8o 
TRAVELS IN 
fimilar to that which I mentioned to have feen In the plains of 
the Zuure Veldt, and which I then fuppofed the Kaffers to have 
carried thither from the fea fhore. I paid Uttle attention to the 
report at that time ; but fmce my return to the Cape, the difco- 
very of a third mafs, in an extraordinary fituation, the very 
fummit of Table Mountain, excited a {Ironger degree of cu- 
riofity. I imagined the firft to have been the flat part of an 
anchor, although it was deftitute of any particular fhape, but 
in this of Table Mountain, which may weigh from one hun- 
dred and fifty to one hundred and fixty pounds, there appeared 
fome faint traces of the fliape of the flook, or the broad part of 
the arm which takes hold of the ground. It was found half bu- 
ried in fand and quartz pebbles, every part, as well under as 
above ground, much corroded, and the cavities filled with peb- 
bles, which, however, did not appear to be component parts of 
the mafs, not being angular, but evidently rounded by attrition. 
As, in the firft inftance, I fuppofe the Kaffers to have carried 
the mafs into the fituation where it was difcovered; fo alfo, 
with regard to the latter, I am inclined to think it muft have 
been brought upon the fummit of the mountain by the native 
Hottentots, as to a place of fafety, when Bartholomew Diaz, 
or fome of the early Porcuguefe navigators, landed firft in this 
country. Others, however, who have feen and examined the 
mafs are of opinion, that it muft have been placed in its prefent 
fituation at a period long antecedent to the difcovery of the 
Cape of Good Hope by Europeans. Be that as it may, the re- 
femblance it bears to part of an anchor, with the Neptunian 
appearances of various parts of Southern Africa, which are 
particularly ftriking in the formation of the Table Mountain, 
I prefs 
