ANIMAL HISTORIES

The city of Cape Town and suburbs are built on a long narrow Peninsula with animals having played a part in local history. Baboons, Cape otters, cerval cats, porcupines, tortoises, are to be found on the mountainous areas while various other larger animals are to be seen in more enclosed spaces such as the Cape Point Nature Reserve or on the Groote Schuur Estate. Bird species are popular members of suburban gardens. But certain individual animals have become legendary, details of their lives still being spoken about long after their demise. 

HOUT BAY LEOPARD

Just below Chapman’s Peak Drive at the Hout Bay end,  placed on a rock looking out to sea,  is a bronze statue of a leopard.   It was sculpted by Ivan Mitford Barberton in 1963.  In 1933 and 1936 leopards were still sighted near Hout Bay and the last one was said to having been seen in 1938.  The statue can be perceived as a memorial to those leopards who once roamed the nearby mountains.  It is certainly a phtographic image that many local and overseas visitors take home with them.

JUST NUISANCE SIMON'S TOWN

Simon’s Town, a naval town, had an animal that was often in the news, in this case a domestic animal.  He was a Great Dane dog named Just Nuisance who became a well known   “naval personality.”   Able Seaman Just Nuisance was enlisted in the Royal Navy during the second World War, 1939-1945. His role, according to reported events, seems to have been that of a self imposed protector of Royal Navy ratings.  He died on 1 April 1944 aged seven years and is buried on Red Hill, Simon’s Town with a headstone giving essential life details. This well known canine continues to be remembered by the town's residents as a former important “personage”. In recent years a statue of the Great Dane was positioned on the Town’s Jubilee Square.

Simon’s Town also had, in earlier years, an unusual ship’s mascot as a visitor.  She was Rifles the leopard.  The story goes that while the coal burning ship”Narcissus”  based in Simon’s Town and part of the Royal Navy  South Atlantic Squadron visited Mombasa, Kenya in 1914, an officer bought a young leopard kitten. The captain agreed to allow the small cat aboard. In time she wore a collar with her name on it, became very tame and very used to her fellow shipmates. In 1919 the ship was decommissioned and Rifles became a resident of the London Zoo.

Philly the white horse was another animal that was often in the public eye, particularly in Camps Bay. As a young foal he was, in 1932, bought or rescued by a Mr De Beer from a farm in Hout Bay.  At this time Camps Bay was not heavily populated nor were there many cars on the roads so Philly was able to roam about the area more or less as he wanted.  The Law seemed to have turned a blind eye to his comings and goings. Gardeners prized his droppings.  This did not mean that there were no complaints such as he was a “nuisance, an itinerant beggar, a vagrant and a won’t work.” By 1962 Philly, with suitable ceremony,  was made a Freeman of Camps Bay.  By this time he had a donkey companion named Nellie.  But times were changing. Camps Bay had grown so it was decided that the two would be confined at night.  But Philly was aging and died on 9 December 1967.  A memorial plaque was placed on a wall of the Camps Bay library.  There is also a mural in the Camps Bay High School which depicts details of Philly the white horse and Nellie his donkey companion.

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SHIP WRECKS OFF THE CAPE PENINSULA COAST

Not for nothing, particularly during winter,  was the Cape of Good Hope  known as the Cape of Storms. Of course not all shipwrecks took place during violent winter storms although these certainly added to the high drama of rescue if at all possible. The reasons for the disasters were many and varied.  Human error, weather, difficulties in reaching out of the way wrecks,  bureaucracy working at a slow pace to improve safety factors but even when improvements came, more lighthouses along the coast, ship wrecks still occurred

It is said that in 1698 heavy mist played a role in the wreck on the rocks at Oudekraal of the the Dutch ship Het Huis te Craijenstein.  Still, despite the mist sixteen of the nineteen money chests were salvaged.  There is a specific rock in the sea known as “geldkis” (money box) which it is thought to have been the cause of the ship foundering.  In the 1860s a 227kg brass cannon and a few silver ignots were salvaged.

In December 1794 the Sao Josene, a Portuguese slave ship carrying 500 slaves, was wrecked at Camps Bay.  Two hundred of those unfortunate people from Mozambique were drowned.  In June 1822 Fame, a British wooden sailing ship was disabled not far off Graaff’s Pool, Sea Point.  A north west gale was reported to have been blowing at the time the vessel was making its way from Madras to London.

In 1836 a French brig, La Camille, was wrecked at Strandfontein on a voyage from Reunion.  Her cargo consisted of tortoise shells, nutmeg, cloves, coffee, sugar.  Fortunately no lives were lost.  Another was Le Protie, a French whaling brig on a voyage from Nantes.  She ran aground in January 1839 while trying to enter Simon’s Bay at night.  No lives were lost.  The for sale notice appeared  less than a week later in the SA Commercial Advertiser.

A cargo of 839 barrels of sperm whale oil was the cargo of the Admiral Cockburn, a British whaling barque, when it was wrecked at Muizenberg in July 1839.  The ship had been built in Philadelphia in 1809.  The whale oil was saved and none of the 80 crew members were lost.

The Paragon was wrecked in April 1840 also during a north west gale while on the way from Mauritius to London with a cargo of sugar.  No lives were lost.

SA ADVERTISER AND MAIL

Great excitement must have been caused among the local inhabitants of Muizenberg when on 29 August 1862 the remains of the ship Johanna Wagner, a Prussian barque  wrecked at Strandfontein, was sold on the beach at Muizenberg.  With great enthusiasm the sellers invited shipwrights, carpenters, builders and lime burners to the sale to view and hopefully buy what had been saved from the ship: spars, riggings, sails, timber, ”an immense quantity of firewood, also a large lot of Rattans” and the remainder of the wreck and cargo –bales tobacco, baskets sugar, baskets India rubber etc.

Muizenberg was also the area where the Felix Vincidor ran aground.  This happened at night in July 1841.  It carried  a cargo of spirits and wine from Lake Ontario to Simon’s Bay.  No loss of life occurred.

SS Clan Monroe on route from Liverpool to Delagoa Bay was wrecked on 1 July 1905 near Kommetjie. This was sparsely populated rural area and it took a while to organise a rescue of the twenty crew members.

Approximately ten months later on 21 May 1906 the SS Oakburn from New York to Sydney was wrecked in the vicinity of Duiker Point.  The ship’s cargo included railway equipment, glassware, sewing machines, musical instruments etc.  To reach the area was not easy, the evening was foggy.  Two of the crew drowned. Two days later it was reported that the wreck had been handed over to the owners agents and the underwriters agents.  Not long thereafter an advertisement appeared in the local press calling for tenders to salvage the ship as well as cargo aboard. – oil in cases and barrels and general merchandise.

In November 1914 the British steamer the SS Clan Stuart ran aground.  The reason was that her anchors dragged in a south east gale.  Her cargo consisted of coal. She had just come from St Helena.  Many Capetonians have seen the ship’s engine block sticking out of the sands as one drives from Glencairn towards Simon’s Town.

Matters that come to mind when reading or writing about shipwrecks is that one can learn about world geography, commercial interaction between countries, the kinds of goods sold and how important the Cape of Good Hope as a shipping route was and still is.

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BELLS

STEENBERG VINEYARD

One does not, today,  often hear the sound of bells being rung perhaps because nearby residents objected.  But going back  in time bell ringing was definitely heard on local Tokai and Constantia farms.  Farm / slave bells dating back to the 19^th century still exist on Steenberg, Groot Constantia, Constantia Uitsig and Alphen. Today they are quiet but in the past people on these farms – be they owners or workers – were gathered together for whatever purpose by the sound of the bell being rung.  In general if there was any danger to the farm or its neighbours, the bell would have been used to summons every person living or working there. In this way damage to the neighbourhood might have been avoided or at least lessened.

 It has been suggested that some farm bells in South Africa were possibly items recovered from shipwrecks but this has not been confirmed.  A particular architectural style developed to house the bells.  At first they were probably hung in a simple fashion but later they were enclosed in their own tower and situated near the farmhouse.  The pillars were sometimes plain or decorated with a design of some kind.

 

CITY HALL

©

Weekend Argus 20.1983

Another kind of bell is to be found in the former City Hall building, Cape Town. This is a set of bells upon which melodies can be played, a carillon. This municipal carillon is situated in the tower and contains 37 bells.  The idea for the introduction into the local musical life goes back to 1919.  The then mayor suggested that the women of Cape Town raise money to commission the carillon as a memorial to the sailors and soldiers who fought and died during the First World War of 1914-1918.  In time the order was given for the manufacture of the bells by an English firm,  Taylor and Son of Loughborough.  The inauguration took place during a visit by the Prince of Wales.  The Prince aboard HMS Repulse arrived in Table Bay on 30 April 1925.  He was met by various officials and other dignitaries and was driven to a reception on the Grand Parade – an area which faces the City Hall.  It has been reported that the occasion was unique as Cape Town “is the only city in the Empire to welcome the prince by a ringing of a carillon.”   A carilloneur, Anton Breers, was specially brought from Antwerp, Belgium to introduce the bells to the public.  The first melody heard was “O God our help in ages past”.  A varied programme followed which  “revealed the power and the sweetness of the city bells.” 

The carillon is not heard as often as citizens would like but each time it is heard is a special moment.   

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STREET NAMES

History is sometimes thought to be only about inventions, the great minds of men and women of the past, of the so called victors of wars etc. It is about these matters but it is also about small details as well.  As an example consider street names.  In many instances research will reflect not only how the name came into being but will lay before one facts about society, economics and politics.

In other words tracing why a specific street was so named can be fascinating.  The documents sourced often places before one the history of a village, town, city.  The details might refer to an early successful farm,  its various sub divisions, the names of interesting people who visited the area in earlier times.   

For instance owners of farms in the Constantia area (sub divisions of the original farm Constantia and today known by different names) played host in days gone by to visitors whose names still ring with a certain distinction.
 

Colyn Rd  Sweet Valley

The Abbe Nicholas Louis de la Caille French Astronomer arrived at the Cape in 1751 and during his stay here visited  Hoop Op Constantia then owned by the Colyns.  He observed and catalogued over 10,000 stars as well as studying Cape weather.  He established an observatory in Strand Street, Cape Town where, centuries later in a very changed area of St George’s Mall,  a plaque was placed to mark the site.  The street named after him is in the suburb of Newlands.

 Not far from the offices of ImagineMag is the Ladies Mile Road and leading off it the Heerengracht.  A Mrs Leonora Colyn a later owner of the farm  Hoop Op Constantia is said to have been partial to riding her horse along a sandy pathway which in time, give or take slight changes of the route,  became known locally as Lady Mile Road.  Over the years the name underwent a change and became Ladies Mile Road.  As the surrounding farming area developed into new residential suburbs I suspect that the authorities saw an opportunity to have a ladies and a Gentlemen’s walk Heerengracht.  So now there is a Ladies Mile and a Gentlemen’s walk.

The well known South African authoress Olive Schreiner also had a street named after her in the Constantia area.  Apart from the fact that she had written The Story of an African Farm and was a staunch supporter of women’s rights, was also a friend of the owner of the Bergvliet Farm in the late 1890s.  When visiting she brought along her pet meerkats.  Her name given to a street reflects her presence in the area a long time ago.

Katie Martin Way Kirstenhof

                                                                                                 

In Kirstenhof, a one time farm now a residential area, there is a road named Katy Martin.  Mrs Martin, whose father worked for the Kirstens, was born on the farm.  When years later the land was sold to a developer a home was built for her  and her husband nearby.  She died there a short while before her 100 birthday.  The road bearing her name is in memory of a long lived local resident.

From the world of politics two highways leading into the city of Cape Town were named in honour of the former South African president Nelson Mandela and Helen Suzman, an opposition politician who fought against the apartheid regime.

Classical ballet too is remembered when the late David Poole, a well known South African dancer had a street named after him.  It is not far from Artscape which houses the opera house and a theatre.

Medicine and science makes an entrance when the Municipality of Cape Town recently had a street, on the foreshore, named for the late Professor Christian Barnard who was the first surgeon to undertake a heart transplant in 1967 on a patient named Louis Washkansky.  Another much earlier medical first was when Mrs Wilhelmina Munnik became part of obstetrical history when she gave birth to a son on 25 July 1826 by caesarean section. The doctor was Dr James Barry who has a street in Constantia named for him.  At the time Barry was the colonial medical inspector, principal medical officer of the military establishment at the Cape and physician to the then governor, Lord Charles Somerset.   It is thought that this particular operation was the first at the Cape and only the fourth successful caesarean in the world.

Various categories are also to be noted as one drives around.  Sun Valley a part of the seaside town of Fish Hoek has streets named for various types of ships, new and old designs.  The naval base of Simon’s Town is a short distance away.  While Heathfield another suburb has gone literary in its naming with Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels and Sir James Barrie’s Peter Pan being well to the fore.

Walk around your area and dig up other little nuggets of historical fact.

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A BRIEF HISTORICAL LOOK AT A LANGUAGE

Original tin school on a farm near Mossel Bay
Photo S. Howes Centre for Conservation and Education 1910

Educational institutions – schools, colleges, universities- are more than half way through their teaching/lecturing year.  For some it has been a period of hard work,  for others unless they apply themselves very quickly, they might be repeating the year.  There are those individuals who take the benefit of gaining an education for granted forgetting that the subject of learning was, in the past, not always so readily available.

At first the Dutch language was the prevalent language of the Cape of Good Hope settlers with smatterings of French and German.  The Khoi clans had  their own spoken but not written speech. Some learnt Dutch and became translators.   Over time isi Xhosa was heard, then the path of the English language was advanced by the governing authority. As the lightly populated open spaces that would become the Union and then the Republic of South Africa attracted more settlers the newly formed African language called Afrikaans was more frequently heard but English was the more frequently used. The other spoken tribal languages tended to be used amongst themselves.  Today the Republic has eleven offical languages: Afrikaans, English, isiNdebele, isiXhosa, isiZulu, Sesotho sa Leboa, Sesotho, Setswana, isiSwati, Tshivenda, Xitsongo.  However, the English language, at this time, is dominant because of its world wide political and comercial recognition.   Mind you it is only the fifth most spoken home language!  The Constitution also mentions the Khoi, Nama, San and sign languages.  Others included are Arabic, German, Greek, Gujarati, Hindi, Portuguese, Sanskrit, Tamil, Telegu and Urdu.

Initially at the Cape certain colonists could sign their names and maybe a few slaves could as well. Some slaves who had undergone religious studies in their original homelands set about teaching those interested. Ownership of books was rare but with Christian missionaries arriving at a greater rate, the Bible was often the means by which reading and writing was taught.  Slowly formal schools were erected. Often with only one room to house different levels of teaching.  Learning for boys was perhaps more stressed than for girls who often had household and craft work offered as suitable for them.  Nothing wrong with those subjects, they were practical and girls often found work in a variety of households.  But a wider view of an education was withheld.  That certainly has changed.

Consider how education has developed and how language opens up horizons unlimited.  I have had the pleasure (my goodness did I really write pleasure?) of aiding sometimes reluctant learners using the English language to appreciate grammar:  parts of speech, figures of speech, homonyms, homophones, idioms, punctuation, increased vocabulary etc. To read Shakespeare and try to understand his writing; to read poetry and enjoy it. Perhaps not always to find it enjoyable but at least not to discard these works with statements like” I am not interested, it does not make sense, what use is it going to be to my future?”  At least try and remember the rules when “you” as an individual have to stand up and talk someone into buying a product you sell or “you” have to make a speech and have little to say.  Some years back I had a frantic telephone call from a friend, a medical doctor, who was going to talk at a local medical conference.  “Quick” she said  “ give me the correct wording of that statement Macbeth refers to” she was making reference to a specific detail in this play.  I later heard that her speech was said to have been much appreciated for that particular Shakespeare reference! 

Words are wonderful, they expand one’s mind, open levels of understanding. This of course applies to words of other languages as well.  English, however, is my mother tongue.

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DRINKING FOUNTAINS / HORSE TROUGHS

Old fountains /drinking troughs remind passers by of  a time when horses reigned supreme as they helped move people and goods around. They are attractive and each adds a certain moral force to the surroundings in which they have been placed.  The item may have had a practical use – animals could drink from a lower bowl or a thirsty human could drink from an upper bowl. A plaque attached to the fountain may  recall a patriotic moment or make reference to animals upon whom humans relied  heavily.  Unfortunately in today’s fast flowing traffic and built up areas the surroundings where the fountains/ horse troughs were originally set, have changed and the intention  behind these public gestures have been reduced and lost.

Rondebosch

What purpose do these fountain/ horse troughs have to day?  None in the useful sense – I have never seen an animal or human drink from the waters. This would probably be frowned upon.  What they do have is a reminder of the past, when there was fewer human beings, less traffic and more open space around them.

George Pigot Moodie, a mining magnate,  gave a fountain/horse trough to the people of Rondebosch  in September 1891.  Of importance was the fact that it was also the first street light on the Cape Peninsula. Power came from a generator at his home Westbooke.  Moodie died there in November of the same year.  After the formation of the Union of South Africa in 1910 the new government bought the house as the local home of the governer general of the country.  Many years later during the presidency of Nelson Mandela 1994-1999 the house was renamed “Genadendal” Vale of Grace. Today the fountain is to be found where Belmont Road joins the Main Road, Rondebosch.

Mobray

At the corner of Durban and Camp Ground Roads, Mowbray there is another street light /  fountain/horse trough. It was donated by the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) in 1899.  Although the railways were making inroads into the carrying of goods, the horse and cart was still an important means of human beings and goods being transferred from one place to another.  The name on the plaque of the organization who donated it,  is reference to that importance.

Wynberg

Another attractive fountain, commemorating the coronation of Edward VII of Britain,  is situated in the Wynberg Park.  It is quite close to the road so is easly seen. Edward was Queen Victoria’s son. And because his mother reigned for such a long time, he had to wait until he was in his 60s before becoming King  in August 1902 reinging for approximately two years.

Simonstown

The Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria has its own fountain on Jubilee Square off St George’s Street Simon’s Town. It is similar to the Mowbray and Rondebosch examples and I have been told were all were made by the foundry of Saracens in Glasgow, Scotland.

 

At the other end of the Cape Peninsula the long reign of Queen Victoria was also remembered in Sea Point. A statue of the queen, perhaps a meter high, is atop  a fountain which rests on a base made of the heads of four lions. A  plaque erected by the women of Green and Sea Point,  indicates its purpose  - the jubilee of June 1897.

What purpose do these fountain/ horse troughs have to day?  None in the useful sense – I have never seen an animal or human drink from the waters. This would probably be frowned upon.  What they do have is a reminder of the past, when there was fewer human beings, less traffic and more open space around them.

 

CANNONS – early Cape military history

In the early days of the Cape Peninsula’s history, the local authorities kept a constant eye on ships passing or entering Table Bay, Simon’s Bay or Hout Bay.  Maybe a ship required shelter in a safe anchorage or fresh water and supplies.  But, at the same time, the authorities needed to know who was a friend and who an enemy!  This defensive attitude was not without foundation as during the period of the Dutch East India Company’s rule (1652-1795), the English greatly desired the Cape at the foot of Africa as they too, like the Dutch,  did business in the Indian Ocean and the East.

 

Constantia Nek

 The result of this nervousness was the building of fortifications and the placing of cannons in strategic positions as a form of defence.  Today one can see, in various places, examples of these old ”warriors” their roar now long silenced and in some cases a long way from their original position.  In the parking area of the Constantia Nek restaurant one will see an example.  This may seem an unlikely placing but the Conway redoubt (a fortified outpost) was situated  in the area and was used as a lookout and signalling station. It was named after the Irish commander, Count de Conway.

Muizenberg

On the Main Road, Muizenberg, placed at the edge of a small park, are two cannons of  Swedish origin,

dating back to 1782.  This was in the vicinity where the Dutch barracks was to be found  just a short distance from the Posthuys which had once been the headquarters of a Dutch garrison. The origin of these cannons are one Swedish, the other English dating to c1830.

  

Camps Bay

In 1998 two Dutch cannons were returned to a position above Kloof Nek, overlooking Camps Bay  The history of these two goes back to the late eighteenth century and were recovered from a gorge in Kloof Nek covered with the debris of time.  They were also part of the signalling system against possible invasion, particularly by the British.  

 A further two cannons also Dutch in origin, were unearthed in 1962 – these were from the Camps Bay Battery erected c 1782. Today they are to be found on the corner of Kloof and Main Roads, Camps Bay. Others are to be seen at the Castle of Good Hope, the Cape Town Docks, Simon’s Town Naval Dockyard and Hout Bay.  As well as in many other parts of South Africa.

  

These old weapons of war reflect aspects of history but at the same time they seem to fascinate people. Often one sees them placed in various places almost as a form of adornment.  The Clovelly Country Club has two examples near the front of the Club House. Others are displayed  in the grounds of museums, at a post office,  a five star Hotel,  a restaurant etc.  Why one wonders?  Do they suggest power, past political glories or simply stand there as reminders of the sometimes foolishness of mankind? 

       

 

STREETSCAPES

When one is familiar with an area where one lives, works, studies etc., it is quite easy to overlook small, but interesting,  details of the past.  Today  many people communicate by the email system or text messages on mobile phones so much so that writing a letter and placing it in a post box, then waiting for a reply to fall into one’s letter box is almost a foreign idea!  But there are those who still use what is locally called “snail mail”  and there are still examples of early post boxes. 

 

An even earlier means of keeping in touch with the outside world was of a shoe tied in a milkwood tree at Mossel Bay, along the Cape coast.  In 1501 Captain D’Ataide, an officer in the Portuguese explorer Pedro Cabral’s fleet of ships on their way home, left a letter telling of the disaster they had faced on their way to India.  It was hoped that the communication  would be found by one of the outward bound ships of Joao da Nova.  The tree by the way was declared a national monument in 1938.  Other  early travellers passing the South African coast  found another method of posting their mail.  They left letters beneath large stones on the beach near the source of fresh water.

 

Post box St James 1937

Travelling forward  a couple of centuries one will find a Victorian letter box, identified by the “VR” still to be seen, attached to the boundary wall of  a private home on the Main Road, St James. This seaside suburb had a telegraph office in 1897 but no post office. The latter only became a fact on 12 July 1937.  Still residents had a post box for their letters.

No 13, Steenberg

 Another early means of communication was  by way of  milestones, used to inform the drivers of wagons drawn by oxen, or men on horse back how far they were from the Town House in Cape Town or how far they still had to travel to reach their destination either on the road to Simon’s Town or to Stellenbosch. The placing began in the early  1800’s and  were certainly an early form of road signage.

Small details but they fore shadowed today’s modern technological conveniences .