CAPE OF GOOD HOPE. 149 



be full of fragments of quartzite. I found two pieces with 

 handles, evidently the side handles of pots. In the Cape 

 Museum are plenty of similar pieces, and also a drawing on 

 a small slab of stone, from a neighbouring cave which was 

 probably a home of the midden people. 



The middens lie in places where there are banks of shifting 

 sand. As the sand shifts, there are exposed, all about on the 

 slopes, heaps of stones, evidently put together for some purpose. 

 A considerable number of human bones were lying about. I 

 turned over several of the stone heaps which had evidently been 

 hitherto undisturbed, and excavated for a short depth beneath 

 them without finding any interments ; but in one case a complete 

 skeleton lay around one of the heaps, and at Cape Point I saw 

 a second one lying beneath a similar heap, having been evidently 

 buried in a crouching position with the body unstraightened 

 after death. The majority of the stone heaps have, however, 

 certainly not been graves, but are very possibly the remains 

 of places where fires have been lighted. 



The sand at White Sands is calcareous. As it shifts before 

 the wind it in many places buries bushes growing near the 

 shore. These die, and their stems, buried in the sand, decay, 

 and in doing so set free a certain amount of acid which brings 

 about a solution and redeposit of calcareous matter in the 

 sand. The sand immediately surrounding the stems is thus 

 cemented into a solid mass which encrusts the remains of the 

 bark. The wood decays away, and a pipe with a wall of 

 cemented calcareous sand is the result. The sand shifting 

 again, these pipes, which are often branched, are left exposed on 

 the beach.* 



In my excursions to White Sands I often stopped at the 

 cottage of an old-fashioned " boer." He was a boer in a very small 

 way : an old man who, at the age of nearly sixty, had married 

 a young wife. He was partly of French parentage, many French 

 having come to the Cape at the time of the Eevolution. These 

 people were wonderlully hospitable, and gave me milk, coffee, 



* Darwin observed similar structures in Australia, but in this case the 

 cavities left by the decaying branches had been filled in by hard calcareous 

 matter. "Journal of Pcesearches," p. 540. 



