Chap. I. THE HOPO. 21 



you possess, though we are ignorant of them. You ought not 

 to despise our little knowledge, though you are ignorant of it. 



This is a brief specimen of their mode of reasoning, which 

 is often remarkably acute. I never succeeded in convincing 

 a single individual of the fallacy of his belief, and the usual 

 effect of discussion is to produce the impression that you 

 yourself are not anxious for rain. 



During this long-continued drought the women parted with 

 most of their 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. Great numbers of buffaloes, zebras, 

 giraffes, tsessebes, kamas or hartebeests, kokongs or gnus, 

 pallas, rhinoceroses, &c, congregated at some fountains near 

 Kolobeng, and the trap called "hopo" was constructed for 

 their destruction. The hopo consists of two hedges in the 

 form of the letter V. They are made very high and thick 

 near the angle, where they do not however touch, and at the 

 extremity is a pit six or eight feet deep, and twelve or fifteen 

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

 margins of the pit, and form an overlapping border, so as to 

 render it almost impossible for the animal to leap out. The 

 whole is carefully decked with short green rushes. As the 

 hedges are frequently about a mile long, and about as much 

 apart at the opening, a tribe which makes a circle round the 

 country adjacent, and gradually closes up, is almost sure to 

 sweep before it a large body of game. It is driven up with 

 shouts to the narrow part of the hopo, where men are secreted 

 who throw their javelins into the affrighted herds. The 

 animals rush to the narrow opening presented at the con- 

 verging hedges, and fall into the pit. Some escape by running 

 over the others, as a Smithfield market dog runs over the 

 backs of the sheep. It is a frightful scene. The men, wild 

 with excitement, spear the lovely animals with mad delight: 

 others, borne down by the weight of their dead and dying 

 companions, will every now and then make the whole mass 

 heave by their struggles. 



The Bakwains often killed between sixty and seventy head 

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

 every one, both rich and poor, partook of the pre}', the meat 



