58
and coloured yellow or brown with iron. The vegetable remains,
waihed 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 o f the ifthmus ; but the prefence of thefe is no argument
of their having been brought there by the fea. Many
thoufand waggon-loads of ihells maybe met with in various
places along the eaftern coaft, in fituations that are feveral hundred
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 o f Troglodytes, as indeed the favage
Hottentots of the interior in feme degree ftill are* T he fail is,
they are carried from the coaft into thefe elevated fituations by
the myriads of fea-fowl that frequent the African ihores. At
Mufcle-bay is a remarkable cavern containing an immenfe
quantity o f different kinds of ihells peculiar to the coaft; above
the level o f which it is not lefs than three hundred fe e t; and
behind the Lion’s Head, at the fame height, are beds o f ihells,
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 progreflively retreated from fuch elevations.
The plain that ftretches to the eaftward from Tigerberg is
lefs fandy, and better covered with ihrubs and plants, than the
ifthmus, and has a few farms fcattered thinly over it near rills
o f water, that have broken the furface into deep glens in their
paffage to the northward. On the more arid and naked parts,
confifting o f yellow clay and fand, are thrown up many thoufands
rands o f thofe cellular maffes o f earth by a fmall infeft of the
ant tribe, to which naturalifts have given the name of termes,
different, however, from, and much lefs deftruftive than, that
fpecies, o f which a curious defcription has been given by Mr.
Smeathman in the Philofophical Tranfaitions. The ant-hills
in this part of Africa feldom exceed the height of three feet.
The plain to the eaftward, at a dozen miles beyond Stick-
larid, is terminated by two mountains, between which the road
leads into a valley better cultivated and more thickly inhabited
than any part between it and the Cape. Simonfberg, on the
right, is among the higheft of the mountains that are feen from
the Gape. Its forked Parnaffian fummit is frequently, in winter,
covered with fnow, and in the fouth-eaft winds of fum-
mer is generally buried in the clouds. It alfo has its Helicon
trickling down its fides, as yet a virgin fpring untafted by the
Mufes. It held out more charms, it feems, for Plutus, than for
Apollo. A man in the time of the governor, whofe name the
mountain perpetuates, intent on making his fortune by impof-
ing on the credulity and ignorance of the Company’s fervants,
melted down a quantity of Spaniih dollars, and prefented the
mafs to the governor as a fpecimen o f filver from a rich mine
that he had difcovered in this mountain. Enraptured at the
proof of fo important a difcovery, a refolution was paffed
by the governor in council that a fum of money ihould be
advanced to the man to enable him to profecute his difcovery,
and work the mine, of which he was to have the foie direftion;
and in the mean time, to convince the public o f the rifing
wealth of the colony, the mafs o f filver was ordered to be