Page:Seven Years in South Africa v2.djvu/81

 young plants that had germinated from the fallen fruit, the leaves of which had already assumed fine proportions, and were rapidly developing into their fan-like form.

In the broad but shallow bed of a spruit that lay on the side of a gentle slope, I found a shrub that reminded me of a baobab; it was between four and five feet in height, its lower part immensely thick and fleshy, and covered with a yellowish bark; but scarcely a foot from the ground it contracted into little branches only two or three inches thick, that proceeded direct from the great superficial root. Some of these stems weighed several hundredweight, and on some future occasion I shall hope to obtain a specimen for myself.

From the Makalaharis and Masarwas residing hereabouts I obtained a variety of ornaments and some domestic utensils made of wood and bone, but I was unfortunate enough afterwards to lose them all.

All around the hills for the most part were thickly wooded, having no paths except the game-tracks leading generally towards the Nokane. Over these tracks the natives are accustomed to set assegai-traps for catching the game at night; a pile of underwood is heaped up to bring the animals to a standstill; a grass rope with one end very loosely attached to a short stake is carried across the path about a foot above the ground, and supported horizontally by two uprights and a cross-pole placed on the opposite side; the rope is thence taken up to the nearest overhanging bough, and an assegai left suspended from the other end. The slightest jerk made by the movements of the game suffices to detach the loose