“I taught several of them to wash my shirts, and they did it well, though their teacher had never been taught that work himself. Frequent changes of linen and sunning of my blanket kept me more comfortable than might have been anticipated, and I feel certain that the lessons of cleanliness rigidly instilled by my mother in childhood, helped to maintain that respect which these people entertain for European ways. It is questionable if a descent to barbarous ways ever elevates a man in the eyes of savages.” [Illustration: The Two Dogs or None.] The explorer’s greatest care, however, while camping out in the forest at night--his fires, his watchmen, and his watch-dogs--will not invariably secure him from danger, if there happen to be wild animals in the neighbourhood; leopards especially, insignificant in size as compared with the lion and the tiger,--there are few things so daring that a hungry leopard will not attempt them. As instanced elsewhere (_see_ “Wild Sports of the World”), he will not scruple to enter a house and drag off a sleeping man; he has no fear of one dog, or even of two. The scene depicted on the preceding page is illustrative of a fact, and happened to a well-known Indian hunter. The labours of the day were at an end and all made snug and right in “camp.” So little apprehension did there exist of an attack by savage beasts, that the hounds set to keep guard were coupled together with a short length of chain. In the night, however, a tremendous uproar suddenly broke in on the stillness, and it was speedily discovered that a leopard had surprised the canine guard and pounced on one with the intention of carrying him off; even when the daring brute discovered that he must take both dogs, or none, he was nothing daunted, but hauled the pair of them along and was so discovered and shot. There must not be omitted from the catalogue of evils likely to accrue to the African traveller--at least he of Southern Africa--the terrible tsetse fly, which in a single hour may devastate the explorer’s necessary cattle and leave him utterly helpless. This insect, “Glossina morsitans” of the naturalist, is not much larger than the common house fly, and is nearly of the same brown colour as the honeybee. The after part of the body has three or four yellow bars across it. It is remarkably alert and evades dexterously all attempts to capture it with the hand at common temperatures.