6o SAGACIOUS ELEPHANTS. 



thankful that I escaped their jaws. The season was now 

 far advanced ; and as Mr. Oswell, with his wonted generous 

 feelings, volunteered on the spot to go down to the Cape 

 and bring up a boat, we resolved to make our way south 

 again. 



Coming down the Zouga we had now time to look at its 

 banks. These are very beautiful, resembling closely many, 

 parts of the river Clyde above Glasgow. The formation is 

 soft calcareous tufa, such as forms the bottom of all this 

 basin. The banks are perpendicular on the side to which 

 the water swings, and sloping and grassy on the other, 

 The slopes are selected for the pitfalls designed by the 

 Bayeiye to entrap the animals as they come to 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 intended 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 

 which insures the fall of his 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 this 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 anirnals 

 have actually lifted the young out of the trap. 



The trees which adorn the banks are magnificent. Two 

 enormous baobabs (Adansonia digitata), or mowanas, grow- 

 near its confluence with the lake where we took the obser- 

 vations for the latitude (20 20' S.). We were unable to 



