164 Annals of the South African Musewn. 



And on the whole these painted scenes, and also the " mobilier," 

 or domestic implements, go to show that these cave-dwellers were 

 members of a race that was not necessarily troglodytic and sedentary ; 

 in all likelihood they also sallied forth as their wants or desires 

 prompted. It might be urged that, safe from foes in their dwellings, 

 they led there a quiet, perhaps simple, certainly monotonous life ; 

 that there they were born and thereafter buried. We have, however, 

 in addition to the one adduced, other evidence that such was not the 

 case, and that although there may have been among the shelter- 

 dwellers some " stay at homes," others went abroad. One of my 

 reasons for making this assertion is the find in the Coldstream 

 cave of two crocodile teeth, pei'taining to an animal of no mean 

 size. 



Although the rising of that part of the coast is not only far from 

 improbable but most likely, yet it would be rash indeed to assert 

 that the climate had altered so much since man's occupation of the 

 cave that saurians, known to require tropical conditions, could have 

 existed in the Coldstream Eiver. It is simpler to conclude that these 

 teeth were brought to the cave from distant parts. 



We have also pictorial evidence of a similar character. 



Fig. 198, PI. XXVII., is the reproduction of a " Bushman " paint- 

 ing, from the " Lange Kloof," not very far from Knysna and Humans- 

 dorp. The interest attaching to this painted scene is not the human 

 head on the left, executed posteriorly probably by a shepherd, nor the 

 delineation of the seals, also on the left, but of that of what is 

 unquestionably a giraffe.''' Like the crocodile, the giraffe requires 

 tropical conditions and also a very dry climate — conditions not 

 obtainable in the Tzitzikama-Outeniqua Districts. 



We are thus faced with two alternatives : either the climatic con- 

 ditions have changed since the occupation of the caves by these 

 primitive aboriginals, a proposition which postulates an extreme 

 antiquity, or — and this is much more likely — these troglodytes were 



* Difficult as it now is to endeavour to explain the meaning of some of these 

 Bush paintings, several figures of this scene speak for themselves. In the centre 

 is a hive-hunter smoking bees. The seals are typical — some painted red, others 

 white. At the bottom is a dog chasing a jackal. The use of dogs by Bush-people 

 must of necessity, have been a late innovation, and therefore the age of the paint- 

 ing must be deduced from this fact. The hand, painted red, is plainly that of a 

 human being, bedaubed with paint, and clumsily j)ressed on the rock. Had it not 

 been done so clumsily it might have afforded valuable information. Abbe Breuil 

 has recorded several impressions of the same kind in the now famous Altamira 

 caves, and it is of interest to mention that in some cases, one of the fingers was 

 mutilated. This mutilation was ^by no means uncommon among the Hottentot- 

 Bush people. 



