KAFFIR PITFALLS. 
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but it is very dear here. I must try and sell my 
wagon for oxen, stores, &c., and go back to Natal, 
leaving my horses and oxen here in charge of Joubert 
until the end of next April, when I must try again. 
There is plenty of game here, but none of any value, 
except ostriches, which are now in splendid plumage, 
but shy and wary to a degree. I have never been able 
yet to get a shot at them, though I watched twelve 
yesterday for several hours. Wildebeest, quagga, 
hartebeest,blesbuck,and springbuck, with a sprinkling 
of duikers, and steinbuck, roy and fall raebuck, we see 
every day we go out, but they are the only kinds here, 
and of little or no value, and are dry eating. Koran, 
plenty of guinea-fowl and peaus, with a few partridges, 
are all the winged game ; but I have hardly any shot, 
and no dogs worth a rap, for small-winged game, 
though first-rate for bucks of all sorts. The Boers 
have not civilised the natives much, for I saw them 
every day getting water in an old ox-horn; nothing 
could well be more primitive, and they dress entirely 
in skins, killing numbers of bucks in pit-falls. These 
pit-falls resemble a honeycomb, and the Kaffirs muster 
in great force and drive the game helter-skelter over 
the holes, and they knock one another in ; the holes 
are of all shapes, round, oval, oblong, square, and 
there are generally about fifty in one pass, and fifteen 
or twenty passes in a space of two miles of country. 
A strong fence on each side confines the game, which 
have thus no opportunity of escape. 
July 5 th (Sunday).—Had a visit yesterday from 
