218 LIVINGSTONE'S LAST JOURNALS. [Chap. VIII. 



cave near Kolobeng, called " Lepelole" a word by which, the 

 natives there sometimes designate the sea. The wearing 

 power of the primeval waters is here easily traced in two 

 branches — the upper or more ancient ending in the charac- 

 teristic oval orifice, in which I deposited a Father Mathew's 

 leaden temperance token : the lower branch is much the 

 largest, as that by which the greatest amount of water flowed 

 for a much longer period than the other. The cave Lepelole 

 was believed to be haunted, and no one dared to enter till 

 I explored it as a relief from more serious labour. The 

 entrance is some eight or more feet high, and five or six 

 wide, in reddish grey sandstone rock, containing in its sub- 

 stance banks of well rounded shingle. The whole range, 

 with many of the adjacent hills on the south, bear evidence 

 of the scorching to which the contiguity of the lava sub- 

 jected them. In the hardening process the silica was some- 

 times sweated out of this rock, and it exists now as pretty 

 efflorescences of well-shaped crystals. But not only does 

 this range, which stands eight or ten miles north of Kolo- 

 beng, exhibit the effects of igneous action, it shows on its 

 eastern slope the effects of flowing water, in a large pot- 

 hole called Loe, which has the reputation of having given 

 exit to all the animals in South Africa, and also to the first 

 progenitors of the whole Bechuana race. Their footsteps 

 attest the truth of this belief. I was profane enough to 

 be sceptical, because the large footstep of the first man 

 Matsieng was directed as if going into instead of out of this 

 famous pot-hole. Other huge pot-holes are met with all 

 over the country, and at heights on the sloj)es of the moun- 

 tains far above the levels of the ancient rivers. 



Many fountains rose in the courses of the ancient river beds, 

 and the outflow was always in the direction of the current of 

 the parent stream. Many of these ancient fountains still con- 

 tain water, and form the stages on a journey, but the primi- 

 tive waters seem generally to have been laden with lime in 



