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.

An old elephant will walk in advance of the herd, and uncover the pits with his trunk, that the others may see the openings and tread on firm ground.