fifteen years I have come to know the sick human animal in all his
forms. So that the least that one could do was to scheme to get the
precious egg by private barter with the natives, and to find the silk
pillow that spelt comfort, but was the anathema of asepsis. No wonder
that such splendid and uncomplaining victims spurred us to our best
endeavours and made of toil a very joy.




SOME AFRICAN DISEASES


This is the season of blackwater fever, the pestilence that stalks in
the noontide and the terror of tropical campaigning. Hitherto with the
exception of the Rhodesians who have had this disease previously in
their northern territory, or men who have come from the Congo or the
shores of the Great Lakes, our army has been fairly free from this dread
visitation. The campaigning area of the coast and the railway line of
British East Africa that gave our men malaria in plenty during the first
two years of war, had not provided many of those focal areas in which
this disease is distributed. The Loyal North Lancashires and the 25th
Royal Fusiliers had been but little affected. The Usambara Valley along
the Tanga-Moschi railway was also fairly free. On the big trek from
Kilimanjaro to Morogoro the blackwater cases were almost entirely
confined to Rhodesians and to the Kashmiris, who suffer in this way in
their native mountains of Nepal. But once we struck the Central Railway
and penetrated south towards the delta of the Rufigi the tale was
different. British and South African troops began to arrive in the grip
of this fell malady. It was written on their faces as they were lifted