128 CAPE OF GOOD HOPE. 



Besides these stones there are the well-known digging stones ; 

 circular disc-shaped stones, perforated in the centre. The 

 stone is passed over a stick, the lower end of which is hardened 

 in the fire or thrust into an antelope's horn, and the stick thus 

 weighted is used by the Bushmen and Hottentots to dig roots. 

 A Bushman whom the late Dr. Bleek, the distinguished South 

 African linguist, had under his charge, called the apparatus a 

 squaw's stick, because, of course, the squaws have to do the 

 digging. He showed us how it is used. 



Well-made spear and arrow-heads and scrapers are found 

 with these things, but are comparatively scarce, and far more 

 abundant on the Cape Flats. 



Very much broken pieces of a coarse pottery are common 

 about the refuse heaps. The pottery is black, and seen on 

 fracture to be full of fragments of quartzite. 1 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.* 



* 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 Researches," p. 540. 



