70 
TEEES OF <rHE DISTEICT. 
Chap. III. 
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 in¬ 
tended to make the animal wedge liimself 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 wliich insures 
the fall of liis 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. Eeeds and 
grass are laid across the top; above tliis the sand is tlirown, and 
watered so as to appear exactly hke 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 wliisk 
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 animals have actually lifted the young out of the 
trap. 
The trees which adorn the banks are magnificent. Two enor¬ 
mous baobabs {Adamonia digitatd), or mowanas, grow near its 
confluence vdth the lake where we took the observations for the 
latitude (20° 20' S.) We were unable to ascertain the longitude 
of the lake, as our watches were useless; it may be between 22° 
and 23° E. The largest of the two baobabs was 76 feet in 
girth. The palmyra appears here and there among trees not 
met with in the south. The mokuchong or moshoma bears an 
edible fruit of indifferent quahty, but the tree itself would be a 
fine specimen of arboreal beauty in any part of the world. The 
trunk is often converted into canoes. The motsouri, wliich bears 
a pink plum containing a pleasant acid juice, resembles an 
orange-tree in its dark evergreen fohage, and a cypress in its 
form. It was now winter-time, and we saw nothing of the flora. 
