. *776- January. As to the external appearance of thefe Caffres, I found them not fo tall in general as the Gonaquas Hottentots, and the Caffres I faw with that people; neither were they nearly fo much adorned with copper and beads: they were, however, full as robuft and manly. While 1 was waiting for the arrival of the three farmers, and there was no particular natural fubjedt about this fpot that required peculiar attention, I fet about digging in the earth after antiquities. I had before this, during my firft refidence near Gnoote Vifch-rivier, obferved heaps of ftones larger than thofe few I had feen near Krakeel-rivier, and compofed of ftones equal to them in bulk. They were from three to four and four feet and a half high, and the bafes of them meafured fix, eight, and ten feet in diameter. They likewife lay ten, twenty, fifty, two hundred paces, and even farther afunder, but conftantly between two particular points of the compafs, and confeqUently in right lines, and thofe always running parallel to each other. I likewife found thefe heaps of ftones in a confiderable number, and knew from the account I had on this fubjedt from the colonifts, that they extended in this manner feve- ral days journey from this fpot, in a northern diredtion, through uncultivated plains, into the Sneefe Flaktens, as they are called, where they are faid to be met with in a ftill greater number o f parallel lines. Thefe monuments are therefore confidered as irrefragable proofs, that this tradt of country was formerly inhabited by a race of people, who were more powerful and numerous than either the Hottentots or Caffres, whofe fepulchral rites, as well well as other cuftoms, and above all their inconceivable . 'tt6- January-. floth and idlenefs, are too well known for them to be fuf- o -y-O pedted of fuch large, and,, to all appearance, ufelefs undertakings. In the mean while, in order to difcover the intention of thefe heaps of ftones being colledted together, many, con- jedtures were formed with various degrees o f probability : thus much, however, is certain, that they could not have been colledted together by any other than ilaves. But whether this was done by a people bending beneath the yoke of fuperftition, or elfe under that of monarchy or of an oligarchy, I ihall not pretend to determine. In the firft cafe it is probable, that they conceived themfelves bound to make offerings like thefe, o f ufelefs toil and trouble, to their tyrannical gods; or in the latter cafe, were compelled to pay this tribute to the pride and vanity of fome tyrant, who even after death, for the fake o f immortalizing and procuring vain and imaginary honours for his duft, contrived in this manner to wafte the ftrength, and exhauft.the forces of his furviving fubjedts.' Under the influence of which foever of thefe caufes the ftones have been accumulated, they are certainly the relicks of fome early period, in which, whether fmarting under the fcourge o f fuperftition or that of a tyrant, fome populous nation has dwindled away to a few fcattered herdfmen, or elfe has been degraded to the prefent race of Caffres, Hottentots, Boihies-men, and favages. In fome few heaps o f ftones, I obferved that the foundations only- had been laid, or perhaps , the ftones had been carried off, till the remainder was level with the furface o f V o l . II. M m the
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