16 LIFE OF DA VID LI VINGSTONF, LL.D. 



juicy, and affords a pleasant variety after a lengthened diet on antelope flesh, 

 which is hard and stringy in comparison. 



Besides killing fish with the spear, they have other methods of ensnaring 

 them. They make baskets of the twigs of trees and rushes, not unlike 

 the eel baskets used in our home rivers, and use them in the same manner. 

 If they expect a flood they make upon the strand, while the water is low, 

 a large hole, and surround it with a wall of stone with an opening up stream. 

 After the flood has subsided they find a number of fish in the excavation which 

 have been unable to pass out. They watch the ostriches from the heights and 

 finding out where their eggs are, secure them, and having eaten the contents 

 preserve the shells to hold water — which they bury in the earth to preserve 

 it against a season of scarcity. In common with many other African tribes 

 they show great cunning in hunting the ostrich itself, and get near enough to 

 wound them with a poisoned arrow by adopting the following stratagem 

 thus described by Dr. Moffatt : — 



" A kind of flat double cushion is stuffed with straw, and formed some- 

 thing like a saddle. All, except the under part of this, is covered over with 

 feathers, attached to small pegs, and made so as to resemble the bird. The 

 neck and head of an ostrich are stuffed, and a small rod introduced. The 

 Bushman intending to attack game, whitens his legs with any substance he 

 can procure. He places the feathered saddle on his shoulders, takes the 

 bottom part of the neck in his right hand, and his bow and poisoned arrows 

 in his left. Such as the writer has seen were the most perfect mimics of the 

 ostrich, and at a few hundred yards distant it is not possible for the human 

 eye to detect the fraud. This human bird appears to peck away at the 

 verdure, turning the head as if keeping a sharp look-out, shakes his feathers, 

 now walks and then trots, till he gets within bow-shot ; and when the flock 

 runs from receiving the arrow, he runs too. The male ostriches will, on some 

 occasions, give chase to the stranger bird, when he tries to elude them in a 

 way to prevent them catching his scent ; for when once they do, the spell is 

 broken. Should one happen to get too near in his pursuit, he has only to run 

 to windward, or throw off his saddle, to avoid a stroke from a wing, which 

 would lay him prostrate." The same stratagem which enables them to 

 approach the ostrich enables them to get within reach of a herd of antelopes, 

 or any other animals whose flesh they eat. 



They collect locusts, when a swarm of these insects overrun the country, 

 by digging a trench, into which they collect in heaps. These they eat, after 

 preparing them in a hasty manner. They also gather and eat large quantities 

 of a species of white ant, which burrows in the ground, and is found in large 

 quantities. Several bulbous plants supply them with food, and as they con- 

 tain a large amount of juice, make up for the scarcity of water in desert 

 places; as we shall see when we accompany Dr. Livingstone to the Kalahari 



