These people never seemed to have the pluck or energy either to hunt or trap the leopards. While at Kasongo a flight of locusts passed over the country in a south-south-easterly direction, and continued to pass for upwards of a month. The Arabs and natives told us that this was the first time they had ever seen a locust pest, though they had heard of them many years before. It would be interesting to know if the cause of this might not be looked for in the fact that the greater part of the Central African Basin had been, owing to war, in a disturbed state for nearly three years.

It is a custom all over the Congo Basin for the natives to burn the grass during the dry season; when occupied by war they naturally did not continue to do so; and there is no doubt that other pests, such as rats and snakes, in consequence of this