of wood smoke that the most enterprising mosquito or tsetse-fly would
flee, as we do, choking from the acrid smoke. So the native fire that
burns within his hut day and night not only serves to cook his food and
to keep wild beasts away, but also supplies him with an excellent form
of Keating's Powder for the floor and smoke to drive the winged insects
from the grateful warmth of his fireside.




HORSE-SICKNESS


Lying beside the road with outstretched neck and a spume of white froth
on nose and muzzle are the horses of the 2nd Mounted Brigade; with
bodies swollen by the decomposition that sets in so rapidly in this sun,
and smelling to high heaven, are the fine young horses that came so
gallantly through Kahe some ten days ago. "Brits' violets" the Tommies
call them, as they seek a site to windward to pitch their tents.
"Hyacinths" they mutter, as the wind changes in the night, and drives
them choking from their blankets, illustrating the truth of the South
African "Kopje-Book" maxim, "One horse suffices to move a camp--if he be
dead enough." For weeks after the Brigade passed through M'Kalamo the
air was full of stench, and the bush at night alive with lions coming
for the feast. For this is horse-sickness, the plague that strikes an
apparently healthy horse dead in his tracks, while the Boer trooper
hastily removes bridle and saddle and picks another horse from the drove
of remounts that follow after. No time to drag the body off the road; so
the huge motor lorries choose another track in the bush to avoid this
unwholesome obstruction.