THE ENGRAVED ROCK OF LOE, 

 BECHUANALAND PROTECTORATE. 



By Miss M. Wilman. 



(Plates 12-15.) 



(Read, July 10, 19 18.) 



Some years ago, thanks to the kindness of Mr. W. A. H. 

 Harbor, of Mochudi Station, the writer was enabled to visit Loe 

 (or Metsieng), a spot well known to the travellers and traders in 

 the Protectorate. 



Here, according to them, is the deep water-hole, out of which 

 are said to have come the ancestors of the Bakuena, who formerly 

 inhabited these parts, and of all the different kinds of animals. 

 These, on issuing from the bowels of the earth, had left their 

 imprints on the wet soil around the hole, and as this had since 

 hardened, the spoors remain to this day. Of the humans, one 

 was a one-legged giant, named Metsieng,* hence his huge single 

 spoor and the name by which the site is also known. 



A drive through the forest brings one to a large flat outcrop 

 of rock, having almost in the middle of it a hole that may once 

 have been deep but is now almost silted up, though it still holds 

 some water. 



The so-called spoors are, with one exception, engravings. 

 The exception is the giant's alleged footprint, and this is merely a 

 natural hollow in the rock shaped somewhat like a human foot, 

 without toes, more than 30 cm. long and broad in proportion. 



Photographs by Dr. R. Poch (PI. 12) ])ortray the famous 

 hole in the very centre of the picture, and also the majority of 

 the engravings, since the side not shown is almost destitute of 

 them. The giant's mark, however, does not appear. 



The engravings have been hacked out of the living rock, and 

 they are genuine peckings, such as are met with in the Transvaal, 

 the Orange Free State, and the Cape Province as far south as 

 Beaufort West, and are generally ascribed to the Bushmen. They 

 also show every sign of great age, and for this reason they 

 cannot be confounded with the fresh scribblings of the Bechuana 

 and other herd-boys also found in these districts. Nor have they 

 anything in common with the crude representations of animals 

 and other objects, the work of the Basuto, that are occasionally 

 met with in Basutoland and in the adjacent districts of the Free 

 State. 



They depict a couple of snakes wriggling away from the 

 bole (PI. 13A), a creature that may be a lion, another with short 

 legs and long neck, but otherwise not very like a girafife, and 

 footprints innumerable facing in all directions, often very close 



* At Mochudi Stad the writer was told to spell this word Meheteng 

 but to pronounce it Metsieng; Mr. Harbor writes it Matsaing; Mr. 

 Knobel Matsicng: Dr. Poch Machcn! 



