26 
THE HOPO. 
Chap. I. 
ornaments to purcliase 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. 
Very great numbers of the large game, buffaloes, zebras, giraffes, 
tsessebes, kamas or hartebeests, kokongs or gnus, pallas, rhinoce¬ 
roses, &c., congregated at some fountains near Kolobeng, and the 
trap called ‘‘Aopo” was constructed in the lands adjacent for 
their destruction. The hope consists of two hedges in the form 
of the letter V, which are very liigh and thick near the angle. 
Instead of the hedges being joined there, they are made to form 
a lane of about fifty yards in length, at the extremity of which a 
pit is formed, six or eight feet deep, and about twelve or fifteen in 
breadth and length. Trunks of trees are laid across the margins 
of the pit, and more especially over that nearest the lane where 
the annuals are expected to leap in, and over that farthest from 
the lane where it is supposed they will attempt to escape after 
they are in. The trees form an overlapping border, and render 
escape almost impossible. The whole is carefully decked with 
short green rushes, maldng the pit like a concealed pitfall. As 
the hedges are frequently about a mile long, and about as much 
apart at their extremities, a tribe making a circle three or four 
miles round the country adjacent to the opening, and gradually 
closing up, are almost sure to enclose a large body of game. 
Driving it up with shouts to the narrow part of the hope, men 
secreted there tlirow their javelins into the affrighted herds, and 
on the animals rush to the opening presented at the converging 
hedges, and into the pit till that is full of a living mass. Some 
escape by running over the others, as a Smithfield market dog 
does over the sheep’s backs. It is a frightful scene. The men, 
wild with excitement, spear the lovely animals with mad delight: 
others of the poor creatures, borne down by the weight of their 
dead and dying companions, every now and then make the whole 
mass heave in their smothering agonies. 
The Bakwains often killed between sixty and seventy head of 
large game at the different hopes in a single week; and as 
every one, both rich and poor, partook of the prey, the meat 
counteracted the bad effects of an exclusively vegetable diet. 
When the poor, who had no salt, were forced to live entirely on 
roots, they were often troubled mth indigestion. Such cases we 
