190 Transactions of the South African Philosophical Society. 
the West Indies, and out of 198 men only 25 (including James 
Lancaster) reached England in safety. 
In 1599 the English Hast India Company was formed in rena 
and in 1602 their first fleet of four ships, under the command of 
James Lancaster, who had successfully commanded the Hdward © 
Bonaventure in 1591, set sail, and called at Table Bay on their out- 
ward voyage. From that date onward English ships called nearly 
every year at the Cape. 
The earliest Dutch expedition to India vid the Cape was one under 
the command of Cornelius Houtman, which left the Texel in April, 
1595. They called at Mossel Bay for refreshment, and though no 
less than fifteen Dutch expeditions sailed between 1595 and 1601, it 
was not till the latter year that Spilbergen anchored below the 
heights of Table Mountain, and gave its present name to Table Bay. 
Hitherto it had been known as Saldanha Bay, a name which he 
erroneously transferred to the present Saldanha Bay. The Dutch 
East India Company was formed in 1602, and after that the fleets 
called at Table Bay almost every year. It is therefore during the 
first half of the seventeenth century, from 1601 to 1652, when the 
first settlement under van Riebeck was made, that the inscriptions 
on rocks and boulders were made by the crews of passing ships. 
In those early days a stream descended from Table Mountain and 
ran down more or less along the present line of Adderley Street, 
discharging its water into Table Bay near where the Railway Station 
now stands. This stream was known as the Fresh River in contra- 
distinction to the Salt River, which, being tidal, was useless for 
watering purposes. It was therefore at about the bottom of 
Adderley Street that the crews of the ships landed to fill their water 
casks, and it was close by that the inscriptions were usually carved, 
and this explains how it is that all the stones hitherto disinterred 
have been found near this spot. 
The earliest inscribed stone so far discovered is of considerably 
later date than the earliest arrival of the East India Company’s 
ships, 2.e., 1619, but it is stated that Sir Thomas Roe, during his 
stay at the Cape while on his voyage to India in 1615, ‘set up a 
pillar with an inscription of his embassy.” * Perhaps at some future 
time this may be found. 
Before commencing the account of the various inscriptions, I must 
offer my warmest thanks to Mr. William Foster, of the India Office, 
and to Mr. Donald Ferguson, of Croydon, to whom I am indebted 
for most of the information conveyed in this paper. The former 
gentleman has most kindly looked through the India Office records 
* Foster: Embassy of Sir Thomas Roe, vol. i., p. 11, Hakluyt Soc., 1899. 
