CAPE OF GOOD HOPE. 147 



certainly cannot see far with its minute eyes, which are not 

 bigger than the heads of carpet pins, the whole eye-ball when 

 extracted being not bigger than a tenth of an inch in diameter. 



Of course, a charge of shot at the moment the animal shows 

 its head is effective. But the easiest method of getting speci- 

 mens is on scraping away the earth from the fresh mound 

 to insert in the hole a common rabbit gin, well secured with peg 

 and string. I trapped a good many Bathyergi in this way, and 

 one Georychus. Bathyergus is very fierce when dragged out of 

 its hole, fast by one leg in a gin. The animal bites the air 

 savagely with its enormous teeth, which project an inch and a 

 half from the lower jaw, and makes an angry half-snarling, half- 

 grunting noise. 



I took several of the moles on board the ship alive in a sack. 

 I let the sack swing by accident against one of my legs, and one 

 of the moles gave me a very unpleasant nip, biting through 

 the sack and my clothes. 



When put in a strong wire cage the mole first tried to 

 burrow, but finding that absolutely impossible, tried to bite the 

 wires all round, and that failing, became sullen and quiet. The 

 animal can evidently see for short distances. 



Besides these moles, which are a great pest in gardens, there is 

 a little Insectivorous mole (Chrysochloris inauratus), the Golden- 

 mole, which is not more than half the size of our English mole, 

 and has a dark silky fur shot with most brilliant metallic golden 

 tints. This mole makes quite superficial runs in the ground, so 

 near the surface that the earth is raised all along the run, and 

 hence the track can be followed everywhere above ground. 

 When one of these is seen at work, it can be thrown out with a 

 stick or spade at once. 



I several times went over the hills to the coast on the other 

 side of the promontory. At White Sands, nearly opposite, are a 

 series of shell mounds, or " kitchen middens," which occur also at 

 Cape Point and many places along the coast. There are huge 

 mounds of large Patellas, Haliotis, and other shells ; the limpets 

 are so large as to make convenient drinking cups. 



All about the mounds are to be found various stone imple- 

 ments used by the people, either Bushmen or Hottentots, who 



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