There are various modes of capturing giraffes. The Americans, who seek
them for their menageries, have the Mexican lasso, a long cord which
is thrown over the animal's head; and by casting him to the ground and
surrounding him by a large force of hunters, he is then captured
without difficulty.

Mr. Cumming thus notices the pitfalls used by the natives of Africa
for taking the giraffe and other animals:--Starvation was written in
the faces of these inhabitants of the forest. In their miserable
villages were a few small gardens, containing watermelons and a little
corn. Occasionally they have the luck to capture some large animal in
a pitfall, when for a season they live in plenty. But as they do not
possess salt, the flesh soon spoils, when they are compelled once more
to roam the forests in quest of fruits and roots, on which, along with
locusts, they in a great measure subsist. In districts where game is
abundant, they often construct their pits on a large scale, and erect
hedges in the form of a crescent, extending to nearly a mile on either
side of the pit. By this means, the game may easily be driven into the
pitfalls which are easily covered over with thin sticks and dry grass;
and thus whole herds of zebras and wildebeests are massacred at once,
which capture is followed by the most disgusting banquets, the poor
starving savages gorging and surfeiting in a manner worthy only of the
vulture or hyaena. They possess no cattle, and, if they did, the
nearest chief would immediately rob them. All parts of the country
abounded with pitfalls made by these and others of the Bakalahari.
Many of these had been dug expressly for the giraffe, and were
generally three feet wide, and ten long; their depth was from nine to
ten feet. They were placed in the path of the giraffe, and in the
vicinity of several of these we detected the bones of giraffes,
indicating the success that had attended their formation.