ANCIENT NA TIVE B UILDING. 1 7 5 



alternating here and there, and pleasantly varying 

 this otherwise monotonous landscape. 



The Tati, itself one of those rivers which become 

 large so near their source, was again itself shortly 

 left behind, the waggons trekking forward in a direc- 

 tion nearly north. A variety of small antelopes were 

 found throughout this district, and birds of several 

 kinds were numerous. On June i 7th, a few miles 

 farther on, another river was crossed, and the 

 following entry made in the traveller's Journal :■ — 



"June \7tJ1. — Fine morning, after a mild starry 

 night; warm day. Inspanned at 6.20 a.m. I rode 

 across the veldt to the right ; grass very wet. Saw 

 a small buck and three sessebi, but they got my 

 scent. Going in a direction generally north, I struck 

 a deep sandy river, with plenty of water-holes in it, 

 and banks steep and rocky in places ; crossed it, 

 and kept down it till I found the waggons, which 

 had crossed it and outspanned perhaps a mile and a 

 half farther down. Just before reaching the waggons 

 (8.20 a.m.), I came to a most singular building, built 

 on a little isolated kopje in the midst of the level 

 tree -studded veldt, but with other kopjes near. 

 There has been an excellently -built wall running 

 round the sides of the kopje, and a regular entrance 

 into it. The boys say it was built in old times by 

 the ancestors of the present race of Makalakas, and 

 was the king's residence. No white man, they say, 

 helped to build it. It is not seen from the waggon- 

 road. 



" The river, which we outspanned at, and which 



