58 
TRAVELS IN 
and coloured yellow or brown with iron. The vegetable re- 
mains, wafhed by the rains into the hollows, form in places 
bogs or peat-mofs, and the water in them is of a deep claret- 
colour, and fometimes black. I never met with any Ihells on 
any part of the ifthmus ; but the prefence of thefe is no argu- 
ment of their having been brought there by the fea. Many 
thoufand waggon-loads of ihells may be met with in various 
places along the eaftern coaft, in fituations that are feveral hun- 
dred feet above the level of the fea. They are generally found 
in the greateft quantities in fheltered caverns, a circumftance 
that might lead to the fuppofition of the original inhabitants of 
the country being a fort of Troglodytes, as indeed the favage 
Hottentots of the interior in fome degree ftill are. The fa£l is, 
they are carried from the coaft into thefe elevated fituations by 
the myriads of fea-fowl that frequent the African lliores. At 
Mufcle-bay is a remarkable cavern containing an immenfe 
quantity of different kinds of fhells peculiar to the coaft j above 
the level of which it is not lefs than three hundred feet ; and 
behind the Lion's Head, at the fame height, are beds of fhells^ 
buried under vegetable earth and clay. The human mind can 
form no idea as to the meafure of time required for the fea to 
have progreffively retreated from fuch elevations.. 
The plain that ftretches to the eaftward from Tigerberg is 
lefs fandy, and better covered with fhrubs and plants, than the 
ifthmus, and has a few farms fcattered thinly over it near rills 
of water, that have broken the furface into deep glens in their 
paffage to the northward. On the more arid and naked parts, 
confifting of yellow clay and fand, are thrown up many thou- 
fands 
