^VCjV'
THE LIBRARY
OF
THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA
LOS ANGELES
A
(
V
OLD CAPE COLONY
johan van rlebeeck, flrst commander of the
Cape of Good Hope.
OLD CAPE COLONY
A Chronicle of Her Men and Houses
From 1652 to 1806
By MRS. A. F. TROTTER
WESTMINSTER
ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE k CO Ltd
2 WHITEHALL GARDENS
1903
Butler & Tanner,
The Selwood Printing Works,
Frome, and London.
TO THE CONSTANT COMPANION OF MY SKETCHING EXPEDITIONS,
WITHOUT WHOSE SUPPORT ON LONG HOT JOURNEYS
THIS WORK WOULD HAVE BEEN IMPOSSIBLE ;
BROWN AS THE DUST,
SILENT AS THE VELD WE TRAVERSED TOGETHER,
TO MY UNPUNCTURED BICYCLE
I DEDICATE THIS BOOK.
li:±23St
PREFACE
THIS is not a history. It is the outcome of
work begun entirely for my own pleasure,
wherein I collected all the things about the Colony
which interested me personally. These were, the
history of the oldest farms, and the earliest settlers,
Governors, and Company's men who assisted in
naming the country, in drawing up its first laws,
and in building its gabled houses. Some of the
material was incorporated in a Christmas number
of the Cape Times of 1898, which I undertook for
Mr. Edmund Garrett, then editor. Some of the
drawings have been reproduced in a picture book
published by Messrs. Batsford, of High Holborn.
Some portions of the present book appeared as
articles in Country Life, and are reproduced by
kind permission.
Calamity falls on houses as well as on people.
I learn that to several buildings has come, since I
drew them, that vv'orst of fates, " modern im-
provement." I make no apologies for including
the drawings of houses that can never be seen
again as they stood a few years ago, or for mention-
7
PREFACE
ing obscure persons who have been connected
with the old story of the Colony. To the pioneers
of a new country we after-comers owe too much to
allow their names to be entirely lost.
Very little could I have done without the help
given me by Mr. H. C. V. Leibbrandt, Librarian
of the Houses of Parliament and keeper of the
archives of the Cape of Good Hope. With never-
faihng kindness he specially translated for me
certain passages of the archives and papers about
which I asked him, and his sheaf of letters have
been my most valuable reference, next to his
fascinating Precis of the Archives of the Cape of
Good Hope, published at Cape Town. I have to
thank the friends who helped me translate the old
Dutch title deeds and got for me local information
and stories. Antiquarian and historical autho-
rities in Holland have also been most kind.
ALYS FANE TROTTER.
August, 1903.
LIST OF CONTENTS AND
ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
I. Table Bay Settlement .... 13
The ship sign of the Dutch East India Com-
pany, carved on a stone in The Castle, Cape
Town — " Post Office " stone — East India Com-
pany's house, Amsterdam — Company's drink-
ing cup — Van Riebeeck and his wife — Very
old house in Cape Town — Old Rustenberg
summer house — Garden seat, Rustenberg —
Table Bay and the Old Fort, after Dapper,
1668.
II. Simon van der Stel, Builder and Governor 41
Coat of Arms of the Six family — View of the
Castle, showing the " Kat " and the balcony —
Teak Fanlight, once in The Castle — Van Rheede
tot Drakenstein, Heer van Mydrecht — Groot
Constantia, 1685 — Plan of Groot Constantia —
Escutcheons: Groot Constantia and Hottentots
Holland — Side gables, groot Constantia —
Wine house at Groot Constantia — Wine house
steps, Groot Constantia — Old bath, Groot Con-
stantia — Map from the Voyage de Siam des
9
CONTENTS
PAGE
Peres Jesuites, 1686 — Gateway of the Castle,
Cape Town — Platte Kloof in the Tygerberg —
Very old farm buildings, Koornhoop. — Old
districts and modern roads.
III. The Younger van der Stel, • • • 93
Wellington — Farm bell, Groot Constantia —
Farm bell, Meerlust, Eerste Rivier — Parel
Vallei.
IV. The Accusation of Willem Adriaan van der
Stel ....... 117
Meerlust, Eerste Rivier — Hen house at
Meerlust — Plan of Vergelegen from the " Ac-
cusation " — Picture of Vergelegen from the
" Defence "—The old octagon wall at Vergel-
egen — Vergelegen — The farm bell at Vergel-
egen.
V. Early Grants of Land .... 143
Zwaanswijk — Usual plan of house in the
peninsula — Walled river, Elsenberg — Old teak
door at Paarde Vallei — Frescoed wall and
teak doored fireplace at Libertas — Meerlust,
Eerste Rivier — Vredenberg in the Moddergat —
Late gable of Vredenberg — Burial Place, Wel-
moed — Vergenoegd.
VI. Stellenbosch 165
A gate in Stellenbosch — A vine trellised
stoep, Stellenbosch — Shutter hinges, Stellen-
bosch and Drakenstein — " La Gratitude,"
10
CONTENTS
PAGE
built 1704 — Arsenal, Stellenbosch — Very old
house in Stellenbosch — A shady street,
Stellenbosch.
VII. Drakenstein and Frenchhoek . . . 183
Schoongezigt — Good Hope — Rhone and
Languedoc — Usual plan of house in the country
— Bosch en Dal — Bosch en Dal stoep — Door
furniture at Drakenstein and the Cape — Bien
Donne, front gable — Bien Donne — Pome-
granates at Frenchhoek — Teak china cup-
board in a Drakenstein farm — Dauphine —
Bochenhouts Kloof — View across French-
hoek from La Cotte.
VIII. Paarl, Tulbagh, Ceres and Beyond . . 207
A quaint gable in Paarl — Old colonial chair
once in Paarl Church — Paarl Church — The Par-
sonage, Paarl — The Drosdty, Tulbagh —
Roodezand Pass, Tulbagh Valley — Old Church,
Tulbagh — Walls of the Churchyard, Tulbagh
— Leeuwfontein — Ceres Bridge.
IX. Money, Ships and China .... 227
The Dutch East India Company's coins —
The shore that has seen so many MTecks.
X. From Seventeen Hundred for Fifty Years 241
Sundial in the Company's Garden — Common
Seal of the VereenigdeOost-Indische Compagnie
(United East India Company) — Coat of Arms
II
CONTENTS
PAGE
of Joan Blesius — Klastenberg, Wynberg —
Zwaanswijk, built 1711-17 — Morgenster, Hot-
tentots Holland.
XI. The Tavern of the Indian Ocean . . 267
Cape Town Church, from a print — Old
Lutheran Parsonage — Steps at Alphen, Wyn-
berg — Haazendal in the Bottelary — Gate
of the Slave Enclosure, Boshof — Gate of Wel-
gelegen, Mowbray — Elsenburg.
XII. Men and Houses ..... 289
Late window in Cape Town — Old Colonial-
made chair — Very old Colonial-made Armoire
— Old Colonial bench in " stink- wood " — Ar-
moire in " stink-wood " and " yellow- wood " —
Bergvliet — The Old Gate to Government House
and the Slave Lodge beyond — Stellenberg Gate
— Little Terrace at Tokai — Hall at Stellenberg
— Tailpiece.
12
TABLE BAY SETTLEMENT
Table Bay Settlement
IT is true that at first sight Adderley Street, the
main thoroughfare of the old " Tavern of the
Indian Sea," is as vulgar a street as you can find.
Yet I marvel to hear the town always suggested
as a smelly, unattractive place in which the visitor
has, or has not, found the friend or the information
he wished for. Even Adderley Street is backed
by the imposing wall of Table Mountain, and
THE SHIP SIGN OF THE DUTCH EAST INDIA COMPANY, CARVED ON A
^STONE IN THE CASTLE, CAPE TOWN.
15
OLD CAPE COLONY
beneath the town lie the blue waters of the bay.
Know but a Httle of its history, and the place is
transformed for you. Take your choice of periods,
none are too distant, and you may visualise ^^ith
sufficient clearness. You can pass over those
early days when the Portuguese explorers feared
to land at Table Bay, though they planted com-
memorative crosses on the western and southern
coasts of Africa, and their cartographers drew
those dehghtful sixteenth century maps on which
strange beasts fill the vacua of ignorance, and give
a cheerful impression of the boundless desert.
The four Hollander ships, the forerunners of the
East India Companies', sailed in 1595 on their
first visit to Java, by the " Portingalles sea cards."
So they, too, passed Cape Bona Sperance, and
landed at another haven where the inhabitants
spoke very strangely — " clocking like Turkey
cocks," they said ; no doubt having heard the
Zulu " chcks."
By this time many of the Hollanders had fallen
sick and died, for in crossing the fine, they \\Tite,
" the extreme heat of the ayre " had spoiled all
their food. They pushed on to Java, where,
falling foul of the Portuguese, who were annoyed
that they should " seek to have pepper better
cheape," many of their best men were taken
prisoner, and rescued with difficulty from the
King of Bantam, for " the Portingalles," says the
translation of their published book, " could not
16
Maria de Quereli.eri, wife of Johan van Riebeeck
TABLE BAY SETTLEMENT
brook " their company. At last they returned
home by the " firme lande of Ethiopia/' about a
hundred miles from the Cape of Bona Sperance,
and arrived in April, 1597, their sailors for the
most part sick, and two-thirds of the company
lost ; but bringing with them spices and mer-
chandise of the East, for which up to now they,
the middle-men of Europe, had traded with the
Portuguese ; bartering their Delft-ware, their
embroidered quilts, and their silver-handled fur-
niture, on the crowded quays of Lisbon.
Reading the old travellers, one marvels unceas-
ingly at the love of adventure for ever inspiring
one set of men to risk their lives for the gain of
another. Water was, of course, essential on the
long-sailing journeys, and the " sweet water " of
Table Mountain soon made Bona Sperance the
favourite anchorage for captains on their journey
Eastwards. WTien, in 1600, the Dutch, and a few
years later the English, East India Companies were
formed, what fleets of spice-laden ships swept into
Table Bay ! Weary and miserable enough were
the men on those gallant-looking vessels ; longing
for fresh water and fresh meat, and such green
food as they might find, and to lay their scurvy-
stricken sailors under tarpaulins on the beach.
The passing ships left their letters beneath
large stones, tied in secure packets, as I hear is
still done in Torres Straits and Magellan. But on
the stones and boulders of the shore at Table Bay
17 B
OLD CAPE COLONY
they engraved the name and captain of their ship,
and the date of their arrival and departure. It is
thought that some ships carried a skilled stone-
cutter for the purpose, and these " post-ofhce
stones," buried for years, and still found at the
Cape, while digging foundations for houses, have
for the most part fine lettering. One, now at the
entrance of the General Post Office in Cape Town,
was unearthed in Adderley Street ; another is in
the Cape Town Museum.
Cf ON ^ARJv^D4?To^^lKn)/ '
lip M « SVRAT^ B OVND ^FO}^ * - '
'AhD ' D EPAR °:F£» XO/' DICTO
^€XRE Vr^tr.vLOOKD^
forletteS-^J ■..v^\
v
/iAvi-Ri:y 'clock ,
' v., C/^sV BLRilGlCU'-
POST OFFICE STONE.
M. BeauHeu, in 1619, going to Bantam by
Table Bay, says : " Some of our men going ashore
happened to light upon a great stone, with
two little packs of pitch'd canvass underneath,
which we afterwards found to be Dutch letters.
18
TABLE BAY SETTLEMENT
WTien we opened them we found first a strong
piece of pitch' d canvas, then a piece of lead
wrapped round the packet, under that two pieces
of red cloth, then a piece of red frize, all wrapped
round a bag of coarse linen in which were the
letters very safe and dry. They contained an
account of several ships that had passed that
way ; particularly of an English advice boat that
was gone to England to acquaint the Company
with the injury the Dutch had done 'em in the
East Indies. They likewise gave notice to ships
that passed that way ; to take care of the natives
who had murdered several of their crew, and stole
some of their water casks. ..."
It is wonderful that Portugal should have held
the adventure of the east for so many years in her
own hands, together with its silks and tea, spices
and pepper. Tradition has it that the secret was
thrown open to the States of Holland by an
obscure merchant from Gouda, Cornelius Hont-
man, who was detained at Lisbon for debt. All
the seafarers of the world now went on the same
quest. The English and the Dutch held the
largest fleets and disputed the seas, sometimes
against each other, and more often against their
common enemies. But the Dutch first formed
factories and settlements ; and soon Batavia,
" Queen of the East," with her tile-paved streets
and the water ways, whose unhealthiness caused
at last the abandonment of the beautiful old
19
OLD CAPE COLONY
town, and the " great and merry canal-rich
Island of Ceylon, the most beautiful pearl of the
Indian Ocean," as eloquent old Wouter Schouten
has it, were to testify in the far ends of the earth
to the curious artistic taste of the not too scru-
EAST INDIA company's HOUSE, AMSTERDAM.
(From Commelin's Beschryving der stad Amsterdam, 1693.)
pulous trader of the Netherlands. The tomb-
stones of these distant settlements, where men
and women died young, are interesting and
pathetic reading, and record many names familiar
at the Cape; whilst at home were unloaded " the
strange and rich wares of other countries," for
which the pioneers had sought. "So as they
20
TABLE BAY SETTLEMENT
should not be brought unto them by strangers,"
they had said, " but by their own countrymen,
which some would deem to be impossible, and
rather esteem it madnesse than any point of
wisdome, and folly rather than good considera-
tion." The impossible had come true. At
Middelburgh, at Veere, at Amsterdam, most
stately houses were built in which the " fine
Indian wares " were unshipped, and where business
was gorgeously transacted.
The administration of the Dutch East India
Company consisted of six Boards or Chambers.
The most considerable, that of Amsterdam, had
twenty-four directors, eight chosen by the magis-
trates of Amsterdam, and two by the Provinces of
Gelderland and Friesland. The second chamber
was that of Middelburgh, where the work of the
Directors was carried on half the year. It is said
that the town and the country round supplied
the greater number of seafarers for the ships.
This Chamber consisted of twelve Directors chosen
by the cities of Zeeland, and one by Gelderland.
The other Chambers were that of Delft, which
included one representative from Overyssel ;
Rotterdam, including one from Dort ; Hoorn,
which had one from Alkmaar ; and Enkhuizen,
of which one was nominated by the nobles of
Holland. But the supreme control was invested
in the Assembly of Seventeen, of which eight were
deputed from the Chamber of Amsterdam, four
21
OLD CAPE COLONY
from Middelburgh, and one from each other
Chamber, including one alternatively from the
specially nominated towns. There was also a
company's drinking cup, inscribed :
" de gesontheydt van de vaderlandse vrinden."
Council of the Directors, through which the Com-
pany communicated with the States General.
We all know that in 1652 the Dutch Company
resolved to found a victuaUing station for their
22
TABLE BAY SETTLEMENT
vessels at Table Bay. Then landed the first
Commander of the Cape, Johan van Riebeeck,
and his wife, Marie de Querelleri. They estab-
lished themselves ashore under miserable shel-
ters, and van Riebeeck set his handful of men.
Company's sailors and soldiers, to work. The
first act was to dig foundations for a wooden
fort ; the second was characteristically Dutch :
they made a canal with sluices, with which a moat
round the fort could be filled ; the third was
to begin the kitchen garden which was before
long to be an important influence in the history
of the world.
The Commander himself is an interesting
personality. His father, Antonius van Riebeeck,
was a seafarer, who died in the Brazils in 1639,
and was buried in the church of San Paolo at
Olonda de Pharmambuco. Johan had already
been in Formosa, China, Japan, the West Indies
and Greenland. He is said to have been a
ship's surgeon, and there is certainly a smack of
science about some of his observations. His wife,
Marie de Querelleri, is first of a long line of intrepid
women pioneers, of whom we only know that they
came to the Cape, and there had children, and
lived or died as the case may be. Her son,
Abraham van Riebeeck, born at the Cape in 1653,
rose in 1709 to be Governor-General of the Dutch
East Indies : the most important post in the gift
of the Company.
23
OLD CAPE COLONY
The Fort was designed with wooden walls, and
within the enclosure were wooden hving houses,
and a large dining hall. The four points of the
fortification were named after the four ships in
the Bay, the Dromedaris, the Reiger, the Walvis,
and the Oliphant, and the yacht Goede Hoop gave
her beautiful title to the whole building.
It was the end of summer, and no herbs could
be found for the sick. The earth was too dry for
cultivation, and when the south-easter wind blew
the workers on the ramparts were choked with
dust. The hungry men were thankful to kill a
hippopotamus or two, for the natives would not
supply cattle ; and the stores had to be saved for
the ships. Later came the rains ; the labourers,
ill with scurvy and fever, were hardly able to work.
" Life is growing a misery," says the journal kept
for the instruction of the Company, " but we trust
in God's mercy." In the midst of their distress
arrived the ship Hof van Zeeland with a record of
thirty-seven dead, of whom three, sub-merchant
Nancius and three others had jumped overboard
in despair. And not long after, the first European
child was born.
To this day Cape Town owes its disposition to
Van Riebeeck's plan. The " gardens " in which
Government House and the South African College
are built are the remains of the Company's garden.
The canal into which he conducted the fresh river
from the face of Table Mountain is now meta-
24
TABLE BAY SETTLEMENT
morphosed into Adderley Street. The present
" Castle " of Cape Town, built for the Dutch
Governors and Company's officials, is not far from
the site of the old wooden Fort. If you are go-
ing to Cape Town, walk down Waterkant and
Riebeeck Streets ; they are the oldest quarters of
the town. To ensure against their being blown
VERY OLD HOUSE IN CAPE TOWN.
down in the raging south-easterly winds, the first
houses were one-storied — rude enough in building,
I daresay — and heavily thatched with reeds cut
on the Lion Hill. After several terrifying fires,
caused, it was thought, by sparks from the pipes
of the sailors, flat roofs were used. You may come
on an old flat-roofed house, forgotten in a corner
of the town, which still keeps its divided door,
25
OLD CAPE COLONY
designed to shut out straying animals, and
decorated with some rude ornamentation. Such
houses are of as early a date as you can find among
the streets. For long the part between Orange
and Wale Streets was called the Compagnie's
Tuyn — Company's Garden.
The gallows and the wheel of torture, shown
in later maps, did not at this early date become
an important feature of the town. In a volume
called The Regions of Africa, published in 1688 by
Dr. Dapper (who had received a privilege from
the States of Holland and West Friesland to make
extracts from other books — a mode of authorship
still extant, and now exercised without such
sanctions), he says of the Cape : "At the foot of
the mountain is the Fort of the East India Com-
pany, fortified by cannon, standing in a square
enclosure, so strong that an army of 100,000
Hottentots only could take it. There is a large
garden with different plants and fruit trees,
various plantations on the other side of the
mountain. . . . Round the Fort are several houses
belonging to Hollanders, free burghers who worked
on their own lands. But though free, they have
to give part of their produce to the Governor, it
being to the advantage of the Company that they
[he ?] should be thus profited."
Despite their splendid qualities, I cannot help
thinking those early settlers unpractical. In the
midst of semi-starvation, and much misery from
26
TABLE BAY SETTLEMENT
insufficient shelter and attacks from wild beasts,
we find them requisitioning from home one hundred
pairs of silk stockings. Bread was sent from
Amsterdam, arriving mouldy and uneatable.
There is the flavour of an Irish bull in the demand
for forty or fifty cotton blankets, which were to
be placed in silk bags to make feather beds for
the men. Another request is for arrack to treat
the natives, who were " much pleased and drawn
nearer by it."
Van Riebeeck did good work. The garden
prospered, though he was sorely vexed at his
failure to grow parsley — still a difficult thing to
raise on the peninsula. So did the vines he
planted on the leeward side of the mountain at his
farm of Boscheuval, mentioned long afterwards
in the Company's journal as one of the most
beautiful places at Table Bay. Boscheuval is
now known as Bishopscourt, where the palace of
the Archbishop of Cape Town is built ; and the
Wine Mountain, on the eastern side of which the
village grew up, was named Wijnberg by the Com-
mander when he planted his first Muscatel grapes.
After a very few years Wouter Schouten tells us
that the Company's garden grew not only all the
fruits from home, such as apples, pears, and nuts,
but many East Indian trees and plants brought
from Batavia, and mentions that besides pot-
herbs and spices, many fine cabbages, carrots,
lettuces, radishes, and water melons were brought
27
OLD CAPE COLONY
to the ship. Corn was at first grown at the garden
in Cape Town, but it never prospered, and the
south-easter winds blew the dry grain out of the
husk. So a second plantation of grain was made
not far from the small fort on the Liesbeeck River,
and called Koornhoop. The corn hoped for was
not very successful ; and Batavia, forced by a
paternal Government to accept supplies from
Table Bay, revenged herself by making unpleasant
remarks about it, as you may read for yourself
in Leibbrandt's translations of the Company's
journal. A second and more satisfactory Com-
pany's garden was made on the adjoining land
near the Rondebosch or Round Wood, and the
produce was stored, together with the corn, in the
Groote Schuur or Great Barn. I believe the
foundations and arches of the old barn were
distinctly traced in rebuilding the present beau-
tiful house. A second residence for the Com-
mander, or Company's House, where distinguished
visitors. Company's inspectors and the like, were
lodged, was built near by and called Rustenberg.
The old buildings were all burnt except a summer
house and two charming old seats made of brick,
plastered and whitewashed like all the old Colonial
work. They stand on the grounds of the modern
Groote Schuur, in the shadows of the mountain
behind. When they were built, lions and leopards
lurked not far off amongst the rocks and crevasses ;
wild cats from the great forest of undergrowth
28
TABLE BAY SETTLEMENT
around made nightly depredations in the home-
steads ; on the sandy stretches below were the
rude huts of some of the lowest native races ever
known, now for the most part died out. A herd
of elephants, or of zebras, might have been seen
OLD RUSTENBERG SUMMER HOUSE.
moving over the plain, and in the squelching pools
of the low-lying ground wallowed many a hippo-
potamus. Yet more than one old " Company's
man " has sat on those seats and gazed at the
clear blue of the sky and the far-off outline of the
unchanging mountains as you and I may do to-day.
2Q
OLD CAPE COLONY
From the first van Riebeeck realized that want
of labour would be one of his chief difficulties,
and he prayed the Directors to send Chinese
emigrants to make bricks and tiles. Slaves
were badly wanted for the rougher work. He
asked leave from Batavia to keep the yacht
Goede Hoop at Table Bay, so as to explore the
coast with this end in view, and he begged for
the notes of Commander van der Stel, father of
the future Governor of the Cape, who had been to
GARDEN SEAT, RUSTENBERG.
Madagascar and " there made a good thing in
slaves."
In 1654 the vessel Tulp returned from Mada-
gascar, having made terms with the King of
Antogil, who had, it appeared, undoubtedly
loved the Commander van der Stel. Fortu-
nately, too, on the arrival of the ship the king
had been suffering from a dose of poison adminis-
tered by one of his subjects, and the ship's barber
had succeeded in saving his life ; so that he was
disposed to grant favours. " The opportunity
offers itself," says the journal, " to make such
30
TABLE BAY SETTLEMENT
arrangements ... as to secure all the rice in
the island, and so leave the French in the lurch ; "
for the French, it continues, go there to gather
hides and to have a refreshment station for their
Red Sea pirates.
In the year 1657 "^^e entire population of Table
Bay was only 134 persons, including the Com-
pany's men, a few retired servants of the Com-
pany, the women and children. There were only
eight slaves. In the following year a Dutch
slaver, the Amersfoort, captured a Portuguese
slaver, and brought the survivors of the 236
captives to the Cape.
It was a hard life, that of the first settlers, who,
as an early traveller puts it, had to " dig a sluice,
sow and mow, plough and plant " in order to get
the land into better order ; who lived in miserable
little houses, which were cold enough on the
winter nights, having only glass in the windows
of the one best room ; and who were half naked
into the bargain. The community had a cer-
tain desperate element, too, which made terrific
punishments necessary. We hear of a deserter
being keelhauled, while he and another had to
work in irons for two years ; of a sailor who was
condemned to fall from the yardarm and receive
fifty cuts ; and so on. Soldiers and sailors were
often half starved, as the stores of bread and
rice had to be economised for the Company's
ships ; and the Company's garden required
31
OLD CAPE COLONY
jealous guarding. A law was made a year after
the foundation of the settlement which gave two
years in irons as a penalty for robbers. Later it
was enacted that no one might enter the garden
save members of Council and the principal officials
of the fleet. For the first trespass twenty-five
lashes were given ; for the second, fifty, with a
fine of two dollars ; whilst to meddle with a fruit
tree entailed forfeiture of all personal liberty
and goods. The Company's men very much
dishked the killing and flaying of the seals at
Saldanah Bay and Dassen Island ; but good profit
it must have been for the Company, and for this
reason van Riebeeck implores the men not to
mind a little dirt and smell. Young seals were
so abundant that they could be picked up by
hand, and a ship freighted with them, and in one
catch 2,733 skins were secured.
Gradually the cattle, fowls, and pigeons in-
creased, and the green grew more plentiful, so
that it was no longer necessary to " fill five casks
with penguins to save the cabbages," a diet
against which we are not surprised the men
rebelled, saying that they would all lie down flat
and refuse to do any work ; or break the necks of
the officers. Gifts of Dutch cheese and butter,
and Spanish wine, had softened the hearts of the
" Hottentoos," as they called the natives. Those
who had good supplies of cattle grew less hostile
and more willing to trade, and the Saldanhas
33
OLD CAPE COLONY
brought copper and ivory to barter. " Hotten-
toos " were not, however, an unmixed blessing
in the community. They killed the herds in
lonely places and pilfered the unarmed people.
They coaxed the children on one side in order to
cut the brass buttons off their clothes ; and the
mothers of this far-off settlement felt justly
aggrieved at the irreparable damage. For none
of these offences could punishment be meted to
a native, for the Directors, whose pohcy was
solely a policy of trade, had proclaimed that
" Whoso ill treats, beats, or pushes any of the
natives, whether he be in the right or wrong,
shall, in their presence, be scourged with fifty
lashes in order that they may perceive that such
conduct is against our will." In 1673 a man
was banished to Robben Island, then to Batavia,
and thence to the new penal settlement of
Mauritius, for " wantonly shooting and mortally
wounding a Hottentot." And this although the
man (who was called Willem Willems) had
escaped from the Company in a Danish ship,
and returned with what purported to be a pardon
from the Prince of Orange. For such discipline
the chief reason of the Commander was that
settlers should " not give rise to any new dis-
turbance amongst the Hottentots, who are a
people revengeful beyond all comparison." After
all, the Directors at home might not have objected
to a little more rough handling had it been
34
TABLE BAY SETTLEMENT
unauthorized by them ; at one time Commander
Wagenaar says that he has been recommended to
wink at it all by the masters in the Fatherland.
The settlement must have been a good deal set
back by the danger of any place at all isolated ;
cultivators outside the circle immediately round
the Fort took their lives in their hands. " The
garden Rustenberg, otherwise called Rondebosje,"
was in 1676 tilled by two men, H. Thiel-
man and Hendrik E. Smidt, for 4,000 guilders
annually, but Thielman was massacred by the
Hottentots. Governor Goske stated that agri-
culture had been retrograding in consequence of
the difficulties with murderous tribes. He pro-
posed, as soon as the new Castle was complete, to
lodge the Madasgacar slaves, who were an in-
dustrious set of people, at Hottentots Holland,
to defend the corn land and cattle from the
attacks of natives. Compared to the terrible
experiences of American pioneers with the warlike
Indians, the adventures of the Cape are insignifi-
cant. Still, it was a plucky set of men who
started on their gabled homesteads in wilds
peopled by the most degraded set of savages
ever known — cunning, dirty, and utterly without
tradition or the most primitive code of morality.
Some protection to the boers was given by the
three watch-houses along the Liesbeeck river,
represented on early maps of Table Bay. Theal
says they were called respectively " Turn the
35
OLD CAPE COLONY
Cow," " Hold the Bull," and " Look Out." Less
poetic, the names remind one of the naming
of the three great dykes, one inside the
other, the " Watcher," the " Sleeper," and the
" Dreamer," which stand between Holland and
the perpetual beat of the North Sea waves.
Excursions were gradually made inland. The
mountain of the Paarl was named the " Pearl
and Diamond " mountain, from the granite lump
atop which glistens in the sun ; " Klapmuts," or
" Sailor's Cap," was the nickname of the conical
hill which served as a place of outlook or defence
against native invasions, and which is now so well
known as a favourite meeting place for the Cape
Hunt Club. We hear of few diversions, and
those are sombre enough. The sailors dabbled
with black art to discover who had thieved their
belongings, and perhaps as a form of amusement.
" Has Cornehs Oldrichson taken or mislaid my
ring ? U so, turn thyself round in God's name,"
says the mate of the Roode Vos, striking on his
Testament with a key. " At first," says the
surgeon who related the story to his superiors,
" the Testament remained motionless, but after
the third question it turned round by itself."
The surgeon was frightened, and cried, " Mate,
this has not been done by your will." But the
mate said, "Look well," and the Testament
went on turning. Then said the surgeon, " I
wish for a dollar that I did not see it."
36
TABLE BAY SETTLEMENT
At last, in 1662, Van Riebeeck, who outstayed
his contract of five years, moved on to Malacca,
where his wife died, and where he married again
a daughter of the Commissioner Gruys, who was
killed on the west coast of Sumatra. It is
thought that the East Indian prisoners kept in
chains at the Cape about 1667 were concerned
with this murder. He afterwards returned to
Batavia, where he died and was buried in the
Groote Kerk, with this inscription on his tomb-
stone : " Hereunder lies buried the Honble. Mr.
Johan van Riebeeck, first founder of the Colony of
Cabo de Bona Esperance, and ex-president of
Malacca, lately Secretary to the High Govern-
ment of India. Died the i8th Jan., 1677, 58
years old."
For seventeen years after van Riebeeck' s de-
parture, the Cape was at a standstill. A few
tracts of land were cultivated ; we hear that a
Pieter Visagie and Jan Mostert, names still known
at the Cape, owned land in the Tygerberg or
Leopard Mountain, the long low hill facing Table
Mountain. About there also the Company used
to cut hay ; for the sandy tract now covered with
brushwood, protea, and the gummy sapped
mesembryanthemum, then waved with coarse
grass, and I do not know that any good explana-
tion has been given for the change. But the
efforts of the Governors were confined to the
building of a castle which was to replace van
37
OLD CAPE COLONY
Riebeeck's wooden fort, now dilapidated and
considered inefficient. Wouter Schouten says in
1658 that the fort had a " church where the word
of God was preached/' but according to Theal,
the large hall decorated with skins was the only-
church. It had a stuffed zebra at the entrance,
and the attractive beast was removed before
the service began, lest the attention of the congre-
gation should be diverted. Increasing trade had
brought increasing rivalry, and a stronger fort
was certainly necessary, for the whole structure
threatened to crumble away during the rains.
The English were considered a special source of
danger, though they occasionally arrived with
an open letter from the directors of the Dutch
Company saying that hostilities had ceased, and
that they were to be well treated. The officers
were then entertained at dinner, and went on
board at night, in the words of the journal,
" pretty sweet and jolly, and well pleased." The
building work progressed only when danger seemed
imminent, and languished in the intervals. One
of the Company's best men. Governor Goske,
was sent out to begin this new fort or castle,
and laid the foundation stone in 1666. But he
was soon withdrawn. His successor. Governor
Bax, is said to have stopped every one who
passed and made them carry one basketful of
earth for excavating the moat.
A more stirring time was to come. In the old
38
TABLE BAY SETTLEMENT
crowded countries inaction often appears more
useful than energy ; so much work has already
been done, so many results are developing slowly,
and shaping themselves on the lines of least
resistance, that a sudden movement may pre-
cipitate matters and destroy more than it creates.
In newer, cruder surroundings it is the man him-
self, the leader of imagination, who must invent
what is to be developed ; and a single individual
of power may give his own bias to a chapter of
history. In 1679 "the command of the Cape was
offered to Simon van der Stel, who was in the
employ of the Dutch Company in Amsterdam ;
son of the Commander van der Stel already men-
tioned. The settlement was an unimportant
one, but he accepted the post and sailed for Table
Bay. I can almost imagine his arrival at the
jetty below the old fort. How curiously he must
have scanned the handful of houses that formed
the little town, the rude canal, the strip of green
garden above. Did he realize that his feet would
never leave that sandy shore, and that his name
would be identified with the place for ever ?
39
SIMON VAN DER STEL, BUILDER
AND GOVERNOR
II
Simon Van Der Stel, Builder and
Governor
WHEN, in the year 1679, Simon van der Stel
was appointed by the Dutch East India
Company to the command of Table Bay Settle-
ment, it was still a mere victualling station.
Still must it have been as van Riebeeck described
it, "a lonesome and melancholy place where
there was nothing to be done but barter cattle
with the lazy and filthy Hottentots." Along
the shore was the town of the first commander
and a few Hottentot huts, and near the more
distant forts was the Company's garden of Rusten-
berg, with its agricultural lands and Great Barn.
A cattle station was also at Klapmuts. Few
people would have been bold enough to prophesy
that, under the influence of Simon and his son,
the country around would become covered with
graceful homesteads, and that, in speaking of old
houses at the Cape, the name of van der Stel
would instinctively rise to the lips. The family
of the commander were all " Company's men."
43
OLD CAPE COLONY
Captain Adriaan van der Stel, his father, had
been commander of the Mauritius Settlement ;
he succeeded the first commander, Pieter de
Geyser, in 1639, in which year Simon was born
there. Simon's second son, Adriaan, became in
1705 Governor of Amboyna. On that part of
Wynberg now called " Waterloo Green," below
the camp and where the Dutch and EngUsh
Churches and the Roman Catholic Convent are
now built, there was an old farm, probably once
covering the whole district, called De Oude
Wijnberg, which in 1720 belonged to burgher
Conraad Feit, who made a memorial that it had
been granted in 1683 to this Adriaan van der
Stel. The eldest son, Willem Adriaan, held two
posts at the Cape in 1680-83, ^.nd, after a short
interval as magistrate of Amsterdam, succeeded
his father as Governor. His third son, Cornells,
was lost in an East Indiaman, the Ridderschaap.
The youngest, Franz, took up some of the Com-
pany's land, and how he fared I shall speak of
later. Simon's wife, Johanna Jacoba Six, was
daughter of Caterina Hinlopen and Willem Six,
one of the great Amsterdam family, the friends
and patrons of Rembrandt. A Johan Six was
burgermaster of Amsterdam in 1578. The Hon.
Joan Six, to whom many payments are noted in
the Cape archives (to be transmitted by him to Mrs.
van der Stel), was married to one of the Tulps,
but to what relation of the celebrated Dr. Tulp, of
44
SIMON VAN DER STEL
Rembrandt's '' Anatomy Lesson," I have not been
able to find out. Simon's wife never came to the
Cape. Kolbe, the inaccurate historian, who hated
the van der Stels, writes that she was " not so
complaisant as to follow her husband into Africa,"
and wrongly adds that her name was Constantia.
All the poetry and interest of the Cape Penin-
COAT OF ARMS OF THE SIX FAMILY.
sula, and of much of the country further afield,
is identified with the van der Stels. They had a
genius and passion for making beautiful places
to live in — dwellings of grave and quiet beauty
nestling amongst trees. We reap the benefit of
their taste, the van der Stels suffered for it ; and
so immeasurably do these old buildings gain by
the tender shade of the oak trees they planted —
trees found almost exclusively near the " van der
St el farms " — that if for no other reason, a tribute
45
OLD CAPE COLONY
is due to their memory. Simon van der St el
himself has many monuments : the leafy town of
Stellenbosch, with its thatched and gabled houses,
set amongst fantastic mountain ridges, was
founded by him. The beautiful site he chose
on one of his first expeditions, the long streets,
drowsy with the monotonous sound of their tiny
tinkling streamlets, were planted by his orders.
The name of his family is recorded in the name
he gave it — his own ; in the serrated peak so
noticeable from the Cape, Simonsberg, the last
mountain to hold the flash of sunset. Simon's
Bay, too, familiar to us of the twentieth century,
is called after this Governor of the seventeenth
who first explored it.
I do not know why historians, with the ex-
ception of Mr. Leibbrandt, have done him such
scant justice, for the work of no other commander
is at all comparable. He explored, he planted,
he built. Of his house in the Company's
garden (not far from the present Government
House) we have a description from the visitors
he lodged in it. His hospital on the canal, of
which we shall hear later, was considered very
fine. Here, say the archives, the free blacks
might bring to the patients all sorts of food,
whether " pastry cakes or apple tarts." Simon
took in hand, on arriving, the dusty unfinished
beginnings of the Castle, covered with sand
blown off the beach ; and in a very short time
46
SIMON VAN DER STEL
we hear of the dwelling house within the forti-
fications which he built. The materials were
brought from the Fatherland. In Commis-
sioner de Mist's time there was a tradition that
the woodwork and beams of this part of the
Castle were made of " iron trees/' as they were
called, which grew on the slopes of Table Moun-
tain, and which were considered indestructible.
But by this time we know, from experience,
that the wood is most perishable.
Simon was specially responsible for the Gover-
nor's House and the block of buildings next it, con-
nected by a great archway, which was the house
of the Secunde or chief merchant : a handsome
place, now used for military offices, which in
its day was the centre of all the official life of
the settlement. The Council held their meet-
ings in the large hall, in which a church service
was held on Sundays, and the balcony, with
its beautiful little ironwork balustrade, was a
prominent factor, as here the placaats or orders
of Council, which formed practically the laws
of the little community, were displayed from
time to time ; and from it the Governors made
speeches to the assembled burghers. The whole
block was called the " Kat " or Cat, and always
spoken of as such in the despatches. The word
was also used for a defence or rampart. Pro-
bably the Secunde' s dwelhng was not finished
for some years, as we hear in the despatches
47
OLD CAPE COLONY
that the Chief Merchant Elzevier had a house
adjoining the wall of the burial ground which
VIEW OF THE CASTLE, SHOWING THE " KA T " AND THE BALCONY,
then surrounded the foundations of the un-
finished church.
48
SIMON VAN DER STEL
It is said that Simon himself designed the
gateway of the Castle, which in the original
plan had faced the sea, considering it safer to
make the opening towards Signal Hill, where
there was a post of look-out for the ships. It
is ornamented by the monogram of the Company,
and under the pediment are the arms of the
'^
TEAK FANLIGHT, ONCE IN THE CASTLE.
different towns of the Netherlands which had a
share in the Directory. All these buildings were
official, and the designs were probably supplied
by the Company's architects. The Castle in-
deed has much the same character as the old
gateways and Dutch Company's Houses in
Ceylon.
In 1682 Governor-General Ryklof van Goens,
Governor of Batavia, invalided from the Indies,
49 D
OLD CAPE COLONY
stopped at the Cape on his way home to recruit
the ship and inspect the settlement. As he
is mentioned in the history of the Cape, it may
be interesting to note his adventurous career.
A fine, truculent gentleman in his pictures, he
had put in many years' good service to the Dutch
East India Company. In 1661 he had led the
first expedition to Cochin against the Portu-
guese, who were ousted in 1663. During the
war between Holland and England he had
threatened Bombay with a fleet of 6,000 men,
and captured two English ships off Musilipatam.
Later, during the Dutch and English alliance,
he in 1674 recovered St. Thome from the French.
By the time he arrived at the Cape Commander
van der Stel had founded Stellenbosch, which
van Goens visited. Civilization was gradually
advancing outside Table Bay settlement, and
there were outposts of the Company at the
Cuylen or Pools, Diep River, Riet Vlei and
Vissers Hoek. The origin of this Cape word
" vlei " has been a good deal discussed, meaning,
as it does there, a pool or lake. It was probably
first intended for vallei or valley, but has been
corrupted and somehow retained where water
lay in the valley, while " vallei " is used in the
ordinary sense.
In 1684 the younger Ryklof van Goens, Coun-
cillor of India and Governor of Ceylon, arrived.
Seven years earlier he had buried at Ceylon his
50
SIMON VAN DER STEL
wife Jacomina Roosegaarde ; the year following
his second wife, Esther de Solemne. He lodged
at the Company's House of Rustenberg, where
he lay ill nearly the whole of his stay. Under
his inspection a few changes were made amongst
the officials of the Cape. Johannes de Greven-
broek, afterwards a bitter enemy of the van
der Stels, was appointed Secretary of Council.
His signature is familiar on many an old title-
deed. Van Goens developed a great affection,
says Theal, for the younger Adriaan van der
Stel, who had been Issuer of Stores at the Cape,
and gave him a grant of land, and the rights
of a full burgher ; permission also to catch fish
in False Bay, and to have a fowling net, and
to shoot any game or birds he pleased. The
order was approved by Council ; but it gave a
great deal of dissatisfaction to the farmers,
who were only allowed each of them to shoot
in one year one rhinoceros, one hippopotamus,
one eland, and one hartebeeste, and for more
than this had to apply for special leave. It
was the first expression of discontent with the
van der Stels. There was yet another member
of the family in the employ of the Company
at the Cape at this time — Lodewyk van der St el,
who seems to have been a relation of Simon's,
but not one to be proud of, as he was connected
with the fraudulent proceedings of the cashier and
cellar-master, Gerrit Vieroot, who was dismissed the
51
OLD CAPE COLONY
Company's service with heavy fines. In the j ournal
of 1689 the Governor complained of his neglect in
not making out monthly statements. In the same
year Lodewyk was made an elder of the church.
We hear in 1693 that he obtained promotion
and went on with his family to India.
Hendrik Adriaan van Rheede tot Draken-
stein, Lord of Mydrecht, touched at Table Bay
in 1685 on his round to the East Indies. He
had with him a commission of three other
directors, and was about to examine into the
affairs of the Company in Hindustan and Ceylon.
He inspected all the pubhc bodies : the Burgher
Council, the Matrimonial Court, the Board of
MiHtia and the Orphan Chamber, and, to the
credit of the Commander, made no alterations.
A great man in his way, botanists still remember
him as the Governor of Malabar who published
twelve illustrated folio volumes, entitled Hortus
Malabricus ; splendid books, full of careful
drawings and dissertations by various experts
printed in Arabic and Dutch. It is dedicated,
amongst others, to "Johanni Huddi Heer van
Waeveren, and Director of the East India Com-
pany," and "iEgido Valkenier Consuli et Senetori
urbis Amstello." The latter is either the same,
or one of the same family as the Commissioner
Valkenier, who in 1700 granted to Simon van
der Stel the grazing rights of the Steenberg.
His coat of arms were, together with those of the
52
SIMON VAN DER STEL
Six, van Loon, Hoorn, Tulp, van Outshoorn,
and many other families connected in some
way with the Cape, emblazoned on the great
window of the Oude Kerk at Amsterdam. The
name of van Rheede, who, by the by, signs himself
" van Reede tot Draackesteyn," in variance
with the usual spelling, appears many times in
the Company's journal and in the books of
eighteenth century travellers. He was buried
at Surat under a splendid monument, which
may exist still ; it was kept in repair at the
expense of the Company, at one time six thou-
sand rupees or nine thousand Dutch guilders
being spent on it.
Van Rheede was on friendly terms with Simon
van der Stel, whose schemes for the acclimatiza-
tion of plants must have interested him. From
the earliest times the Governors had been allowed
to acquire land. Van Riebeeck, as we know,
had planted vines on his farm. Crudorp was
given, while Governor, the freehold of some land
he had cultivated in Table Valley. Governor
Wagenaar, too, had owned a '' certain square
piece of land, . . . with houses, stables, and
plantations," which lay between the Castle and
the town. Van Rheede tot Drakenstein granted
to Simon van der Stel 891 morgen (about 1,782
acres), probably as a natural and obvious way
of rewarding him for his services, and giving
him a stake in the country; but in later times
53
OLD CAPE COLONY
it was suggested by those who disHked the van
der Stels that he had been bribed into so doing
by the Governor, who named after him the beau-
tiful tract of country beyond Stellenbosch.
There is outside Cape Town a pine-bordered
road, dusty with soft red dust, as romantic a
highway as you could wish. You will find it
past Newlands, once the New Lands reclaimed from
the mountain-side, or through Wynberg, the
old Wine Mountain of the early settlers. It
leads you (rather breathless if you have come
up the hill on a bicycle) to the vineyards of Groot
Constantia. Far off to the south-east stretches
the Muizenberg Plain, with its lines of shim-
mering sand and the pool of the Zee Koe Vlei ;
beyond that the sea and the serrated mountains
lessening to the rocks of Hanglip Point. It
was not without care that the old Governor
chose this piece of land on which to make his
home. A man told Admiral Stavorinus in
1798 that his father had helped to test baskets
of earth taken up along the shore every hundred
roods over a great tract of country, and mixed
with water, for the Governor to decide upon
its quality. Here, well satisfied with the rich-
ness of the soil, he built a house with a stoep
and a great hall. Gabled like the houses of the
fatherland, it resembles the Dutch farm houses
on the island of Walcheren, houses with interiors
like those of Pieter de Hoogh's pictures, designed,
54
SIMON VAN DER STEL
some say, with a reminiscence of the Malay Archi-
pelago, yet not entirely like any, but individual and
distinct : the first great homestead of the Cape.
Few of the many visitors to Constantia trouble
their heads about the man who planned, more
than 200 years ago, to make a home on the
GKOOT CONSTANTIA, 1685.
mountain slopes, who cleared a space for his
vines and his gabled house amongst the wild
geraniums, the gladioli, and the lihes. Yet what
a place it is to dream in ! Below lies False Bay,
and the wonderful brilliance of its sandy shores ;
behind, the steep pass of the "Nek" and the
rocky heights above Hout Bay. Here, on a still
oo
OLD CAPE COLONY
afternoon, you may hear the hoarse bark of some
adventurous baboon ; great oak trees throw
their blue shadows on the flat sunlit walls, planted
by the Governor whose history had so strange
an ending.
Constantia wine had once a world-wide fame.
Under the Dutch Company I believe the wine
could not be bought in Europe, as they reserved
to themselves the exclusive sale ; but the old
farm account books show great export to Eng-
land at the beginning of the nineteenth century.
At the Cape it cost two Spanish dollars or eleven
shillings and sixpence a bottle, and was not
given lightly to every guest, says a traveller,
but to a rich visitor from whom benefits were
expected. You may remember that the broken-
hearted Marianne Dashwood of Miss Austen's
Sense and Sensibility was comforted by a " glass
of the finest Constantia wine that ever was tasted."
March of time has transformed the place into
a Government wine farm, worked by convict
labour, and the men pick purple and golden
bunches, and call to each other in the silence
of the great heat, much as would have done
the slaves of the Commander. Perhaps it was
named Constantia as a protest of constancy
to the wife he was never to see again, though
he yearly sent her money. Or this, too, may
have been a mark of affection for the van Rheedes,
as it seems to have been a name in their family :
56
SIMON VAN DER STEL
a little Constantia van Rheede of six months
old was buried at Colombo in 1696 ; her me-
morial tablet is in Wolfendahl Church.
That invaluable book, The Child's Guide,
written " by a Lady/' of which the thirty-fifth
edition was published in 1835, says : " Con-
stantia is a rich sweet wine, made some eight
iL
h .lo.r^^ Ho.ll. ^
r „T
Hall
PLAN OF GROOT CONSTANTIA.
miles from Cape Town ; some peculiarity of
the soil causes the excellency of the grapes, and
the wine is made with great care." There is
a second farm, old, but not with the historic
associations of Groot Constantia, which seems
to have been most often visited by eighteenth
century travellers. It is called Klein Constantia,
and used to be divided from the domain of the
57
OLD CAPE COLONY
older place by myrtle hedges. It is of this second
farm that the naturalist Sparrmann writes in
1772, when it belonged to Mynheer van der
Spoi, and he speaks vaguely of the building,
which he calls " old or red Const ant ia." All
the old houses are made of little red bricks,
plastered and whitewashed, the ornamentation
in strong lime plaster ; but I have sometimes
wondered if Groot Constantia, being built early
and almost certainly of good bricks from the
Netherlands, was originally left unplastered, save
for the ornamentation.
The place is so associated with its mellow
whiteness that it is difficult to visualize it in
colour. Thatched, like all those which followed
it, with reeds, cut short, of a deep velvety appear-
ance, the roofing has a texture quite impossible
to reproduce in any drawing, and which vanishes
to nothing in a photograph. About the cutting
and preserving of these reeds Governor Simon
made severe regulations. The plan differs from
and is rather more complicated than the plan
of the usual Cape house, for which no doubt it
stood as a model. There is even a short stair-
case, and two or three rooms built on an upper
story to the right as you face it — a very un-
usual thing, as the houses are universally one-
storied. The tall window in the gable is never
the window of a room in the Colonial house,
but lights the great storage loft which runs be-
SIMON VAN DER STEL
neath the rafters. These lofts are floored usually
with brick and a layer of clay^ called brandsolder,
and intended to give a non-inflammable sur-
face for the burning thatch to fall on should
there be a fire, as too often happens. Like
nearly all the oldest houses, the woodwork of
ESCUTCHEONS : GROOT CONSTANTIA AND HOTTENTOTS HOLLAND.
Constantia — shutters, doors, floorings, are solid
teak, but the hall is paved with old square flags,
and one room with Dutch glazed tiles. Latches,
bolts and hinges are finely designed, probably
by the skilled workmen going out via Table Bay
to the Indies and other settlements. We hear
in 1690 of a coppersmith, carpenters and masons
59
OLD CAPE COLONY
being sent from Good Hope to Mauritius, to-
gether with other workmen, tailors and the
hke ; also a silversmith is mentioned, and the
Company would not have been at the expense
to send out indifferent labour. The shape of
SIDE GABLES, GROOT CONSTANTIA.
the gable is, with some modifications, the gable
of the old houses of Holland. I think they
almost certainly belonged to the original house,
though it has been suggested that the statue
of Plenty in the fagade was placed there later.
To the right as you approach the house are
60
SIMON VAN DER STEL
stables and small outbuildings, built in the
Batavian fashion, outside the main structure,
for visitors and servants. In one of these, van
der Stel's elder son is said to have lived, and
WINE HOUSE AT GROOT CONSTANTIA.
it still goes by the name of the Jonkers house.
Architecturally the little gables here are inter-
esting, showing as they do the transition of the
Dutch gable into the gable of the Cape.
Facing the courtyard behind Constantia
61
OLD CAPE COLONY
homestead is the old wine house. The thatch
was removed and a fine stucco pediment placed
there in 1779, when the place belonged to a Cloete.
The pediment holds a medallion of Ganymede
on his swan, surrounded by children pelting
a curious species of tiger with bunches of
grapes. It is modelled in some sort of hard
plaster in very high relief, with a good deal of
charm, by a French architect who did other
work in Cape Town. The "cellar," as these
wine houses invariably are called, the two
great brick and plaster seats, the flickering
shadows, blue as only South African shadows
can be, the faint smell of the wine-making, the
great quiet of the place, all combine in a curious
fascination which I think even the most un-
imaginative people have felt at Groot Con-
stantia. Behind the wine-house the ground falls
suddenly away towards the stream which is
dammed up at the bottom of the ravine. Down
this slope some old artist designer, Simon van
der Stel or a successor, has run a magnificent
flight of steps leading from the cellar door to
the bottom of the valley.
Strangely enough, none of the early writers
give any description of the architecture of the
place. Sparrmann, the naturalist, mentions the
little weevils (colandra) which are still so trouble-
some amongst the vines, and were caught, a
few years ago, and may be still, by curious little
62
SIMON VAN DER STEL
nests of leaves placed at the foot of each vine.
Captain Hop, in his Historical Journal of the
Cape in 1778, frankly says of the two Constantias
that one was built by Governor van der Stel,
and that the other was more modern and in the
WINE-HOUSE STEPS, GROOT CONSTANTIA.
taste of the habitations of the day. So it is
possible that the old Constantia had at that
time fallen into bad repair. In his day the
Company only drew a third of the wine pro-
duced on the farms, at a special price, and the
rest was sold to ordinary merchants. A great
60.
OLD CAPE COLONY
deal of his information, however, is taken from
de la Caille's observations in 1751, and de Bougain-
ville's narrative of 1769.
A truly British and unconsciously entertain-
ing account is given by Captain Percival, an
English officer at the Cape during the second
English occupation (1806). The then owner he
calls Mr. Pluter, evidently meaning Cloete. " I
was so unfortunate as not to find the gentleman
in a good humour," says Percival, " and I could
scarcely get a good bottle of wine. . . . On my
requesting to see the place, he himself came out
and informed me that the gentleman was not
at home." Percival and his friends then got
some of the slaves, for a present, to procure them
wine, and to show them the plantations and
cellars. " Nor did we take any notice of the
owner's surliness and boorish manners when we
afterwards met him, but went on to satisfy our
curiosity, and obtain the wine and information
we wanted." He thoughtfully adds that " some
allowance must be made for Mijn Heer Pinter's
moroseness, as it is impossible for him at all
times to attend to the reception of his visitors,
some of whom by their teasing and forward
loquacity, might render themselves extremely
troublesome and disagreeable to his grave and
solemn habits." He tells us very little that is
new, though, like Sparrmann, he praises the
care taken in growing and cleaning the grapes
64
Hendrik Adriaan van Rheede Tot Drakenstein
Lord of Myurecht.
SIMON VAN DER STEL
and making the wine ; but one is glad to have
a description of the leaguers or butts in which
the wine was kept, all in his day elegantly
carved, the bung-holes covered with brass plates,
OLD BATH, GROOT CONSTANTIA.
hasped down and locked, so that none of the
slaves might embezzle the wine.
Relics of the old time are scanty, but there
is a broken sun-dial with the half-effaced name
of Cloete, and the cannon-balls piled on the
gateposts of the lower vineyard are said to have
been collected on the plain of Muizenberg after
the half-hearted battle with the English in 1795.
The circular basin of water with a deep curved
65 E
OLD CAPE COLONY
rim, which goes by the name of the " bath," is
well worth seeing, though you must walk a
quarter of a mile up the garden between high
oak hedges. \\Tiether the fascination of the
place lies in these comparatively simple things
made by man or in the wonderful beauty of
surrounding nature, who shall say ? The sun-
scorched hillside behind with its scent of hot
earth, the great orchards of peach and apricot,
the vineyards and vine trails with their back-
ground of distant sea and mountain, the clear
blue sky and hush of the hot noontide, and the
sough of the wind in the branches of a moonlit
night — all these go to create it. I cannot tell
you to which century belongs the teak Triton,
through whose horn the mountain stream splashes
on to the old swimming-bath. But I know that,
despite all modern changes, you will, if you
dream there long enough, see wandering amongst
the flickering shadows the shade of Governor
Simon van der Stel.
We are fortunate in having a very realistic con-
temporary account of the Cape in the year 1685.
An embassy, going from Louis XIV. of France to
Siam, put in at Table Bay. Its objects were
said to be religious, and it is true that the great
monarch had given his sanction equally to the
propagation of Christianity and of trade. I find
that at the first meeting of the French East India
Company in 1664, " at the house of M. Faveroles,
66
SIMON VAN DER STEL
merchant, at Paris/' the projectors were given
formal permission by the King to settle ecclesi-
astics in various places, while the company was
to "go on boldly under the banner of the in-
vincible Louis."
The ambassador and his missionaries were
most hospitably treated by Governor Simon.
They wrote enthusiastically of the extraordinary
merit of M. van der Stellen. Father Tachard
gives a charming description of their reception
in one of the large rooms at the Castle, " opening
out of the large hall where a sermon is preached
on Sundays." Those who know the Castle of
Cape Town will have no difficulty in locating it.
He tells us, too, that the Governor gave them tea
" in the Indian fashion," and that the officials
took the air of an evening on the flat roof of the
building, a " beautiful terrace paved with large
stones and surrounded by balconies and balus-
trades of iron."
The embassy had arrived at the Cape during
the visit of van Rheede tot Drakenstein. They
were welcomed by " Monsieur de van der St el
and Monsieur de van der Hey den " (the latter the
commissioner of the Company, then in port).
They had much polite conversation in Portu-
guese, and were offered by them the use of the
pavilion in the Company's garden for their
astronomical observations. Placed as it was in
" such a sterile and terrible spot," they con-
67
OLD CAPE COLONY
sidered the garden the most curious and beautiful
they had ever seen. About the middle of the
garden wall beyond the slave lodge was the
Governor's house or pavilion, consisting of a
hall or vestibule below, with two doors, one open-
ing towards the fort, the other towards the garden,
and a reception-room on each side. Here they
were lodged for some time and received the best
of treatment. Later, when two of their ships,
the Loire and the Dromadaire, carrying several
of the missionaries sailing back to France, were
wrecked at Cape Agulhas, the survivors were to
experience more kindness from van der Stel. No
sooner did he hear of their misfortune than he
sent an escort of soldiers and horses to bring them
to the town. They were taken to the Castle,
and received by the commander " at the foot of
the steps outside his house," with " every mark
of respect and affection." He invited them into
a room, made them sit down while tea and wine
were brought them, and caused a volley of twelve
cannon to be fired in their honour. Tachard
and the others, including two Siamese ambassa-
dors, were quartered at a house in the town, and
liberally furnished with refreshments. It must be
confessed that the bill for these expenses, as well
as for the soldiers who mounted guard before
their door, was afterwards sent in to the French
Government, and the chronicler remarks thereon
with some bitterness.
68
SIMON VAN DER STEL
After leaving the Cape, and returning again to
Siam, Tachard yet again stopped at Table Bay on
his homeward journey and received " les memes
honetetez que les voyages precedens." " I had
assured Monsieur de Vanderstellen/' he writes,
" that I would return in the following year in
good company ; on which he made me many
offers." The Fathers appeared grateful ; but to
Simon van der Stel they were false friends. Their
time had been employed in collecting information
which might be useful to them, and in gaining
from the Walloon burghers who came to confess,
details about the interior of the colony, and the
possibility of Catholic settlements there. From
newly-arrived Huguenot settlers, hardly off their
ships, they received an impression of disappoint-
ment, which they published forthwith in two
delightful volumes, illustrated by pictures of the
houses, fauna and flora of the countries they had
seen. The botanical drawings of the books are
excellent, but the authors give rein to their
imagination in the matter of houses at the Cape.
The chameleon also greatly pleases them ; he is
depicted in " the grand style," trampling with
uplifted paw some highly decorative flowers, and
appears also in their map of the " Country and
people of the Cape of Good Hope," patrolhng the
boundary between the land of the Griquiquas and
of the Namaquas. Amongst their pictures a
strange horned lizard of large size is given ; on
69
OLD CAPE COLONY
the map it is seen running into the mountains of
the Gouriquas ; and a " Httle hzard of the Cape/'
with three crosses on his back — decorative, but
unknown to modern naturahsts. The year fol-
p<y^?f -
MAP FROM THE " VOYAGE DE SIAM DES PERES JESUITES," 1686.
lowing (1687) a large fleet, under Admiral Van-
drecourt and Vice-Admiral du Quesnes, put in at
Table Bay with many sick on their way to Siam.
Tachard was now in charge of fourteen mathe-
70
SIMON VAN DER STEL
maticians for the King of Siam. But the situation
had altered.
For long Simon van der Stel had prayed the
company at home for colonists and assured them
that nothing could be done without more labour.
The settlement consisted of a mere handful of
people. By the time Constantia was built the
slaves numbered 230 men, 44 women and 36
children. A few agriculturists had been sent out
from the fatherland, and the burghers numbered
altogether 254 men, 88 women, and 231 children ;
there were 39 European servants. Intent on his
Colony, Simon was eager for more men to cultivate
the land, and for more women, to induce them to
marry and settle. He had promised freeholds to
any of the Company's servants who had good
characters and were willing to farm. But they
were a lawless, roving set, and comparatively few
of the discharged soldiers and sailors cared to
settle as tillers of the soil. In 1685 the Orphan
Chambers of Amsterdam, in response to requests
made by the Company, consented to send out
48 girls ; but at the last moment only three would
embark.
For the next few years small groups of seven
and eight occasionally appeared. In consequence
of the revocation of the Edict of Nantes by
Louis XIV., there was at this time a large though
forbidden emigration of French Protestants into
the Netherlands. Often they barely escaped with
71
OLD CAPE COLONY
their lives, and crossed the frontier destitute. A
certain number of Piedmontese had also found
their way to the United Provinces. Out of these
refugees the East India Company determined to
choose a number of colonists, who were offered
grants of land if they would settle at the Cape.
It was not easy to persuade a landsman in those
days to undertake the horrors of the long voyage,
but about 176 settlers were sent out in detach-
ments. Mr. Leibbrandt, keeper of the Cape
archives, says that contemporary writers mention
eighty more families brought there by Du Quesnes,
but that the archives do not allude to them. The
newcomers were all of the congregations called
" under the cross," or suffering persecution ; the
European population of the Cape had up to that
time been Lutheran and Roman Catholic.
Had the French missionaries in their published
volumes been content with descriptions of the
animals and the topography of Table Bay all
would have been well . But they had asserted that
amongst the people of the "religion pretendue,"
who had arrived as colonists, there was not one
who was not filled with disappointment at the
far-off land to which he had been brought ; and
that many -of the emigrants would willingly have
made reparation for their mistaken ideas and
returned to France had not every means of doing
so been closed to them. Simon had been per-
turbed to discover that every detail about the
72
SIMON VAN DER STEL
colony and his inland expeditions was known. He
had already sent away a French gardener, who was
found with a suspicious letter in his possession ;
and an apothecary discharged who had given in-
formation to Pere Tachard. In view of the con-
tinually hostile attitude of Louis XIV., the Dutch
Company were naturally jealous of their own foot-
ing at Table Bay ; and Simon was not unaware of
the danger of such a large fleet as that of Admiral
Vandrecourt. He wrote afterwards that he had
secured the powder magazines, and determined
should the least act of hostility occur, to set fire
to the settlement and leave the French nothing :
a plucky resolution for a man who had taken so
much pains to extend and improve the colony.
But he received the visitors with his usual courte-
ousness, and on leaving they presented him with
a medallion or miniature of the " grand Mon-
arque," and a gold chain with quadruple links.
Rather artificial were these friendly relations.
The ship La Maligna, which on the departure of the
fleet from the Cape, put back to France to report
progress, spread also reports of the insufficient
fortifications of Table Bay, and Du Quesnes
when he arrived in Batavia gained a stiff reception.
The Governor-General told him that if the Jesuits
were seen he could not answer for the conduct of
the populace, so irritated were they at the last
news from France brought by the Dutch fleet.
Governor van der Stel did not come off scot free.
70
OLD CAPE COLONY
Both the authorities at home and in Batavia
were indignant at his want of caution. Had he
not accepted a medalUon and chain ? Had not the
Siamese Ambassador given him a jewelled kris ?
Had he not allowed his visitors to see the defence-
less state of the Castle and the weakness of the
garrison ? Strangers who had been permitted to
wander about at will had on their return to France
declared that they could easily have taken the
Castle sword in hand, and that if the Dutch
Company thought so little of their settlement,
and afforded it so little protection, it could be
attacked and taken on the very first outbreak of
hostility between France and the Netherlands.
Two years more and the storm had burst. In
1689 war was declared by Holland and Eng-
land, who had elected the Stadholder, WiUiam
of Orange, as her King, against France, and van
der Stel was ordered to treat the Frenchmen
everywhere as enemies and cause them all the
injury possible. There is little ambiguity about
these old despatches.
Meanwhile the Huguenot emigrants were being
granted their new freeholds of lands along the
Drakenstein valley. Whatever disaffection may
have been induced by the long sea journey and
the experiences of first arrival, the Dutch autho-
rities at any rate did not consider there was much
to fear from impoverished refugees. Many of
the emigres had been living^in the Netherlands
74
SIMON VAN DER STEL
for some time, and could hardly be suspected of
anti-Dutch sympathies. Others, who were thought
particularly valuable settlers, as they understood
wine and brandy making and the cultivation of
the olive, were mere peasants, and had every
inducement for making a home in the new colony,
J '/(! ,,
GATEWAY OF THE CASTLE, CAPE TOWN.
where each arrival was given, or offered, a gift of
money, and each family allotted a grant of land.
They had brought out their own minister, a
refugee from Zierickzee, says Theal, at a salary
of £y 19s. gd. per month. In 1687 the Voor-
schouten had sailed from Delftshaven, bringing
twenty-two French settlers. The next year the
75
OLD CAPE COLONY
Oosterland left Middelburg with twenty-four emi-
grants and the China of Rotterdam with thirty-
four ; twelve of whom, poor people, were saved
any more privations and disappointments by
dying on the way out. Another ship, the Borssen-
burg, also sailed with French refugees, and the
Suid Beveland brought a number of French from
Middelburg; but the passenger Hst is lost, and
the only names known are those of Pierre Simond,
minister of Dauphine, and his wife Anne de Beront.
In the China came also eight young women from
the Orphan Chamber of Rotterdam, who were
said to be " industrious, of unblemished reputa-
tion, and skilled in farm work."
The new comers, thought the Company's
Directors, would be an important addition to the
350 burghers capable of bearing ' arms against
the threatened French invasion. Van der Stel,
therefore, issued an order to Stellenbosch and
Drakenstein, for the burghers to " collect without
delay men and houses, fully armed and equipped,
and provided with powder and lead, and to
leave only ten or twelve men to protect the wives
and children against Hottentots or other danger."
The signal for starting was a gun fired from
the Castle, for which the men were to "listen
attentively ; " and on hearing it to move simul-
taneously from Stellenbosch, Drakenstein, Hotten-
tots Holland, the Cu^den and Rondebosch.
Occasionally Governor Simon's orders are so
76
SIMON VAN DER STEL
purely perfunctory as to appear issued to appease
the Seventeen at home rather than for any practical
use at Table Bay. Difficult, indeed almost impos-
^^m^vw?
PLATTE KLOOF IN THE TYGERBERG.
sible, it would have been to hear this gun signal
at Drakenstein and Hottentots Holland ; the
authorities probably were satisfied of this later,
77
OLD CAPE COLONY
for at the top of the Tygerberg behind Platte
Kloof farm, granted by Simon van der Stel to
van der Hiet, but afterwards a Company's station,
used to be an old cannon for giving to the farmers
inland warnings which had been signalled from
the Castle.
After all, the invasion never took place,
Louis XIV. having other things to do at home
and abroad. But van der Stel put in force his
orders to treat the Frenchmen as enemies, on the
return of the second expedition to Siam in 1689.
The ensign, Le Chevalier de la Machefoliere, came
ashore in a cutter, foolishly sure of a favourable
reception, and bringing the " compliments " of
his captain. He was immediately disarmed, with
what surprise and anger on his part we may
imagine, and placed with his crew under arrest
at the Castle. The boat was then sent back with
the French flag flying, but manned with Company's
officers and Dutch sailors. Other boats, manned
and armed, from the East Indiamen lying in the
Bay, the Nederland and the Saamslagh, were to
remain near. M. de Courcelles, Captain of the
French ship La Normande, seeing the cutter
returning with a French flag, ordered a salute of
nine guns to the Castle ; which politeness cost
him dear. For under cover of the smoke, the
Normandc was boarded by the cutter and the
boat of the Saamslagh. " They at once fell to,"
says Simon's despatch, " and after eight of their
78
SIMON VAN DER STEL
men and two of ours had been wounded, they
cried for quarter, which was granted." The ship
was immediately looted by the Company's men,
the prisoners and the officers stripped to the skin.
Diamonds, jewels, and everything but the mer-
chandise in the hold, requisitioned by the Com-
pany, was taken by the captains and sailors of
the victorious party. A fortnight later, La Coche,
the third ship of the Siam expedition, " coming
in opportunely," says the despatch, " for refresh-
ments," was also taken and plundered like the
first. The Normande was afterwards sent back
to Amsterdam, where it was rechristened Dc
Goede Hoop, and became a ship of the Dutch fleet.
To Governor van der Stel, whose ideal had been
a Dutch settlement, the emigrants were dis-
appointing. He was out of conceit with the
French ; those particular men were difficult to
deal with, and the conditions on which they had
accepted their lands were a matter of endless
complaint. They were not to retain their own
language ; they were to be spread about amongst
the burghers, so that a French colony should be
impossible. Van der Stel was bound to enforce
the regulations of the Seventeen Directors ; in
addition, he suspected the new colonists of wish-
ing to form a party with Vice-Admiral Du Quesnes
at their head. When a deputation, consisting of
the minister Simond, Jacques de Savoy e, Abra-
ham de Villiers, and two others, bearded the
79
OLD CAPE COLONY
Governor at the Castle, in 1689, and asked permis-
sion for their countrymen to have a church of
their own, he flew into a passion and accused
them of ingratitude and impertinence. "It is
evident," he wrote, " that they not only want
their own church, but their own magistrate and
their own prince." They pretended to have
left France, said Simon bitterly, because of their
religious convictions, but in reality they wanted
opportunities of leading a lazy and indolent life ;
were people of the wrong stamp, he declared,
entirely unacquainted with and unfit for the hard
life which was the lot of the farmer. He wished
that for the future no " cadets or persons of
quality might be sent," but industrious and well-
behaved agriculturists and tradesmen, preferably
of Dutch or German origin. " The crotchetty
(wispelturige) nature of the French still adheres
to them," he writes another time in a burst of
irritation, " and they resemble the Children of
Israel, who when fed by God's hand in the wilder-
ness still longed for onions."
All these responsibilities increased the burden
of government, and the despatches of the Seven-
teen and from the station of the Indies,
abound in fault-finding. The Company had
recognized his services, for they had raised his
title of Commander to that of Governor. But
they were not pleased by the reports of the hand-
some houses springing up at the Cape, nor did
80
SIMON VAN DER STEL
van der St el's ambition to found a colony where
they had only wanted a kitchen garden really
find favour with his employers. The Batavian
government had more personal grievances. Van
der Stel was apt to detain skilled locksmiths and
artizans going out to the Queen of the East for
the houses of her merchant princes, and to set
them en route to work instead at the Cape. Owing
VERY OLD FARM BUILDINGS, KOORNHOOP.
to the representations of Governor Simon, Batavia
was under orders to receive the indifferent Cape
wheat, and corn growing, for some time temporarily
neglected at Table Bay, had again been taken in
hand. New grain stores were built, say the
despatches, " on the side of the cross wall which
runs through the Fort," and Simon had invented
some air-tight vaults in which corn could be kept
for a considerable time. He was accused by his
superiors in the East of protecting the Cape to
8i F
OLD CAPE COLONY
the prejudice both of the ships and of the Indies.
" Whether it will be convenient for the company,"
says an indignant letter from Batavia, *' to bear
in the interest of the Cape agriculturists any more
such losses, the Directors will be able to tell you.
We, at least, do not think so, nor find any fairness
in it, to let the people here, only for the sake of
benefiting the Cape farmers, eat so much dearer
and worse bread than they can obtain cheaper
and better elsewhere." And they asserted that
the vegetables supplied to passing fleets were
musty and black, and the meat so old that no
teeth could bit it through.
Simon's despatches are intensely interesting,
full of vitality and a kind of magnificence, but
they abound in expostulation which cannot have
pleased the Company. " The Fort is in a good
state of defence," wrote he in 1697, " so that we
need fear no enemy." The corn vaults, he adds,
have been finished without expense to the Com-
pany. The hospital was in process of building.
Eight hundred beds had been provided, stuffed
with grass, and a large number of blankets. Fault
had been found with the Governor for not sending
a certain advance ship to Batavia. The skippers
had protested, he says, writing to Amsterdam,
that they could not leave sooner as the men were
all so helplessly sick there was not enough to
man a vessel. The Governor submitted that
certain misunderstandings which caused the home-
82
SIMON VAN DER STEL
bound fleet to return without calling at the Cape,
were the fault of the East India Government.
" Viewed impartially, the Governor cannot con-
ceive that any blame can be attached to him, or
that his conduct can be suspected by you."
Writing to the Seventeen at Middelburg, he
says that the deserters to Holland in 1694 sent
back by the Directors, have been released by him
and restored to their old position, in consideration
of the long voyage, and of their having been in
irons for a whole year. Another time, in answer
to a letter of complaint about the victualling of
the ships, he observes through the medium of the
Council, " We cannot refrain from mentioning
that the ships are not supplied badly and sparingly,
but well and abundantly, to the full satisfaction
of the commanding officers . . . whilst during
the last fifteen years the Governor has supplied
206,000 more cattle than his predecessors did
during the same period." Some of the contentions
are highly amusing. " We cannot always refuse
altogether to the English," he says in 1698, " what
they require after a long voyage, or damages
sustained at sea, because of the close alliance
between their kingdom and our state. They
are generally most pressing, and threaten to com-
plain as soon as they arrive in England should
we refuse. . . . (To) the Enghsh ship Mary, we
sold two sails, as we stated, which were more than
half damaged by the rats, and you mention it
83
OLD CAPE COLONY
with disapproval in your letter ; but if we had
not done so she could not have left the place, as
she was almost destitute of sails. It was the
same with the EngUsh ship King William, which
has almost had a " lost " voyage, and whose
officers were so destitute of money that they could
not have paid their expenses if v>^e had not lent
them 308 florins. . . . They professed that if we
did not do it they would be obliged to remain here
under protest, not believing our reiterated excuses
that we were almost destitute of money our-
selves. ..."
The coast stood in continual fear of pirates.
There was the vessel whose commander's name
was Kit, carrying thirty-two guns and two hundred
men, lying not far off, and a vessel called the
Loyal Russell then in port, suspected of being
hand-and-glove with the pirate. There was the
yacht Amy held to be of the same character.
Her van der Stel apparently seized, and spent
much time in explaining his reasons for doing so
— that the passes and commissions of the men
were forgeries ; that their answers before the court
of justice were confused and contradictory ; that
*' after the sloop had been already twenty-four
hours in our possession twelve men were dis-
covered hidden away among the sails and vats
and casks, so that if they were innocent of piracy,
and honest seamen, they would have had no need
to hide themselves. ... To end the matter,
84
OLD DISTRICTS AND MODERN ROADS.
85
OLD CAPE COLONY
therefore/' continues the Governor, " we hope
that you will now see it in a clearer light, and
with a more equitable and favourable eye, and
we cannot imagine otherwise than that you will
be pleased in every way to understand that we
acted in this matter properly."
In 1697 it is noted that ten French refugees
had sailed on the Vosmaery but that five had died
on the voyage. The other five were sent to
Drakenstein, "where they have settled," says the
despatch, " and according to report we do not
see that they will to-day or to-morrow become
an encumbrance to the Company. At Robben
Island (where, by-the-by, rabbits are mentioned
even at that date) a sergeant who had been
superintendent had apparently sold sheep in
some prohibited way to the " ship's friends,"
without the knowledge of the Governor;
some accusations with regard to the food of
the ships and the hospital had also been
made. This, the Governor submitted, did " taste
more of an injury to himself than of truth, as he
is quite sure that it can never be proved by any
one in the world." Of the first accusation the
Governor and Council submitted that " under
such a charge, so peremptorily and loosely made
... an honest mind feels oppressed, and people
of good service and reputation are suspected
before the world ; but we trust that you will
take no notice of the matter." With all the
86
SIMON VAN DER STEL
sordid details, want of knowledge brings from
time to time a touch of romance. We hear of
" nine strange animals " which the French or
Walloons have obtained from the Hottentots in
the mountains. Danger from pirates, from war,
from condemned and escaped Company's men,
from scourges of bhght, locusts, cattle sickness
and consequent lack of food, and the recurrent
shipwreck disasters of the Bay, effectually pre-
vented life from being humdrum or indolent.
Some one has cleverly said, " Your keen intel-
lects, like razors, are considered too sharp for
common service." Reflecting on the amount of
work accomphshed by the elder van der Stel, it
seems to have been on those grounds he received
so many reprimands. He had founded Stellen-
bosch, colonized Drakenstein. Frenchhoek and
beyond. He had won the confidence of the
natives, who consulted him in their difficulties.
To their " captains " he gave sticks with brass
plates, engraved with the arms of the Company,
and he conciliated them in every way with a view
to increased barter. " You are to let them
have five or six pounds weight of tobacco," he
writes from Constantia to the Chief Merchant,
in order to keep the taste of that herb among
them." Ever mindful of the ships, he had begun
a canal or cutting, through the sand at Salt River
as a refuge from the heavy winds ; but in conse-
quence of the silting of the sand the excavations
87
OLD CAPE COLONY
had to be abandoned. A burgher guard now
patrolled the town at night, receiving each after-
noon a new countersign from the Governor. Simon
had made an expedition to Namaqualand to investi-
gate the copper which had been brought for barter
from time to time by the natives. Would any
other Company's commander of the day have
made such a stately journey ; in a coach followed
by forty wagons, three hundred sheep, and one
hundred and fifty oxen ; whilst he carried with
him two trumpets, several hautboys, and five or
six violins "in order to charm the aborigines"?
It is worth noticing that the Governor recom-
mended the separation of the scabby sheep from
the rest of the flocks : so far back do we find the
germs of the modern Cape Colony wrangles over
cheap food and Scab Acts.
Thousands of oak trees had been planted all
over the Colony, and thousands more were standing
ready for removal at Rustenberg. A special
order had been made to induce the burgher coun-
cillors to undertake some planting themselves ;
and a piece of land had been given them for this
purpose behind the Wijnberg, called the Wolven-
gat. Constantia was built, homesteads were
dotted over the veld. Weary of his work, in
1696 Simon van der Stel asked leave to retire.
The request was coldly received by the Company.
*' Although we have found and resolved to relieve
you of the office and rank you have hitherto held,"
88
SIMON VAN DER STEL
runs the despatch, ..." you are nevertheless
... to continue in the appointment until you
shall have been replaced by some other person."
During the last few years of Simon's Governor-
ship several new characters came upon the stage,
ready for the end of the drama, almost, one might
say, of the tragedy. Captain Olof Bergh
arrived in 1690, a Company's soldier with thirty-
five men to strengthen the garrison. The Rev.
Peter Kalden, intimately connected with the
coming difficulties, was sworn in as minister in
the same year, when minister van Loon went for
a time to Batavia. The new Secunde Samuel
Elsevier, who fell with the fall of the Governor's
family, arrived in 1697. Finally, not without
honour to his father, Willem Adriaan, Simon van
der Stel's eldest son, was appointed by the Com-
pany to the now vacant Governorship of the Cape
of Good Hope.
" With great pleasure," runs the despatch of
June, 1698, " the Governor saw . . . that you
were pleased to appoint as his successor his son
Willem Adriaan van der Stel, ex-magistrate of
Amsterdam, and to promote him to the rank of
Councillor-General of India. For this favour he
most dutifully and cordially thanks you. On his
arrival everything will be transferred to him, and
the Governor will give him the necessary informa-
tion in the interests of the Company, to whose
favour he continues to recommend himself."
89
OLD CAPE COLONY
Simon was now free to retire to Constantia.
His individuality was too deeply woven with the
life of the Colony for his name at once to drop
out of its records, and to his death it appears
again and again. But, curiously, few personal
traces of the van der Stels have come down to us.
I hear on good authority that a suit of armour
belonging to Governor Simon was once in the
Cape Town Museum, but it seems to have dis-
appeared. One bitter anecdote of the man comes
to us from the inimical and inaccurate pen of
Peter Kolbe. " He took an infinite pleasure in
imposing all the fictions and sotteries he could
upon every one. Having the honour, forsooth,
to be once " (and perhaps in that " once " is the
secret of the bitterness) " in his company at his
seat of Constantia, he took it into his head to
assure me very gravely, that in a journey from
the Cape towards Monotapia, he reached at the
distance of 200 miles a very high mountain ;
where passing the night he ascended to the top,
and discovered from thence very plainly that the
moon was not so far from the earth as the astrono-
mers asserted, ' for as that planet,' he said, ' passed
over my head, the night being very still and clear,
I could plainly perceive the grass to wave to and
fro, and the noise of its motion in my ears. You
set up for an astronomer and philosopher,* said
he, * What think you of this matter ? ' * Think,
sir,' I replied, seeing him very grave and knowing
90
SIMON VAN DER STEL
his temper, ' I think that your Excellency's eyes
and ears are as good as most people's, and that
it would be very ill manners for me to dispute the
evidence.' "
91
THE YOUNGER VAN DER STEL
Ill
The Younger van der Stel
ABOUT noon on January 23, 1699, two shots
were fired from the Lion's Head, and at
sunset the vessels Stad Ceulen and Drie Kroonen
swept on to the Bay. They were, said the Com-
pany's journahst, " in a fair state of health and
condition." Texel had been left on the 2nd of
the previous September, and their lost was only
forty sick and sixty dead. On board was Gover-
nor Willem Adriaan van der Stel and his wife and
family.
" Although the south-east wind commenced to
blow very heavily during the evening, the governor
and his family were conducted from the ship by
the Chief Merchant Sieur Samuel Elzevir and the
Hon. Fiscal Joan Blesius, and landed at the sand-
hills, where he was most civilly received by his
father and other members of Council." The mili-
tary burghers, both foot and horse, had come
under orders for the same purpose, and stood in
double line. The members of the Council who
were present, and some of the burgher officers,
95
OLD CAPE COLONY
returned to Government House (i.e. the Castle)
where " they were treated to a glass of wine, and
once more solemnly welcomed His Honour."
Little did they all think that before eight years
were passed the young man, broken-hearted and
disgraced, would be refused his request to remain
on those shores " as a forgotten burgher," and
return, shorn of all authority, to the fatherland
he had just left with so much hope and ambition.
It was not, as we know, the first time that
Willem Adriaan had stood in the shadow of
Table Mountain. At Good Hope he had entered
the Company's service first as assistant or clerk,
then as secretary of the Orphan Chamber. Three
years later (1683) he was acting as Secretary of
Council, for his signature is on a placaat forbidding
grass to be fired or cattle pastured in Table Valley
above a certain line, marked out by poles bearing
the arms of the Company. But he had been for
some years in the fatherland, and when appointed
Governor was a magistrate of Amsterdam. His
father had arrived at Table Bay Settlement ;
the son returned to a Colony. White walled
farms gleamed with their enclosures on the dis-
tant mountains, young oak trees were everywhere
planted; vineyards and gardens, vital with the
wonderful vitality of virgin soil made the
peninsula a paradise in the eyes of the tired sea-
farers. Beyond the Wynberg on one side, on
the other at Hottentots Holland on the far shore
96
THE YOUNGER VAN DER STEL
of False Bay, Company's stations were flourishing.
Stellenbosch could almost be called a town : it
had a Landdrost, and the new minister van Loon
had been appointed. There were settlers all along
the great and small Drakenstein valleys, to
Fransche Hoek and the Paarl Mountain ; and
two years earlier Governor Simon had drafted
about thirty of the poorer people from Stellen-
bosch and Drakenstein, on to the Wagon-makers,
WELLINGTON.
Valley beyond Paarl and under the Limietberg ;
making the nucleus of what is now the town of
Wellington. A wild enough country even now,
burnt pale by the hot southern sun, where in the
fruit season baboons in long, single-file parties
make raids on the orchards outside the town. It
has the usual strange fascination of those older
places of South Africa, the green, cosy, oak-
shaded oases, domestic and European, set in the
heart of the dry yellow and pink mountains.
97 G
OLD^ CAPE COLONY
The day after his arrival Willem Adriaan was
busy on the pier, seeing after the young trees
which he had brought for the Company's garden.
A few days later, the Commissioners having taken
stock of all the Company's property, the whole
was formally handed over to him as Governor ;
the drums were beaten, the military and the bur-
ghers appeared under arms, and " the son was
solemnly introduced to the people by his father,
the ex-Councillor Extraordinary and Governor van
der Stel." During the last ten years of Simon's
administration the usual inspections from the
Governor-Generals of India seem to have been
suspended. But a month after the instalment
of his son the " Councillor Iixtraordinary of India
and Inspector of Cape Affairs " (they had long
titles, these old officials) arrived. The most interest-
ing part of his inspection was the decision to take a
journey in search of better anchorage for the ships.
Eleven years earlier Simon, going by sea, had dis-
covered and named Simon's Bay. Now the Com-
missioner, Daniel Heyns, with the new Governor,
the Rear-Admiral, two skippers and two Council-
lors, started off on a land journey in that direction.
Steep and high mountains were said to intercept
their journey, across which the tracks were so
perilous that they had to walk all the way. Their
cattle became exhausted, their wagons were only
got over the rocks with danger and difficulty ;
finally, the boat not being able to reach them on
98
THE YOUNGER VAN DER STEL
account of the wind, they were unable to pass the
mountain facing them. After a night in a sandy
creek where there was not enough fuel to stock
a good sized return ship, nor soil rich enough to
grow vegetables, they returned home discom-
fited, saying that the anchorage was foul.
Now that civilization has made rough places
smooth, the difficulties of the pioneers are hard
to realize. They had been as far as Kalk Bay,
to which the children of the Cape now go in half
an hour by rail for their hohday afternoons.
But it is good to remember our own advantages.
The path over the headland to Simon's Bay was
only cut with much trouble and expense many
years later ; and a very short time ago indeed,
travellers were glad enough to make use of " Far-
mer Peck's " old inn at Muizenberg as a place to
rest and bait the horses before crossing the
dangerous sands of Fish Hoek.
Next year a second inspector arrived at the
Cape. The Hon. Wouter Valkenier " ordinary
Councillor and Commissioner of the Government,
likewise Admiral of the Fleet," was delegated
from Batavia to give an exact account of the Cape
to their honours in the fatherland. But Val-
kenier was either a friend of the van der Stels, or
indolent ; perhaps both. He said it would be
more convenient for Willem Adriaan himself to
redress grievances, and declined to be presented
to the people. Later, his grant of lands to the
99
OLD CAPE COLONY
young Governor was called in question, and one
is convinced that he aroused the jealous temper
of the burghers.
At this time the population of the whole colony
numbered 418 men, 222 women, 310 daughters,
295 sons, 60 servants, 702 men slaves, 109 women,
and 40 boy and 40 girl slaves. We are told that
the wooden pipes which brought fresh water to
the ships at the Company's wharf below the Fort
had been repaired. It had not been possible to
kill the lion who had lurked about the watering
place ; later we hear that the same hon seized
some cattle near the watch-house and at " Roode-
bloem," the house of a freeman about a quarter
of an hour's distance from the Fort.
The year after his arrival (1700) Willem Adriaan
made a journey to inspect the outside stations of
the Company, and the condition and character of
the land of the freemen of the Tyger Berg, Stellen-
bosch and Drakenstein. Almost due north from
the end of the French Hoek valley, there runs for
forty-five miles a long range of mountains. The
southern extremity is called the Klein Draken-
stein mountains, and to the north are the Hawe-
quas ; these two ranges are opposite the town of
Paarl. Farther north, and separated from the
Hawequas by the pass now known as Bain's
Kloof, but not yet discovered in these early days,
lie the Limietberg mountains. In an almost
straight line, are the Elandskloof, the Vogel
100
THE YOUNGER VAN DER STEL
Vallei, and the Ubiqua or Obiqua mountains.
Some settlers had lately been sent out by the
States of Holland, and farms were to be
given them. Beyond the Ubiqua mountains he
discovered a beautiful valley " about eighteen
or twenty hours distant from the Castle." " It
has a breadth of four hours on foot," he says,
" beyond the Roodezand, which is merely a steep
pass going over the aforesaid Ubiqua mount-
ains." As these regions had hitherto had no
names for Europeans, the Governor named
them the Land of Waveren. The district is
now known as the Tulbagh valley, but was for
long called Roodezand. Here the new emigrants
were granted land, and a few men, unsuccessful
in the Drakenstein, were also sent to people it.
Thus started the third " colony " of the Cape.
Almost from Ihe first, friction arose between
the burghers and Willem Adriaan. He had
brought out with him from the Netherlands
quantities of young oaks which were put
into the plantations behind Rondebosch. Next
year twelve thousand were sent from there to
Stellenbosch, and eight thousand to Drakenstein.
To van Loon, the Stellenbosch minister, was en-
trusted the superintendence of tree planting, but
because the burghers and farmers would not take
proper care of the young trees, van der Stel revived
the old regulations of forty years earlier, which
imposed twelve months' hard labour on any one
101
OLD CAPE COLONY
who injured a garden or tree. I do not know if
the penalty of the law was enforced, for it was
characteristic of the man to prefer threats to
punishment. But we find him quaintly sending
a picture, drawn by himself, of the " punishment
of a tree-injurer " to the Landdrost of Stellen-
bosch. It was to be placed on a suitable spot in
the most frequented roads " to terrify the male-
factor." Indeed eighteenth century punishments
were not likely to be disregarded ; for the same
offence in 1740 the punishment was " to serve two
years in chains as a convict of the public works,
or to be brought to the place of execution and
there severely scourged ; while twenty ryks
dollars were given to the informer, whose name
was to be kept secret."
Like his father, not only tree planting, but
planning of houses, was dear to the heart of the
younger van der Stel. Immediately on his
arrival he had set about procuring more slaves,
and told the director that since the garrison had
been reduced nothing could be effected without
slave labour. In June, 1699, he had written to
the King of Magellage and Prince of Madagascar
to remind him of the " friendship cherished for
that king by the Directors of the Company " ;
and to hope that his officers may be allowed to
obtain a large number of slaves. " We trust by
the blessing of God," he says, in that curious
mixture of piety and callousness which runs
102
THE YOUNGER VAN DER STEL
through so many of the eighteenth century refer-
ences to the business, " that the slave-trade will
be more favourable than last year." The first
expedition seems to have been rewarded with
success. The ship Peter and Paul put in to the
Bay of Maningare, and after a successful barter
with King Simanata carried away 198 slaves.
Fourteen of these died, but the others, says the
despatch, were well cared for and warmly clothed,
and should the majority remain alive it will not be
necessary for some years to send for more. " Sub-
limest King," ran three other duplicate letters
to three Kings of Madagascar, " how high the
Directors of the Company esteemed the friendship
of His Majesty your father, of glorious memory,
in their voyages made to your island for slaves,
when the officers and merchants were kindly
treated, you will remember." They end by per-
suasively wishing to their " Most Sublime Majes-
ties " prosperity and a long term of health, and
are signed, " Your most obedient friend and neigh-
bour the Councillor Extraordinary of the Nether-
lands East India Company, and Governor of the
Cape of Good Hope."
The trade was much interfered with by English
pirates, and the ships brought back strange wild
tales of these men, who had been rendered des-
perate by the treachery of their own countrymen.
Pardons had been sent out to them for sale, and
they had boarded the ships in good faith, for the
OLD CAPE COLONY
purpose of buying them. Some, after the money
had been extorted, were sent back to the island ;
some had been taken home, and despite the
letters of pardon, had been punished by death.
" I believe," writes the Governor wistfully, " that
a profitable trade might be opened with these
people on the island, but ... it is most un-
christian to go hand in hand with robbers."
Enough workmen were probably now secured ;
certainly building operations were going on rapidly
everywhere. Urgent requisitions were sent to
the Directors for more building materials : " three
hundred more deals for the burghers to save the
forests for some time longer, twelve stable and
hanging bells, and three hundred fire-locks for the
Madagascar slave trade, without which no slaves
are obtainable." And again, for " More Norse
deals and spar ribs for the citizens, whose houses
are rapidly increasing." Some of these hanging
bells, ornamented and dated, still ring the dinner
hour in the little roofed bell-towers of the farms.
In the old days they were used too as bells of
warning, and to attract the attention and secure
help of neighbours within hearing.
Then, as now, the greatest hindrance to pro-
gress in South Africa, next to the want of labour,
was the lack of wood and all other appliances.
The Governor wrote once that he had not
even enough wood to mend the wheelbarrows,
and that all building operations had therefore
104
THE YOUNGER VAN DER STEL
ceased. The difficulty was no doubt increased by
the misfortunes of the httle colony at Mauritius,
soon afterwards abandoned. To the Netherlands
Mauritius sent quantities of ebony and teak, cut
into blocks in the forests and so shipped, as well
as a good deal of ambergris found on the shore.
She supplied the Cape with timber and fuel and
plank beds for the slaves, the Mauritius Governor
receiving orders from the Cape, as did the Cape
from the Governor-General of Batavia. From this
unfortunate island came tale after tale of disaster ;
complaints of English ships, who, notwithstanding
that William of Orange was now King of England,
left the island showing, say the Mauritius de-
spatches, " the ordinary English impertinence
and their thievish nature by refusing to pay."
Worse tales of pirates who harassed the Com-
pany's men, hurricanes that destroyed their
homes and their harvests, and slaves and muti-
neers who had escaped to the surrounding wilds
and plotted to regain their freedom by setting fire
to the Company's buildings, and putting an end
to the whole Settlement. So that probably from
this time the wood supply from here came to an
end.
The first serious quarrel of the Governor with
the burghers was three years after his arrival, and
was on account of the new church. Foundations
of a church had been dug in Cape Town thirty-
five years before, but they were very bad and
105
OLD CAPE COLONY
small. Willem van der Stel caused them to be
made of a proper depth and shape, and either
designed or had the church designed in the shape
of an octagon. For this the Governor, to the in-
dignation of the
burghers,
appropriated the
FARM BELL, GROOT CONSTANTIA.
charitable funds and legacies of the church
council. The burghers contended that the Com-
pany was bound to provide church and schools
free of expense. The Governor, who probably
knew that the money was not otherwise forthcom-
ing, argued that their charity could not be put to a
better use. He seems to have been in possession of
the local funds, and the church, splendid in its way,
was finished in 1704 ; with what heartburnings,
the next few years were to demonstrate. A
Coetzee was the first person married in it.
106
THE YOUNGER VAN DER STEL
Governor Willem's post was no sinecure ; there
was a growing dissatisfaction amongst the bur-
ghers. At Drakenstein they had been ordered
to supply the Roodezand colonists with wagons,
as the Stellenbosch burghers had done for them
years before, but they calmly disobeyed the man-
date and wrote instead seven pages of palaver.
Hay ordered from Klapmuts for Stellenbosch was
not supplied, and wool required from the free
burghers was not sent to the Cape. For some
time there had been disturbances with the Hotten-
tots. It was difficult to ascertain whether or not
the Company's regulations were enforced at the
outposts. Natives had stolen two hundred head of
cattle from Henning Huising, the meat contractor.
Then Gerrit Cloete was robbed of some hundred
head near the far-off grazing lands of Riebeecks
Kasteel. It was perhaps after this that he gave
his farm the melancholy name of Alles Verloren.
Cloete took a summary and personal vengeance
on the raiders of his flocks, and was in conse-
quence brought to the Castle to be tried. Perhaps
had Governor Willem been less thorough things
might have righted themselves ; but he had an
uncomfortable way of probing everything to the
bottom.
In 1700 the burgher companies of Stellenbosch
mutinied. The yearly parade had in consequence
to take place at the Cape under the eye of authority.
The three companies of infantry and cavalry,
107
OLD CAPE COLONY
fully armed, were to assemble separately. The
officers, Captain Barend Burchard, Lieutenant F.
du Toit, and Ensign Gerrit Cloete were allowed
to retain their appointments. But those who
FARM BELL, MEERLUST, EERSTE RIVIER.
remained absent without lawful cause were to be
fined ten ryks dollars and to be punished at the
Governor's discretion. They were " seriously
advised to carry out these orders promptly."
The " parrot shooting," which had taken place
yearly ever since the founding of the township,
io8
THE YOUNGER VAN DER STEL
was to go on as usual. As times went, the rule of
Willem Adriaan was far from severe. His con-
duct to the French settlers was eminently that of
a peacemaker, and judging from the signatures
of the protest made in his favour a few years
afterwards, the Frenchmen almost unanimously
wished him well. Of forty-five persons had up
for marauding and stealing cattle from the Cabu-
quas or great Kafirs, more than 120 miles from
the Castle, he writes that he will not punish
them because of the poor wives and innocent
children who would be thrown into great misery.
" Moreover," he adds, with the usual shrewd-
ness and grasp of ultimate issues of the van
der Stel despatches, " it was greatly to be feared
that as soon as the Fiscal apprehended any of
them, the rest would flee inland in order to escape
punishment. In that case, wood and mountain
would become entirely unsafe, and the well-
disposed inhabitants would never be secure on
their farms."
But something unfortunate about the man's
character embroiled him both with his superiors
and the burghers under his rule. His despatches
were full of independent expressions, details of
interest " collected," as he says " out of curiosity,"
and ambitious suggestions which apparently gave
little satisfaction. He was charged with having
communicated secret messages to others besides
the commander of the return fleet, who always
109
OLD CAPE COLONY
brought and received certain " secret orders,"
mainly connected with the flags to be displayed
as signals, which were continually changed, the
Governor and the Council at home alone know-
ing the proposed alteration. The Amsterdam
Chamber, specially charged with Cape affairs,
complained that he wrote meagrely to the Chamber
and exhaustively to the Directors — I suppose to
individual Directors. The Governor did not deny
these charges, but replied in an extraordinarily
humble tone, " as what I have done has been over-
looked, I will take care punctually to carry out
the orders of the Directors, without departing
from them in the least."
The first open evidence of personal animosity
to the Governor was shown by one Jan Rotterdam.
Under the Company's laws, all burghers were
bound to stand up in church on the Governor's
entry. This Jan Rotterdam refused to do. On
being questioned, he alleged physical infirmities.
But he was also found to have entered into a
" detestable conspiracy against the Governor."
He was sent to be judged at Batavia, with the
unfortunate result that he was looked on by the
other malcontents as a martyr. Soon afterwards
various changes had to be made in the civil
appointments, " with an eye to the vile and faith-
less conduct and evil intentions of some burgher
officers at the Cape, Stellenbosch, and Draken-
stein, but especially at the two last mentioned
no
THE YOUNGER VAN DER STEL
Colonies." The country districts now grew more
and more disturbed. At last even the shooting
contest on the " parrot mountain " near Stellen-
bosch had to be suspended. This was the finishing
touch. One morning in September twenty men
from Drakenstein and beyond the Berg River,
with the wives of van der Byl and Wessel Pre-
torios, marched into Stellenbosch beating drums
and demanding the restoration of the shooting
contest and the annual parade. After some
parley with the Landdrost Starrenburgh, a personal
friend of the van der Stels, who found not a single
officer or corporal amongst them, the mutin-
eers announced that if assured they had done
their duty, they were prepared to return home.
" The talk of the women," writes Starrenburgh to
the Governor, " I pass over in order not to trouble
you more than occasion requires. ... I therefore
went to where the drum was beaten hastily, and
found a large number of people dancing round it.
Having asked the drummer who had ordered him
to beat his noisy instrument, he replied that he
did not understand Dutch. The whole day,"
continues the Landdrost with some pride, " I
remained in the street to keep my eye on every-
thing, and found that owing to my presence there
was peace and quiet. I hope," he adds, " to
progress by means of gentleness, but Hon. Sir !
the women are as dangerous as the men, and do
not keep themselves quiet." Grevenbroek the
III
OLD CAPE COLONY
Secretary, and Adam Tas and his wife he said
instigated and corresponded with the disaffected
people. To this communication the Governor
repUed praising the conduct of the Landdrost,
and adding somewhat grimly that the audacious
drummer should be " sent to the Castle at Cape
Town, where means would be found in French,
as he professed not to understand Dutch, to make
him acknowledge his presumption, and at whose
instigation he had acted."
The excitement roused was not easy to quell.
What had merely been the uprising of a handful
of country folk quickly developed into an active
combination of several of the richest burghers
against any one who supported the van der Stel
family. For long they had resented the agri-
cultural schemes of the Governor, who likely
enough took little pains to make himself under-
stood, and thought too lightly of their opinions
to escape the accusation of insolence. Now the
smouldering hatred could find expression. The
whole story reproduces on a smaller and humbler
scale the attitude of the burghers of Holland, a
few years earlier, towards the house of Orange.
The family was simply too much in the ascendant.
Too many of the van der Stels occupied important
positions as Company's officers, arri\dng at the
Cape with salutes and ceremonial receptions.
The name cropped up continually in the jour-
nal. There Vv'as Lodewyk van der Stel cashier
112
THE YOUNGER VAN DER STEL
at Table Bay, a third Adriaan is mentioned as
Junior Merchant of the return fleet. Adriaan,
Governor of Amboina, younger brother of Willem
Adriaan, when he visited the Cape with General
Harman de Wilde to inspect the fortress, was
received as befitted his station, salutes being fired
from the Castle and answered from the ships ; and
on the birthdays of the old Governor bunting was
displayed in the Bay, and the highest oflicials
went out to Constantia to congratulate him.
Worse than this. Governor Willem was making
efforts to improve the general condition of the
Colony by the efforts of the individual. Later he
wrote through his Council to the Company at home :
** It is clear as the sun that our striving must be
that corn, meat, and wine should be obtainable in
abundance and cheaply, that the Company's
ships may obtain enough supplies. This, how-
ever, is once for all against the interests of the
farmers, who will not see it with satisfaction.
They prefer a lazy and jolly life, and to make
much out of small wares ... if they bred wool
sheep, they would more than cover the loss sus-
tained by the fall in the price of meat mentioned
above." Such a man was a dangerous and
uncomfortable Governor. Without much trouble
the burghers prepared papers of indictment, got
signatures of people who hitherto had been loyal
to van der Stel and his friends, and forwarded
them to Holland and Batavia.
113 H
OLD CAPE COLONY
It was a difficult moment for the Council at the
Cape. They were unable to take any extreme
measure without permission from the Company,
and they knew too well that a prompt answer
was impossible. Meanwhile discipline had to be
maintained, and some show of authority and
order. Papers which more than proved his guilt
were seized in the desk of Adam Tas and brought
to the Castle. After deliberation it was de-
cided to send back the chief malcontents to be
judged by the Seventeen Directors in the father-
land. The homebound fleet of 1706 carried with
it the five ringleaders : Henning Huising, Jacobus
van der Heyden, Ferdinand Appel, Pieter van der
Byl, and Jan van Meerlant. Adam Tas had
drawn up an " accusation " illustrated by en-
gravings of the unauthorized magnificence of
Willem van der Stel, and full of anecdotes of the
evil conduct of the family. Briefly, it stated that
the Governor, his father, brother, and all his
friends had built themselves splendid houses,
and there lived in princely style, oppressing the
burghers. To build the Governor's mansion of
Vergelegen in Hottentots Holland, the best timber
and the best workmen had been employed, and the
draught oxen of the burghers, requisitioned for
carrying the materials, had died of fatigue. Old
Governor Simon had unjustly acquired grazing
land on the Steenberg beyond Constantia, to the
exclusion of all other burghers. Frans van der
114
THE YOUNGER VAN DER STEL
Stel at his farm of Parel or Paarl Vallei (Pearl
Valley), adjoining Vergelegen, held a monopoly
of fishing. His adjacent land was Paarde Vallei,
or Horse Valley, probably once a haunt of zebras.
PAREL VALLEI.
We know that the mountain at the Cape lying
between Riebeecks Casteel and the Koeberg was
named Paardeberg on account of the zebras.
Koeberg was named from the hippopotami, which
115
OLD CAPE COLONY
the settlers wrongly called zeekoe or seacows.
From Paarde Vlei the waters of False Bay are
visible, and Frans was said to keep a watch on
the shore to enforce his rights, beating and ill-
treating all who opposed him.
The Honourable Company were greatly im-
pressed by these indictments. Perhaps the men
sent home detected, astutely enough, a certain
jealousy in the attitude of the Directors, For
the van der Stels the catastrophe was swift and
complete. In 1707 a peremptory despatch arrived
from the Company. The Directors, it said, had
been unable to discover the guilt of the burghers
sent home on charge of mutiny. Governor Willem
Adriaan van der Stel was to be recalled to the
fatherland, together with the Secunde Elzevir,
the Landdrost Starrenburgh, and the minister
Kalden. Frans van der Stel was to have as soon
as possible " the districts and limits of the Com-
pany described by charter as belonging to her."
The Company's servants were for the future to
build for use and not for show. The house of
Vergelegen was to be destroyed.
116
THE ACCUSATION OF WILLEM
ADRIAAN VAN DER STEL
IV
The Accusation of Willem Adriaan
van der Stel
IT is a strange lesson in human nature to
discover that all the burghers who accom-
plished the recall of Willem Adriaan van der Stel
on account of his fine house and magnificent
way of living, were men who owed their own
grants of land and advancement to one or other
of the two Governors, and that with three excep-
tions they themselves owned the best houses
in the Colony. The ringleader, Henning Huising,
was the same who many years before had obtained
large grazing rights near Eerste River. Once a
shepherd from Hamburg, he had been rescued
by the van der Stels from extreme poverty, and
had married one of their servants. The elder
Governor had granted him the monopoly of the
meat contract, and in doing so had come under
the Company's displeasure. " The house of Hui-
sing," pleaded the younger van der Stel, " was
in all respects larger, higher and grander than
Vergelegen . . . who then would have sup-
119
OLD CAPE COLONY
posed that fault would have been found with the
house of the Governor." Meerlust is still a stately
pile amongst the simpler surrounding farms. A
river runs through the oak woods of the valley
beyond where the trees have towered to an immense
height, though on the stony ground round the
homestead they are blighted. Through Eerste
River below passes the old " Company's drift,"
MEERLUST, EERSTE RIVIER.
in which Simon and his wagon once stuck, as he
relates in an early despatch dated from Meerlust.
However much the house may have been improved
in later years, the ground plan, for a seventeenth
century colonial farm, indeed, for a farm any-
where, is unusual enough.
Most of the flooring of the house is of teak, and
there are teak cupboards to the walls and a teak
fire-place with a particularly fine fire back and
folding doors, after a fashion found in one other
120
i
THE ACCUSATION
house of the same period. Within, the old pave-
ment of small red bricks has worn out, but there
is some handsome large square red tiling. About
are a great number of farm buildings, all orna-
mented with emblems of their use. The forge
has implements above it,the carpenter's shop a tool
box, another out building has two geese, which,
I was told, were an emblem of early rising. The
HEN HOUSE AT MEERLUST.
hen-house is carefully designed and ornamented, so
are the wine-house and the sheds ; never was there
such an expenditure of plaster curlicues as runs
riot over the walls. Apart, on the wind-swept
hill, is the little walled graveyard of the farm ;
within, amongst the overgrown tombs may be
that of Huising himself. But possibly he was
buried in the old church at Table Bay, for, as we
shall see, he grew to be one of the props of church
121
OLD CAPE COLONY
and state ; and his house at Cape Town was
mentioned as " particularly handsome, and be-
longing to the richest burgher in the Colony."
To the end the man pursued Willem Adriaan
with incredible hatred. During the brief period
of his quasi-disgrace in Holland, his wife, Mrs.
Huising, entered into a conspiracy on her own
account with the minister of Drakenstein, Le
Boucq, who seems to have been something of a
lunatic, as well as ill-disposed to the Governor's
authority. Having to preach one Sunday at the
Cape, he invited his " adherents," says the de-
spatch, to come, saying they would have a " con-
fertiesje " or divertisement. He then, from the
pulpit, publicly dismissed the Secretary of Justice
and the deacon ; with earnest exhortations to the
Christian congregation no longer to acknowledge
them as members of the same. He interspersed
his discourse with " many hateful expressions,"
and finally let the congregation sing the last two
verses of the 149th Psalm, to the utmost con-
sternation of his audience. The wife of Lieutenant
Adriaan van Rheede (who was apparently now
sent out to inquire into the business, perhaps as
son of an old friend of the van der Stels) fainted
from agitation and had to be carried into the house
of the sexton.
Le Boucq, having been suspended for this
offence until the arrival of the new Governor,
now wandered through the country, with a pair of
122
THE ACCUSATION
pistols and a good sword at his side, having with
him two slaves who carried heavy sticks shod with
iron ; in this guise he proceeded to visit the
farmers, to secure their protection against the
Government. Indeed, he was so far successful
that some of the elders and deacons of Stellen-
bosch suggested that the " Rev., godly, and highly
learned Mr. Engelbertus Frangiscus Le Boucq
might be sent to minister to and comfort them."
At this juncture Mrs. Huising was asked to give
evidence against Le Boucq ; he was said to have
made use of defamatory expressions against
Administrator D'Ableing at her house, and in the
presence of herself and the widow of the minister
van Loon. But Mrs. Huising, even when very
" civilly required " by the acting Administrator,
refused to confirm any statement whatever ;
alleging that her memory was short. She was,
therefore, on December 27, 1706, imprisoned at
the Castle at her own cost. On January 5, an
indignant petition " filled," says the journal, with
" very tart, libellous, and hateful expressions
towards the Government, and signed by twenty-
seven freemen," demanded that Mrs. Linden-
hovius or Huising be set at liberty. It was very
painful, said the petitioners, with delightful frank-
ness, " to behold such a matron, summoned under
such a vile, stinking, and fictitious pretext," by the
Court of Justice. Whether because of these " tart "
expressions or because at this juncture Mrs.
123
OLD CAPE COLONY
Huising offered to confirm her statement by oath,
she was Uberated the same day.
By this time Willem van der Stel was no longer
responsible for the legislation. But Huising was
none the less furious against him. He summoned
the ex-Governor before the Council demanding
44,000 florins and payment for 9,000 sheep ;
declared that rather than keep him a day longer
in the Colony he would abandon his claim and
bring it on again in the fatherland, and, falling
into a passion, he swore that the name of van der
Stel should be eradicated from the country.
When the first news came of his recall, van der
Stel had refused to beheve it. He seems to have
been only dimly aware of the animosity of the
burghers. Their " accusation " does not err on
the side of restraint. The Governor, it says, is a
scourge of the land, a tyrant and a cause of
suicides. He envies the prosperity of the burghers
and frequently says that " a poor community is
more easily governed." His best friends, it
continues, are " coarse knaves who live by roguery
and theft," ; also he " lends his ears to insipid
people and flatterers, being afraid of the truth."
He was accused of employing more than sixty
of the Company's servants besides a hundred
slaves in his own service, and of absenting himself
for long periods at Vergelegen when he should
have been at the Cape. He harboured run-
away slaves, and his cruelty had made freemen
124
-=3— =-2r
— I— ^h
>::
•J -^jJ ,«5Js «jj «««,; .RrJ
>^' »»^ ^J <tH
^'^ij^r^t^^W- -jy --^ ■tiv-
1 U^' i^UBi';
^' -^■'■^'^iriJ-
ilS^.^
125
OLD CAPE COLONY
take their own lives. He had forbidden the wine
trade, kept his forests to himself, and while he and
his brother Frans sold their wheat to the Company's
bakers at a high price, they paid no tithes them-
selves. The family not only grasped all they
could, but furthered in every way the interest of
their personal friends. Several accusations were
made against old Governor Simon. Finally,
a large drawing had been prepared of the Governor's
house called Vergelegen ; whose grounds stretched,
said Kolbe (vaguely, but always ready to throw
a stone at the family)," in the direction of Natal."
The property, declared the rebels, was more like
a small town in the extent of its buildings than
the house of a private person.
Against Frans van der Stel there seemed to have
been even a more inveterate spite. He is as full
of evil ways as his brother, said the accusers,
as " full of them as an egg is full of milk." It
had pleased " this pretended squire Frans to make
a beastly coarse and shameless request to a certain
burgher, viz., that it would greatly please the squire
and his brother and show great friendship to both
if he would give a good thrashing to two ex-
burgher Councillors (who are men of honour) so
that they felt it." We cannot help suspecting
Frans of a fatal sense of humour, and he was
probably a fantastic person. His little deeds are
made out to " Monsieur Francois van der Stel."
He sent a flippant reply to the Directors saying
126
THE ACCUSATION
that he was ready to go if they would tell him
where to go to, but that as he did not know in what
direction, or with what ships, or how far the
Company's boundaries extended, and as the
Council at the Cape could not inform him, he
respectfully asked for further orders. It would
almost appear that he doubted the seriousness
of the recall, for he had a second grant of land,
that of Paarde Vallei, made out to him in 1707,
after this first command, and just before his final
exile.
The elder brother was filled with dismay which
he did not try to conceal. His trees were begin-
ning to grow, his agricultural schemes to succeed.
The disgrace was hard to bear, and the loss to
himself and his family would be heavy both in
prestige and in actual money. Moreover, he
loved the place. In a most touching despatch
he prayed the Directors to allow him to remain
longer at Vergelegen if only for a year, " as a for-
gotten burgher who had striven to release him-
self from the companionship of his fellow men."
I hold no brief for Governor Willem van der
Stel. The pages of his administration have fewer
instances of slave cruelty than any of those follow-
ing, but without doubt a sinister note was struck
here and there. One has to remember that torture
was used pretty freely by the Dutch in their
Colonial settlements, and only a few years earlier
was treated everywhere as a legitimate means
127
OLD CAPE COLONY
of extracting information ; indeed, a Hollander
author of 1624, referring to the tortures at Am-
boina, states, whether rightly or wrongly I do not
know, that the acts of the Governor there were
merely the " administration of justice according
to the laws of the Netherlands," and argues that
their condemnation by England or any other
country where torture was not generally used
was inadmissible. Under Willem van der St el
at the Cape one instance of torture is mentioned,
that of a man accused of murdering a Hottentot,
of whom is entered that " though he confessed a
little he confessed nothing at all of what was
required." One remembers too the audacious
drummer who was ordered to go to the Castle
where " means were to be found " to make him
speak. The Governor was evidently greatl}^ tena-
cious of forms, and apt to resent any demon-
stration of respect shown to others than himself.
His letters are forcible and in a way artless. Here
is one written to Robben Island in 1704 —
" We have read your reasons why the day before
yesterday you fired five guns at the island when
you saw all the flags and pennants flying from
the passing yacht Hamer, as you believed the
Governor to be on board. We therefore do not
blame you, but consider what you did proper and
well done. But as regards the mate who had
such assurance and boldness under our very eyes,
we will certainly make him feel our displeasure,
128
THE ACCUSATION
and treat him according to his desserts, (so) that
neither he nor any one else on board any ship
will feel inclined to do anything of the kind again.
You may depend on this. We wish you all
prosperity."
The letter is signed by Willem van der Stel
alone, and is more private than official. Petulant
enough and perhaps terrifying for the " mate."
Yet, for the life of me, I cannot help believing that
there was a good deal of bluster about the sug-
gested punishments ; and that the man who so
loved his far-away farm amongst the mountains
as to be willing to live there, shorn of authority,
and " released from the companionship of his
fellow men," had something a little better in him
instead of a little worse than the majority of the
East India Company's officials.
No man can extract sympathy from a company.
The Directors replied uncompromisingly that it
seemed " strange " that the Governor should
wish to be a forgotten burgher, and that he was
to obey their former commands and to return
as soon as the business of confiscation could be
got through. As to Frans, " the protest," they
observed, " of the free man or colonist, Frans
van der Stel, about the district and the limits of
the Company, and that he does not know in what
manner he is to depart, appears to us very frivo-
lous ; we therefore do not intend to reply to it,
only saying we persist in our despatch of October
129 I
OLD CAPE COLONY
30, 1706^ that he shall leave the Cape and the
Company's land, and as soon as possible proceed
beyond the Company's limits."
Starrenburgh had already left Good Hope with the
return fleet. Minister Kalden had prayed to have
his departure postponed, so as to sell his chattels
and goods. Sieur Elzevier had sent in a humble
petition, together with those of the van der St els.
It was refused, and both were ordered to embark
at the same time as the Governor and his
brother.
Nearly a year of suspense and disgrace had been
endured by the accused men, and perhaps when
the despatch of 1708 arrived they experienced,
with all their bitterness of heart, some feelings
of relief.
One of the last functions at which the old
Governor Simon and his son were to be present
together was the miUtary funeral of Nicholas
Welters, the Commander of Galle, who had died
at sea and was now buried in the church in Cape
Town. Starting from the house of the Captain
Olof Bergh, the bier was preceded by the mihtary
with arms reversed, and pikes dragging, while the
coat-of-arms of the dead commander was carried
by the lieutenant of the Castle, and a staff, a pair
of gloves, and a sword sheathed in a crape-
covered scabbard were carried by the ensign. The
coffin was borne by sailors and six merchants,
and six skippers of the fleet were pall-bearers.
130
THE ACCUSATION
We can fancy the stately procession as it wound out
of the Castle — a line of pygmies under the great
bare wall of the mountain above, across the
" Plein/' turning in at the burial ground of the
newly finished church. In the rear came the
Commissioner, the Governor, the two ex-Governors,
the officers of the fleet, and all the chief Cape
burghers. How the sick men in the hospital
across the canal must have crowded to the windows
and into the courtyard in front, to spy what they
could, for the entrance to the church was not on
the Heerengracht in front of the hospital but on
the other side ; the side now called " Church
Square."
Innumerable discussions now took place in
Council about the disposal of Vergelegen, and in
what manner they should secure the largest
revenue to the Company. What compensation
should be given to the Governor for the wine then
inc ask ,and for corn sown and not yet reaped ;
whose was the ownership of the wine potentially
in the grapes planted by Willem Adriaan ? Cheese-
paring policy is unpleasantly in evidence, and it
is clear that at all events the van der Stels were
the best gentlemen of the lot. Perhaps with men
whose aims and ambitions were far beyond the
limited outlook of the burgher of Table Bay, and
the commercial instinct of the director at home,
misunderstandings were inevitable. The title
deeds of the elder van der Stel were called in
131
OLD CAPE COLONY
question and investigated, but only one unim-
portant bit of grazing land seemed to have a
doubtful title deed.
On May 6, 1707, the new Secunde d'Ableing
arrived. Landing after dark, he was courteously
received by the disgraced Governor and taken to
the Castle. A few days after he was presented
to the people on the balcony of the Castle by
Willem Adriaan, and installed as Administrator
and acting Governor.
There is just that touch of human interest
about the van der Stel story which makes it
impossible for any one to remain quite dis-
passionate. Theal, the Cape historian, has given
it against them, and says the Governor merited
his exile. On his return to Amsterdam Willem
Adriaan published a " defence " in which he
refuted nearly all the charges made against him.
He gives a drawing of Vergelegen very like indeed
to the one depicted by the burghers in the " Accusa-
tion," but not on the same scale of grandeur,
and set amongst lonely mountains. To mark its
desolate situation, Hottentots and fierce mid
animals are seen in the immediate neighbourhood.
The farm was, he asserted, undertaken mth a
view to agricultural experiments which would
have been all to the benefit of the Colony. He
admitted that he had given harbourage to run-
away slaves, but only, he said, because they had
been cruelly treated. In most cases he gave a
132
THE ACCUSATION
complete denial to the charges, and a certain
amount of intimidation seems to be the only mis-
deed proved against him.
Interrogated as to the truth of various threats
made by him to burghers whose cattle strayed on
his grazing land, he quaintly replied by another
PICTURE OF VERGELEGEN FROM THE DEFENCE.
question. " Would any one possessing land/'
he asked, " look with kind eyes when another's
cattle came on it and ate up the pasture, leaving
his own to die ? " He spoke of his pain and disgrace
at his recall to the Fatherland, and the destruction
of Vergelegen. Of the grievous injury to his
reputation done him by those who spoke of him as
" a tyrant, a scourge of the land," and other like
133
OLD CAPE COLONY
things. Above all, of the injustice of saying that
he was the cause of several suicides ; and that he
had " by deceit and violence taken away their
sheep from some of the people." As to the gran-
deur of the building, he proved pretty conclusively
that his house was not really so fine as that of
several of the other burghers, who owned in
addition large grants of land. That of the
Governor, given by Wouter Valkenier in 1700, was
400 morgen in area. Henning Huising had re-
ceived from the van der Stels five separate grants,
lands covering an area of nearly 600 morgen, and he
had encouraged and advised the Governor and
the Secunde each to take a piece of land and culti-
vate it. Moreover, " when the Company's ser-
vants had no land for their requirements and
domestic purposes, all, including the Governor,
were compelled to buy at the dearest rates their
necessary corn, cattle, wines, and vegetables, etc.,
from the freemen, besides having to depend upon
their grace whether or not they would be inclined
to help the Company's servants with all these
necessaries, which indeed would be an unbearable
burden for a Governor and other high placed
officers."
Perhaps the oddest thing in all this miserable
business was the denial, when it was too late, of
their own charges, and the plea of ignorance
made by the very men who were hounding van
der Stel from the country. Adam Tas was
134
THE ACCUSATION
examined at the Cape by Adriaan van Reede.
He denied that he had ever been injured by the
Governor. Questioned as to his reasons for
asserting that the Governor was a " fellow lost
to all honour, an accursed tyrant, a shameless
slanderer, a false-hearted rogue," he replied that
he was sorry from the bottom of his heart that
he wrote it down, and that it was done in a fit
of mad passion. Interrogated on all the other
points, he could not substantiate one accusation,
but stated that he only had them by report or
from hearsay. Of the other men questioned
on the same subject, several said that they were
sorry from the bottom of their heart that they
signed the letter of accusation against Willem
Adriaan. They appeared quite unaware of the
charges conveyed by it, and acknowledged that
they had signed in ignorance of what it con-
tained, in the hope that by doing so they would
induce the Government to readjust the wine
licence and meat contract. He had signed
" through his simplemindedness," said one, and
" because of Huising, who had always advanced
him money." A letter in warm praise of the
Governor, who had " done right and justice to
all ; protected the good, punished the evil, and
helped forward and placed on their legs all the
people who had by their good conduct deserved
it ; as much as possible and as far as the interests
of the Hon. Company allowed him to do so^"
135
OLD CAPE COLONY
was signed by 255 men^ many of them well-
known burghers, such as Jacob Vogel, Claus
Prinsloo, J. ten Damme, the Kotzees, Pieter
de Vos, Jacob von As, Jan Roux of Provence,
the brothers de Villiers, Pieter Jordaan of Cabris
(Cabriere), Gideon Malherbe, Jean Gardiol, and
other of the French settlers, besides Louws,
van der Merwes, and many names still found
at the Cape.
The animosity of the ringleaders persisted
to the last. The feeling of irritation, said the
Council in a despatch to the Directors, "was
incredibly bitter." Jacobus van der Heyden
and Adam Tas at one time decided to return
by the same fleet as the exiled Governor, in
order to represent the cause of those whose
wrongs were still unredressed, and the Council
confessed they would in no way regret the de-
parture of the delegates, who were " the most
passionate amongst them all, who made the
greatest commotion, and professed to have
suffered the most." After all, the burghers
altered their mind at the last moment and did
not go. Tas, as I said, adopted even an apolo-
getic attitude ; but on the day before Willem's
departure, by his desire the papers of Adam's
desk were again overlooked, and were found
to be full of treasonable matter.
The new Governor, van Assenburgh, had arrived
a short time before, received with demonstra-
136
THE ACCUSATION
tions from the burgher companies of infantry
and the dragoons from Stellenbosch, while the
Company's soldiers were collected outside the
Castle enclosure, trumpets sounding, the burghers
ranged before the gates. From the balcony of
the Castle, assisted by the Honourable Political
Council, " he had made," says the journaUst,
" a very affectionate sweet speech." Were the
people willing to receive him as their lawful
governor and chief ? they were asked, to which
the burghers replied, loudly and joyfully, "Yes."
After which the Secunde had given up the keys,
and he and all the members of Council, with
" many signs of tender love and affection "
(I quote from the journal), had wished van
Assenburgh happiness, and been thanked by
his Honour " in the sweetest, kindest, and most
agreeable manner." The Company's men within
the Castle and the burghers without fired three
volleys, answered by the Castle guns, and re-
joicings were general.
The last morning came. The drums were
beaten through the streets to signify that the fleet
of fifteen ships was ready to sail home. Quietly
enough the exiled man embarked with his friends,
Frans, who had married one of the Wessels family,
leaving without his wife and baby of three
weeks old, who followed him later. Only old
Governor Simon, with what thoughts we do not
know, remained behind to finish his days in
137
OLD CAPE COLONY
the sunshine amongst the vineyards of Groot
Constantia.
Strict orders had been sent from Holland for
the despoiling of Vergelegen. The wine house,
the slave house, the mill and the cattle sheds
were to be left standing. But the estate itself
was to be divided into allotments for the good
of the Company, and the dwelling house was
to be entirely demolished. The exile was only
THE OLD OCTAGON WALL AT VERGELEGEN.
to keep a certain proportion of the value on the
farm produce.
As you study the house as it stands now,
comparing it with the old drawings and plans,
you are convinced that after all the old place
was never entirely destroyed. Perhaps his
enemy, burgher Jacobus van der Heyden, who
bought a good deal of the property, managed
in some way to evade the decree. The farmhouse
(Boeren-huis) which stood at the far side of the
walled octagonal garden has been pulled down,
138
THE ACCUSATION
but the walls are practically still in place.
The mill is standing, and many of the outer
structures, though heaps of small old bricks
about the property point to a certain amount of
alteration and decay. I cannot help thinking
that the house, which fits so comfortably into
the design of the enclosure, must be the
original, although the front shows only one
VERGELEGEN.
gable instead of the three pictured in the
eighteenth century print. In the fine hall
within is a glazed partition screen ('' porte de
visite " is the old colonial name), not unlike
that of Stellenberg house. From the space
covered by the ground plan, the building can
never have been very large, though the avenue,
gardens, and outbuildings are planned with a
kind of magnificence. A golden desolateness
139
OLD CAPE COLONY
hangs over the place. Sheets of sunHght, as
I saw itj enveloped the house, slanting through
gnarled oaks and the small blue-green leaves
of the towering camphor trees. Confronted with
the old drawings, their young stiffly-set planta-
tions and trim orange groves, you realize, with
a throb, the change and march of time. The open
veld of Governor Willem's picture is screened
away by great green branches ; the place, and
the human passions which haunt it, are dwarfed
into insignificance by the lavishness of nature.
Only the mountain tops which peer through
the mass of foliage are the same as in the days
when the garden was planned, and the oaks
of the " Company's wood " beyond were young
saplings ; and the river Lourens, which forms
part of the road through which you enter the
curtilage, would have flowed clear and brown
then as now.
The story of the van der Stels is ended.
Gradually their names dropped out of the Com-
pany's roll. Hendrik van der Stel died in Ba-
tavia in 1722, president of the College of Heem-
raden. The last mention of the family in the
official papers is in 1740. The last trace I can
find anywhere in Holland is in the year 1818,
when Barbara Hillegonde van der Stel, wife
of Mynardus Ruysch, died at Delft, aged 92.
The Cape of Good Hope Almanack and Directory
for 1837 contains an " African Gardener's and
140
THE ACCUSATION
Agriculturist's Calendar, by his Excellency
W. A. van der Stel, formerly Governor of the
Cape of Good Hope." It has rules for all sorts
of agricultural pursuits. Cabbages were to be
THE FARM BELL AT VERGELEGEN.
sown about the full moon in July, August veget-
ables with a declining moon, and in September
when the moon was full ; regulations are given
for cutting rushes, sowing grain, grafting trees
.and tending vineyards ; and directions for the
141
OLD CAPE COLONY
care of sheep, fowl, ducks and geese. Whether
these are superstitions it is not for me to say ;
at least it proves that after more than a hundred
years the suggestions of van der Stel the
younger were thought worthy of reprint.
142
EARLY GRANTS OF LAND
V
Early Grants of Land
WHEN were the farmhouses of the peninsula
and fifty miles inland actually built ?
At first the question was puzzling. One was
instinctively sure that their history had grown
with the colony, yet the dated gables are often
comparatively modern. Since identifying the
freeholds and comparing the design of the gable
forms, I have become more and more convinced
that it is only the plaster-work as a rule which
has been renewed. All these interesting houses
have old grants of land dating from the end of
the sixteenth century.
The earliest example of all is either at Koorn-
hoop or at Zwaanswijk farm, granted in 1682,
two years before the title deeds of Constantia
were made out to Caterina, widow of Hans
Ras, " bounded on the east by the land of the
Commander," according to the old deed which
was actually drawn up six years later. This
early home, from which you can see and alnost
hear the thundering breakers of Bay Falso, has
145 K
OLD CAPE COLONY
a primitive little gable, typical of what may
be called the parent shape, from which all the
others are developments, and of which there
are specimens in the seventeenth century houses
of Holland. It is now used as a barn, but the
woodwork is all of solid teak, and an avenue
ZWAANSWIJK.
of oaks consequently leads up to the barn in-
stead of the later dwelHng house.
The colonial builder, whoever he was, designed
houses one-storied, wider, and suited to the
vast surroundings of the veld rather than to the
tall narrow streets at home. Their prototypes
are more often to be discovered in old prints
146
EARLY GRANTS OF LAND
of Netherlands houses now destroyed, than in
any now existing ; but a great many similar
outlines can be found in very old houses about
Utrecht, through Holland and Belgium, and
in England in the Isle of Thanet. Here
a Flemish colony had been settled since
very early days, their special charter being
renewed in the reign of
Queen Elizabeth, when
a fresh influx of workers
came over. Connexion
with Batavia no doubt
has given a distinct
flavour of the Indies
to the colonial house
of the Cape. The old
American dwelling of
" New Amsterdam "
had, says Washing-
ton Irving, '^ gable ends
of small black and
yellow Dutch bricks,
facing the street, furnished with abundance
of large doors and small windows on every
floor, the date of its erection curiously desig-
nated by iron figures on the front." This is
distinctly a town building, an adaptation from
the street houses at home. The Cape design,
with its stoep front and back and the central
hall, used as a dwelling room, and sometimes par-
147
USUAL PLAN OF HOUSE IN THE
PENINSULA.
OLD CAPE COLONY
titioned with a screen into a " voorhuis " or en-
trance, and a dining-room behind, is, on the
other hand, suitable to open spaces, and clearly
Batavian in origin ; only that in the latter the
open-air " stoep " of Table Bay is represented
by the covered " gallery " or verandah before
and behind, and the central hall goes by the
name of " middengallerij ."
The history of a new country is practically
the history of a few individuals, and it is com-
paratively easy to trace, through a handful of
men, the owners of the oldest farms. The
five ringleaders of the van der Stel cabal, the
" mutinous and malicious people " who were
removed to the Fatherland, were Henning Huis-
ing. Jacobus van der Heyden, Ferdinandus Appel,
Pieter van der Byl and Jan van Meerlant. In
the words of the despatch of 1706 : "As before
stated, their envy and jealousy are directed
against the Company's servants who possess
any land, viz. the Governor, the Second Merchant
Samuel Elzevier, the Fiscal Johan Blesius, the
minister Petrus Kalden, the captain, Olof Bergh,
the cellar-master, Jacobus de Wet, and the
chief surgeon, Willem ten Damme." Starting
with those men and with their friends, we come
to nearly all the best of the old freeholds, with
the exception of those granted to the French
settlers, and occasionally to the forgotten history
of old names and old divisions of land.
14S
EARLY GRANTS OF LAND
Let us first take the " Company's men " and
Frans van der Stel. No doubt some houses
have been lost sight of by reason of the con-
fiscation of property held by the Company's
officers at the time of the van der Stel exile.
Jacobus de Wet, the cellar-master, would
have been obliged to relinquish his farm on the
Liesbeeck River. Possibly it was the inter-
esting house Valkenberg : gabled, with walls
and gates like the earliest homesteads ; named
too, evidently, after Commissioner Valkenier,
which he, as a Company's officer, could have
done. More land at " Tiger Vlei, in the Cape
district," was granted him by Governor Willem
in 1704 ; it must, I think, have been near by.
Willem ten Damme had a modest enough farm
at Oliphants Kop in the Koeberg ; you may
see it any day on the road to Malmesbury, under
the shelter of an odd-shaped little hill. Fiscal
Blesius, though he was accused of receiving
bribes from the Governor's friends, seems to have
escaped without reprimand, and there is no
mention of his farm at Simon's Vallei passing
away from him. The homestead, called after the
elder van der Stel who granted it, was one of
the most considerable of the time. " Together
with the house of Huising," said Governor Willem,
it " was larger and higher " than his own. The
long white walls are spread out wdth a kind of
grandeur on the stretch of land between Klap-
149
OLD CAPE COLONY
muts and the kopje of Babylons Toren, or Tower,
and show what a large space was enclosed, though
they now encircle an altered and modernized
house. Captain Olof Bergh had bought the old
Company's station of the Kuylen across the
flats (Kuils River). It was sold in 1701, to-
gether with " Elsjes Kraal and a good large
shed," and considered to be '^ about four hours
from the Castle." Elsjes Kraal is about twelve
miles out ; one has to imagine the bullock carts
ploughing over the sand and the brushwood at
three miles an hour. The Kuylen consisted
only of "an old homestead, with two fairly good
sheds and an earthen kraal," and certainly no
trace of any old house is left.
I do not know if the present Elsenberg, Sieur
Samuel Elzevier's house, represents the building
of the exiled Secunde; the "splendid house"
of which the mutineers speak so much. It had
been granted him by Simon van der Stel, and
was doubtless fine enough from the first, since
it caused so much jealousy. The " Accusation "
asserts that he had included within his domain
some of the Company's grazing land at Klap-
muts. Later it was much altered and built
over ; but the mill belongs to the time of Elzevier,
and is mentioned in the Company's Journal.
Although a later writer speaks of the walled
river, so wonderfully picturesque as it lies below
the old house, being made at the end of the
150
EARLY GRANTS OF LAND
eighteenth century, I think it probably belongs
to Elzevier's period. It brings us back to a very
early time, when the buildings of the settlers
were full of such canal-like reminiscences of
Holland. Like Simon's Vallei, though in a
less degree, walls and gates of plastered brick
separate the homestead from the rolling country
WALLED RIVER, ELSENBERG.
that sweeps downward towards Stellenbosch.
It was an artistic thought indeed which prompted
the old founder to enclose the policy of his house
within low walls, detaching it from the limitless
mountain side, much as an artist rules a line
to cut off his drawing from a waste of white paper.
All the old houses are thus enclosed, though in
some cases when materials were very scarce in
the Colony, the wall was sold to a neighbour
151
OLD CAPE COLONY
for repairs or reconstruction, or used to put up
outbuildings for the homestead itself. Elsen-
berg is haunted by legends of many periods, and
the eighteenth century owner Melk did much
to improve it. But the plan of the place is
probably that of Sieur Samuel Elzevier. The
name is not unknown in England, since the
Government of the Cape have taken over the
farm as an agricultural college.
Zandvliet, the house of minister Kalden, lies
on the edge of the sandy veld between the sea
and Hottentots Holland. His land, Jacobus van
der Heyden the caballer asserted, should have
belonged by right to the church at Stellenbosch,
and on those grounds minister Le Boucq was
greatly concerned against him. Admiral Stavor-
inus, who collected the gossip of sixty years later,
says that Kalden was exceedingly unpopular ; in-
deed, he was accused of asking, " what he would
do at the Cape if the Governor and Secunde were
not there." He " occupied himself," says the
Admiral, " more with his farm than his pulpit."
Once when preaching at the Cape, he stopped in
his sermon on hearing several heavy carts go by
the church. " Prithee, my friend," called he to
the clerk, " look out and see if that is my wine
passing." The oldest buildings of the farm were
being pulled down the very day I had made a pil-
grimage to draw them.
The two freeholds of Frans van der Stel, Parel
152
EARLY GRANTS OF LAND
Vallei, according to Valentyn within sight of the
stoep or balcony of Vergelegen (this evidently
while the thickly-surrounding trees were still
young), and Paarde Vallei, set in a fold of the
Heldeberg, are both beautiful spots. The second
house is certainly very old as the Colony counts
age ; the woodwork in the earlier part of the
building is of teak, the slightly later additions
are in colonial yellow- wood. I hear that the
OLD TEAK DOOR AT PAARDE VALLEI.
house has gone through a period of " improve-
ment " since I saw it. It commands one of
the most enchanting views of that romantic
scenery : the glistening sand of the shore and the
rolling breakers in full view, while oak trees stand
about the enclosure, and a panorama of blue
mountains surround you. Admiral Stavorinus,
travelling thither at the end of the eighteenth
century, was kindly received by the owner de Vos.
" It was already dark," says the Admiral, " when
153
OLD CAPE COLONY
we arrived, and five of us came in together. . . .
We received a hearty welcome from this hospit-
able countryman, and were soon as easy and
familiar together as if we had known each other
all our lives. We observed no derangement or
extraordinary bustle in the family on account of
so many unexpected guests. A good supper of
nine dishes, and comfortable separate beds for
each of us, proved that we were not the first
people who had experienced the hospitality of
these honest people." It was strange to find on
one of the window-panes, amongst a collection of
old names, that of De Vos, clearly enough cut.
If grants made to the French settlers are ruled
out, I think all the other fine old houses belonged
to enemies of the Van der Stels. Adam Tas had
owned his farm near the Papagaiberg at Stellen-
bosch since 1683, three years before the building
of Constantia, and it is therefore one of the
oldest houses. He is said to have named it
" Libert as " on his successful return from trial
in the Fatherland, after he had brought about
the disgrace of the men he hated. Much of the
house was rebuilt some ninety years later and is
dull to look at. But the hall, lighted by small
deep-set windows, with a teak-doored fireplace
like that of Meerlust, teak beamed roof, doors
and flooring, is evidently the original room. Here,
hatching the movement against the unlucky
Governor, together with the "godly Englebertus
154
EARLY GRANTS OF LAND
Franciscus Le Boucq," and the " chaste Mrs.
Maria van Loon/' has sat the " virtuous Mrs.
Tas/' called by the caballers an '* example to all
Cape women." A German artist, who decorated
several of the homesteads about the year 1771,
has done some very creditable frescoes at Libertas,
and at the wine house is a pretty old farm bell,
inscribed " me fecit amstellodami, anno 1732."
FRESCOED WALL AND TEAK DOORED FIREPLACE AT LIBERTAS.
Meerlust, the freehold of Huising, was built,
according to Valentyn, in the time of Willem
Adriaan's administration. If so, the 541 planks,
beams, and spars bought by Huising from the
Company between the years 1701 and 1703,
were probably for its raising. To the old house
belong some anecdotes of later times. Behind
is a door leading by steps into the old hall. It
155
OLD CAPE COLONY
was probably on this stoep facing the mountains
that many years after the time of Huising, when
the Enghsh took possession of the Cape, General
Janssens sat gloomily, with bitter thoughts in
his heart of the Waldeck allies whose desertion
had lost him the day at the battle of Blaauwberg.
To him appeared the captain of this very regiment,
for the purpose of making some futile apology.
But his intentions were frustrated by the em-
bittered General, who in a fit of passion kicked
him from the top of the steps to the bottom.
In the time following, when Colonists were
required to take an oath of allegiance to the
English, Mr. Myburgh, the owner of Meerlust, who
was strongly anti-English, absolutely refused
to conform. In protest against his protest, a com-
pany of dragoons were then quartered on him.
But the clever old farmer knew his men. His
hospitable South African spirit would probably
have rendered him incapable of rudeness even to
a compulsory guest, and he gave a warm invita-
tion to the newly-married wife of the captain of
the dragoons (Captain Story by name) to come
and stay at his house. But in addition, he threw
open the contents of his cellar to the soldiers,
and treated them so royally that they became his
devoted slaves, working in his vineyards, and
seeking their orders from him rather than their
captain. At last the discipline became so lax,
and the situation so absurd, that the men had to
156
EARLY GRANTS OF LAND
be removed ; and we do not hear that the old
gentleman was ever forced to take the oath which
he so bitterly resented.
Jacobus van der Heyden, one of the five chief
malcontents, had a house in Table Valley not far
from the Castle. His farm was Overvellen, in
the Berg River, but though entered in the book
MEERLUST, EERSTE RIVIER.
of freeholds, I could not trace it anywhere. Per-
haps the name has been altered. Guilliam du
Toit's farm, " Aan het Pad," at Stellenbosch is
now called Cloetesdal. The present well-known
farm of Meerlust, in the Drakenstein, where a
colony of young Englishmen fruit-farm under
the most approved methods, was once that of the
caballer Claas Diepenaaw, granted him in 1693
by Simon van der Stel, and by him called " De
157
OLD CAPE COLONY
Enzaamheid," or the Solitary. Jan van Meerland
had been granted by Willem Adriaan the farm of
Meerendal in the Tygerberg, three miles north-
east of the modern village of d' Urban. The
district was then wine-growing, but now is corn-
producing, and somehow, perhaps because I hap-
pened on less attractive people than in the other
divisions, the country seemed to lack charm. The
VREDENBERG IN THE MODDERGAT.
old house is quite modernized and ordinary, but
the view from it is superb, and as you gaze at the
roads, still sandy, and crossing drifts whose stony
beds may upset the unwary, you marvel at both
the energy and the leisure of these eighteenth
century men who appear to have met so often
and from such distances.
Moddergat district was at one time cut off from
Stellenbosch by the river, and though Willem
van der Stel built a bridge, it was not afterwards
158
EARLY GRANTS OF LAND
kept in repair. The name means " mud hole,"
owing, I suppose, to the overflow of the Eerste
Rivier on one side and the river Laurens on the
other. To Pieter van der Byl had been granted
LATE GABLE OF VREDENBERG.
Vredenberg in the Moddergat, under the Helder-
berg or Clear mountain, the spur of the Hottentots
Holland range. He it was who had persuaded
men to sign the " Accusation," by simply telhng
them it was a petition to trade freely with their
wines. The beautiful old homestead lies under
159
OLD CAPE COLONY
the peak of the Helderberg, enclosed in its long
white walls. The gable is modern, dated 1800,
and very hke the gable added to Parel Vallei in
the same year, serving well to show the small
alterations in detail which give to the houses, all
so alike, a special individual interest. The stables,
wine house and slave quarters are old, and live in
tradition as the scene of one of the slave murders,
for here the owner, it is said, was killed in cold
BURIAL PLACE, WELMOED.
blood and the body hidden in the stables was
discovered later by the family.
Wessel Pretorius owned a large farm at Eerste
Rivier. Here one of the petitioners against van
der Stel signed after a " jolly day," but did not
quite know what was meant by it, except that it
was " for the good of the public." In the original
book of freeholds the land is unnamed. Welmoed,
it may have been, set amongst mellow old build-
ings, with near by one of the quiet little grave-
yards which are so strange and touching to the
160
EARLY GRANTS OF LAND
European, but which are a matter of course in
a lonely, far-off place. Or maybe Vergenoegd
(close to the house of Meerlust), whose walls tell
brightly against the blue distances of the flats
facing Table Mountain. The little enclosed
garden here is extraordinarily pretty in its quaint
formal design, shut in from the buffeting of the
VERGENOEGD.
winds that sweep over the plain. There is a
charming archway to the stables here ; and indeed
each of the houses have some special variation of
the usual scheme, which makes it delightful to
the eye. Gateways specially form a feature in
this simple architecture. They are built for
the pure joy of building, and are as non-
utilitarian as the triumphal arch of the ancients.
i6i 1-
OLD CAPE COLONY
For these dwellings of the Cape^ even of the early
days of the eighteenth century, really belong to a
remoter past, to the days of slavery : days when it
was no object to the worker to scamp his work
and " get on to a new job "; or to the master to
squeeze the maximum amount of labour out of
the smallest outlay of time. So that with that
curious factor in them of the sacrifice of some one,
which seems to underlie all success however
apparently easy, they will be, as long as they are
suffered to remain, a perpetual pleasure to the
artistic mind.
Geduld, granted to Ferdinand Appel, was near
by, but there seem to be no remaining buildings.
Later he was to make large sums of money from
a right to put up houses of accommodation at
the warm springs of Hottentots Holland (Caledon),
very simple arrangements indeed, as the travellers
tell us.
Jan Rotterdam, the first so-called *' \dctim "
of the exiled Willem Adriaan, had a farm in the
Bottelarij, the district called by Kolbe a " vast
desert lying between the Capian and the Stellen-
boschian Colonies," granted to him by the
Governor. When the freehold was made out it too
was unnamed ; so I do not know which house it is.
If is not quite certain that he remained at the Cape.
"The ex-Burgher, Councillor Jan Rotterdam," says
a despatch of 1707, " has returned from Batavia
. . . and requested permission to remain here a
162
EARLY GRANTS OF LAND
year, to wind up his affairs, and in consequence
of his pretended illness. This we have granted,
though we think that he will now remain longer
here amongst his comrades, who have been justified
by the Hon. Directors in everything, and have no
wish to proceed to the fatherland." Many men of
the name of the old rebel were in the employ of
the East India Company ; one traces them by
graves ; and graves of the Rotterdams are at
Palicat, and along the Coromandel coast. At
the Cape he seems to be the only representa-
tive of his family.
Other old farms there were about here, but
not many ; a homestead near the Bottelary is
Saxendal, just built at the beginning of the eight-
eenth century by Michael Sax, a German. The
majority of the grants were made by, and
connected with, the van der Stel family ; and
the ancient story of the country seems to be
woven into their history. Passing along the
sandy tracks would once have come the " Rev.
godly and highly-learned Franciscus Engelbertus
Le Boucq " with his two slaves and his iron-
shod staff, as he canvassed the country against
the Governor and his family. A distant cannon
shot may be heard across the veld. It is Simon
van der Stel's signal of danger off the coast,
warning the colonist of a possible call to arms.
Or perhaps you might come on Sheik Joseph, a
Hadji of great repute, exiled to the Cape for com-
163
OLD CAPE COLONY
billing with the EngHsh against the Dutch
Company at Java. He hved under surveillance
at the Company's station of Eerste Rivier, and
was buried amongst the sandhills of the coast of
Bay Falso, beyond the farm of Zandvhet. To his
tomb the Malays of the Cape still make pilgrimages,
cart after cart full of women, bright as tropical
flowers in their clothes of green and pink and
purple, clean and starched, and men with keen
intelligent faces, those with silken coats and
turbans having made the pilgrimage to Mecca.
But whether the bones of the Sheik are there still
in reality who shall say ? for when in the year 1704
Joseph's widow and children were allowed at
the oft-repeated request of the King of Macassar
to leave the Cape, the Company's Council, under
Willem van der Stel, wrote cautiously, " Should
they be willing to take under their care and
carry with them the bones of that same priest, we
shall allow it to pass by, shutting our eyes and
doing as if we did not see it."
164
STELLENBOSCH
VI
Stellenbosch
HARDLY, a writer on South Africa, has
failed to note the beautiful situation of
Stellenbosch, and the artistic feeling which
prompted old van der Stel in his choice. He
was on his first tour of inspection and exploration.
The " Kuilen " or pools (called in old Dutch
the Cuylen), whose name is now corrupted into
Kuils River, was the first outpost of the Company
across the " Flats." Simon rested here for the
night, and then turned inland, and after some
wandering chose a place for bivouacking on what
he called an island, probably between two branches
of the Eerste River, which still waters the district.
The spot had been named " Wilde Bosch " or
" Wild Wood " by some pioneer. Trees grew
there ; above the valley lay a long range of
serrated mountains, at their feet ran the clear,
brown river stained by the roots of the aroma-
tic undergrowths. Once outside the farms and
their vineyards I do not think there can be much
difference between the scenery of the place now
167
OLD CAPE COLONY
and in the seventeenth century. The mountains,
blue and opalescent, or pink with sunset, are the
same. The ordinary growths of the old veld
are there ; the protea or sugar bush, that curious
plant which belongs, I believe, to the coal period
and is found in fossil growths, beloved by birds
who strew its great pink blossoms on the ground,
searching for the sweet within ; the bamboo-like
plants of the watercourse, which bend and rustle
as the scarlet fink flits in and out of his nest
overhanging the water. Perhaps there were
more puff adders and yellow cobras (it is ex-
traordinary how little you think of them nowa-
days, and all I ever saw were dead in the dust
of the high road), and the wild animals abounded.
Simon van der Stel would have seen buck and
zebras and elephants, while the baboons would
have been more numerous and courageous, and
the leopard more often come down the scored
side of the mountain to look for his prey.
Here the Commander made up his mind to
found a township and to call it by his name. It
should be " worthy of the fatherland," he wrote
to the Directors, asking their sanction for his new
proposal ; rather a cheap bit of sentiment, for
he cared so little about the fatherland that he
never returned to it ; but no doubt a wise con-
cession to their jealous spirit. For his suggestion
was a bold one and quite outside the scheme of
the Company.
1 68
STELLENBOSCH
Lack of energy was no fault of the Commander,
and the scheme was put into action at once —
perhaps without permission. Land was given
free to such of the Company's servants as would
brave the dangers of wild beasts and the attacks
of Hottentots, and three years later a Municipal
Council (in old Dutch a Heemad or farm
Council) was formed. In the next year, 1682,
A GATE IN STELLENBOSCH.
a school was built. Theal gives several anec-
dotes of the early life at Stellenbosch, and tells
us that the Company supplied the masons and
nails for building the school, and the farmers
gave the materials. The instruction consisted
in learning to read the Bible, to count, to say
the Heidelberg catechism, and to sing psalms
to the tunes commonly used. At Christmas
the Company gave prizes, and the Commander
169
OLD CAPE COLONY
bestowed a cake on each child. The better the
child the larger was the cake. As in all the early
colonies, the question of religious instruction
was much fought over, and religious legislation
was curiously detached from all rules of conduct,
and was anything but an element of peace. At
first there was no church at Stellenbosch, but
the minister from the Cape officiated there from
time to time and a " sick visitor " was appointed
to read the service on Sundays. The parsonage,
said to be the pretty house called " La Gratitude,"
was finished in 1704, and Minister Bek was the
first to live in it.
When Ryklof van Goens, Governor-General of
the Indies, stayed at the Cape on his way from
Batavia, he went to Stellenbosch, and advised
the settlers to plant flax, hemp, and indigo ;
but none of those were suitable for the climate.
Tobacco growing he forbade, as the Company
made a profit over its sale. We next hear of its
inspection by van Rheede tot Drakenstein, who
authorized it to have a Landdrost (old Dutch
for Magistrate) ; with two Europeans, a horse,
and a slave, to assist him. The Landdrost was
given a good many powers, and might impose
taxes on the inhabitants and compel the burghers
to supply wagons, cattle, slaves, or their own
personal labour for public purposes. A mill
was also to be built to grind corn. Then it was
that the Commander named after van Rheede
170
STELLENBOSCH
the beautiful stretch of country beyond Stellen-
bosch, and the traveller Kolbe insinuates that
by doing so he wormed himself into his favour.
A VINE TRELLISED STOEP, STELLENBOSCH.
So developed the little town which was to
figure so largely in the history of the van der
Stels. Many fires have devastated the place and
it is difficult to know when the finer houses
were begun. But Kolbe, the traveller, at quite
171
OLD CAPE COLONY
an early date speaks of the houses built for
outward show, and certainly the ironwork
which is so admirable in this and Drakenstein
district — shutter hinges, clasps, and handles —
was made by the Company's smith at Stellen-
bosch to save the trouble and expense of bringing
it from the Cape. The " town " was for many
years hardly more than the nucleus of a
district. A few of the French settlers, as we
SHUTTER HINGES, STELLENBOSCH AND DRAKENSTEIN.
know stopped there, but for the most part the
French settlers were moved on to the newer and
poorer districts in the Drakenstein and beyond
Simonsberg. The power of the Landdrost extended
into Drakenstein. Thus we find a letter from
the Council in 1704, saying that the freeman
Daniel Hugod had complained of a Hottentot
kraal near his vineyard, and damage caused to
172
STELLENBOSCH
to it by cattle ; and of a dispute caused by
Hercules du Free " assisted by Pieter Becker
and Frangois du Free." Landdrost Ditmar
was to inquire into this ; and in consequence
of blows given to Hugod by Fieter Becker, the
^s
"LA gratitude"; built 1704.
latter was to be told to leave for Mauritius by
the next ship.
It is difficult to realize that in the days when
Landdrost Starrenberg listened in consternation
173
OLD CAPE COLONY
to the unruly drum of the rebels against Willem
van der Stel, the heavily shaded streets were
merely planted with oak saplings. Walking
under the dense leafy shade of trees whose
protection made so much for the unpopularity
of the old Governor, you understand how Em-
merson, who lived in a country with a short
past, would rank amongst his " men of heroic
mind " the man who plants trees for posterity.
The place has figured so largely in the history of
the van der St els, that there seems little else to
tell ; indeed, save for the many fires, its annals
have been quiet enough. In 1710 all the Com-
pany's property and twelve houses were burnt ;
ten years later another fire destroyed the
Drosdty where an East Indian exile, the Matheran
Prince Loring Passir, was being detained by the
Company. After this we again hear in the journal
that the people were rebuilding and improving
the houses. The little arsenal or watch tower
marked with the V.O.C. of the Company is
said to be a considerable age. It bears the
late date 1777, but this may have been put on
when the more modern market house was built
round the earlier structure. It is the date
of Governor Tulbagh, when we hear Stellen-
bosch was improved and that Heemraad Martin
Melk (the same who built the Lutheran Church
in Cape Town) altered the course of the
river, which had flooded the village. Within
174
STELLENBOSCH
the arsenal, amongst bricks and rubbish were
kept a few years ago twenty-one small cannon,
abandoned in the Stellenbosch mountains by
General Janssens. These cannon, said the
guardian who showed me the arsenal, had been
taken from the twenty-one different nations
ARSENAL, STELLENBOSCH.
who occupied the Cape prior to the Dutch. He
mentioned Denmark and Portugal, but left the
others as a matter for individual research. The
old church was not far from the present one,
and had a large circular burial ground that was
cut up for building purposes in 1782. About
this time the burnt Drosdty was rebuilt. Alas!
the house has been remodelled in the nineteenth
175
OLD CAPE COLONY
century and as the modern Theological College
presents an unattractive fagade to the old-world
street.
At Stellenbosch, the pet child of the Corn-
man der/there was a specially organized fair, when
the militia was drilled. The target practice
which demonstrated the burgher skill, played
an important part in the disturbances of later
years. The marksmen shot at a target which
was shaped like a parrot (Papegaai), and the hill
just to the west of Stellenbosch is still called
Papegaai Berg. A good description of the old
custom is given by Theal. The great prize was
for the entire smashing of the Papegaai. It
was £5 from the Honourable Company and
whatever subscription-money there was on hand.
This fair was a yearly function, wagons of
visitors went up to it from the Cape, joined, when
ships were in the Bay, by as many sailors as
could get leave. Uproarious parties they must
have been, shouting as they jolted across country
in their heavy carts, and brawling in the quiet
village street.
From the farms about here has come much
fine old furniture, spoiled too often by the de-
predations of the pedlar, who once on a time
persuaded the owners to sell him the silver
handles and mountings, keyhole escutcheons,
and hinges. The settlers were rich enough, and
we hear in the papers of a robbery in 1707 where
176
STELLENBOSCH
more than a hundred Ryks dollars, a silver purse
with eight diamonds, a silver mounted belt,
VERY OLD HOUSE IN STELLENBOSCH.
an under waistcoat with twenty- four silver buttons,
sixteen buttons with silver plates, and other
minor things, were stolen from an inconsiderable
177 M
OLD CAPE COLONY
house. Blue and white Oriental china has been
found in the gabled houses around, here, too,
the handsome brass charcoal burners for warming
coffee, and the comically massive " cuspidores "
or spittoons of brass. Nooitgedacht, not far
off, has a good rather late curved gable and a
fine hall. It is said to have once been a manu-
factory or workshop of the beautiful Cape
furniture. Many locally historic houses are
about. Idas Vallei, the old home of the Cloete
family. Coetzenberg, the farm of Dirk Coetzee,
v/ho joined the mutiny against Willem van der
Stel. Mulders Vallei, belonging in 1087 to
Landdrost Mulder (he seems first to have been
granted ** Welvernoegd " in the Paardenberg).
Aan het Pa, given in 1687 by the elder van der Stel
to the rebel Guilliam du Toit . It is recorded that on
passing the door of the Company's Secretary at
Stellenbosch he called out, " If you wish to have
some fatherland line with which to make halters
for hanging yourself, I have one ready at my
house." Further off to the south-east lies
Jonkers Hoek, known in England from the
Government trout farm in the valley. Here, in
17 15, was a great flood, when a waterspout burst
in the mountain behind Jan de Jonkers farm,
and the swirling water tore out the banks of
the river, and thousands of tons of soil from
the vineyards, filling the holes with drift sand.
The houses of the village were damaged, says
STELLENBOSCH
the Company's journal; but there is no village
now, only scattered houses, fine, and finely
set amongst the overhanging sides of the mountain,
and up the long narrow valley.
Captain Hendrik Hop, descendant no doubt
of the old Amsterdam merchant family, making
a journey inland by order of Governor Ryk
Tulbagh in 1778, tells us that in the fire of 1710
which had been caused by the slave of Landdrost
de Meurs, who was bringing his master a light
for his pipe, all the houses of Stellenbosch save
two or three had been burnt. One could resent
the importance of the pipe, almost absurdly char-
acteristic, were it not that the fifty houses which
now constituted the village were subsequently
rebuilt '' better than before." The oaks had
by this time grown huge, and the streets with
their rivulets must have been much as now.
John Barrow, about ten years later, gives a more
detailed and charming account of the place
with its vineyards and gardens, and says that
there were about seventy inhabitants and that
the trees were " not inferior in size to the larger
elm.s in Hyde Park." Yet several of the largest
had been sacrificed a few years before to raise a
small sum for parish expenses, the finest being
sold for 20 Ryks dollars, or £4. " For such
a barbarous act " he remarks, " the villagers in
some countries would have been apt to hang
both the Landdrost and Heemraaden upon the
179
OLD CAPE COLONY
branches." Also he says, " the most excellent
house of the Landdrost is guarded by two vener-
able oaks." Admiral Stavorinus speaks of the
handsome iron gate to the circular churchyard.
I have often wondered where the old gates have
gone which almost certainly belonged to the
many beautiful gateways. I do not think
A SHADY STREET, STELLEXBOSCH.
one now exists, either at Stellenbosch or anywhere
else.
If you arrive at Stellenbosch at two or three
o'clock of a summer afternoon, an extraordinary
stillness reigns. The whole town is asleep ; shutters
are closed, hardly a dog barks, the rustle of the
heavy leaved branches and the tinkle of stream-
lets are the only audible sounds. It is said that a
Stellenbosch burgher consulted his doctor for
i8o
STELLENBOSCH
insomnia, and on being asked at what hour of
the night he most suffered, exclaimed : ** It is not
at night that I suffer ; I sleep well at night. But
nowadays I cannot get to sleep in the afternoon."
I do not know if the story is true. As afternoon
wears on, the sleepers awake. Day cools to the
fresh South African evening, coffee and pipes
appear on the stoep, and through flickering tree
shadows the sunshine of the afternoon slants
low. Alas for the time when the old-world
life shall have disappeared with the gable and
the stoep of the old-world builder ! for they
are disappearing. Never again will you find
a better expression of the past, a quaint every-
day past, forgotten of history and laid aside
by the trend of modern thought, as in these little
townships built by a northern race, developed
under a southern sun, apart from fashion and
jostle, without the great ambitions which for the
most part make for misery. So that for a brief
time the new-comer feels as one " carried awaie
by the fairies into some pleasant place."
i»i
DRAKENSTEIN AND FRENCHHOEK
VII
Drakenstein and Frenchhoek
DRAKENSTEIN;' wrote Governor Willem
van der Stel, "is a bad and watery
country where people live too near each other and
cannot get on." The sentence reads quaintly
enough to-day, when so many a translucent
plum and smooth nectarine, which make Covent
Garden Market in \\dnter a thing of beauty, ripen
their sunburnt faces in the district. As you drop
over the long hill from Stellenbosch you leave
behind you many charming houses with twisted
chimneys and curved gables, with bell towers for
their old " hanging bells " : houses with high stoeps,
shaded by oak trees, where finks weave their
hanging nests and chatter in the branches.
Schoongezigt, with its peach trees and violet
beds, the farm of Mr. J. X. Merriman, is one of
the most attractive of those quiet homes, basking
in the golden sunshine, set in a panorama of
mountain peaks, faintly outlined one behind the
other. You are now entering what Kolbe in the
eighteenth century called the district of " Bange
OLD CAPE COLONY
Hoek " or Fearful Corner. "It is frequently
infested/' he says, " with lions and tigers, and
leads you on the edge of precipices and pits of
water." True it is that the Rev. Bek, the minister
from Stellenbosch, complained very bitterly of
SCHOONGEZIGT.
having to go over this same track to officiate to
the French congregation of Drakenstein. It was
three hours off, he said, and hard work in the cold
and wet, and when the roads were so slippery and
full of mud holes.
But you must dream yourself back for a mom.ent
into the days of the first settlers in Groot Draken-
i86
DRAKENSTEIN AND FRENCHHOEK
stein ; the days of the elder and the younger van
der Stel. The valley has been named after van
Rheede tot Drakenstein ; Simonsberg, the moun-
tain which dominates it, after Governor Simon.
The little town of Stellenbosch is founded ; indeed
the minister's house is probably built, and the
streets are marked out by rows of young oaks,
bearing here and there those awe-inspiring notices
of the flogging meted to any one who injured
them. The 176 Huguenot emigrants have arrived,
and helped by wagons from the burghers of the
neighbourhood, have been settled in a long line
down the Drakenstein Valley. The origina.1 books
of these old freeholds may still be looked through
in the Surveyor-General's ofhce at Cape Town.
But though the settlers are kindly enough
treated, and the rich merchant city of Batavia has
sent them over a thousand dollars as a gift, they
are not content, for the Company has stipulated
that they should not live near each other. There-
fore in many cases they have relinquished the
lands portioned to them, and taken service with
each other. We will follow the valley, and the
farms lie on each side of us.
To the right of the high road is Bethliem farm,
granted to the French minister Simond; but
everything points to his having lived elsewhere.
Then comes " Good Hope " In the tall peak
behind was once a silver and copper mine, men-
tioned indeed by Kolbe, but never of any im-
187
OLD CAPE COLONY
portance. A little fur-
ther down the pass
(you are now about
ten miles from Stellen-
bosch and thirty-eight
from Cape Town) you
come to " Rhone and
Languedoc " ; in the
heart now of the fruit
valley. This freehold
was granted in 1691
to Pierre Benozzi ;
probably the Pierre
Benezet or Benozzi
who, together with
Pierre Sabatier (the
latter a notable Hugue-
not name) received
170 guilders from the
Batavian gift of 1690.
" ~ The beautiful little
house is, like nearly all the country houses,
planned with a long central hall running
from front to back, with wings on each side.
These leave an open space in the centre. The
space forms a little court, where you may sit at
peace though the wind booms like great guns in
the mountains. Like many of the finer houses,
Rhone has a central screen of teak, which can
be pushed back at will, and the whole length of
GOOD HOPE.
i89
OLD CAPE COLONY
the house made available. In Lutheran days the
halls were used for dancing and general festivities.
A mile further on, according to the regulation
of the Company, is Bosch en Dal (wood and valle}^).
Here the screen is inlaid with ebony in fan patterns,
v/hich give it something of a Chippendale air.
The great stoep runs all round the house, with
USUAL PLAN OF HOUSE IN THE COUNTRY.
circular steps leading to the garden and vineyard
below, and the wine house and old slave quarters
form, as usual, a second courtyard behind. Once,
before the days of the orange disease (the dol-
thesia, a fluffy white scale to look at), the garden
here was full of orange trees. Vines replaced the
oranges. Then came the vine disease, the
phylloxera, and destroyed the vines. It is the
brief history of many a farm in this district. But
190
DRAKENSTEIN AND FRENCHHOEK
the phylloxera has been successfully combated ;
and a useful ladybird, imported from California
with some trepidation, as it was feared it might
play the part of the rabbit in Australia, has, I
BOSCH EN DAL.
understand, finally destroyed the orange blight.
Bosch en Dal freehold was granted by van der
Stel in 1690 to the de la Nois, or de Lanoy,
family, who had been refugees in Holland since
191
OLD CAPE COLONY
1648. The gable is late, and dated 1812. These
three houses are amongst those bought, with their
land, by Mr. C. J. Rhodes as fruit farms.
BOSCH EN DAL STOEP.
Within sight is Lekkerwyn, Mr. Pickstone's
farm, a little house finely modernized, full of
Colonial-made furniture and blue and white
192
DRAKENSTEIN AND FRENCHHOEK
Oriental china. Long ago it belonged to Ary
Lekkerwyn, whose pleasant name of " good wine "
has stuck to the place. His grant was in 1690, and
we know no more of him than that he married
one of the de Lanoys of Boschendal near by,
and that the Frenchman, Jacques de Savoye,
DOOR FURNITURE AT DRAKENSTEIN AND THE CAPE.
mentions in a letter that Ary had been " struck
on the head with a stick in Drakenstein."
Without appearing to exaggerate, it is not easy
to describe the extraordinary impression of beauty
these old farms make upon the newcomer. At
the first introduction no one could have been
less inclined to appreciate them than myself.
193 N
OLD CAPE COLONY
Dusty, hot, tired, bicycling on a loose sandy road,
with a gusty wind sweeping over the veld ;
ignorant of the history of the place, one after the
other white gables and long low walls came into
sight, and personal discomfort was forgotten.
Even then half the magic of the place was un-
revealed ; the cool Berg river beyond the slope
of the orchards and vineyards : bathe there in
the very early morning, if you have the chance,
and eat apricots afterwards. The radiant starlit
nights, when you watch perhaps the flame of
fields of immortelles, lit by some chance spark,
burning themselves out in lonely splendour against
the sky-line of the mountains. And the wonderful
detail of the houses, the lowered screens, the teak
wall cupboards and ebony inlaid woodwork, the
panelled doors with their ornamental escutcheons
and crutch handles.
Leaving on your right Meerlust with its old
gables, a few miles further you come to the little
village of Simondium. Undoubtedly it was
called after the first French minister, Pierre
Simond, and I believe that here he lived under the
protection of Jacques de Savoye, the richest and
most influential of the French refugees. About
this gentleman, who had a curious reputation for
truculence and self-assertion, the Company's
officers held some correspondence, in which they
discussed the possibility of reasons other than
religious which had caused him to become a
(94
DRAKENSTEIN AND ERENCHHOEK i
Colonist. Simon van der Stel complained that
these, the two most important members of the
community, the minister Simond and the Heem-
raad Jacques de Savoye, were continually wrang-
ling, causing troubles amongst the husbandmen,
and interrupting their work. The ornamental
gables of ** Vrede en Lust next to Lust en Vrede,"
as it stands in the old book of freeholds, show
amongst the trees at Simondium, a house with a
large ground plan, and with the only example I
saw of a slave house with barred windows. Under
the high stoep is a sort of cellar which was used,
says tradition, for punishing the slaves. The
farm was granted by Simon van der Stel to de
Savoye, and perhaps the beautiful little house of
" Bien Donne," not far off, may have been built
by him for the minister. The name, the design
of the house, and the woodwork are all very old,
though I could not find it mentioned in the book
of freeholds. The shell ornament of the gables is
the same as in de Savoye's homestead, but the
plaster work on the front is comparatively modern.
No sooner had the Frenchmen built shelters
for themselves than they had applied for a school,
for which permission was granted ; Paul Roux
of Orange being appointed master. Then they
asked for a church, but Simon van der Stel,
harassed by his obligations to the Company and
the probability of a war with France, refused
point blank ; and with some, temper told them
195
OLD CAPE COLONY
to " remain a branch of the Stellenbosch congre-
gation," Permission for a church was conceded
later, on condition that the Colonists were sepa-
rated. But likely enough they never waited for
BIEN DONNfi, FRONT GABLE.
leave, as the injunction to live apart was dis-
regarded. A church of some sort, probably the
" sorry barn " mentioned by Kolbe, was certainly
built at Simondium ; people still remember its
remains : piles of small red bricks near what is
196
DRAKENSTEIN AND FRENCHHOEK
now the high road. Simond, the minister, eventu-
ally returned to France. Marguerite de Savoye,
daughter of the turbulent old Jacques, who by his
demands and his discontent w^as a continual thorn
in the flesh of Governor van der Stel, married a
BIEN DONNE.
man entitled variously by the schoolmaster as
Christoffe Cnayman, Senayment, Seniemen, Seni-
man, and finally Snijman. It is a pleasure to find
that Paul Roux of Orange mastered the name
at last.
The second van der Stel certainly made great
efforts to support the French, which must have
contributed to his disfavour with the burghers. In
197
OLD CAPE COLONY
1 701 Simond returned home and a new minister
was sent out by the Company. In 1703 we find
Willem Adriaan writing to beg for the congrega-
tion of Drakenstein, who consisted of " more than
a hundred adult and married persons, with a large
number of children/' might have the services of
the new minister, the Rev. Bek. ** Since the
departure of their minister, Pierre Simond, they
are, so to speak, entirely deprived of their reli-
gious services, and the more so that the Rev.
Hendrik Bek, who has taken the place of the Rev.
Simond and is well versed in French and Dutch,
has been ordered by you in your despatch of the
2oth September, 1701, to preach only in the Dutch
language, though the aged among them who do
not know our language should be visited by him,
advised and comforted. And as the congregation
most humbly prays, and the Rev. Bek considers
himself able to preach the Word of God in their
own language once a fortnight, we have not been
able to refrain from writing in their favour, at
their pressing request, and beg of you according
to your usual kindness that you may be pleased
to make some alteration in that order and to
lighten it."
I do not find in any of the old dispatches a
suggestion that Frenchhoek was treated as a
different colony, and I believe it was included in
the Drakenstein. Eighteenth century authority
had decided that it was safer for farmers in lonely
198
DRAKENSTEIN AND FRENCHHOEK
places to reside within sight and earshot of each
other, for terrible tragedies had occurred in the
lonely districts of the earlier settlements, Stellen-
bosch and Tygerberg. All along the road from
Groot Drakenstein Valley to the rocky ridges
which close in the mountain circle of the
Frenchhoek basin, gabled farms are set amongst
the trees. Here at least there was no pretence of
mingling the two nationalities. The names all
attest their origin. La Cotte, Cabriere, La Pro-
vence, Champagne, La terre de Lucque, Burgundy,
Dauphine, are found one after the other, though
in the modern pronunciation they are not always
recognizable. Before the advent of the French
the valley had been called Oliphant's Hoek, or
Elephant's Corner. Undergrowth and thick
scrub abounded, and the great animals came there
in the breeding season, leaving soon after. One
of the Frenchhoek people (he is an old man), tells
how his grandfather watched the departure of
the last elephant with her calf. Eastwards over
the mountain side they went, and none were ever
seen again. On the slippery side of the ridge
which circles the valley is a curious path, half
rock, half great stones, laid in a kind of rude
order. Tradition there says that it was made by
the elephants, and indeed, a despatch of Governor
Simon van der Stel in the seventeenth century
mentions the same thing. A great hole is still
shown, which was a favourite lair.
199
OLD CAPE COLONY
The place is only forty-five miles or so from
Cape Town. A railway will soon be made, and
greatly may it increase the prosperity. Yet one
has regrets ; the eternal regret for the thing that
is passing. Only a very
short time ago in entering
Frenchhoek you entered
an earlier century with
its quaintness and its
charm. No doubt things
had changed even then.
The cattle no longer
went to Saldanah Bay
for winter pasturage,
looking forward restlessly
to their journey, and on
the road lying at night
like docile children round
the camp fire. Soon,
perhaps, the farmer will
no longer press his own
wine, be his vineyard
only the size of a dining
table, and the jolting
carts will rattle no more
from the grape rows to the little wine houses.
The present houses are charming, but the
shelters of the first settlers were hastily built and
poor. They cut their way through the bushes,
and chose indeed one superb site after another ;
200
POMEGRANATES AT FRENCHHOEK.
DRAKENSTEIN AND FRENCHHOEK
it would have been difficult to do otherwise, but
there was little time and money to spend on the
adornment of the sheltering walls. Hence you
will find near most of these graceful little houses
the remains of an earlier ruder erection. Three
of the finest houses are on sites granted to the
three brothers de Villiers. Abraham de Villiers
owned the farm of Laborie
(commonly called L'Abri),
surrounded by great oaks,
with teak ceilings and floors
to the dwelling rooms, teak
china cupboards let into the
walls. Alas ! the thatch
is gone, as it will soon
go everywhere, on account
of the heavy insurance
asked for it ; and with
the thatch down in most
cases, for want of a little
care and a little knowledge of how to do things,
comes the old gable.
Nearer the mountain side are Burgundy and
Dauphine, the farms of Pierre and Jacob de
ViUiers. The men were married respectively to
Margarithe Gardiol, whose father owned La Cotte,
and Elizabeth Taillefer, whose farm of Picardie is
mentioned by eighteenth century travellers as
very luxuriant and well cared for. Behind the
two houses are the ruins of the first building,
201
TEAK CHINA CUPBOARD
IN A DRAKENSTEIN FARM.
OLD CAPE COLONY
Dauphine^ fine and ornamental, is dated 1800.
It is surrounded by huge trees, and has a tall
DAUPHINE.
cypress which must date from the earliest times.
Burgundy, a quaint little barn-like house with
202
DRAKENSTEIN AND FRENCHHOEK
rude elaborate plaster-work patterns, is charming
too, with its green shutters and mountain back-
ground. Large leaved oaks, which only in early
springtime when the greenery is young and
small, look like their cousins of Europe, grow
almost up the steep sides of the mountain behind.
In this the Frenchman most faithfully carried out
orders from headquarters, so that his farm has
become in many cases a wonder of beauty. The
trees have shot up so rapidly that this wood is of
very little use as timber. Their green heads tell
grandly against the desolate rocks ; where the
" tyger " or leopard of the district still lingers,
and m.ay surprise the farmer by a midnight atten-
tion to his sheep, or where the dog-face of a baboon
may peer at you curiously from above a kranz.
Passing another fine old tree-shaded homestead,
you find very near these wild cliffs the curious
little house of Bochenhouts Kloof, a farm granted
by Simon van der Stel to Jan Roux. It is the
house of a pioneer, with its tiny heavy shuttered
windows, easy to barricade and defend, and high
platform or stoep ; and the extraordinary gro\\d:h
of the trees, planted when the house was built,
make it a characteristic " van der Stel farm."
There are but few more old houses ; for the place
was merely a cluster of homesteads. Perhaps the
most interesting of these is La Cotte, granted in
1694 to Jean Gardiol by the elder van der Stel.
Gardiol is said to have planted the ancient oak
203
OLD CAPE COLONY
which grows by the house from an acorn brought
over in his pocket from the sunny land of France.
BOCHENHOUTS KLOOF.
A few years ago descendants of Daniel Hugod
lived there ; he, you will find, was granted Zion
farm in the Drakenstein by Governor Simon.
204
DRAKENSTEIN AND FRENCHHOEK
Another farm, where the visitor to Frenchhoek
most often stays, is called " Keer Weder," or " Turn
Back/' after the name given in discouragement
by the weary pioneers to the mountain which
barred their progress.
Nearly all the old furniture has passed away
from Frenchhoek, the silver-handled wardrobes
the cane-seated chairs. An interesting old chair,
VIEW ACROSS FRENCHHOEK FROM LA COTTE.
evidently one of those carved by Indian or Malay
exiles at Robben Island, belongs to one family.
This, with a little fine old china and a great German
Bible, were the only relics I could find. By
reason of their history it is unlikely that the
French fugitives ever owned so much furniture as
the Dutch Colonist, and the miniatures and snuff-
boxes of which I heard have been sold or dispersed,
and I think were not very numerous. More
strange is the total lack of tradition, for those old
205
OLD CAPE COLONY
refugees should have had stirring tales to tell, and
from two or three hundred years is not an unpre-
cedented record. But poverty is a great oblit-
erator, and the Company's rule was severe.
Already is 1782 the French traveller Le Valliant
could find no trace of nationality save in the hair
and complexions of the settlers, which was slightly
darker than their Dutch neighbours, and in their
bread, which they made " after the French
manner."
206
PAARL, TULBAGH, CERES AND
BEYOND
I
VIII
Paarl, Tulbagh, Ceres and Beyond
T was long before Paarl owned many in-
teresting houses. The " pearl and diamond
mountain " was indeed discovered and named
by the earliest explorers, but the men who
built their homes round it were drafts of
the less successful farmers from Stellenbosch
and Drakenstein. They had begun, remarked
Kolbe, with " encumbrances and were obliged to
contract many debts which were undischarged,
and these encumbrances ... in all probability,
hinder 'em from erecting houses for Pleasure and
Parade, as the Capians and Stellenboschians have
done in great numbers. Some of the refugees and
their descendants who have had better success than
ordinary have erected such houses, but the gener-
ality of 'em are still content to dwell in cots."
The Paarl church was begun in 1717, partly out
of funds bequeathed by Henning Huising, who
soon after the van der Stel exile became one of the
most important men in the Colony, and com-
209 o
OLD CAPE COLONY
pounded with his conscience by giving to various
charitable funds. Kolbe's account of the place is
very vague, and his description of the " sorry
building which you could take for an ordinary
barn " would point to the Simondium church,
as he speaks of the fine estates lying each
side of the road near it, and " leading to the Berg
River and from thence to the wagon makers
valley," on which, near the church, was a sort of
market for the poor people from a distance, who
A QUAINT GABLE IN PAARL.
could there provide themselves with groceries and
domestic wares when they came in for service.
The mill and the church were the two centres of
the district in his day ; and Paarl still owns the
largest water-mill for many a mile around.
Sparrman, visiting Paarl in 1792, arrived in the
afternoon at the miller's house. He was taking
a nap, and on waking, set before the naturalist an
old crazy chair, and without asking who he was,
210
PAARL, TULBAGH, CERES AND BEYOND
said directly, " Wat zal ye bruiken." Sparrman
said that he was hungry and thirsty too. " What !
have you eaten nothing to-day ? " cried the miller.
" Girl, bring some meat, and bread, and a bottle of
wine," and he relapsed into silence while Sparrman
ate, ** poring over an astrological almanack " of the
seventeenth century. A little further on lived a
sexton, '' a set of people " says the naturalist,
*' more respected with the Calvinists than with
us." He was of ** black extraction on the mother's
side." Sparrman went in and drank with him " a
dish of miserable tea without sugar." The church
did not impress him favourably. " By this edifice,' '
says he, " I could perceive that the boors bestowed
no more pains on God's house than their own,"
which is ungrateful of him, as elsewhere he men-
tions the handsome houses. " The church was
indeed as big as one of our largest sized hay barns,
and neatly covered as are the other houses, with
dark coloured reeds, but without arching or ceiling,
so that the transoms and beams within made a
miserable appearance. There were benches on
the sides for the men, but the women have each of
them their chair or stool in the aisle." These
chairs involved a good deal of etiquette. A young
girl would be placed at the back of the church, and
as her elders died, married, or moved away, her
seat came forward, until in her old age she would
find herself under the pulpit, in the front row.
Certain old Colonial families still possess these
211
OLD CAPE COLONY
chairs as heirlooms. In eighteenth century Cape
Town they once gave rise to a pretty quarrel. Van
Noot, afterwards the so-called "wicked Governor,"
was on a visit to Table Bay as Inspector-General
OLD COLONIAL CHAIR ONCE IN PAARL CHURCH.
of Fortifications. His wife was given the
front seat in church. But Madam Cranendonk,
wife of the Chief Merchant, strongly objected
to taking the less prominent position. Her
husband the Secunde spoke of the dignity
of his appointment. Van Noot protested he
212
PAARL, TULBAGH, CERES AND BEYOND
did not care a button where his wife was placed.
The quarrel was duly reported to the Company's
Directors at home^ who replied with some exaspera-
tion that they could not listen to such trivialities.
Sparrman set off on foot from Paarl, with
eighteen " china oranges " which he had bought
for one schelling — Dutch — evidently not much
impressed with the place. But John Borrow
about thirty-five years later gives a better account
of the thirty houses placed apart from each other
PAARL CHURCH.
with gardens and vineyards between^ so as to form
a street. In the middle stood the church, now
called a " neat octagonal building with thatch,"
and " at the upper end a parsonage with a garden,
vineyard and fruit trees."
It says a good deal for the high standard of
beauty of the day, that the old parsonage should
not have called for greater notice ; for it is a very
fine example of the later Colonial style, in which
the decorative effect is produced by a mere repeti-
213
214
PAARL, TULBAGH, CERES AND BEYOND
tion of the large windows without, somehow, an
effect of stiffness.
Very few remain untouched of the thirty
houses of old Paarl. The town is prosperous,
and gabled houses are unfashionable. Yet the
heavily timbered street has the charm, and
the same curious Colonial anomalies of the
European life developed in alien surroundings.
The mountain with its shining lump of granite
lacks the fine outlines of the wild peaks of Stellen-
bosch and Drakenstein, but at the entrance to
Paarl is an avenue of pines noble enough for the
approach to any Greek city. Ciccalas shrill under
the aromatic branches, brown labourers pass to
and fro with baskets of melons and grapes, or a
long ox team ploughs through the soft white dust.
Surely the Shepherds of Theocritus must sing to
their pipes not far off, and old Pan himself, the
Pan of the old pagan world, will wander amongst
the shadows when the sun goes down.
Almost as soon as you get away inland from
Paarl a change comes over the country. I suppose
one of the first things which strikes a new-comer
at the Cape is the silence of the wind-swept veld,
which shows hardly a sign of human or animal life
though it may be within an hour of modern civil-
ization and close to squalor and over-crowding.
Near to the houses and around the green centres
of the farms you will find bird life in plenty :
swallows, coming, some have thought, by way of
215
OLD CAPE COLONY "
Egypt from Europe ; little " white eyes " greenish
in colour^ with white circles round each eye ; grey
finks, building most often in the trees nearest to
the homestead itself. Above all the bold butcher
bird with his black and white plumage ; so bold
that once, lying very quietly on a mountain slope
behind Frenchhoek, one perched on me for some
time. A wicked little creature, whose throaty
imitations of other singing birds in some extra-
ordinary way fascinates them ; caged pets creep
nearer and nearer to the bars to hsten to the
treacherous allurements, until the sharp beak
pierces their brains. But away from houses, from
river beds, you may dream for an hour among the
heather and aromatic undergrowth, and save for
the busy little beetles rolhng their balls of dust,
and the husks of invisible life, such as a shed snake-
skin, a porcupine quill, you will see no living crea-
ture, and hear no bird but the melancholy call, as it
swoops and soars, of the South African lark.
Further afield maybe, the contrast is less
marked ; for there are fewer houses, fewer trees,
and the undergrowth and protea is replaced by
karoo bush and milky-stemmed plants of an arid
sandy soil. But unless in some mountain ravine
you come on a myriad joyous green canaries, whose
shrill happiness is more fascinating than can be
described, or see in some favoured spot a long-
tailed " honey bird," signs of life are even rarer,
the silence almost more profound.
216
PAARL, TULBAGH, CERES AND BEYOND
Few people now use the Roodezand pass over
which the old settlers crossed the Ubiqua moun-
tains to the Land of Waveren ; but the later
one of the New Kloof, where, wrote Borrow in
1804, baboons screamed at him from the rocks.
At the foot of the Roodezand was once a Com-
pany's station, and there is still a Drosdty or Magis-
trates' Court. It is not particularly ancient,
THE DROSDTY, TULBAGH.
having been built after the first English occupa-
tion, during the short rule of Commisioner de Mist.
Yet as it stands there dignified and desolate, the
blue mountains showing, as in an old Italian
picture, through its brick arches, the place might
belong to any age. Clinging to it is that strange
desolation which Hes round some places human
217
OLD CAPE COLONY
beings have made their own, a thousand times
more desolate than the wildest desert spot. Be-
neath the halls within, now partitioned into dwell-
ing rooms by wooden screens, are prison dungeons ;
and farmers digging near by have uncovered
skeletons of chained prisoners or convicts ; though
indeed the practice of burying in fetters was con-
demned on the score of economy by the Dutch
Company, as you may see in the dispatches. It is
KOODEZAND PASS, TULBAGH VALLEY.
an eerie place ; the wind was hot that blew over the
mountain pass, carrying little eddies of dust and
sand up the wide steps, but it made me shudder.
What sinister thing had happened at that beautiful
mountain station, that the straggling little town of
Tulbagh, three miles off, should seem a haven of
refuge ?
A wide plain, outlined by barren mountains
exquisite in form and colour ; dusty roads, sparse
clumps of trees : this is Tulbagh district for the
2T8
PAARL, TULBAGH, CERES AND BEYOND
greater part of the year. Yet in early spring the
unpromising-looking veld is covered by sweet
grass, and ixias and wax-like heaths star the
country round. To this, the old Land of Waveren,
did Governor Willem van der Stel in 1699 draft
parties of farmers from Drakenstein. The place
he named after a '' great family to which he was
allied/' says Captain Hop ; probably either that of
JohanHudde, Heer van Waveren, Director of the
East India Company, or one of the family of Bors
of Waveron, to whom, together with the High
Sheriff Hinlopen and Willem Six, burgomaster of
Amsterdam (Governor Willem van der Stel's two
grandfathers), Commelin's book of the Old Build-
ings of Amsterdam is dedicated. He desired, wrote
Governor van der Stel to the Directors, to form a
new settlement which should grow by the pros-
perity of its own people. '^ Who will not do," con-
tinued he, " as the majority of those who come
out, who, when they have scraped together some-
thing, then depart, which as your Honours will be
able to perceive tends to the great injury of this
growing Colony."
Tulbagh Church, dated 1795, is interesting
within its encircling wall, standing forlornly
enough when I saw it, with windows broken and out
of repair, whilst opposite a spick-and-span edifice
stared triumphantly at the disarray of its pre-
decessor. Its real beauty lies in the curved lines
■of the gateway, set against the wild loneliness of
219
OLD CAPE COLONY
mountain and open country. I can imagine that
to the pioneers gathered for prayer, this Httle
oasis, beautiful in its way, must have worked
unconsciously into their Sunday restfulness : a
haven of peace in a desert place. John Borrow,
in 1806, practical and commonplace, calls it a
" small neat church and parsonage " (the latter
has very graceful gables) and says that near the
OLD CHURCH, TULBAGH.
church was a " row of houses," the number of
which had " lately been increased."
The elders of the old church were Jacobus du
Pre, Gerrit van der Merwe and Jacobus Theron.
Wandering forty or fifty miles farther in the steps
of the pioneers, to the higher plateaux beyond
Waveren, you come to a charming little house,
which carries on its gable the initials of the Therons
and van der Merwes combined in a monogram . The
name of the place is Leeuwfontein, for here the
220
PAARL, TULBAGH, CERES AND BEYOND
last lion of the district was killed not so many
years ago whilst drinking at the cool stream of the
ravine below. The farm is set under the bare
mountains of the Warm Bokkeveld ; attractive
enough with its large cool hall and old cane-seated
furniture, with a great fire-place and chimney
which one looked at^ somehow, as a curiosity,
because it was treated as such by the kind people
of the place. Go on, if you are there, up the steep
WALLS OF THE CHURCHYARD, TULBAGH.
pass and over the mountain. Wild and lonely
enough ; here and there an ostrich taking a dust
bath in the road as you descend on the further
side, or a tiny " Winkle " or shop (in one of these
I found a solitary Jewish store-keeper faithfully
holding the Passover ; his Bible and phylacteries
spread on the table of the room where he hospit-
ably entertained the passing stranger). In the
plain beyond stand the two great headlands which
221
OLD CAPE COLONY
terminate the mountain range ; they form a
kind of door which lead to the blue mysterious
karoOj and seen as I saw them, standing black
against a sunset sky, the vague ocean-like distance
already growing dim, they had, I know not why, an
LEEUWFONTEIN.
intensely tragic air, as of leading from an old worn-
out world into a new future full of unknown
dangers and possibilities. This also is Old Cape
Colony, for it is the early road to the Kimberley
diamond mines, and through the " Poort " once
222
PAARL, TULBAGH, CERES AND BEYOND
eagerly hastened a stream of speculators and
miners : men in wagons, carts and coaches ; men
wheeling their worldly goods in handbarrows, all
with the eternal desire of gold in their eyes. Hard
sand, covered with sparse rhenoster plants, lies
between the contorted mountains ; in summer
there will be hardly another plant except the
succulent " milk bush " ; and after a drought
the melancholy of the landscape is intensified by
enfeebled cattle and mules lying here and there by
the wayside unable to move. So far from modern
touch is it, that in 1898 no bicycles had ever been
seen, long mule teams shied all over the veld at
their appearance,and one charming little fair-haired
child asked if they were used as punishments for
evil conduct.
Whether you come to hospitality and fine
courtesy at the farms, or to reticence, suspicion or
suUenness, is a matter of chance ; help, if you are
in need of it, you are sure to find. The country
may move your imagination strongly, holding as
it does something of the sun-dried fascination of
the East ; or the desolation may overwhelm you,
so that you return with a thankful spirit thirty
miles or so back to the simple civilization of the
township of Ceres. For Ceres has wide shady
streets threaded by watercourses, and on the stoep
of the Inn do the wool dealers of the district
congregate, discussing business, politics, and their
neighbours. Here in_summer-time many visitors
223
CERES BRIDGE.
224
PAARL, TULBAGH, CERES AND BEYOND
arrive ; laden carts toiling up " Mitchell's Pass "
from the railway station in Tulbagh plain below,
and over the wooden bridge that spans the moun-
tain stream. Amongst the rocks of Mitchell's
Pass are some of the Hottentot paintings, perhaps
the oldest work of man in Cape Colony.
225
MONEY, SHIPS, AND CHINA
IX
Money, Ships, and China
NOTHING is more strange than the absohite
disappearance of things — their apparent
annihilation ; for if you reflect on it, the words
" lost " and " disappeared " have a very limited
meaning. Practically not a bit of the old Dutch
Company's money is found at the Cape. Copper
" Company's coins " are to be bought by the handful
in bazaars of the coast towns of India, and are sold
as scrap metal in Ceylon ; but at Cape Town,
though no doubt individuals may own a coin or
two, not even in the Museum or the Archive Ofhce
is there a specimen of those, or of the more
valuable gold coins sent from Holland. A few of
the Company's stations had the right of coinage.
The ducatoon was principally put in circulation
at Batavia, and was given an artificial value of
thirteen escalins (or schillingen of six sous) instead
of the usual value of ten and a half ; thus the
Company made a profit of two and a half escalins
or fifteen sous on each ducatoon. Of the copper
money, eighty stuivers went to a ducatoon and
22g
OLD CAPE COLONY
forty-eight or fifty to a rix dollar. Two rix
dollars went to a ducaat. The gold double
ducaat was sent from Holland ; these were the
" Dutch Dubbeltjees " which the Company's
men made such heroic efforts to save in the many
wrecks of the Cape of Storms. Coinage of the
East India Company bore the crowned lion of
Holland, and on the obverse the V.O.C. : Vereenigde
Oost-indische Compagnie (United East India
Company) monogram of the Dutch Company. It
is easy enough to detect the difference between
those minted at home and in the Indies.
In the early days " reals " seem to have been
in use at Table Bay. For instance, in 1659 no
one might pass through the pega-pega hedge of
the Company's garden, and the penalty for
breaking the law was three years' hard labour in
chains, with a fine of a hundred reals. Later,
guilders were in use, two and a half Dutch gulden
were equal to a rix dollar. In addition to other
disabilities, the coinage of the settlements was
liable to be changed by the Company. In 1706
an order came from Batavia to the Cape to deal
no longer in guilders and stuivers but in rix
dollars and " eights," and the price of goods had
to be readjusted to meet the alteration. The
reward for each lion killed was then fixed at eight
rix dollars, I find that Haazendal farm was
sold by Haazenwinkel in 1728 to two burghers,
Christiaan Rasp and Jacob van Bochem, for
230
Stuiver Piece coined by ihe Dutch East India Company.
Gold Double Ducaat.
Tvvo-STUivER Piece coined in the East by the
Dutch East India Company.
MONEY, SHIPS, AND CHINA
12,050 " even " Cape guilders or sixpences, of
which 2,410 sixpences were paid in cash and a
mortgage given for the rest. Under Ryk Talbugh,
in 1762, the same farm was sold to burgher van
As for 13,500 guilders, and in 1831 the father of
the present owner bought it for £1,150 or 46,000
guilders. Dollars and guilders were used until
well into the nineteenth century, and a French
Hoek friend of mine, recalling the old slave sales,
remembered his father having paid 200 rix
dollars each for two special men about the year
1830.
Rate of exchange seems to have varied from
time to time. " The silver ducatoon which goes
in India for eighty stuivers," wrote Admiral
Stavorinus in 1798, " is only current here for
eighty-two rupees, whether of Batavia, Surat or
Bengal, ninety for twenty-four stuivers. Coins of
Holland have the same currency as at home,
except Zeeland rix-dollars, which are only worth
fifty stuivers. Sest halfs (pieces of five and a half
stuivers) go for schillings (pieces of six stuivers).
As in Batavia accounts are kept here in rix-dollars
of forty-eight stuivers. At public sales prices are
taken in Cape guilders of sixteen stuivers each."
How much of this old money is buried in the
tons of silting sand at Salt River, who shall say ?
Almost the worst misfortunes of the early days
at Table Bay were the terrible shipping disasters
of the unsheltered haven. In the tremendous
231
OLD CAPE COLONY
winter gales the vessels at the roadstead dragged
their anchors, and were driven on the rocks or
beaten to pieces in the pitiless breakers of the
long sandy stretch beyond the Castle. An evil
place to look at, sad and sinister, calling up only
too easily the disasters of the past. Of all the
shining treasure heaps under the sea, Good Hope has
her share. The breakers must still wash up from
their oozy bed many a golden piece. Diamonds
from the East, once tied in the " little packets "
of the despatches, ebb too and fro, worthless as
the most worthless pebble of the shore. Here
went down cargoes of tea and china, silk and linen,
teak, ebony and sandal wood, rice and opium and
ambergris, and all the spices, the mace, the
cloves, the nutmegs, the pepper, which play such
a singular, such an almost deadly part ; when you
think of the lives lost in procuring them, and the
old story of trade.
In 1697, in the stormy month of June, three big
ships found their doom in Table Bay. The
Swarte Leeuw was smashed in front of the Com-
pany's wharf, the Oosterland and the Waddinxveen
broken at Salt River ; the cargo scattered and only
sixteen saved out of all the crew. In this terrible
time the Governor, the Secunde Elsevier, Olof
Bergh, Captain of the Garrison, with officers,
soldiers and slaves, were busy day and night
" even with lanterns in rain and wind, diligently
and zealously." " Often," says the despatch,
232
23:
OLD CAPE COLONY
" the Governor stood up to his knees in water to
keep things going, and continually had boats
afloat in order to despatch cables and anchors to
the return fleet which . . . were in such great
danger." The crew of the three ships were
unrecognizable when found, and the money chests
and two small bags of diamonds, tied round him
by the steward at the last moment — one of those
terrible moments of heroism, so futile and pathetic,
— were all irretrievably dispersed.
At Robben Island the Dageraad was lost with all
the money she carried. The broken chests were
washed ashore, but the money is still beneath
the surf, which hides its treasure for evermore.
Then there was the Craijensteen with her consign-
ment of money ; a large ship which drifted on to
the rocks between Hout Bay and the Lion's
Kloof in a thick mist at the " third glass of the
dog watch." And often a mist still hangs about
this foaming sea, where the cold Atlantic dashes
into spume and spray, as it rolls in from distant
Antarctic ice-floes.
Above, between the rocks and the craggy sides
of Table Mountain winds the wide Victoria Road.
To drive round it is one of the easiest and most
beautiful expeditions. Go on a clear morning in
the early spring of the Cape. The slopes are
jewelled by thousands of flowers; the lizards,
grey " Kokelmannetje," the little cooking man,
and the blue blinking Agora, have hardly yet crept
234
MONEY, SHIPS, AND CHINA
out to bask in the sun. The twelve grey crags,
called the Apostles, rear their heads into a pale
cloudless sky.
Yet with all its peaceful beauty it is not difficult
to imagine down by these rocks the great ship
with its twisted masts and spars, and to hear the
cries of the sailors as the wreck was whirled
round and round in the boiling sea and finally
thrown slanting with its bows on the rocks,
stern under water. Fiscal Blesius and Secunde
Elsevier were at the place as soon as the news
reached headquarters, but the saloon was sub-
merged ; three of the money chests and most of the
cargo lost. The Governor found the track almost
impassable and inaccessible both by foot and on
horseback ; and seems to have contented himself
by writing voluminous letters addressed " To the
Commissioners watching the Craijensteen behind
the Kloof of the Lion " ; but the men were saved,
and returned exhausted but with sixteen cases
of the treasure.
That the service of the Honourable Company
was attended with risks none knew better than the
van der Stels. Perhaps it was because so many men
he knew and cared for were in its employ, that old
Simon took infinite pains to improve their case.
He not only replaced the old hospital along the
unhealthy beach by the new one near the Com-
pany's garden, but wrote long letters explaining
that want of food and clothing caused much of
235
OLD CAPE COLONY
the mortality. " They lose heart through want
of nourishment," he says, " and all germs of
strength faihng them, they die." They did indeed
die in appalling numbers, and war could have had
few terrors for men whose daily life was carried on
under such fearful conditions. One fleet of ten ships
came in with two hundred and twenty-eight dead
and six hundred and seventy-eight sick and very
miserable persons. An English fleet arrived with
one hundred and twenty-one dead and one hundred
and eighteen sick, the commander himself so ill
and lame that he had to be carried ashore to
lodge at the house of the Chief Merchant. Simon
recommended for use aboard and as a remedy for
illness, a meal of barley, plums, raisins and cur-
rants boiled, with " a good dash of rum, or some
Spanish wine."
The old Governor himself had a son, Cornells,
who set sail on the Ridderschap and never
returned. A frigate was sent in 1666 to inquire
for the missing ship and to get slaves at Madagas-
car. It returned with a hundred and nineteen
slaves, " dearer than they were formerly," but
with no news of Cornells van der Stel. Two years
afterwards a small slave boy, bought at the Cape
off The Swift, a suspicious enough English ship
which " bristled with Lion dollars and Mexican
dollars," and was going from Madagascar to New
York with slaves, gave an account of a large
three-master thrown ashore at Amosse, on which
236
MONEY, SHIPS, AND CHINA
he saw two persons answering to the missing
CorneHs and his httle slave Damon. But the
commander had no means of sending to the rescue,
and when at last he was able to put off a search
party, it returned, with a large number of slaves
indeed, but without news of the wrecked vessel.
Many a good gold piece lies in Saldanah Bay.
In 1702 a great ship, the Merestein, loaded with
money, was dashed to bits in fourteen fathoms of
water off Jutten Island, trying to make the Bay.
Commissioners went out with the mate, carefully
examined the place and meditated on means to
recover the chests, they found it would be im-
possible because of the surf, equally violent
whether the wind blew or there was a dead calm.
But one of the most terrible shipping tragedies at
Good Hope was some years later in 1722, on May
16, when "the sea," says the journal, " was run-
ning mountains high." All the vessels in the Bay
parted anchor, and one after the other drifted on
the rocks and sand between the jetty of the Castle
and the mouth of Salt River. Morning light
showed the shore strewn with dead sailors ; over
six hundred men, Enghsh and Dutch, had perished.
An opening called Rogge Bay was then com-
pletely filled up and obliterated by sand. Again,
in 1728, was a repetition of the disaster ; this time
in the Governorship of Gysbert van Noot. A
heavy north wind had risen, on the evening of
July I, and the next day at one in the afternoon
OLD CAPE COLONY
the ships began to drift. At three o'clock one
vessel, the Haarlem, had stranded near the Castle,
a second had struck, a third had drifted towards
Salt River. " Then," says the journal, " a red
flag was hoisted on the tower of the Castle, and
the bell was rung three times to collect all the
Company's servants and the burghers under their
officers in order to give orders under these mournful
circumstances. All came together, but as nothing
remained for the burghers to do they were allowed
to retire, and the military took possession of the
beach to prevent theft and disorder." Apparently
no effort at all was made to save the men ; perhaps
in those terrific breakers help would have been
impossible. Yet there is something horrible in
the cynical account, for in the morning a gallows
was erected on the beach on which to hang any
one who should touch the cargo washed up, and
" when all was safe " the Governor appeared on
the spot to give orders about the Company's
goods. Carried ashore with the bodies of the
seventy-five sailors who manned the ill-fated
Middenoak were pieces of the money chests in
which " Dutch dubbeltjees " were jammed and
twisted. The rest lie buried in the sand. A story
not unlike this we find in a traveller's account of
fifty years later; then, too, the Company's officials
cared only for the cargo, and the half-drowned sailors
were not allowed to use the clothing washed ashore.
It is strange that Simon's Bay was not thought
238
MONEY, SHIPS, AND CHINA
of sooner by the authorities as a winter anchorage.
The English pirate ship, the Great Alexander, with
sixty men and twenty-six guns (she was sighted
by burgher Russouw Uving at Zwaanswyk in the
Steenberg), could have told them better. Earlier
than this Peter Dunn, the captain, had said he
found a sounder anchorage in Bay Falso than in
Table Bay. But the place was unused for many
yeajrs later, and the stone pier from which anchors
and cables could be conveyed to ships in danger
of parting was not put up at Table Bay in 1831,
under Sir Lowry Cole.
Fragile and dainty is the only part of the
wrecked cargo that comes down to us. China,
blue and white cups and flowered dishes, dredged
up from the bottom of the sea. Table Bay has
yielded lumps embedded in barnacles, hardened
sand, and shelly concretion ; together with pieces
fresh and new looking. From Saldanah Bay
quantities of egg-shell china have been rescued,
probably belonging to the Chien Lung period
between 1736 and 1795. Packed in cases which
have long since rotted away, the porcelain lies
spread on the soft sandy ocean bed, a silent tea
party, as it were, laid out for the ghosts of the dead
sailors. Many of the tiny cups without handles
are absolutely perfect, though they have lain in
the wash of the waves for a hundred and fifty
years and more. The ships of the Dutch Company
had an enormous trade with the Celestials, not
239
OLD CAPE COLONY
from China itself, but from islands near, to which
their traders carried likely wares.
There is rather an indignant entry in one
journal of van der Stel's time to the effect
that " no tea and china " have come in the
fleet. The household crockery of Good Hope
was entirely brought from the East ; probably
also the metal pots, pans and bowls, for
there is a special order for copper bowls from
Tutucoryn for use in van der Stel's hospital. In
some dusty vineyard far out in the country, you
may unearth great pieces of beautiful blue and
white porcelain, hidden there as likely as not
after some eighteenth century domestic smash by
a frightened slave. We know from the indentures
of 1798 how much of this fine stuff was regularly
imported. Sent yearly from the East for ordinary
use were eighteen thousand five hundred dishes,
twenty thousand basins and bowls and twelve
thousand cups and saucers. They were all to be of
blue and white colour alone. But you can find, too,
curious lacquered china, old Chinese figures, and
rare jars of pale brown, wonderful in texture and hue.
So valuable are these things of art, of restrained
beauty of design in a new country, which threatens
to become newer and more crude every day, that I
think of begging from a more powerful pen than
my own a solemn curse to be read over all
persons who remove, for payment or otherwise, their
neighbours' old china and export it to Europe.
240
FROM SEVENTEEN HUNDRED FOR
FIFTY YEARS.
X
From Seventeen Hundred for Fifty
Years
TN the early part of the eighteenth century
-^ only the settlement of Table Bay was termed
the " Cape/' and was thus distinguished from the
outlying farms. Waveren (Tulbagh) had not a
Landdrost and Heemrade (magistrate and farm
council), but was included in the colony of
Stellenbosch, of which Drakenstein and French-
hoek formed a sub-division. A great deal of
discussion arose as to the right way of enlarging
the town at the Cape, as the burghers wisely
thought that a fixed plan should be made.
" Should the town be along the watering place
parallel with the shore, or towards the Company's
garden ? " They decided that the town was to
spread on the upper slopes, which were healthier
than the shore and better provided with water.
The plein (parade) was to be left open from the
house of Fiscal Blesius, which faced the parade,
" to that of the burgher David Heufke," and a
town house was to be built on the site of the old
243
OLD CAPE COLONY
watch-house, the freehold of which had belonged
to the exiled Elzevir. The two houses of Huising
and Blesius joined each other. Just possibly
they were the two very high stoeped houses at
the bottom of Strand Street.
In 1714, five years later than these decisions
of the Governor and Council, the traveller Valen-
tyn counted 254 houses, small and large, in the
town ; many more than he had seen on his first
visit to the Cape in 1685, when the remains of
van Riebeeck's old fort were being cleared away.
Most of the houses now were thatched and very
comfortable, with several good rooms. Those
with double storeys had two drawing-rooms to
the front, several rooms in the middle or back
of the house, and a very large yard or court
behind. The houses of Fiscal Blesius and Hen-
ning Huising were the handsomest in the town,
and built with stoeps and gables. Henning
by this time was member of the Municipal
Council, and one of the richest men at the Cape.
Valentyn speaks of " Brommers Row," which
faced the Strand where Mr. Brommer, the ship-
ping master, had a " big handsome house with
a large stoep," and describes the four large
straight streets going towards Table Mountain,
and the four cross streets from the Castle, towards
the Lion Mountain, which you can still easily
trace. Going towards the " Lion's Rump " were
pumps from which the ships were watered,
244
FROM SEVENTEEN HUNDRED
another was " in the Square at the first straight
street to Table Mountain" ; a third, from which
at the beginning of the nineteenth century slaves
used to fetch water for household purposes, was
on the way to the Castle. For at these places,
says Valentyn, " Mr. Willem Adriaan van der
Stel has made ever-springing fountains." I think
one of the old pumps is still in existence."
For these building operations bricks were
both made at the Cape and sent from Holland,
and though people often speak of " Batavian
bricks," I cannot find that any were imported.
We hear that the Governor-general inspected the
potteries and tile factories at Table Bay, and found
the work very compact and good, and the tiles
better than those of Batavia. According to
Valentyn, some of the houses were built of Cape
stone, but I never heard of any stone houses,
though the quarry on the Steenberg beyond
Constantia supplied good stone for flooring, and
the pavement of Constantia is said to have come
from there. Chinese convicts are spoken of as
masons.
Several alterations had become necessary in
Simon van der Stel's hospital facing the church.
The canal was a source of anxiety, as it was
continually being filled up by deposits of sandy
soil from the mountain water, and the patients
could get across to the canteens. Frogs and
crabs undermined the banks, and the water was
245
OLD CAPE COLONY
unwholesome. So it was filled in, and the addi-
tional space enclosed by a high wall and planted
with trees. A gateway was made in the wall
opposite the church and another into the Com-
pany's garden.
To our ideas this old hospital of Van der Stel
which occupied all the upper part of what is
now the west side of Adderley Street, and was
the most important building next to the Castle,
was altogether fearful. But the report says that
the 225 patients, all Europeans, were fairly well
provided with necessaries, better than had been
expected; excepting that some had no pillows,
and that ten or twelve were lying on mats or
pieces of sail instead of beds. " A lantern was
to be slung with a lighted match in a central
place where the sick could light their pipes, in
order that they should not run to and fro or
have fires made with bushes." A later traveller
describes it as a building of some magnificence
with its large glazed windows and four wings, at
each corner of which were four little houses each
with a " terrace " — perhaps meaning a flat roof.
The patients, poor folk, were then looked after by
eight or ten slaves who came on in relays, brought
food and drink to those who were too weak to
move, and told the '* father of the hospital "
when any one was worse or had died.
For about twenty-two years after WiUem
Adriaan van der Stel's exile, the colonies of the
246
FROM SEVENTEEN HUNDRED
Cape were at a standstill. The settlers were
without the hopes and excitements of the pioneers,
and the burghers had enough to do to pay their
taxes and to buy the necessaries of life. For,
*' the duty of the officials/' wrote Commissioner
d'Ableing, was " to add to the Company's profits."
These profits resulted principally from the sale
SUNDIAL IN THE COMPANY'S GARDEN.
of imports. He trusted so to arrange and
regulate the sale of goods that the Company
should secure even greater profits, and wrote
to the Landdrost of Stellenbosch, telling him
cynically that the Company had a great quantity
of unsaleable tobacco on hand, for which he was
247
OLD CAPE COLONY
to induce the burghers to exchange their wheat.
It was proposed to further increase the revenue
by the simple expedient of buying up all the
grain and selling it to the bakers and the licensed
victuallers at a profit. Severe laws were made
against wine smuggling. Offenders were to pay
300 rix dollars, or in default to be flogged and
serve for three months as convicts without
distinction of person. Wine farmers and other
producers of the Cape district from the hill of
the " so called Roodebloem at a quarter of an
hour behind the Castle and the Salt River, to the
Witteboom in the direction of Hout Bay and
its surroundings/' were forbidden to sell wine,
brandy or liquor in any quantity whatever, and
it was thought to turn the surplus wine into
vinegar for the ships.
A petition signed amongst others by Henning
Huising protested that hitherto they had " never
been asked to pay tithes on their seed-corn, and
bread, and that if as it appears this is now de-
manded of them, they will be totally ruined
the more so that they have to bring everything
to the Castle in their own wagons." The Directors
were advised that if they put a tithe on peas
and beans, the colonists would give up planting
them. To its discredit the Company had always
carried on a trade with the natives in " dagga,"
the wild hemp still used for smoking, with such
terrible stupefying and intoxicating results on
248
FROM SEVENTEEN HUNDRED
the smoker. We note that the meat contract,
which had fallen through in 1705 and been divided
by Willem Adriaan amongst four butchers, had
been renewed in favour of Henning Huising.
There was little incentive amongst the officials
to improve or beautify their surroundings. The
new regulations made any ambition of this sort
impossible. From the time of the van der Stel
exile, the Company's servants from the highest
to the lowest, were ordered to get rid of any land
COMMON SEAL OF THE VEREENIGDE OOST-INDISCHE COMPAGNIE
(United East India Company).
they might possess by selling or otherwise, on
pain of forfeiture should the order be disobeyed.
No Company's officer was any longer to hire,
own, or occupy as proprietor any piece of land.
Thev were to do no trade in corn, cattle, or
wine. They were to remain satisfied with their
pay. There is a certain smack of Socialism
about this, and in the order that even amongst
the burghers equality was to be obtained, as far
as possible, by forbidding those who had " suffi-
cient amount of land " from buying more from
249
OLD CAPE COLONY
their neighbours. Who was to decide the regu-
lation amount I do not know.
Want of timber again became a serious diffi-
culty, and how to obtain a supply so puzzling a
question that at one meeting of Council every one
was invited to write on paper what he considered
the best course to pursue. Van der Stel's un-
popular regulations as to tree planting on the
farms w^ere kept up as far as possible. But even
when the farms were granted free, on conditions
that timber was planted and preserved, the
men were unwilling to abide by the terms, and
excused themselves by saying that the branches
of the trees harboured birds, and that the
birds ate the grain. Van Assenburgh revived at
Stellenbosch the placaat by which tree injurers
were flogged. Landdrosts were ordered to visit
all farms and choose suitable places for tree
planting ; shoemakers who denuded the under-
growth for their tanning were severely cautioned.
In 1708, the year after the Van der Stel exile,
the new Governor sent a galiot to Natal and
Rio de la Goa for timber. " We are specially
urged to do this," he wrote, " by the great want
of timber in which we find ourselves, so that if
we do not get a good supply from home, things
will look very bad."
For some reason the Governor and Council grew
weary of the so called " astronomer " Kolbe, and
wrote about this time to the Directors that he
250
FROM SEVENTEEN HUNDRED
did not perform any burgher service and must
be either taxed as a colonist or sent home. The
two Uttle books by which he justified his stay
at the Cape are as full of local colour in their
own way as Mr. Pepys' diary, but it is said that
he remained at Table Bay and invented his
descriptions of the country. We are pleased to
hear of the men walking about during a south-
easter wind anxiously holding on to their wigs
as well as to their hats. His breakfast party at
the tea-table of Mr. Ortman is nice reading.
There was present his ''friend Mr. Rotterdam,
a gentleman of 70 years of age, lately come from
Batavia"; hearing of some remarkable tides
they went down to the shore, and afterwards
got out chairs and " sat in such a manner
as to have full view of the sea." The '' gentle-
man " was in fact the Jan Rotterdam exiled by
Willem van der Stel for insubordination, and
the host was probably Notary Nicolas Oortman,
who owned part of the Zwaanswyk farm. I
suppose Kolbe was sent home, for we hear no
more of him ; there are, however, cultivated
representatives of the name in the colony.
Gradually mention of what may be called the
" van der Stel set " drops out of the journal.
Lieutenant Adriaan van Rheede, son of van
Rhreede tot Drakenstein, died in 1708, and was
buried with honours. In 171 1 old Fiscal Johan
Blesius died, and Governor Simon was present
251
OLD CAPE COLONY
at his funeral. There is in the Cape Archive
office the small hatchment of a Joan Blesius,
who must be his grandson.
Here and there is a mention of Governor Simon,
still living at Constantia. The Governor-General
COAT OF ARMS OF JOAN BLESIUS.
van Hoorn, at the Cape in 171 1, with his wife
and daughter, paid him a visit of several days,
driving, we may be sure, by the old track past
van Riebeeck'sfarmof Boscheuval, thought " the
most beautiful place in the Colony," which they
went to see another day. We have a graphic
account in the journal of van Hoorn's departure,
252
FROM SEVENTEEN HUNDRED
starting from the jetty amidst salutes from the
Castle, and volleys fired by the burghers, while
the ladies of the Cape gathered on the beach
in their carriages to watch the fleet sweep out
of the Bay.
A beautiful sight must these ships have been,
carrying great lanterns above their heavily
carved sterns, flying their pennons, saluting,
as they passed it, the Company's flag on the
Castle. Boom ! go the guns in a parting fare-
well. Thin puffs of smoke and spreading sails,
already swelled by the wind, show brightly
against the clear blue of the sea and sky. Quietly,
with a certain solemnity in its state, the fleet
moves off from the hospitable shore ; are not
her dangers from fire and sword, shoal and sick-
ness, so great that each voyage is achieved with
a certain astonishment, and a thankfulness of
heart most touching and beautiful. The great
bodies of her ships, full of men and costly mer-
chandise, grow small, far off, distinct in the
southern atmosphere, and the horizon closes
over them. You and I, ploughing along the
tropic seas on one of the great liners, may well
cast back our minds to the days of the old Com-
pany, and earlier. Threshing through the phos-
phorescent waves, we would have heard, instead
of the melancholy, reassuring "All's well" of the
night watch, the nasal hymn of the leather- jerkined
sailors chanting to awaken the sleepers —
253
OLD CAPE COLONY
" Hier zeylen wy met God verheven,
God wil ons onse Sonden vergeven ;
Al onse Sonden en misdaed.
God wil ons goede Schip bewaeren,
Met alle de lieden daeren vaeren.
Voor Zee, voor Sand, voor Vyer, en Brand,
Voor de Helsche, boose, Vyand,
Voor alle quaed ons God bewaere.
they sang, according to Christopher Schweitzer,
1675-1683. Done into Enghsh it runs thus —
" Here we sail and God is nigh us,
God will us our sins forgive ;
All evil deeds committed by us.
Our good ship is in His keeping,
With the men that in her live.
From sea, from shoal, from fire, and sword.
From hellish enemy abroad
And from all ills, preserve us, Lord."
In 171 1 came the sickness and death at Good
Hope of the new Governor. A last sinister
accusation of having poisoned van Assenburgh
was made against old Simon van der Stel, but
it does not seem to have met with general belief.
Van Assenburgh seems to have been popular,
though it is said that he drank. The journal
at any rate sings his praises, and talks of the
many dinners he gave the officials, and how once
he even organized a bull-fight for them in the
courtyard of the Castle. In 1712 Simon van der
Stel died, lonely enough it may be, at Constan-
tia, seventy-three years old. His property was
taken over by Olof Bergh, and with the death
254
FROM SEVENTEEN HUNDRED
of the old Company's soldier its early associations
passed away.
New people had been arriving at Table Bay,
and new men are mentioned in the journal,
A Pierre Cronje was spoken of in 1708, when he
shot two Hottentot women, and was banished
for twenty-five years, with half his goods con-
fiscated ; and I note that Douw Gerbrantz Steyn
is the surveyor of the Steenberg property, for
Nicolas Oortmans, when Governor van Assen-
burgh made out the title deeds of the second
grant.
An unusual gloom hung over the colonies
after the death of Van Assenburgh and Simon
van der Stel. William Helot, once " first clerk "
to Governor Simon, was now Secunde, and he
became Administrator for the time being ; it
was he who, finding the punishment of flogging
not severe enough to act as a deterrent on
the slaves, suggested branding them on the face
and neck, a suggestion which was adopted.
The summer of 1713 was intensely hot and,
though the disease is usually worse during the
damp weather of the Cape, small-pox raged
at Table Bay and the surrounding country. Of
the Europeans, 120 died between the months
of April and June, and in the Drakenstein there
were hardly twenty, people in good health left.
Large quantities of slaves died, and there was
great mortality amongst the Hottentots ; some
255
OLD CAPE COLONY
of them flying inland to escape the pestilence,
met with a hostile tribe and were exterminated.
The sickness had abated, though people had
not yet, says the journal, begun to marry, when
at the end of the year 17 13 Governor de Chavonnes
arrived from the fatherland. He was received
with the usual congratulations ; moreover, a
picnic in a tent of leaves was organized in the
Company's gardens ; but by the usual fate of
picnics, the rain came down and the guests had
to adjourn to the Castle. The two sons of
Chavonnes, Captain Dominicus Marius and Ensign
Peter de Chavonnes, arrived at the same time
as their father, and were introduced to the bat-
talion ; both were in the Company's service and
later were given posts in the Dutch Indies.
Soon after a fire broke out at the Leerdam point
of the Castle, near the powder magazine, which
must have been sufficiently alarming, the courtier-
Hke journahst says, that '' though heavy rain was
falling the Governor gave such orders that the
fire was soon extinguished." In 1715 General
de Chavonnes laid the first stone of the Fort
or battery on the seaside below the Lion's Rump,
called by him Mauritius, but now, I think, usually
known as the Chavonnes Battery.
Very little of note is entered in the journal
of this period. In 17 16 the ships arrived with
news of the death of Louis XIV, who had " reigned
so many years and by his domineering ways had
2.^6
FROM SEVENTEEN HUNDRED
thrown Europe and our fatherland especially into
confusion." In May of the same year we hear
that the Christmas ships had not yet arrived.
Delayed fleets were a perpetual source of anxiety
at Table Bay ; cut off from all other means of
information about the outside world, want of
news filled them with apprehensions of every kind
of disaster, political and to the ships. It was now
feared that trouble had arisen with Great Britain.
The condition of the people inland was most
deplorable. Cattle were dying in thousands, and
the Superintendent of the Schuur, who needed
more draught oxen, was ordered to proceed as
far inland as possible with an armed escort to
barter cattle with the Hottentots. Bushmen
in 1719 swept down on the pastures of Hottentots
Holland, carrying off the cattle of van der
Heyden, who had bought most of Governor
Willem Adriaan's estate of Vergelegen ; all over
the country the horses were dying. There does
not seem to have been a large Company garrison.
Five men in the Groene Kloof, seven in the land
of Waveren, six at Klapmuts, four on the yacht
d'Amy, the old English pirate boat annexed by
Governor Simon, five on the land boat, and one
unemployed, make up the record, besides seven-
teen workmen and nineteen convicts on Robben
Island.
In 1724 Governor de Chavonnes died (they
were short-lived men these Company's com-
257 R
OLD CAPE COLONY
manders), and the bells tolled mournfully for
him for six weeks. Van Noot, who followed him,
died in 1729, suddenly, one afternoon, sitting
in his chair. By the ignorant, his end was con-
sidered a visitation from heaven, as he had two
days earlier sentenced several deserters to punish-
ment and death. The popular story has it that
he died the moment he pronounced the sentence,
and that his spirit haunts the fine old house
now called the Normal College, where tradition
says that he lived. In reality, though his sen-
tences were severe, and had several horrible
accompaniments, they were not more severe
than those of other commanders ; neither does
he seem to have been more cruel or more wicked
than his contemporaries though a certain can-
did brutality made him in time of shipwreck
openly declare for the Company's cargo rather
than the drowning men. He is known as the
" wicked Governor."
Chief Merchant de la Fontaine was then chosen
Administrator, and the Fiscal van Kerval pro-
moted to be Secunde, to the general joy of every
one. I note that more slaves seem to have been
broken on the wheel and branded and more con-
victs put to death during the de la Fontaine
short administration than in any other, and
that the sermons of the two pastors, the Rev.
Henricus Bek and the Rev. Franciscus Le Sueur,
both names still represented at the Cape, are
258
FROM SEVENTEEN HUNDRED
mentioned with much admiration. The modern
mind is badly attuned to these alternating sen-
tries of religion and torture, and the details of
the scourgings, brandings, and breaking on the
wheel, " without the mercy stroke," and the
subsequent offering of the corpse to the fowls
of the air, is sickening. After each entry it is
usually stated that the " prisoner is to pay all
expenses." Confident in his virtue, and his
superior position in the scale of humanity, the
writer of the journal takes life as he finds it
with simple confidence, and after pages of those
horrible entries has the courage to end his year
book with a devout prayer for temporal prosperity
and eternal happiness.
La Fontaine retired in 1736, sailing to Holland
in the rather perplexing position of Admiral
of a fleet of five ships. After him came Van
Kerval, who died in three weeks, and was buried,
by his own wish, without pomp or ceremony.
Temporarily Daniel van Heugel was appointed,
and in 1739, after some wrangling, the Secunde
Swellengrebel was chosen Governor.
I have not traced much building or many
freeholds outside the town to this early half of
the seventeenth century, though a few of the
undated houses have special characteristics which
seem to belong to the period ; less ornamental
gables but fine fanlight tracery and woodwork.
Whatever may have been the private dramas,
259
OLD CAPE COLONY
outside the town, with its fleets, its soldiers and
sailors, there was little public excitement, and
as far as I can make out, nothing in way of
educational progress ; but the life has a fascina-
tion for the curious minded. Strange punish-
ments come down to us in the pages of the
journal. Of the boat-master, for instance, who
KLASTENBERG, WYNBEKG.
had to stand at the church door for three suc-
cessive Sundays with a board on his breast on
which " Blasphemer " was written. " Under a
Roman Catholic government," remarks the secre-
tary, proud of religious toleration, " he would
not have escaped so easily." Names of passing
English ships are homelike and interesting, the
Addison, the Heathcote, the Walpole, all in the
pay of John Company.
260
FROM SEVENTEEN HUNDRED
In 1737, two years before Swellengrebel's
appointment, a little advance was made in the
colony, when the well known mission station
of Baviaans Kloof — literally Baboon Valley —
was formed ; now called Genadendal. The pro-
nunciation of the name is a stumbling-block
to a new arrival at the Cape. In 1744 the church
of Zwaartland was built in the prosperous if
uninteresting corn-growing district now called
Malmesbury. In 1740 the district of Swellendam,
named after the Governor, was opened up ;
many charming houses of the usual gabled type
were built, and fine old furniture may still be
discovered here and there in the district. But
no roads were yet made on to the interior, and
even the best track to places so near to Cape
Town as Stellenbosch and Hottentots Holland,
was only marked by a row of poles stuck in the
sand. The fortunes of the Cape as a Company's
settlement are sad to contrast with the colonies
in America, which, whilst mere infants in years,
had possessed printing presses, manufactories,
books, schools and colleges. Hand looms and
weaving were very early introduced into New
England, and a bonus offered on every yard of
cotton, woollen and linen cloth ; the beginnings
of Harvard College were planned eight years
after the arrival of the Massachussetts settlers.
At the Cape leather too often took the place of
woven stuffs ; and I can only hear of the most
261
OLD CAPE COLONY
primitive kind of school. The Company's officers
from home must often have experienced the feel-
ings of the journal writer, who entered about
1716 : " We live in far distant land and corner
of the earth, thousands of miles away from
Christian churches and rational beings ; where
waters lifted as high as the heavens and the very
extreme violence of the sea are to be experienced
and borne."
Towards the middle of the century a great
change was made in the policy of the Company.
Her power had declined ; foreign ships were no
longer kept out of the Bay, though English
vessels sometimes caused great indignation by
failing to salute, as required, the flag of their
" High Mightynesses the Directors." Amongst
the various reasons for not doing so the most
amusing is that given by the vessel Marlborough.
She was indignantly boarded by a wharf-master,
and told that no one might land until the usual
salutes had been fired. On which a subaltern
went ashore and explained that they carried an
elephant from Madras, and feared to frighten him.
The excuse was accepted by the kindly Dutch
officials.
Far from discouraging vessels from entering
the ports, it was now the interest of the Company,
whose profits were steadily diminishing, to induce
strangers of all sorts to stay at the Cape ; visitors
who bought the produce at high rates and were
262
FROM SEVENTEEN HUNDRED
warmly welcomed by the burghers with whom
they lodged. Men of every nation jostled each
other in the streets, flags of Denmark, Sweden,
France and England flew side by side with the
V.O.C. monogram of the Netherlands Company,
ZWAANSWIJK, BUILT I7II-I7.
and the crowned lion of Holland. Simons Town,
used since 1722 as a winter anchorage, became
almost as important a haven for the ships as the
Cape itself and the society as cosmopolitan. A
large hospital, a slaughter-house, and a few small
dwelling-houses lay round the bay ; and the house
26.S
OLD CAPE COLONY
for the Resident, who was usually the Secunde,
was built ; now altered and improved, it is used
as Admiralty House.
Resting places for the sailors, soldiers, travellers
and Company's men grew up between the two
ports. The old road lay past Boscheuval and
below Constantia towards -the Steenberg. Here
MORGENSTER, HOTTENTOTS HOLLAND.
was a well known house where refreshment could
be sought, the second Zwaanswijk built by
Nicolas Oortmans in 1711-1717. Many is the
rollicking party that has sung and drunk here
in the hall ; the partition screen pushed back
and tables set the entire length of the house.
They have regulated their watches at the sun-
264
FROM SEVENTEEN HUNDRED
dial, dated 1756, which once gave the time to
Cape Town, so accurate was it considered. They
have scratched their names on the window
panes (1763 is a date inscribed there), and have
called for supper before setting out on the then
rather difficult and dangerous passage across the
sands to Simons Town. And here truth compels
me to say that the naturalist Sparrman going
thither in 1772, was given at the half-way house,
either Zwaanswijk or another, only a very
" moderate " meal of " stewed beef, red cabbage,
meat preserved in pepper, and gritty bread."
265
THE TAVERN OF THE INDIAN
OCEAN
XI
The Tavern of the Indian Ocean
THE last Dutch Governor of the Cape who
could in any way be called great, and
about whose memory lies a kindly halo of justice
and wisdom, was Ryk Tulbagh, who succeeded
Swellengrebel on his retirement in 175 1. Of
him, as of the van der Stels, an impression of
strong personality has been handed down to us ;
gloriously inconsistent stories of his immense love
of ceremony and of his rectitude and simplicity
of life. He was a Colonial man, and much loved
— called, indeed, " father of his people," although
he had introduced the sumptuary laws. These can-
not have been popular ; they were severe. No
one, for instance, of lesser rank than a junior
merchant might venture to carry an umbrella at
all, and one needed to be a full merchant in order
to enter the Castle in fine weather with one's
umbrella open. Everyone had to leave his car-
riage at the approach of the Governor, and
■''to get out of the way and allow a convenient
passage to the carriage of any of the members
of the Court of Policy." He must doff his hat
•as he passed the Governor's house \ and as to
269
OLD CAPE COLONY
dress, all women were prohibited, " whether in
mourning or out of mourning/' under a penalty
of twenty-five rix dollars, to wear dresses with a
train. Few might wear " diamonds or mante-
lets " ; and though the wives of junior merchants
might possess these luxuries, their daughters could
not. No women below the wives of the junior
merchants might wear silk dresses with silk
braiding or embroidery. These sumptuary regu-
lations against " Pracht en Praal" (luxury and
ostentation) had been sent out from Holland to
restrain, it was hoped, the excesses of Batavia.
I do not know how far they were really enforced at
Table Bay. No traveller makes any mention of
them ; and in a climate where the rainfall is so
heavy as in winter time at the Cape, one imagines
there must in wet weather have been great
smuggling of umbrellas. It is said there were
still to be seen in the early half of the nineteenth
century very low carriages without doors, which
had been originally designed for getting out of
quickly if the Governor loomed in the distance.
The final shaping and beautifying of Cape Town
was now carried out ; and the town was beautiful,
it seems to me in Tulbagh's times ; stuccoed,
whitewashed, with green-shuttered windows, be-
hind which prying eyes watched, it is said, to
report any infringement of the Company's eti-
quette. Van Riebeeck's Canal had been partly
filled in, and the lower half planted with trees.
270
THE TAVERN OF THE INDIAN OCEAN
It was now called the Herrengracht, and on
each side lay large-windowed houses with high
stoepSj on which you might have your pipe and
coffee, and discuss the latest news of the fleet.
Willem Adriaan's church tower was heightened,
and a clock was put in it ; it stands there now,
the tower of the Dutch Reformed Church ; but
the old church has been destroyed. Some of its
Cape To)vii
«h Tvmch onfy-
CAPE TOWN CHURCH, FROM A PRINT.
walls are incorporated in the present building.
During the terrible scourge of small-pox in Ryk
Tulbagh's administration, the infection was in-
creased by church burial, and doubtless repairs
were necessary, for it is said that a lady and her
chair suddenly disappeared in the midst of the
service. The pavement had given way, and she
was discovered beneath, sitting in the tomb of
an early Governor. But what could be more
271
OLD CAPE COLONY
interesting now than to have, intact, the hatch-
ments of these early Governors, their monuments,
and the tablets and memorials to the captains of
the Dutch ships, and of the Enghsh and Danish
admirals who were buried there, mentioned by
Captain Henri Hop in his account of the Cape.
Simon van der Stel's monument was destroyed,
and though some of the hatchments were after-
wards collected by Mr. C. V. Leibbrandt and hung
by him in the Archives Office, no doubt many were
lost and spoiled. Otherwise all memorials of
the men employed by the East India Company
and of their wives and children have disappeared.
There seems to have been an effort to track out,
and repair the tombs which were lost sight of
at the reconstruction of the Groote Kerk at Batavia
and the monument of van Riebeeck was discovered.
In Colombo the English Government in 1813
collected the tombstones from the old graveyard
near the Fort and placed them in Wolfendahl
Church, saying they viewed with " concern and
regret " the neglected state of the consecrated
piece of ground. On the Coromandel coast too,
where the young children and the wives of the
Company's men so often died, their monuments
and mural inscriptions have to some extent been
cared for. Table Bay Church, with its two hand-
some doorways of red and white marble, ap-
proached by avenues, should have been at least
too picturesque to lightly destroy ; and is one
272
THE TAVERN OF THE INDIAN OCEAN
of the foolish iconoclasms so difficult to forgive.
A great building for the Company's slaves,
called the " Loots/' was at the wall of the garden,
behind the churchyard. Handsome enough, but
rather terrible in its arrangements.
The charming Town Hall was begun now, and a
Lutheran church and parsonage, built by Martin
Melk. Stock has a strange permanency, and this
Melk, to whom as you may remember belonged
Elsenberg, one of the most beautiful of farm-
houses, was the forbear of a family which is still
prominent in the Colony and has intermarried
with the De Wets. I was told that Madame
Melk, widow of a former owner of Elsenberg, was
the only lady in the Colony privileged to remain
seated when Governor Ryk Tulbagh entered the
room, and that his Excellency was wont to visit
Elsenberg. " The farm of Melk," says Admiral
Stavorinus, " at a distance, and indeed close by,
appeared like a whole village. It lies among the
mountains, upon the gentle declivity of a high
ridge, and on the banks of an ever-running stream
which he has led along his farm between two brick
walls, like a canal, and which turns a water mill
for the purpose of grinding his corn. His dwelling-
house, which was of a considerable size, had four
or five large and handsome rooms, all furnished in
a neat and handsome style, so that it more re-
sembled a gentleman's villa than the mansion of a
farmer." It is difficult to know how much of the
273 s
OLD CAPE COLONY
present " mansion " was designed by Melk^ and
how much by old Sieur Elzevier, who first built
it. The gable of course has a late date, and the
beautiful side screens of the door were probably
made by an Oriental slave, skilled in metal work,
specially mentioned by Stavorinus, for whom
Melk had paid fifteen hundred rix dollars or
upwards of £300. The door was bought by
Mr. C. J. Rhodes, burnt with the burning of his
earlier house at Groote Schuur, and restored
when the present house was built ; the present
door is a facsimile of the original. Melk was a
native of Prussia, and the Dutch Admiral was
much impressed by his enthusiasm for his king,
so great that the farmer decorated " the chimney
pieces and other parts of the house with the
arms of his sovereign." I remember finding with
surprise an Imperial eagle inlaid in wood above
one of the fireplaces.
In accordance with the laws of the Company,
only the Dutch reformed religion was allowed ;
the Lutheran was prohibited. " Mr. Melk," said
Governor Tulbagh, '' when I pass by that church
which is building I shall shut the eye nearest it."
" Sir," was the reply, " God Himself will close
the eyes of the man who may not look at the
building of His house." And, continues the
legend, Ryk Tulbagh went home to sicken of the
illness which was his last. He died in 1771,
speaking on his death-bed of his anxieties for
274
THE TAVERN OF THE INDIAN OCEAN
the Colony and its people, and was the last
Governor buried within the old Dutch Reformed
Church. In the Lutheran Church there is, as
there should be, a mural tablet to Martin Melk.
There is too a large quaintly carved pulpit, made
OLD LUTHERAN PARSONAGE.
I believe, by the same artist who designed the
pediment on Constantia wine house in 1779.
During all this time no trade or barter could
be carried on by any of the settlers or burghers
with the natives, and Boers and farmers in out-
lying places were frequently robbed and murdered
275
OLD CAPE COLONY
by the Hottentots without any possibihty of
retahating ; any vengeance brought them under
the severe penalties prescribed by the Company
for those who molested the natives. A resolution
under Ryk Tulbagh, couched in his forcible voca-
bulary prohibited any barter whatsoever ; traders
were to be punished by confiscation of property
as disturbers of public peace, and to be " arbi-
trarily punished in the body, aye, even with
death." In 1770 for any cattle trade or barter,
however trifling, carried on with Hottentots,
the offender was to be prosecuted in the most
rigorous manner by the landdrosts under pain
of losing their office.
At last in 1774, when distant settlers seem to
have lived in terror of their lives, the people of
the " Groote Middel and Kleyne Rogge velds, and
Bokke velds, Nieuweveld and Hantam," prayed to
be delivered from the murderous rapacity of the
Bosjesmans Hottentots. The name is a late
one, and the "Sonquas" and "Obiquas" of the
first explorers probably stand for it. In answer
to the petition, an expedition was organized, to
be under a newly-appointed Field-commandant
Opperman, by the Landdrost and Heemraden
and the militia officers of Stellenbosch with the
sanction of van Plettenberg and his Council.
But the dying out of the Bushmen has been due
as much to sickness and the usual decline of a
primitive race as to extermination by the farmers.
276
THE TAVERN OF THE INDIAN OCEAN
Smallpox raged at the Cape during the time of
Ryk Tulbagh, carrying off in 1755 two thousand
of the limited population, and again in 1767
about one thousand more. The earliest records
mention strange outbreaks of sickness which
decimated the native tribes, and we hear once or
twice that any infectious disease at Good Hope
was carried inland by native tribes.
Rarely, I suppose, has any society been at
once so small and so varied as that which Sparrman,
the Swedish naturalist, the friend of Linnaeus
and of Captain Cook, found at the Cape in 1772.
He arrived the year after Tulbagh's death, when
the unpopular van Plettenberg was Governor,
under whose protection he immediately put him-
self. Dr. Thunberg, the Upsala botanist, travelling
at the expense of some gentleman in Holland,
arrived about the same time. The land of the
blue and red disa was justly famous; Bougain-
ville the scientific explorer, and La Caille the
astronomer, had already been there. Equipped
with the eye of an observer, the naturalist gives
us a most vivid account of the European medley
which succeeded the old Company's Chinese policy
of exclusion. When he describes to us the
burgher militia, whose blue coats had each faded
into a different shade, so varied " that they
might as well have been purple and pink, and
whose waistcoats were none of them alike," it was
" a French priest with red heels to his shoes "
277
OLD CAPE COLONY
who expressed his amazement at the parti-coloured
costume. Some of this burgher mihtia, the Swede
tells us, were Europeans who had served in the
wars at home, but who, having spent five years
in the country, had become naturalized. At one
time a feud existed between them and the
garrison, and in a moment of exasperation they
had shot at each other with metal coat buttons
and pieces of money, since when they were obliged
to exercise at different times. Much disappointed
were all these later travellers with the Company's
garden ; in fact, from all accounts it deteriorated
soon after the van der Stel exile. Sparrman
merely calls it one of the largest gardens in the
town, where the greater walks were bordered
by oak trees thirty feet high, and the fruit trees
were surrounded by hedges of myrtle and elm.
At the end of the pleasure garden the Company's
menagerie was railed off.
At Simonstown our traveller found lively
English ladies on their way to and from India,
Danish and French officers and captains and solid
Dutch skippers, who, to his great distress, smoked
their pipes at dessert, and sat with their hats
on and their elbows on the table. Sparrman
passed much of his time at the winter anchorage,
for Mr. Hemming, the Secunde, was in residence
there, and the naturalist acted as tutor to his
sons. The rest of his time at the Cape was largely
spent at Alphen, that beautiful old house between
278
THE TAVERN OF THE INDIAN OCEAN
Wynberg and Constantia, where Hemming lived
while not at Simonstown. The freehold had first
been granted in 1714 to Theunis van Schalkwyk,
and again adjoining land by Governor Tulbagh
to one Abraham Leever. Leever probably built
the house, but it is said to have been restored
STEPS AT ALPHEN, WYNBERG.
or improved by a retired sailor of the Company,
Captain de Waal, who placed two funny little
portrait busts of himself and his wife at the
top of the flight of steps. He is thought to have
designed the steps, and to have laid out the garden
with mathematical precision.
279
OLD CAPE COLONY
Sparrman speaks of a hippopotamus which
wandered up in the dusk from the Zeekoe Vlei
(hippopotamus pool) on the " Flats/' and which
he met near Wynberg ; of the flamingoes with
their snow-white plumage and flaming wdngs. I
do not know how long it is since both beasts and
birds have been killed off, or deserted, the place.
I have heard a suggestion of making artificial
lakes with mechanical pleasure boats at the old
hippopotamus haunts on the road to Muizenberg.
Wandering in the country the man had inter-
esting experiences, having himself a friendly and
interesting personality. He was delighted with
the farmers, "a set of honest, hearty fellows,"
and found that the occupants of the dwellings,
composed " partly of brick and partly of well-
wrought clay," as he designates the plaster work,
were hospitable and kindly. He stayed at a
handsome house of van der Spoi, " brother of
the owner of old or red Constantia," on the way
to Paarl, where he got an excellent dinner and
where his host stood in the doorway as he came
up, taking him by the hand and saying " Good-
day ! Welcome ! How are you ? Who are you ?
A glass of wine ? A pipe of tobacco ? Will you eat
anything?" Many times he mentions that the
floor of the homesteads was only bare earth,
and that the furniture was miserable. Yet
on the. whole during his long walk "over dry
and torrid hills," with the insects he collected
280
THE TAVERN OF THE INDIAN OCEAN
stuck round his hat, to the amazement of his
new acquaintances, he was comfortably housed
and generously treated. Settlers from Berlin,
Hanover, and Livonia he specifies, and several
earlier explorers speak of colonists from Hamburg
and Cologne ; so there seems to have been a fair
sprinkling of Germans, amongst the country folk.
Portuguese was the language spoken to, and by,
the slaves and the people from Java. Cape
" Taal " is still full of eastern words, " Karoo "
is thought to have been introduced from the East,
" mealies," the ordinary word for Indian corn, to
come from the Javanese " mili " or Portuguese
" milho " — a thousand — (seeds). " Naartje,"
the Cape for a sort of Tangarine, probably
a corruption of the Persian " narinj " an
orange, though it is said to mean a "little fool."
Sparrman describes the Company's servants
and soldiers from whom he asked his way, some-
where, it would seem, between Klapmuts and the
Bottelary district. They were all drunk with
the wine which they carried about in leathern
bottles or calabashes. " Every one of them
pointed out a different way, jabbering all at once
in High Dutch, Low Dutch, and Hanoverian,
telling him, in their sea dialect, that if he does
not alter his course at once he will meet with
deserts, wild mountains, and the like." Hereafter
he encountered " a black heathen tending sheep,
and in consequence of his sober and sensible
281
OLD CAPE COLONY
directions, he arrived by nightfall at the house of a
Hanoverian farm bailiff, who welcomed him
with a hearty flap of the hand in the South
African manner." The place may have been
Haazendal in the Bottelary, as a little later
Admiral Stavorinus tells us that he stopped
there, and that the owner, burgher van As and
his wife, received him in very hospitable manner,
giving him a dish of tea and a glass of exception-
HAAZENDAL IN THE BOTTELARY.
ally good wine while the horses were baiting.
The title deeds of the farms show that a little
later again it belonged to the widow of van As,
and was taxed 1,200 guilders yearly for the
dowager lady of Governor Joachim van Pletten-
berg. The name, like most of the farm names,
comes down from its earliest owner, Haazen-
winkel, a beadle and messenger of justice in the
282
THE TAVERN OF THE INDIAN OCEAN
time of Willem van der Stel, who granted him
the land in 1704 on condition that for the " great
privilege of the right to hold and cultivate it" he
would give a tithe of his corn to the government,
and replace all wood he might drop down, planting
oaks and other timber. There are not many
trees now near this charming lonely farm, but
whether it is the fault of Haazenwinkel or his
successors who shall say ? The date of the gable is
quite late, 1790.
According to Sparrman's accounts, eighteenth
century Colonial life had certainly grave draw-
backs. He was surprised at getting such bad
food and so little milk ; the latter fault is still
characteristic. When at last, at a " house with a
clay floor," he is given milk by the two children
who are at home, " Master John and Miss Susy,"
in the morning his coffee is " full of groats and as
weak as small beer." More painful is the sketch
of the house with a scolding housewife at which
the slave girl drags a log of wood chained to her
foot ; the shrieks and cries in another house where
the slaves January and February were under the
lash. I think no one can recommend slavery
after the description of his night in the Bottelary,
when he and his host bolt their door and sleep
with five loaded guns over their heads, for
fear of the slaves ; for he is told they sometimes
become furious at night and commit murder.
Fugitives besides were continually wandering
283
OLD CAPE COLONY
about, stealing to the houses in the dark,
and inciting the others. The owners hved
in a continual state of anxiety. The naturalist
himself had a narrow escape, for returning from
Cape Town to Alphen one night he missed his
road. Coming to an "elegant house," probably
GATE OF THE SLAVE ENCLOSURE, BOSHOF.
either Boshof, the old home of the Breda family,
or to Stellenberg, he was first attacked by dogs ;
then a troop of slaves came out, calling to him
in broken Malay and Portuguese. Sparrman,
terrified at the appearance of the men, and the
possibility of being murdered without chance
284
THE TAVERN OF THE INDIAN OCEAN
of help — for the master of the house would have
been safely locked within — gave rein to his horse,
and never stopped until the good animal arrived
home, to the surprise of his rider, by some unknown
path.
I do not think these stories were exaggerated.
In many instances there were delightful friend-
ships between the owner and the slave. It is
impossible to doubt the stories of good fellowship
and devotion which existed in the time and live
in the traditions of the fathers and mothers of
people still alive. Has one not seen very old men
and women who were once slaves, and many who
were the children of slaves, of an Arab, Java-
nese, or Madagascar stock, who were immeasurably
superior to any other coloured type at the Cape,
and whose kindness of heart and faithfulness
were unparalleled. But in the days when the
gallows stood always ready for its prey and the
rack was part of the machinery of life, the brutal-
izing influence must have been extreme. A slave
atrocity or revenge is recorded on the coat of
arms of the suburb of Mowbray near Cape Town,
once called Trikop. There at the old house of
Welgelegen, now rebuilt, a whole family was
murdered. One baby only, whose descendants
are still alive, was saved by his nurse, who hid him
in the large brick bread oven. The murderers
were caught and killed, their heads exposed
in the horrible old fashion. The word " kop,"
285
OLD CAPE COLONY
meaning both " cup " and " head," was mis-
translated into EngHsh whilst the story was
forgotten ; and the Mowbray coat now shows
three cups as well as three heads.
The most important development of the Cape
during those later years was the spread of the
Colony in the direction of Colesberg. Here on
GATE OF WELGELEGEN, MOWBRAY.
the Zeekoe River, Governor van Plettenberg set
up a beacon. A second he placed at Plettenberg
Bay. About the same time Orange River was
named by Colonel Gordon in honour of the House
of Orange. Gordon is a mysterious enough
figure, perhaps a Jacobite, for he was an old officer
of the Scotch regiment who had served in the
Netherlands under Colonel Dundas. He had
286
THE TAVERN OF THE INDIAN OCEAN
certainly cut himself off from his people, for he was
in the service of the Dutch Company. He com-
mitted suicide after the capitulation of the Cape
to England a few years later.
ELSENBERG.
287
MEN AND HOUSES
XII
Men and Houses
WHEN I look at the neat portrait of Captain
Cook, with his satin waistcoat, high stock,
and laced coat and hat, I wonder how they lasted
during his hairbreadth adventures in all quarters
of the globe. I have always thought the clothes
of the eighteenth century singularly badly de-
signed for men of action, and am confirmed by
Sparrman's account of himself after his stay up
country with the old elephant hunter Prinsloo.
His hair was braided into a twist, his " side
curls " straight and fluttering in the air, and his
fine linen coat with a white ground was variegated
Vv^ith dabs of gunpowder and spots of dirt of all
kinds. The flaps of the three-cornered hat were
hanging loose, his ruffles were torn, his stockings
about his heels, and his smart gilt buttons lost on
the veld. His friend, Mr. Immelman, was worse,
for with a beard five weeks old, he ** figured on
horseback in a long nightgown, with a white night-
cap, and large wide boots ; at the time he was
without stockings." Even as he was, Sparrman
appears to have been very attractive to the
291
OLD CAPE COLONY
womerij who counselled him to marry and settle
amongst them, but in a burst of unusual frivolity
the naturalist confesses that much as he hked
them for their kindness and virtue — and indeed
he admired his hosts exceedingly — their appear-
ance made anything else impossible.
r
LATE WINDOW IN CAPE TOWN.
" There are few people more obliging to
strangers than the Dutch in general at this
place," wrote Captain Cook in 1775, when he
arrived at Table Bay, having returned with
Sparrman from a voyage round Cape Horn.
" The good treatment which strangers meet with
292
MEN AND HOUSES
at the Cape of Good Hope and the necessity of
breathing a httle fresh air has induced a custom
not common anywhere else, which is for all the
officers to be spared out of the ships to reside on
shore. Myself, the two Forsters and Mr. Sparrman
took up our abode with Mr. Brandt, a gentleman
well known to the English by his obliging readi-
ness to serve them. My first care after my
arrival was to procure some fresh baked bread,
fresh meat, greens, and wine for those who re-
mained on board, and being provided every day
during our stay with those articles, they were
soon restored to their usual strength. We had
only three men on board whom it was thought
necessary to send on shore for the recovery of
their health, and for these I procured quarters
at the rate of half a crown per day, for which they
were provided with victuals, drink and lodging."
Van der Stel's old hospital falling to ruins was
propped up ; and materials were being collected
for another which afterwards became the barracks
in Cape Town. In 1770 the large graveyard
round the church on the Herrengeracht was closed,
and a new one opened between the Lion Mountain
and the shore of the Bay.
The French traveller Le Vaillant in 1780 gives
an unfriendly, but most interesting account of
the Cape. He tells us of the hard life of the
man who hoisted the signal on the Lion Hill
when ships were in sight. The monument
293
OLD CAPE COLONY
placed on the Lion Hill in 1680 by Governor-
General van Goens, and shown in some of the
old prints of Table Bay, had disappeared, but
the elaborate system of signalling from the same
place continued. At a watch-house on the side
of the mountain were two men perpetually on
the look-out for ships. Directly a ship showed
on the horizon one of these men mounted the
hill, pulling himself up and down the steep rock
by ropes, and fired a cannon, pointing with his
arms to the ship's course. At this the second
man ran to the Fort and announced the arrival.
When the ships hailed from Europe or from
Holland, usually between the months of January
and June, the flag of Holland or the Prince of
Orange was run up on the hill within sight
of the sea. For vessels returning from India
particular flags were shown, known only to
the chief officers of the Company and the captains
of the fleet. These signified that the Cape, in
those precarious times, was still in the hands
of the Dutch. If the fleet carried an officer of
higher standing than the Governor of the Cape,
a salute was fired from the Castle.
The interior of the houses in Cape Town, says
Le Vaillant, showed no marks of frivolous luxury.
" All the furniture is in simple and noble taste.
There are no tapestries, and a few paintings
or mirrors form the principal ornaments." The
artistic Frenchman alone of the many writers
294
MEN AND HOUSES
on Table Bay mentions the really beautiful
Colonial furniture. The genius of Holland is
always that of detail, and the Dutchman was
par excellence the cabinet-maker of Europe.
Even before the advent of William HI there
were Dutch cabinet-makers in England, and
much of the seventeenth and eighteenth century
OLD COLONIAL-MADE CHAIR.
work of the two countries is extraordinarily alike.
I think all the fine ehenistes of France in the
time of Louis XIV were of Dutch or Flemish
origin, and though they wrought after the French
style, there is often, especially amongst the earlier
work, a distinctly ungallic flavour. Portugal is
295
OLD CAPE COLONY
said to have brought into Europe Indo-Portuguese
furniture from the Indies. But it seems to date
from the time when Holland also had a footing
abroad, and if so, this so-called Indo-Portuguese
might equally, if not better, be called Indo-Dutch.
The pattern of the furniture made and carved
at the Cape by Javanese and Indian prisoners
for the Dutch officials is very much of the same
VERY OLD COLONIAL MADE ARMOIRE.
description, and chairs and settees of the kind
were made for the Dutch at Surat, Nagapatam
and elsewhere. Even before the English Company
the Hollanders brought clocks and corner cup-
boards to the East to be lacquered, but I never
saw any of this work at the Cape, where, with
296
MEN AND HOUSES
the exception of those seats made by the exiles
in Robben Island in elaborately carved ebony,
the work is for the most part characteristically
Dutch.
A very old Colonial made armoire in a beautiful
house in Cape Town resembles the design of a
Flemish armoire in South Kensington Museum,
dated 1534. Seats are often very like the early
eighteenth century English country-made fur-
OLD COLONIAL BENCH IN " STINK-WOOD."
niture. In the teak wall cupboards of the farms
and the " stink- wood " and " yellow- wood "
wardrobes you get more or less the characteristic
gable outline, which was quite traditional in
furniture. I have noticed it in a cupboard
for holding workshop tools, in a sixteenth century
wood engraving. Indeed I think it is quite likely
that the Cape craftsman may have refreshed his
297
OLD CAPE COLONY
memory of the gables at home by studying the
outhnes of his furniture models. Much of the
furniture is inlaid in ebony, and the materials
'^ yellow- wood " and " stink wood " (so called from
the strong smell of the wood when it is freshly
cut) mark the work as essentially Colonial made.
There is no doubt a certain element of French
ARMOIRE IN "stink-wood" AND "YELLOW-WOOD."
influence, and as Frenchmen emigrated through
the Netherlands into England at exactly the
same date that the refugee Frenchmen emigrated
to the Cape, it is not strange that the cabinet
makers in all these places should have worked
on similar lines. I have heard of elaborately
298
MEN AND HOUSES
carved bedsteads in Cape Colony and other work
of a more distinctively French kind, but I never
saw any myself.
At the time of Le Vaillant French influence
was greatly feared both by the Orange and
anti-revolutionary party in Holland and at the
Cape. Writing rather bitterly, the traveller tells
us that '* all the ladies play upon the harpsichord,
which is their sole accomphshment . . . strangers
. . . are generally well received, but the English
are adored, and in less than eight days everything
in the house where they have fixed their choice
becomes English : the master, the mistress, and
even the children. The French are greatly dis-
liked, and they say," he adds, "that they would
rather be taken by the English than owe their
safety to the French."
Admiral Stavorinus, in 1798, asserted that the
women were more witty and lively than the men,
who spent most of their time indoors smoking
tobacco and loitering up and down the house.
Englishmen," he said, " who care not for their
money," spent it in procuring the ladies all kinds
of diversion, and therefore were much liked.
However this may be, the feeling was not universal.
There was a republican party at Table Bay
which strongly sympathised with the French,
and already in 1782 two French regiments had
been asked for and were stationed at Good
Hope. A certain architectural influence seen in
299
OLD CAPE COLONY
some of the decorated windows in Cape Town is
said to have come in at this time.
Three years later CorneHs de Graff arrived as
Governor. He estabHshed the Drostdy of Graff
Reinett. The Colony was rent with internal
troubles, and ten years later again the new dis-
trict threw over the Company's rule, and Swel-
lendam at the same time drove away their
Landdrost and formed themselves into a republic.
The political situation in Europe was complex.
The Stadtholder had fled to England, and the
Netherlands were in possession of France. Hol-
land was renamed the Batavian Republic. At
this juncture the Dutch Company accepted the
offer of help made by the English ambassador,
and an English fleet sailed for Table Bay in
order to ensure its neutrality, armed with author-
ity from the Prince of Orange and the Dutch
East India Company to protect the Cape against
the victorious arms of the French Republic.
There was a skirmish along the coast at IVIuizen-
burg, and a peace signed at the old Company's
House of Rustenburg.
For the nine following years the Colony was
under England, and the old Company's rule at
an end. Every man might, in the words of the
official " letter " to the Swellendam rebels, buy of
whom he pleased, sell to whom he pleased, employ
whom he pleased, and come and go when and
where he chose, by land or by water. But
300
MEN AND HOUSES
sympathy with the arms and poHtics of France
was most carefully watched. Theal tells us that
Mr. Hendrick Oostwald Eckstein of Bergvliet,
a farm lying between Wynberg and Muizenburg,
sent invitations to his daughter's wedding written
BERGVLIET.
in French, and addressed to his " citizen friends."
When this came to official ears a party of dragoons
was immediately ordered to " proceed to the
festive company of citizens/' and Mr. Eckstein
had to go to Government House to apologize,
301
OLD CAPE COLONY
and to sign a bond for a thousand pounds with
the security of two substantial persons as an
earnest of future good behaviour.
A Hst of the old Company's outposts taken
at this time mentions " Vissers Hoek " on the
edge of the Koeberg district, probably named
after the Company's officer, T. Visser. The walls
and fine old gateposts still stand, though the
old house is gone. The white enclosure and houses
of " Plaat Klip " or Kloof, still show against the
hill of Tygerberg in \dew of Cape To\\ti. At
the post of Klapmuts no house remains. That
at the " Oude Biquas Land " is e\adently the
site of the Drosdty near Roodezaand Pass. The
post of " Kirstenbosch," called no doubt after
Kirsten, Junior Merchant in 1763, and Company's
Resident in False Bay about 1780, lies under
Table Mountain. The ruins of the Hout Bay
Post, are still to be seen. The " Post of Witte--
boom," is a well known farm near Constantia:
beautiful and poetic sites all. The other Com-
pany's outposts were at Oliphants Rivier,
Zoetmelks Vallei, near the river Zonderend,
Swellendam, Mussel Bay, Saldanah Bay, and
Plettenbergs Bay. The old limekiln and the
remains of one of the Company's mills are on
the stretch of sand, within sight of the Castle,
where so many ships were wrecked ; and the
" two great magazines for corn and oil situa-
ted next the Lutheran Church," are old-world
302
MEN AND HOUSES
touches in the terribly new and vulgar develop-
ment of modern Cape Town.
At this time the graveyard round the church
in Adderley Street was cut up, and streets laid
out on it. Sir George Young placed his slave
lodge there, and a theatre was built in Riebeeck
Square. The slave lodge, re-modelled, now contains
THE OLD GATE TO GOVERNMENT HOUSE AND THE SLAVE LODGE BEYOND.
the Supreme Courts of Justice, the Treasury,
and other offices. I give an illustration, taken
from an old water-colour, of the gate of Govern-
ment House in the beginning of the nineteenth
century. A suggestion was made, I am told
303
OLD CAPE COLONY
— with what correctness I do not know — by Mr.
J. Hofmeyer, of restoring it, but the plan has
not been carried out. Beyond the gate is seen
the slave lodge and the tree-bordered canal.
In 1801 the colony was given back, as promised,
to the Dutch. Commissioner de Mist was sent
-^,/>.U" ;:r?-;^; -*: ^^:S<r:!^:,(l-;s :^^^, »• ' =^> --A'c^f'-
''2
STELLENBERG GATE.
out as Governor; he who gave to the two ports
of Table and False Bay the poetic title of " Hosts
of the Indian Ocean Tavern." He lived at
Stellenberg, the beautiful eighteenth century
house at Wynberg, at the back of which once
ran the track or thoroughfare from Cape Town
304
MEN AND HOUSES
to Constantia. It is a very old farm granted
by Van der Stel to Jacob Vogel in 1697 on con-
dition that Vogel should plant trees, especially
oaks ; and his oaks thrive to this day. Vogel
was to yield a tenth part of his corn to the Com-
pany. We hear of him in 1703 paying 9,800
florins for the right to tap and sell the Company's
wine, and to lease the imported beer. But the
original house was entirely burnt down in 1710,
Commissioner de Mist was not long in residence.
All Europe was menaced by the great Napoleon.
The fall of Table Bay, the key to India, was too
important to leave in doubt. In 1805 Trafalgar
had been fought and the Russians defeated
at Austerlitz. In 1806 Louis Napoleon was
placed on the throne of Holland. There was no
time to lose. General Baird, in the beginning
of the same year, landed with his men at Saldanah
Bay, marched towards the Cape and fought with
General Janssens in the Blauwberg hills, a
desolate coast tract where even on a summer's
day the wind seems chill, and the loose white
sand gathers into eddies like driven snow, or is
tossed into a solid stinging spray. The whole
story is too well known to tell again. Janssens,
short of food, short of clothing, with none who
could be counted on, signed the capitulation
on January 18, 1806.
Nineteenth century dawned late in this land
of the Southern hemisphere. Intellectual tastes
305 u
OLD CAPE COLONY
were not highly developed^ and at quite a late
date there was only one attempt at a library
in Cape Town : a house near the church which
had a few volumes looked after by the sexton.
In the country, gabled houses after the old pattern,
some of them the most beautiful, were built
after this. Tokai, built on part of old Governor
Van der Stel's grazing land, an old home of the
LITTLE TERRACE AT TOKAI.
Ekstein family, with its vine-trelhsed loggia,
roofed bell tower, odd little terrace behind, was
probably one of these later houses. The land
was first granted to Andreas Ranch by Rhenius
in 1792, and to Petrus Michael Ekstein by Sir
J. F. Craddock in 1814. Early writers speak a
good deal of the cavern in the Prinz Kasteel
306
MEN AND HOUSES
Mountain above, discussing whether its formation
is natural or artificial. The property is now taken
over by Government, and has a beautiful planta-
tion and nursery of trees.
And Cape Town. A mist of romance and
poetry hangs over the old historic seaport. How
familiar it all seems : the old lazy hospitable
life, where the long dinner tables might be daily
set for thirty guests, and sedan chairs plied to
and fro down the ill-paved streets. (Such prac-
tical jokes, too, were played with these sedan
chairs. One was to remove the foot-boards
so that the victim, hastily decoyed inside, was
scurried along with his feet in the mud, the slave
carriers laughing like children until they cried.)
At one of the old boarding houses of Strand
Street were quaint inscriptions (such as " Lovely
and charming Miss Riden, 1813 ") cut on some
of the windows. The French astronomer, De La
Caille, stayed there when he came to Cape Town
to obtain the terrestrial measurement of the
arc of the meridian ; his gnomon and meridian
line were on the wall, and Sir Thomas Maclear
used to make visits to look at it. I saw the
house being pulled down a few years ago. From
Strand Street to the Parade you passed over a
bridge of brick and stone. I hope, despite all
alterations, that Van Riebeeck's coat-of-arms
will be left upon tlie Town Hall. It was placed
there, I think, by Commissioner de Mist, who
307
OLD CAPE COLONY
would have liked the town called Riebeeck
Stad, and before the fine new statue presented
by Mr. Rhodes, it was the only memorial of the
HALL AT STELLENBERG.
first Commander. Public offices were still in the
" Castle/' and though the " Company's garden "
was dilapidated and neglected, the menagerie
308
MEN AND HOUSES
was a feature of the place. How many of us
have been dehghted in our youth with the adven-
tures there of the wicked Tommy of Marryat's
Master man Ready ?
Canals still ran down the Herrengracht
(Adderley Street), Bergh Street (St. George's
Street), New Street, Waal Street, Bree Street.
But they bred mosquitoes, and the canal of
Riebeeck Square, fed by rain water, was terrible
in summer, so they had to go, with many another
thing, better and worse. How many descrip-
tions one has read of the quiet streets, planted
with stone pines and oaks, where business was
transacted in the warehouses, and never a sign
of trade or bustle appeared. Of the slaves
returning in a procession with fuel from the
mountain at nightfall, and the ostriches wander-
ing home like cattle in the evening. Of the
fine old houses in Lower Strand Street, where
boarded the rich merchants, and the military
folk on half-pay and sick leave from India,
with their ostentation and their curries and their
turbaned servants, and all the local colour men
brought back in those days from the far East.
Yet as I look, each special figure falls into the
kaleidescope of years, and against the radiating
mountain pass the men of more than three cen-
turies ; the leather- jerkined sailor of the six-
teenth century filling his water casks on the wild
sea-shore ; the kindly imperturbable farmer in
309
OLD CAPE COLONY
his ready-made clothes, gazing into the plate-
glass shop windows.
WTiat a crowd of people walk down the road !
Old van Riebeeck in his silk stockings ; Van der
Stel, keen and courteous ; Captain Cook, stretch-
ing himself after a long sea voyage, or at his
window cutting his signature with a diamond
ring — the pane of glass was there a few years
ago ; Clive ; the gallant figure of young Welling-
ton, his face bronzed by an Indian sun ; Dutch
skippers ; Englishmen in the service of John
Company — can you not see them all ?
THE END.
3IO
AUTHORITIES CONSULTED OR QUOTED
Precis of the Archives of the Cape of Good Hope. Translated
by H. C. V. Leibbrandt.
Rambles through the Archives. H. C. V. Leibbrandt, Cape
Town, 1887.
Various extracts translated from the Archives Records and
Title Deeds at the Cape of Good Hope.
Treatise concerning the Establishment of a French Com-
pany for the Commerce of the East Indies. London, 1664.
Verhael der O.I. Compagnie, vols, i and 2, 1768 ; also Vie
des Gouverneurs Generaux Dii Bois : both quoted by Water-
meyer in his Lectures on the Cape of Good Hope. Cape
Town, 1877.
A Brief Description of a Voyage Performed by Ceriaine
Hollanders from the East Indies, with their Adventures and
Successes . . . wherein is contayned the First Voyage of the
Low Countrymen into the Indies (1597).
The History of South Africa. Theal.
The Voiage of Robert Couvert. Lond., 1631.
The Hollanders Declaration of the Affairs of the East Indies.
Amst., 1622.
Original Papers concerning the English East India Com-
pany.
Voyage de Siam des Peres Jesuites. Paris, 1686.
Second Voyage de Pere Tachard. Paris, 1689.
Travels in South Africa. Kolbe. Trans. London, 1731.
Naukeurige Beschrijvinge der Afrikaensche Gewesten. Dr.
O. Dapper, Amsterdam, 1676.
Nouvelle Discription du Cap de Bonne Esperance. Henri
Hop. Amst., 1778. Avec un Journal . . . fait par ordre
du Gouverneur feu Mgr. Ryk Tulbagh.
311
AUTHORITIES CONSULTED OR QUOTED
Voyages to the East Indies. J. H. Stavorinus, Rear-
Admiral in the service of the States General. Trans. Lond.
1798.
Captain Cook's Voyages Round the World, 1768-71.
Travels in South Africa. Le Vaillant.
Travels of Sir John Barrow, 1808.
Original Papers Concerning the Aborigines in South Africa.
Moodie.
Life of General Baird.
A Voyage to the Cape of Good Hope and round the
World. Dubhn. Sparrman, 1785.
Records of the Cape Colony. From the Public Record Office,
London. Theal.
An Account of the Cape of Good Hope. Capt. R.
Percival., London, 1804.
An Account of the Cape of Good Hope. Anonymous.
London, 1821.
Essay on East India Trade . . . impartially considered.
1742.
Relation of the unjust cruell and barbarous proceedings
against the English at Aniboyna . . . Lond. 1624.
Genealogische Kw artier staten van de NederlandscJie gesch-
laten. St. Gravenhage, 1865.
Monumental Remains of Dutch and English East India
Companies in the Presidency of Madras. Alex. Rea, 1897.
Arch. Survey of India.
Wouter Schouten. Oost-Indische Voyagie. Amst. 1676.
Comnielin. Beschryving der Stadt Amsterdam. 1693.
Lapidarium Zeylanicaum. Ludovici.
312
INDEX
INDEX
Aan het Pad, 157
d'Abeling, 123, 132, 247
Alphen, 278
Appel, F., 114
As, van, 136, 282
Blauwberg, 156, 305
Blesius, The Fiscal, 148, 195,
251
Bochenhout's Kloof, 203
Bokkeveld, 221, 276
Boschendal, 190
Assenburgh, Gov., van, 137, Boscheuval, 252
254
B
Baird, Gen., 305
Bange Hoek, 185
Batavia, 19, 73, 81
Baviaan's Kloof, 261
Bek, Rev. H., 198, 258
Benozzi, Pierre, 188
Berg Olaf, 89
Berg River, iii, 194
Bergvliet, 301
Bethliem, 187
Bien Donne, 195
Birds, Cape, 51, 168, 215
Boshof, 284
Bottelary, The, 162
Brandsolder, 59
Brandt, 293
Bricks, imported, 30, 58, 147,
245
Burgundy Farm, 202
Camphor trees, 140
Canal, The, 24, 270, 309
Cape Town, Old streets of,
243. 270, 307 et seq.
Castle, The, 46, 67, 96, 137
Castle, founding of, 38
315
INDEX
Eerste River, 167
Elsenburg, 150
Elsjes Kraal, 150
Elzevir, Secunde
Ceres, 223
Chavonnes, Gen. de, 256
Church, Old Cape Town, 105
130, 271
Cloete, 62, 64, 107, 178
Coinage, 229 et seq.
Company, the Dutch East Enzaamheid, de, 158
India, see Dutch East
India Company
Company's Posts, 43, 50, 302 _
F
Constantia, 55 ei seq., 114
Constantia Wine, 56
Sieur S.
48, 89, 116, 130, 150
Fontaine, La, 258
Fort, The, 23, 38 et seq., 244
Frenchhoek, 185 et seq.
French language, 198
Furniture, 211, 294 et seq.
Cook, Capt., 292
Cronje, 255
D
Dauphinc, 199, 202
De Chavonnes, Gen. de, 256
De Lanoy, 191
De Waal, Capt., 279
De Wet, 149
De Vos, 136, 153
Drakenstein District, 74, 76,
185 et seq.
Drakenstein, van Rheede tot.
Lord of Mydrecht, 52, 170 Grevenbroek, iii
Dutch East India Company, Graff, C. de, 300
21, 230, 247, 249, 300 Graff, Reinett, 300
Du Toit, 157, 178 Groote Schuur, 28, 257
316
Garden, The Company's, 23,
27, 68, 278, 308
Gardiol, J., 136, 203
Genadendal, 261
Goens, Gov.-Gen. van, 49, 50,
170
Good Hope Farm, 187
Gratitude, La, 170
INDEX
H Kirstenbosch, 202
Hazendaal, 230, 282 Klapmuts, 36, 43, 302
Heerengracht, 271, 293, 309 Klastenberg, 260
Helderberg, 153 Koornhoop, 28
Hinlopen, 44 Kotze (or Coetzee), 106, 136,
Hoorn, Gov.-Gen. van, 252 -"^SO) ^7°
Hospital, The, 46, 82, 245 K^i^s River, or The Cuylen,
Hottentots Holland, 76, 261 5o, 76, 150, 167
Houts Bay, 302
Huguenots, The, 71, 74, 86, L
^9^ La Cotte, 199, 201, 203
Husing, H., 114, 119, 155, La Fontaine, 258
209
Husing, Mrs., 122
Idas Vallei, 178
Janssens, Gen., 156, 305
Jonkers Hoek, 178
Jordaan, 136
K
Kalden, 89, 116, 130, 152
Karroopoort, 222
Kat, The, 47
Keerweder, 205
La Gratitude, 170
Le Boucq, Rev. E. F., 122
Leeuwfontein, 220
Lekkerwyn, 192
Le Sueur, Rev. F., 258
Libertas, 154
Loon, van, loi
Loots, The, 273
Louw, 136
M
Malherbe, 136
Malmesbury, 261
Map, from Tachard, 70 ; old
districts and modern roads,
84
Mauritius, 34, 44, 105, 173
317
INDEX
Meerlant, J. van, 114, 158
Meerlust (Drakenstein), 194
Meerlust (Eerste River), 120,
155
Melk, Martin, 152, 273
Metal work, 59, 81, 172, 193
Mist, Commissioner de, 304
Moddergat, 158
Morgenster, 264
Mowbray, 285
Muizenburg, 280, 300
Myburgh, 156
Mydrecht, see Drakenstein
Parel Vallei, 115, 153
Parsonage, Lutheran, 274
Papagaai Berg, 176
Plaate Kloof, 302
Plans of houses, 57, 147, 190
Plettenburg, van, 277, 282,
286
Population at various peri-
ods, 31, 71, 100
Porcelain, Oriental, 193, 205,
239
" Post office " stone, 18
Pretorius, 160
Prinsloo, 136, 291
N
Noot, van, 212, 236, 258
Querellen, M. de, 23 .
O
O.V.C. monogram, 230, 249
Oliphants Hoek, 199
Oliphants Kop, 149
Oortman, N., 251
Paarde Vlei, 115, 153
Paarde Berg, 115
Paarl, 36, 209
R
Rheede, Lt. A. van, 251
Rhone and Languedoc, 188
Riebeeck, J. van, 23, 37, 272,
307
Robben Island, 86, 205, 234
Rondebosch, 28
Roodebloem, 100
Roodezand, loi, 107, 217,
302
3i«
INDEX
Rotterdam, Jan, no, 162,
251
Roux, 136, 195, 203
Rustenberg, 28, 35
Steyn, 255
Sumptuary Laws, 269
Swellendam, 261, 300
Swellengrebel, 259
Sabatier, Pierre, 188
Saldanah, 32, 200, 239, 302
Savoye, J. de, 79, 194
Schoongezigt, 185
Seventeen, The, 21
Sheik, Joseph, 163
Shipwrecks, 231 et seq.
Simond, 76, 79, 194
Simondium, 194
Simon's Bay, 98, 239
Simon's Berg, 187
Simonstown, 278
Six, W., 44, 219
Six, J., 44
Slave Lodge, Sir G. Younge's,
303
Slaves, 30, 31, 102, 170, 255
Snijman, C, 197
Starrenberg, J., in, 116
Stel, van der, see van dcr
Stel
Stellenberg, 304
Stellenbosch, 46, 76, in, 167
3
Tachard, Pere, 67
Tas, Adam, 112, 134, 154
Thatching, 25, 58
Theron, J., 220
Tohai, 306
Tree planting, 88, 98, loi,
250
Trikop, 285
Tulbagh Drostdy, 217, 302
Tulbagh, Ryk, 269, 274
Tulbagh Town, 218
Tulp, 30, 44
Tygerberg, 37
U
Ubiquas, loi, 217, 276, 302
V
Valkenberg, 149
Valkenier, Commissioner, 52,
99, 134, 149
19
INDEX
van der By], in, 148, 159 Vrede en lust, 195
van der Heyden, J., 136, 157 Vredenberg, 159
van der Merwe, 136, 220
van der Stel, Cornells, 44, 236
van der Stel, Franz, 44, 116,
126
van der Stel, Hendrik, 140
van der Stel, Lodewyk, 51,
112
van der Stel, Simon, 39 et seq.
van der Stel, Adriaan, 44, 113
van der Stel, W. A., 44, 89,
95 et seq. ; accusation of,
119, et seq. ; defence of,
132
Vergelegen, 114, 116, 124
et seq.
Vergenoegd, 161
Villiers, de, 79, 136, 201
Vogel, J., 136, 305
Vos, de, 136, 153
W
Wagonmakers Valley, 97
Waveren, Land of, loi, 217,
219
Waveren, Lord of, 52, 219
Welgelegen, 285
Wellington, 97
Welmoed, 160
Wine, 27, 56, 190, 248
Witteboom, 248, 302
Wynberg, 27, 44, 54, 96, 304
Zandvliet, 152
Zwaanswijk, 124
Zwaartland, 261
Cutler & Tanner, The Selwood Printing Works, Ftome, and London.
2 Whitehall Gardens
Westminster
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