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TRAIL OF THE TSETSE
271

"Of course—that can be done," said Apolo. He had seen the map. He was convinced. He made a dignified wave of the hand to his chiefs, and gave a few words of explanation. So Bruce and Mrs. Bruce went back to England. Apolo gave his order, and then the pitiful population of black men and their families streamed inland out of the lake shore villages, away—not to return for years, or ever—from those dear shady places where they and the long line of their forefathers had fished and played and bargained and begot their kind; canoes, loaded with mats and earthen pots and pickaninnies set out (not to return) from the thickly peopled island—and the weird outlandish beating of the tom-toms no longer boomed across the water.

"Not one of you," commanded Apolo, "may live within fifteen miles of the Lake shore—not one of you is to visit the Lake again. Then the sleeping death will die out, for the fly Kivu lives only by the water, and when you are gone she will no longer have a single sick one from whom to suck the fatal poison. When all of our people who are now sick have died, you may go back—and it will be safe to live by the Lake shore for always."

Without a word—it is incredible to us law-abiding folks—they obeyed their potentate.

The country around Lake Victoria Nyanza grew, in the frantic way tropical green things grow, back into the primordial jungle; crocodiles snoozed on the banks where big villages had been. Hippopotami waddled onto the shore and sniffed in the deserted huts. . . . The tribes of the lake, inland, were happy, for no more of them came down with that fatal drowsiness. So Bruce began to rid Africa of sleeping sickness.

It was a triumph—in a time of great victories in the fight of men against death. The secret of the spread of malaria—you will hear the not too savory story of it presently—had been found in India and Italy. And as for yellow fever—it seemed as if the yellow jack was to be put to sleep for good. Great