CHAPTER VII 
Arrive at Mameeles—Engage two Mosaros—Discontented bearers—Pig and 
quagga hunt—Adventure with baboons—Depth of Chobe—Dye clothes 
with Mopani juice—How skerm is built—Fight with the bearers—Hainmar 
and the rooi buck—Strange behaviour of wounded waterbuck—The Sunta 
swamp—Paul’s tale of the lions—Peach Liny anti district—Strange flight 
of bullet—How natives hunt game when river overflows. 
At Mameeles drift, a recognised travelling crossing of the Chobe, 
we failed to bring natives from their dwellings on the opposite'* 
side in answer to our signals of fires and gunshots. The Chobe 
swamp here is many miles broad, with the usual islands dotted 
about in its expanse, from whose dark-green foliage the Kolahni 
palm rears its lofty head high into the misty atmosphere. 
A remarkable feature of the country lying between Lejuma 
and here is the quantity of game-pits we daily passed. Twelve 
feet long, four feet broad, and perhaps twelve feet deep, these 
form the desideratum of a native hunter when covered over 
with sticks and leaves hidden on top by a thin layer of sand. 
A long fence is also necessary to direct the course of driven 
game in the direction required, until, breaking through the 
treacherous covering, it is precipitated into the wedge-shaped 
pit, there to find its end by native spears. Amusing tales are 
often related of how, when lions or other dangerous game have 
been entrapped in these pits, the natives, divided between 
fear and hunger (for lions’ meat is also eaten by them), are 
much embarrassed to encompass the death of their quarry 
without injury to the much-prized skin, or without sustaining 
lesions to their own no less valued integument. We were told 
that a final resort to suffocation by smoke is the most reliable 
alternative to gain this object. These pits are no less a source 
of danger to travellers while shooting, for it is not beyond the 
