Coming Down The Zouga, We Had Now Time To Look At Its Banks.
These Are Very Beautiful, Resembling Closely Many Parts Of The River Clyde
Above Glasgow.
The formation is soft calcareous tufa,
such as forms the bottom of all this basin.
The banks are perpendicular
on the side to which the water swings, and sloping and grassy on the other.
The slopes are selected for the pitfalls designed by the Bayeiye
to entrap the animals as they come to 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 every thing else is round), and the long diameter at the surface
is about equal to the depth. The decreasing width toward the bottom
is intended to make the animal wedge himself 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
which insures the fall of his 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.
Reeds and grass are laid across the top; above this the sand is thrown,
and watered so as to appear exactly like 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.
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