File:The natives of British Central Africa (1906) (14596389007).jpg

Identifier: nativesofbritish00wern (find matches)
Title: The natives of British Central Africa
Year: 1906 (1900s)
Authors: Werner, Alice, 1859-1935
Subjects: Ethnology
Publisher: London : A. Constable and Company, ltd.
Contributing Library: University of California Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Internet Archive

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et with afew miles out on the Matope road, and I have heard,though not seen, them in the Upper Shire district. (Theroaring we heard two or three times, on stormy nights,came, we were assured, from the banks of the Kapeni,six miles away.) But the mysterious disease amongthe wild buffaloes, antelopes, and other game, which in1894 spread westward to the lakes and then south-ward, and when it attacked the cattle in South Africawas known as rinderpest, deprived them of their food,and drove them to invade the more settled districts.Twelve were shot within a few weeks on one planta-tion, and a planter in the neighbourhood of Zomba,who was riding a bicycle, was chased for some milesby a lion, but ultimately escaped. In some parts, as,for instance, on the low ground near the Shir6, belowthe Murchison Cataracts, the natives build their hutson raised platforms so as to be safe from lions at night.Leopards also are apt to be dangerous ; they prowlabout habitations by night, usually in the hope of
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Tu face f>. i8 INTRODUCTORY 19 getting into the goat-kraal, or picking up some straydog unlucky enough to have been left outside, andare by no means above carrying off the miserablefowls to be found in native villages, one of which canscarcely be a mouthful. But they frequently attackhuman beings; and at one village a leopard hadmade a habit of waiting in the grass beside a certainpath along which the women went to fetch water fromthe river, and had killed several before he was shot.Wizards are supposed to take this shape, among others. Domestic animals are not numerous, but we shallcome back to them in a later chapter. British Central Africa, says Sir H. H. Johnston, isa country singularly rich in bird life. On the Shirewe have a wonderful variety of water-birds—flamin-goes, herons, cranes, ducks, geese, plovers—and, tomention no more (these two are among the firstnoticed by the new comer), the handsome black-and-white fishing-eagle, and the tiny kingfisher, like aflash of blu

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