3-086-110 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

"Dressing" ponies for protection against the Tsetse Fly, 1898. 'From a Photograph by Lieutenant T. Pelham Johnson, Army Service Corps. Horse-Cloth for Uganda. A special pattern of clothing, designed by Mr. R. J. Stordy, Veterinary Officer, Uganda Transport, is to be worn by riding ponies night and day while passing through the "fly district" on the road from Mombasa to Uganda. It consists of a head-piece and body-piece only, and the eyes and nostrils of the animal are protected by mosquito netting. An Illustration of this latest horse-cloth is here given from a photograph supplied us by Lieutenant T. Pelham Johnson, one of the [British] Army Service Corps' officers now with the Uganda Transport. The value of the new horse-cloth will, it is expected, prove of great service in the transport work which plays so prominent a part in the extension of the Uganda railway, and the general opening up of the country to British enterprise. Hitherto there has been great difficulty in working beasts of burden in the district, owing to the persistency and virulence of the fly pest'. From "Illustrated London News", 1898.