148 Annals of the South African Museum. 



the inmates took shelter there cas a protection from wild beasts, and 

 possibly also from men. 



Thus Leitb,* speaking of the caves at Mossel Bay : " It could 

 only be reached by scrambling up a very steep talus of rubbish at 

 the risk of slipping dovynwards into deep water, or from the top by 

 a still more dangerous path." 



Ibid. : "I found the entrance to the cave about 15 feet above sea- 

 level, in a cliff about 200 feet high. The cave is reached from the top 

 by climbing down a very steep and rocky path, at the foot of which 

 a 30-foot ladder takes one to the entrance. As this could not 

 possibly have been the pathway used by its former occupants, I 

 looked about for another, but in vain." 



Kingston states : "To our cave we scramble and climb from the 

 shore below and enter by the roughly rounded .window-like opening 

 to the west." 



Ibid. : " Our better fortune was to find another cave at a greater 

 height above the sea, but so difficult of access that it had evidently 

 remained intact." 



Writing of the Coldstream cave just discovered, Mr. J. S. Henkel, 

 of the Forest Department, who has very kindly set inquiries on foot 

 in his Conservancy for the discovery of such caves and their contents, 

 writes: "The cave was very difficult of approach. This cave, so 

 called, an overhanging mass of rocks, is about 100 yards distant 

 from the mouth of the river, and the floor of the cave about 50 or 

 60 feet above sea-level." An examination showed that there were no 

 signs of any human beings having, in recent times, entered or in 

 any way disturbed the cave." 



These caves or recesses are filled with debris of shells, even up to 

 a short distance from the roof ; occasionally bat guano helps to 

 complete. Intermingled with the debris, which is often of con- 

 siderable depth, are found, either on the surface or in layers, stone 

 and bone implements, as well as bones of fish, mammals, birds, 

 ornaments made of sea-shells, and skeletons so numerous, that the 

 question arises, Were not the caves and shelters where skeletons 

 abound, used as necropoles rather than as habitations for the living ? 

 They may prove to have been both. 



In the open-air middens of the sea-coast I have recorded the find 

 at Blaawberg of the skeleton of a woman under a layer of shell 

 debris that had been a midden ; but there is nothing to prove that 

 the place, or that particular spot, was abandoned either temporarily 



* G. Leith, " On the Caves, Shell Mounds, and Stone Implements of South 

 Africa" (Journ. Anthrop. Instit., xix., 1899). 



