240 
TRAVELS IN 
reeboks, elands, baboons, and oftriches, all of which, except 
the gemfbok, are found upon the very fpot. Several crofTes, 
circles, points, and lines, were placed in a long rank as if in- 
tended to exprefs fome meaning ; but no other attempt ap- 
peared at the reprefentation of inanimate objects. In the 
courfe of travelling, I had frequently heard the peafantry 
mention the drawings in the mountains behind the Sneuwberg 
made by the Bosjefmans ; but I took it for granted they were 
caricatures only, fimilar to thofe on the doors a.nd walls of 
uninhabited buildings, the works of idle boys ; and it was no 
difagreeable difappointment to find them very much the reverfe. 
Some of the drawings were known to be new ; but many of 
them had been remembered from the firft fettlement of this 
part of the colony. 
A part of the upper furface of the cavern was covered with 
a thick coating of a black fubftance, that externally had the ap- 
pearance of pitch. In confiftence, tenacity, and color of a 
brownifh black, it refembled Spanifh liquorice. The fmell was 
flightly bituminous, but faint, and rather offenfive. It flamed 
weakly in the candle, and gave out a thin brownifh fluid, but 
no fmell while burning ; the refiduum was a black coaly fub- 
ftance, two-thirds of the original bulk. The patch adhering to 
the rock was covered with myriads of very minute flies. In 
reaching up to it in order to cut oflT a fpecimen with my knife, 
the people called out to me to defift, afliiring me that if the 
fmalleft particle got into the eye the fight of it would be loft 
for ever ; that it was deadly poifon, and ufed by the Hotten- 
tots to fmear the points of their arrows. They all agreed in 
the 
