26 Annals of the South African Museum. 



to avoid touching at the Gape, but were forced by contrary winds to 

 do so. Anchored there on July 19th. ..." Wee perceaued by 

 inscriptions on stones that the Dolphin, was departed thence home- 

 ward bound from Surat, in April last ; but could not finde anie 

 letters through the inscription mentioned some to be left which 

 appeared plainely to be disinterred and taken thence by the Dutch 

 or Danes, ships of each having touched there since her departure." 

 In William Minors's account of the homeward voyage of the Scout, 

 we find the following : 



" Anchored in Table Bay (January 20, 1626), where we found 

 two Dutch ships." Minors (who was then master's mate) was sent 

 ashore to look for letters, but " they were taken away before." 



Again : Letter from President Kerridge and others, at Surat, to 

 the East India Company, January 4, 1628. 



" Have opened the Company's letter addressed to the President 

 and Council at Batavia. . . . This they had already learnt from a 

 letter left by the London at the Cape, which was dug up by the 

 Dutch General Coen, and after perusal handed to Captain Hall 

 (December, 1627)." 



Are we, then, to suppose that the letters or communications were 

 duly deposited without any precaution under the slate blocks, some 

 small, some large, but selected because of their smooth surface? 

 Yet the words are significant. 



"Letters under;" " Soeckt brieveu " ; " Hieronder leggen 

 brieven " ; " Heare under looke for letters." . . . 



The Lesser James inscription does, however, throw light on 

 certain dispositions taken to prevent, as far as possible, not only 

 the natives, but people other .than the initiated to obtain readily 

 cognisance of the documents, some of them of considerable interest 

 to the parties concerned. 



A carefully executed cast of the slab has revealed at the end of 

 the words line, in the sentence " look with this line for letteres," a 

 narrow groove reaching nearly to the side of the slab. 



From which it becomes apparent, if not certain, that there obtained 

 among the Captains of the East India Company a certain secret 

 code as to the localities chosen for the " Post Office " boxes. This 

 assumption will also explain the presence or occurrence of several 

 English inscriptions on the same rock, and often on either side 

 of the stone. Moreover, so far as the recovered inscriptions go, only 

 one stone is known which bears on one side an English, on the 

 other a Dutch legend ; we know, however, of another with a French 

 on the obverse, and a Dutch on the reverse. 



