y a large cat, and is very like one
in its habits, and the idea occurred to me that we might make a trap to
catch the leopard. I thought over this scheme, and the next day talked
to the boys about it. They were quite willing to try, so we set to work
at once. The method we adopted was this. We cut down a great number of
straight branches, about ten feet long and about two inches thick; these
we stuck firmly in the ground in a circle, just as we used to construct
a kraal. Peeling off the bark from some mimosa trees, we made a sort of
rope, and bending the tops of these branches together, we fastened them
firmly, so as to make a circular hut. After many days, we had so bound
these together that, with all our united force, we could not separate
them in the slightest degree. We then cut a small opening in this hut
as a doorway, and we had a part of our trap complete. The most
difficult part to make was the door itself. This we made by
constructing a door the same as you make a hurdle, and we made two of
these doors, and then fastened them together to make them strong. This
door we made inside the hut, because we wanted the door to be bigger
than the doorway. Having completed this door, we made out of buckskin a
longish string, and fastened this to a stick in the centre of the hut;
this string held the door up, but when the string was loosened the door
slid down between two stout posts, and it was necessary to lift the door
in order to get out of the doorway. All this being arranged in about a
week's time, we next had to procure some bait, and were lucky in getting
a guinea-fowl, which was a bird common in the bushes round our kraal.
This bird we knocked over with our knob-kerries, and dragged it along
the ground to the trap, and then fastened it to the string inside the
trap. The Caffres told me that the leopard was so strong that he would
force himself out of the hut if he had time to do so. We therefore
agreed to keep watch in a tree near on the first night, and if the
leopard came, to run to the kraal and give notice to the men. We did
not tell any one at the kraal what we had done; for, to speak the truth,
we had not much confidence in the success of our trap, and we did not
like to incur the risk of being laughed at. Our success therefore was
as unexpected as it was complete.

Having driven the cattle home to the kraal, we ate some corn and drank
some milk, and then ran back to where our trap had been co