game flee before it, hawks wheel above the line of fire, catching the grasshoppers that seek to avoid the flames, while smaller birds catch the lesser insects. The internodes of the burning grass explode with a report like that of a pistol, and can be heard distinctly a mile distant. Women and children follow on the line to dig out the rats; and in the holes may be found rats, mice, snakes, and lizards, seeking common protection from a common danger. At night the horizon is lit up by the zigzag lines of fire, and in the daytime are seen the thick columns of smoke slowly advancing, and filling the air with a dull haze, which limits the horizon to ten or fifteen miles.
The climate of the Congo has been unduly vilified. In common with all intertropical regions there is a malarial fever, which has claimed many victims. It generally assumes an intermittent type, commencing with an ague ‘shake;’ sometimes it is remittent, and combines with grave symptoms. Although the precise nature of the malarial germ is still unknown, continued study has enabled medical men to grapple much more successfully with this great enemy. So long as it was the custom to treat the fever with bleeding and calomel it was no wonder that Africa was ‘the white man’s grave;’ that was not so much the fault of Africa as the white man’s ignorance.
Traders on the coast have generally fair health, and many live to old age. Ladies in the Mission stations and elsewhere live long on the coast. Indeed, Dr. Laws, of Livingstonia, has expressed an opinion that ladies, as a rule, stand the climate better than the men.
In these matters we are far readier to count up the misfortunes than to note the large proportion of those who live long and do good work in Africa.
New missions and scientific expeditions have paid the penalty for ignorance and the difficulties of pioneering; but where the experience of