28 THE HOPO. 



ornaments to purchase corn from more fortunate tribes. The 

 children scoured the country in search of the numerous bulbs 

 and roots which can sustain life, and the men engaged in hunting. 

 Very great numbers of the large game, buffaloes, zebras, giraffes, 

 tsessebes, kamas or hartebeests, kokongs or gnus, pallahs, rhinoce- 

 roses, etc., congregated at some fountains near Kolobeng, and the 

 trap called "Atf^o" was constructed, in the lands adjacent, for 

 their destruction. The hopo consists of two hedges in the form 

 of the letter V, which are very high and thick near the angle. 

 Instead of the hedges being joined there, they are made to form 

 a lane of about fifty yards in length, at the extremity of which a 

 pit is formed, six or eight feet deep, and about twelve or fifteen 

 in breadth and length. Trunks of trees are laid across the mar- 

 gins of the pit, and more especially over that nearest the lane 

 where the animals are expected to leap in, and over that farthest 

 from the lane where it is supposed they will attempt to escape 

 after they are in. The trees form an overlapping border, and ren- 

 der escape almost impossible. The whole is carefully decked with 

 short green rushes, making the pit like a concealed pitfall. As 

 the hedges are frequently about a mile long, and about as mucli 

 apart at their extremities, a tribe making a circle three or four 

 miles round the country adjacent to the opening, and gradually 

 closing up, are almost sure to inclose a large body of game. 

 Driving it up with shouts to the narrow part of the hopo, men 

 secreted there throw their javelins into the affrighted herds, and 

 on the animals rush to the opening presented at the converging 

 hedges, and into the pit, till that is full of a living mass. Some 

 escape by running over the others, as a Smithfield market-dog 

 does over the sheep's backs. It is a frightful scene. The men, 

 wild with excitement, spear the lovely animals with mad de- 

 light ; others of the poor creatures, borne down by the weight of 

 their dead and dying companions, every now and then make the 

 whole mass heave in their smothering agonies. 



The Bakwains often killed between sixty and seventy head of 

 large game at the different hopos in a single week ; and as 

 every one, both rich and poor, partook of the prey, the meat 

 counteracted the bad effects of an exclusively vegetable diet. 

 When the poor, who had no salt, were forced to live entirely on 

 roots, they were often troubled with indigestion. Such cases we 



