SOME NOTES ON A VISIT TO LAKE FUNDUSI IN THE 
ZOUTPANSBEEa DISTEICT OF THE TEANSVAAL, PAID 
IN AUGUST, 1917. 
By T. a. Trevor, A.E.S.M., Inspector of Mines. 
Communicated by Dr. A. W. Eooers. 
(With Plate III.) 
Though pans are common throughout South Africa, so far as the writer 
is aware Fundusi is the only sheet of natural water, south of the Zambesi, 
which can be described as a lake in the European sense, and as it lies in a 
most inaccessible position in a native territory and has been visited by very 
few white men, the following description may be of interest. 
Some fifty miles south of the Limpopo a range of mountains called the 
Zoutpansberg runs parallel to the northern boundary of the Transvaal from 
the Magalaqwin Eiver almost to the Portuguese border — a distance of some 
160 miles. 
The western extremity of this range is known as Blaauwberg, and is 
separated from the main range by a wide gap, but from the eastern side of 
this gap at the Salt Pan the mountains are continuous for 100 miles till they 
die away near the Portuguese border. 
The actual width of the mountain chain is never more than twenty 
miles. It is formed of Waterberg sandstones, lying often nearly horizon- 
tally, but generally with a dip towards the north of 10°-20°. On both 
sides the mountains make an abrupt escarpment, rising to a general height 
of about 2000 ft. above the country at their foot. From an external view one 
would imagine the mountain top to be a wide plateau, and perhaps once it 
was, but at the present time it is deeply eroded into a series of longitudinal 
valleys of great depth, with very precipitous sides, and it is in one of these 
valleys that Lake Fundusi is situated. 
To get to the lake it is necessary to ride or walk at least twenty miles 
from the nearest road, but as these miles are of the roughest description 
they may be said to make a good day's journey. 
The writer, accompanied by Sir Eobert Kotze, left the Native Com- 
missioner's camp at Sibasa, on the southern foothills of the range, in the 
morning. The altitude of the camp is 2700 ft.; the path passes the Chief 
Sibasa's kraal just under the top of the mountain, about 1000 ft. above the 
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