THE SIBILO OF THE AFRICANS. 283 



Mountains, beyond the limits of the colony, form a rango 

 from five to ten miles broad, and range through the coun- 

 try to an unknown distance, from N.E. to S.W. These 

 mountains are principally composed of sandstone, in hori- 

 zontal strata, and every where exhibit beautiful table- 

 shaped summits. According to Burchell, " The sandstone 

 rock continues onward to fat. 30° S., to near Modde or 

 Mud Gap, where true quartz strata and vesicular trap-rocks 

 make their appearance. In lat. 29° 15' 32 " S., mountains, 

 called the Asbestos Mountains, of clay-slate, disposed in 

 horizontal strata, occur ; there layers of asbestos occur in 

 the slate. This asbestos is blue and yellow, and the fibres 

 sometimes nearly three inches in length." In the same 

 mountain, according to Burchell, green opal and pitchstone 

 also occur. A range of black craggy mountains extends 

 from the Kloof, in the Asbestos Mountains ; the rocks are 

 very probably trap. Further to the north, at Klaarwater, 

 are vast beds of horizontally stratified limestone, without 

 organic remains. 



Account of the Sibilo of the Africans. — ^At Sensavan, or 

 Blenk-Klip, nearly in S. lat. 28°, there is a ridge of quartz 

 rock impregnated with micaceous iron ore, which, in many 

 places, is collected into nests of considerable magnitude. 

 This ore of iron is known throughout Southern Africa by 

 the name Sibilo. Hither all the surrounding nations re- 

 pair for a supply of that ornamental and, in their eyes, 

 valuable substance. It forms, in some degree, an article of 

 barter with more distant tribes, and even among them- 

 selves ; so that the use of it extends over at least 5° of lati- 

 tude. It is of a reddish colour, soft and greasy to the feel, 

 — its particles adhering to the skin, and staining it of a 

 deep red colour. The skin, says Burchell, is not easily 

 freed from these glossy particles, even by repeated washing. 

 The mode of preparing and using it is, simply grinding it 

 with grease, and smearing it generally over the body, but 

 chiefly on the head ; and the hair is often so much clotted 

 and loaded with an accumulation of it, that the clots look 

 like lumps of the ore. 



From the north of Sensavan to Lattakoo, the rocks are 

 limestone without petrifactions, granite, and slate. In con- 

 clusion, it may be remarked, that as far as is known at pre- 

 sent, the whole of the table-land of Southern Africa, to the 



