NATURAL HISTORY OF SOUTH AFRICA 



from Walfisch Bay on the west to Algoa Bay on the 

 east. They do not land on the mainland, except 

 when driven ashore by a violent gale. After severe 

 storms young seals of various ages, up to a year, 

 have been captured on the Algoa Bay beach, alive 

 and in an exhausted condition. On one occasion 

 two adults took refuge in the mouth of the Zwart- 

 kops River. 



At intervals along the coasts of South Africa 

 there are vast accumulations of the remains of shells 

 known as Kitchen Middens. In the distant past 

 a race of pygmy yellow men dwelt in the rock 

 shelters and caves and used roughly chipped stones 

 for tools and weapons ; and in more recent times 

 a tribe very similar in appearance and closely 

 related to these yellow pygmies, but of greater 

 stature, and known as Hottentots, inhabited the 

 coasts. These wild yellow men scoured the beaches 

 and gathered shellfish for food. The remains 

 were thrown down on or near the beach, and in 

 course of time great masses accumulated. In these 

 Kitchen Middens the bones of Sea Lions are fre- 

 quently found, indicating that these animals fre- 

 quented the beaches in the past, for the occasional 

 drifting ashore of one of them would not account 

 for the quantities of bones I have found from 

 time to time in these Kitchen Middens. Near the 

 mouth of the Zwartkops River, at Algoa Bay, I 

 discovered a large accumulation of the bones of 

 seals in a Kitchen Midden, which indicated that a 



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