410 Transactions of the South African Philosophical Society. 



dwellers and painters arrived at a higher degree of artistic talent 

 than any other portion of their race, while their cave dwellings 

 afforded more comfortable shelters from the weather than the fragile 

 structures used by those tribes living on the more open kopjes. 

 The towns, for so the stations of the larger tribes might be termed 

 in comparison with the movable dwelling-places of the small 

 nomadic clans of the hunters of the plains, contained from one to 

 two hundred huts. Two excellent examples of stations of this kind 

 are to be found between Kimberley and Barkly. The one is on the 

 outlying kopje near what is termed the Half-way House, the other 

 on the kopje immediately behind the Mission Station at Pniel itself. 

 At both places there are a number of chippings, chiefly representa- 

 tions of animals ; the head and neck of a giraffe at the Pniel kopje 

 is remarkably fine both on account of its large size and the correct 

 ness of its outline. It was evidently the grand figure of the tribe, 

 and the spot might fitly be named from it the ' Camp of the Giraffe.' 

 The position of most of the huts which covered the crests of both 

 these hills is marked by a semicircle of stones with the opening 

 towards the east ; while that which formed the residence of the 

 chief can also be distinguished from the rest, not only because it is 

 larger, but the rocks also around it are very much more ornamented 

 than any in the immediate neighbourhood of the others, while two 

 or three smaller ones are placed close against it. . . . An open 

 space was left around this, and here it is that the carvings on the 

 rock are the thickest. Beyond this the huts of his people evidently 

 formed an irregular ring about him, while detached from the main 

 body ; the sites of several smaller groups of huts are still marked on 

 the flanks of the kopje, apparently so placed for the purpose of 

 acting as outposts." 



I am afraid, however, that Stow allowed his imagination to run 

 riot. I communicated this statement of his to the Eev. G. E. 

 Westphal, who is in charge of the Pniel Station of the Berlin 

 Missionary Society, asking him to try and find any traces of such a 

 town, which in his previous communications with me he had never 

 mentioned. His answer is as follows : — 



" I know distinctly the exact spot mentioned by Stow. I know 

 also the engraving of the ' Giraffe,' which is still there. However, 

 the supposition of a camp or village constructed at a remote date 

 seems to me a purely imaginary one. It is true that when I arrived 

 in Pniel, in 1882, there were at the Station more than one hundred 

 of these stone engravings, most of which showed the appearance of 

 a very great age. But others were distinctly newly chipped, and 

 were, besides, badly drawn. At the foot of the hill lived then, and 



