The notches in the side of the pit serve as a ladder to descend by. The gravel here is very coarse; some round stones larger than a man's head, and a vast number larger than one's fist were lying round the mouths of the pits, which were near twenty in number. Near the pits is a stream of water, and as the banks had been scraped away to wash for gold, I could distinguish a stratum of earth and large stones about ten feet thick, and under this a stratum of two feet of ferruginous pebbles about the size of a pigeon's egg, and a yellow and rusty-coloured sand and earth; under this a stratum of tough white clay. The rusty-coloured sand is that in which the gold is found. Saw plenty of the gold rust. When I returned from the gold pits, I went with Mr. Scott to go to the top of the hill, which is close to the town. The hill was very steep and rocky. The rocks (like all the hills in Konkodoo) are a coarse reddish granite, composed of red feldspar, white quartz, and black shorl; but it differs from any granite I have seen, in having round smooth pebbles, many of them as large as a cannon shot. These pebbles, when broken, are granite, but of a paler colour and closer texture. The day was cool; but after fatiguing ourselves and resting six times, we found that we were only about half way to the top. We were surprised to find the hill cultivated to the very summits; and though the people of Dindikoo were but preparing their fields, the corn on the hill was six inches high. The villages on these mountains are romantic beyond anything I ever saw. They are built in the most delightful glens of the mountains; they have plenty of water and grass at all seasons; they have cattle enough for their own use, and their superfluous grain purchases all their luxuries; and while the thunder rolls in awful grandeur over their heads, they can look from their tremendous precipices over all that wild and woody plain which extends from the Faleme to the Black River. This plain is in extent, from North to South, about forty miles: the range of hills to the South seem to run in the same direction as those of Konkodoo, viz. from East to West. There are no lions on the hills, though they are very numerous in the plain. In the evening Lieutenant Martyn fell sick of the fever.