Page:Travel letters from New Zealand, Australia and Africa (1913).djvu/363

 hotel every night, and several hunters have told me that a leopard is a more dangerous animal than a lion. A leopard is like a bulldog: he hasn't sense enough to know about danger The dreaded tsetse-fly is found in this vicinity, and cases of sleeping sickness are not unknown. I had always imagined that a man suffering with sleeping sickness became drowsy, and slept a great deal, but residents say that, while the patient is drowsy, he cannot sleep, and is very restless. They describe sleeping sickness as resembling consumption in many ways In the vicinity of the curio shop is a police camp, in charge of a corporal. The police patrol this district, and this morning I saw a white soldier start out on a trek to last two weeks. He rode a mule, as horses do not thrive in this country. Two pack donkeys were led by two natives; one a cook, and the other an enlisted police officer. The two natives will walk during the entire journey, and one of them will carry a gun. The patrol officer told me he would travel about eighteen miles a day, starting every morning about five, resting from nine to three, and then traveling from three until nightfall. He rarely makes more than three miles an hour, as the donkeys are slow, and the sand deep. Wherever you walk here, you are compelled to wade through sand; sand is the soil in most parts of Africa The patrol officer calls at every house he encounters, and asks the owner to report any disorder in his neighborhood. The patrol officer did not carry a tent, and I asked him why. "Because," he answered, "we don't need it; there will be no rain." After the short rainy season, the welcome patter of rain is not heard for nine months