approached the actual scene of military operations was the number of dead and of ailing and discarded animals scattered along the road. Many oxen had apparently dropped while on trek, and had been left where they fell, their bodies being crushed and their bones driven into the earth by the constant passage of motor lorries. Dead horses, too, were abundant. I counted some twenty all recently dead at Tarengere River crossing, some in the water, which latter, at my suggestion, were removed by the orders of the Camp Commandant.
In the immediate neighbourhood of Ufiomi were numbers of dead horses, mules, and donkeys, in varying stages of decomposition, so situated round the camp, in the middle of which was a large hospital, that, whatever the direction of the wind, those therein, the sick and strong alike, suffered from the effluvia. Fortunately the medical charge was just then assumed by a Major on the permanent Royal Army Medical Corps staff, who appreciated at once the necessity for radical measures, so that, on the very morning of his arrival, eighteen funeral pyres within a stone's throw of the camp indicated the adequate disposal of as many decomposing animals.
The presence of these carcasses, and frequently the entire lack of sanitation, resulted in the appearance of enormous swarms of Muscids, which were a scourge wherever one camped, settling in great numbers on articles of food, and permitting of no rest at all by day. As to these, I reported to the Deputy Director of Veterinary Services in the following terms :——
" (No. 8.)
'Solanga Camp, 8th June.
"I HAVE to request you to bring to the notice of the proper authorities the following observations on the phenomenal increase of the various Muscid flies which has taken place since the advent of the dry season.
"1. The common house-fly literally swarms at all camps and halts, the factors concerned being as follows:-the insect, which breeds especially in excreta, is afforded every opportunity of doing so by the insanitary state of the camping places, especially those spots at which troops are in the habit of camping for a single night, where no latrine accommodation, either for Europeans or for the hundreds of natives, is ever provided.*
*At Ussa, a camping ground about a quarter of a mile square, on the Moshi-Arusha road, just west of Rasthauser, three hundred natives and some white troops camped during the night I was there, no latrine accommodation being provided, and I was informed, and from the state of the ground had no difficulty in believing, that no less than two thousand carriers had been there on the previous night.
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"In some of the fixed camps regulations as to the use of latrines do not seem to be enforced, and in others no latrine accommodation is provided for the natives, so that the immediate vicinity is foul in the extreme.*
The rôle which the house-fly plays in the dissemination of dysentery, enteric, and similar diseases has been well established.
** 2. The flesh fly, Sarcophaga, and the green bottles, Pycnosoma and Lucilia, which are an equal pest, breed more especially in putrescent cadavers, also feeding on the fluids thereof. This special pabulum is provided by the large numbers of dead transport animals left rotting along the roads, especially near the camps. At Tarengere, for instance, there were twenty, and at Ufiomi, until the arrival of the Royal Army Medical Corps staff, conditions were worse. From these dead animals the flies fly direct to water or settle on human foodstuffs. The further risks to health must be obvious.
on
various
**8. I must take this opportunity of pointing out the fact, which obtrudes itself so forcibly
the luckless pedestrian at camps, e.g., the Masai water-hole south of Lolkissale, and at Solanga between Ufiomi and Kondoa Irangi, viz., that no attempt has been made to set apart, by rail or otherwise, a section of the scanty water for European use. is the rule to find at such places the water churned up by the hoofs of the animals, and often fouled by their dejecta, or by the presence of dead animals in the immediate vicinity."t
It
No acknowledgment of this report was received, nor was there any evidence, so far as I could judge, that any action was taken as a result of it. Weeks later, for instance, on 20th July, I passed at one spot on the roadside between Lushomo and Handeni no less than three hundred dead horses, the odours from which tainted the air over a very wide area, and on the following day I passed sixty- seven more at another halt.
7. I reached Moshi again on 1st July, and there received instructions to carry out three further reconnaissances for fly, (a) between Ngulu Gap, in the Pare Mountains, and Same; (b) between Same and German Bridge (Mabirioni); and (c) between Mabirioni and Handeni, a stretch altogether of about one hundred and sixty miles.
I returned from Moshi to Mbuyuni, a base in British East Africa, by railway, mainly on the new Voi-Kahe line, and set out on foot for Ngulu Gap, which I reached on 6th July.
In the Gap itself, an elevation of 2,500 feet, and along the track for fifteen miles to the south, pallidipes literally swarmed, being more numerous, I think, than any species of the fly in any of the areas which I have traversed.
Same, on the Tanga-Moshi Railway, was reached on 10th July, no more flies being encountered; and subsequently the road, more or less closely parallel to the railway, was free from them as far as Mabirioni, in which camp a few scattered pallidipes were taken. The Pangani River was then crossed and the journey con- tinued along its west bank for three days to Lushomo, the point where the German
Here a trolly line from Mombo to Handeni crosses.
few scattered pallidipes were again met with, and they were taken now and again during the three following days up to a point three miles north of Handeni, 2,800 feet, which was reached on 22nd July.
At Handeni the work was interrupted by an attack of dysentery, following on several attacks of malaria, which kept me in various field hospitals for the greater part of a month, but I was able to report myself again for duty on 24th August.
8. On 29th August I received instructions to proceed to Tanga, and thence by first available ship to Bagamoyo, a report being required as to fly on the Bagamoyo-Morogoro road, a section of the original Arab slave route from Tanganyika to the coast
*This was the case, for example, at New Moshi when I arrived on 2nd May, some weeks after our occupation. Heavy rains were on, the drainage from the hill running into the Pangani River, from which the camp water-supply was then in part drawn. As a result of a conversation I had with a sanitary officer, latrine accommodation for the natives was at once provided.
The significance of this kind of thing will appear when the history of the campaign comes to be written and the extent of our losses from dysentery is revealed.
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