Rock-Engraving a of Animals and the Human Figure. 411 



also at the time of Mr. Stow's visit, the small tribe of the Kats- 

 Koranna. The men living there used to sit on the top of the hills to 

 have a good view of the fiats below where their goats were grazing. 

 A great number of stone implements and of iron arrow-heads, 

 peculiar to Bushmen, have been found round this kopje. Moreover, 

 this place was not inhabited by the Koranna before the year 1849. 

 The Station was founded in 1845, and was on the south bank of the 

 Vaal, opposite Barkly, and known now as * Old Pniel.' The fountain 

 in the neighbourhood was called ' Bushmanfontein,' and the hill 

 ' Bushmankopje.' Another point militating against the probability 

 of a large settlement on the hill, is the extreme danger incurred 

 there by the lightning discharges, through the hill serving as a 

 conductor. Most of the rock-engravings have been split through 

 their agency. I saw there the remains of small semicircles of 

 stones, about one foot high, and not more than two. A little 

 further, and behind that place, the Eev. Meyer, who arrived at Pniel 

 in 1874, showed me another spot where huts had been erected, but 

 there were no traces of enclosures. This is the spot mentioned by 

 Stoio. I conclude, therefore, that Bushmen have been there, but not 

 in great numbers. In the neighbourhood of the dwelling-places 

 were the most numerous and the best chippings. . . . The place 

 mentioned by Stow near the ' Half-way House,' may be that of 

 ' Scheelkoos ' and his family, which is mentioned several times in the 

 diary of the Pniel Mission of 1848. He was shot with his followers 

 in the early days of the discovery of the diamond fields. ... I still 

 may mention a settlement of Bushmen, a whole tribe of about 200 

 or 300 heads the ' Dansters,' at Platberg. Among these people our 

 Mission had a station from 1847 to 1852, under the Eev. Salzman. 

 Their constant warfare against the Link Koran nas ''' under Goliath, 

 and the dislike evinced by them towards mission work, brought the 

 Mission to a sudden end. This same tribe was routed later on by a 

 strong Boer commando for having attacked and plundered on the 

 Modder Eiver two waggon-loads of goods. I suppose that this tribe 

 consisted of Bushmen and Korannas. Eemains of them are still 

 found amongst our congregation at Warrenton." 



From the Eev. Westphal's statement it is obvious that Stow's 

 account is highly coloured, and that we must dismiss the assumption 

 of a large community having carved the rocks to embellish the 

 " town," or having congregated round their totem, the Giraffe. The 

 position is plainly a place commanding a view of the surrounding 



* These Korannas were probably called after their chief, Paul Lynx, or Lynk, 

 whom Sir Jos. Alexander, who met him in 1836 at Aris, some twenty miles from 

 the mouth of the river, calls " the Chief of the Orange River." 



