70 TREES OP THE DISTRICT. Chap. III. 



drink. These are about seven or eight feet deep, three or four 

 feet wide at the mouth, and gradually decrease till they are only 

 about a foot wide at the bottom. The mouth is an oblong square 

 (the only square thing made by the Bechuanas, for everything 

 else is round), and the long diameter at the surface is about equal 

 to the depth. The decreasing width towards the bottom is in- 

 tended to make the animal wedge himself more firmly in by his 

 weight and struggles. The pitfalls are usually in pairs, with a 

 wall a foot thick left uncut between the ends of each. So that 

 if the beast, when it feels its fore legs descending, should try to save 

 itself from going in altogether by striding the hind legs, he would 

 spring forward and leap into the second with a force winch insures 

 the fall of Iris whole body into the trap. They are covered with 

 great care ; all the excavated earth is removed to a distance, so 

 as not to excite suspicion in the minds of the animals. Reeds and 

 grass are laid across the top ; above tins the sand is thrown, and 

 watered so as to appear exactly like the rest of the spot. Some 

 of our party plumped into these pitfalls more than once, even 

 when in search of them, in order to open them to prevent the loss 

 of our cattle. If an ox sees a hole, he carefully avoids it. And 

 old elephants have been known to .precede the herd and whisk 

 off the coverings of the pitfalls on each side all the way down to 

 the water. We have known instances in which the old among 

 these sagacious animals have actually lifted the young out of the 

 trap. 



The trees which adorn the banks are magnificent. Two enor- 

 mous baobabs (Adansoiiia digitatd), or mowanas, grow near its 

 confluence "with the lake where we took the observations for the 

 latitude (20° 20' S.) We were unable to ascertain the longitude 

 of the lake, as our watches were useless ; it may be between 22° 

 and 23° E. The largest of the two baobabs was 76 feet in 

 girth. The palmyra appears here and there among trees not 

 met with in the south. The mokuchong or moshoma bears an 

 edible fruit of indifferent quality, but the tree itself would be a 

 fine specimen of arboreal beauty in any part of the world. The 

 trunk is often converted into canoes. The motsouri, which bears 

 a pink plum containing a pleasant acid juice, resembles an 

 orange-tree in its dark evergreen foliage, and a cypress in its 

 form. It was now winter-time, and we saw nothing of the flora. 



