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Show AFRICAN CATTLE PLAGUE. Thousands Have Died in the Past Tsar and the Epidemic Still Spreadlug. Within the past year aud a half a terrible ter-rible epidemic has destroyed millions of the cattle of Africa and inflicted a crushing crush-ing biow upon the pastoral tribes. The plague of thirty-five years ago worked great destruction, but, according to the New York Sun, it cannot be compared with the present affliction. It would be of incalculable benefit to the natives if some means were found to arrest the progress of this virulent disease. Thousands Thou-sands of lives among the pastoral tribes would be saved if the destruction which is carrying off their cattle were stopped. No competent person has yet reported upon the nature of the plague and its remedy. The symptoms are debility, rapid wasting away, and refusal of all food. The plague has also practically exterminated all the buffaloes in regions re-gions where they once roamed in great herds. The results of the epidemic have ! been most disastrous in all the cattle-raising cattle-raising countries of the Soudan, from the regions south of the big northern bend of the Niger rive'r for two thousand thou-sand miles east almost to the Indian ocean. The first news concerning the plague came in a letter written by Capt. Monteil, at Kano, on January 6, last I year. He said he first observed the plague in the district of Liptako, west of the Niger river, and that he could say without exaggeration that not one animal in a thousand for five hundred miles along his route to Sokoto escaped. He lost his baggage animals, and for a time was hardly able to advance. Capt. Lugard, who has recently returned re-turned to England, reports that the cattle raising tribes between the Albert Nyanza and the Indian ocean have suffered suf-fered greatly from the plague. The Wanyika, north of the Usambara mountains, moun-tains, within two or three days' march of the east coast, have lost all their eat- 11c. iiimom 6uo in." iu.iu i..cu "only wealth. On the great Masai plateau, farthest west, six thousand feet above the level of the sea, the warlike war-like Masai, who have lived upon the milk and flesh of their herds, have lost their cattle. This misfortune, Capt. Lugard says, has greatly tamed their arrogance. Csogo, north of Victoria Nyanza, formerly contained great herds of cattle, but now all are gone. The Wahuma, a people west of L'sogo, were exclusively pastoral, living like the Masai upon their herds. Now that their cattle have been wholly wiped out the people have died in great numbers, num-bers, and those who are left are dependent depen-dent upon the tillera of the soil near them for a scanty subsistence. The epidemic is reported to be still spreading spread-ing north and south of its main route across the continent. |
