( 189 ) 
NOTES ON THE SO-CALLED “POST OFFICE STONE” 
AND OTHER INSCRIBED STONES PRESERVED IN 
THE SOUTH AFRICAN MUSEUM AND ELSEWHERE. 
By W. L. Scuater, M.A., Drrector oF THE SouTH AFRICAN 
MUuSsEUM. 
(Read June 27, 1900.) 
A good deal of interest has been excited from time to time by the 
discovery of inscriptions cut on boulders or on the solid rock laid 
bare in digging out foundations for new buildings in Cape Town, 
and it seemed to me worth while to try to collect together all the 
information I could regarding these and other inscriptions bearing 
on the early history of South Africa. 
There is no doubt that in early times not only the English, but 
also the Dutch and Portuguese, very usually when making any stay 
in a harbour for the watering and refreshing of their crews, left 
behind them some sort of inscription recording their visit, and that. 
subsequently, especially in the case of Table Bay, when the visits of 
the regular fleets became annual, the outgoing ships left letters 
buried near or under the inscriptions for the return fleet to unearth 
and carry back to Europe. 
After the discovery of the Cape by Bartholomew Dias in 1486-7, 
and the first Cape voyage to India by Vasco da Gama in 1497-9, the 
Portuguese had an actual monopoly of the Indian trade by the Cape 
for nearly a hundred years, and it was not till 1577 that Drake, the 
first English circumnavigator of the globe, set out, but neither he 
nor Thomas Cavendish, who followed him in 1586-8, landed on 
South African shores, though both passed by on their return home- 
wards, » 
In 1591 the first English ships put into Table Bay. These were 
the Penelope, Merchant Royal, and Edward Bonaventure, under the 
command of ‘‘ General’’ George Raymond. Of these, the Merchant 
Royal returned with sick from Table Bay direct, the Penelope was 
lost, and the Hdward Bonaventure alone reached her destination 
(the Malay Peninsula), but on her way back to England was lost in 
