TRAVELS IN 
reeboks, elands, baboons, and oftriches, all of which, except 
the gemfbok, are found upon the very fpot. Several croffes, 
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, 1 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 and 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 
brownifli black, it refembled Spanifh liquorice. The fmell was 
nightly bituminous, but faint, and rather ofFenfive. It flamed 
weakly in the candle, and gave out a thin brownifli 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, afl^uring 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 
