SOUTHERN AFRICA. 163 
and avoiding the woods, were easily enclosed by the nume- 
rous hunting parties, and wholly destroyed or frightened away. 
The elephant and the buffalo fell also in the woods by the 
Hassagai, but more frequently by deep pits made in the 
ground across the paths that led to their usual haunts. In 
this manner they sometimes took the hippopotamus ; but the 
usual gait of this animal, when not disturbed, is so cautious 
and slow that he generally detected the snare that was laid 
for him, and avoided it. The more certain method of destroy- 
ing him was to watch at night behind a bush close to his 
path ; and, as he passed, to wound him in the tendons of the 
knee-joint, by which he was immediately rendered lame and 
unable to escape from the numerous Hassagais that afterwards 
assailed him. Numbers of this huge animal still remain in all 
their large rivers ; indeed they seem not very solicitous about 
destroying it. The tusks, though of the finest ivory, are too 
small for the usual purposes to which they apply this article ; 
and they seem to have less relish for grease than either the 
Hottentots or the colonists. The spoils of the chace are al- 
ways bestowed upon their persons. The tusks of the elephant 
furnish them with ivory rings for the arm ; the leopard supplies 
his skin to ornament the front of the cloak ; and the skin of 
the tyger-cat is used by the women as pocket-handkerchiefs. 
Besides the illicit trade that the Dutch farmers have car- 
ried on with this people, consisting of pieces of iron, copper, 
glass-beads, and a few other trifling articles, given to them iit 
exchange for their cattle, the Kaflers have no kind of com- 
merce with any other nation except their eastern neighbours 
the Tambookies. In addition to the young girls which they 
purchase from these people, they are supplied by them with a 
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