The Sensations Of One Thus
Instantaneously Swallowed Up By The Earth Are Peculiar.
A momentary
suspension of consciousness is followed by the rustling sound of a
shower of sand and dry grass, and the half-bewildered thought of
where he is, and how he came into darkness.
Reason awakes to assure
him that he must have come down through that small opening of
daylight overhead, and that he is now where a hippopotamus ought to
have been. The descent of a hippopotamus pitfall is easy, but to get
out again into the upper air is a work of labour. The sides are
smooth and treacherous, and the cross reeds, which support the
covering, break in the attempt to get out by clutching them. A cry
from the depths is unheard by those around, and it is only by
repeated and most desperate efforts that the buried alive can regain
the upper world. At Tette we are told of a white hunter, of
unusually small stature, who plumped into a pit while stalking a
guinea-fowl on a tree. It was the labour of an entire forenoon to
get out; and he was congratulating himself on his escape, and
brushing off the clay from his clothes, when down he went into a
second pit, which happened, as is often the case, to be close beside
the first, and it was evening before he could work himself out of
THAT.
Elephants and buffaloes seldom return to the river by the same path
on two successive nights, they become so apprehensive of danger from
this human art.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 158 of 505
Words from 42636 to 42899
of 136856
