East Cape

“ A homogeneous Dutch community grew up in this remote region—for the Cape was, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, one of the least-explored and most out-of-the-way parts of the earth—which knew no literature but the Bible, which preserved the manners and traditions of the seventeenth century, and which from its frequent disputes with the Dutch East India Company's tyrannical government imbibed a rooted aversion to all laws and restraints. ”

“ Having now passed Beering's Strait, and taken our final leave of the N.E. coast of Asia, it may not be improper, on this occasion, to state the grounds on which we have ventured to adopt two general conclusions respecting its extent, in opposition to the opinions of Mr Muller. The first, that the promontory named East Cape, is actually the easternmost point of that quarter of the globe; or, in other words, that no part of the continent extends in longitude beyond 190° 22' E. ”

“ The straits are thirty-six miles wide, with East Cape, a rounded, dome-shaped mass of black basalt, on the Asiatic side and on the American side Cape Prince of Wales, a headland of sharper outline, but neither so lofty nor so sheer. ”

“ The Cape is of a moderate height with white cliffs, and lies in the Latitude of 37 degrees 42 minutes 30 seconds South, and Longitude 181 degrees 00 minutes West from the Meridian of Greenwich. After we had rounded the East Cape we saw, as we run along shore, a great number of Villages and a great deal of Cultivated land; and in general the country appear'd with more fertility than what we had seen before ”

“ About the East Cape in general; they are warm. What is the general Character and Appearance of the Natives?
They are very fine stout healthy Men; very majestic in their Walk and Contour in general. In such Cultivation as you saw did you make Observation upon the Sort of Implements they use?
Their Implements now are English Implements, the Spade and Mattock and Pickaxe. Did they appear desirous to get them?
Yes; they would part with any thing they possessed for them; their Pigs and Potatoes and Indian Wheat they will give up for any thing of that Kind. Blankets also were taken in exchange. ”

“ In its inception the settlement at the Cape was not intended to become an African colony, but was regarded as the most westerly outpost of the Dutch East Indies. Nevertheless, despite the paucity of ports and the absence of navigable rivers, the Dutch colonists, freed from any apprehension of European trouble by the friendship between Great Britain and Holland, and leavened by Huguenot blood, gradually spread northward, stamping their language, law and religion indelibly upon South Africa. ”

“ It is on the east, however, that the most beautiful spots lie. Five miles from Cape Town and connected with it by railway, the village of Rondebosch nestles under the angle of Table Mountain, and a mile farther along the line is the little town of Wynberg. Round these places, or between them and Cape Town, nearly all the richer, and a great many even of the poorer, white people of Cape Town live. The roads are bordered by pretty villas, whose grounds, concealed by no walls, are filled with magnolias and other flowering trees and shrubs. ”

“ It is still more remarkable when it is seen from the southward, by the appearance of a high round island at the S.E. point of the Cape; but this also is a deception; for what appears to be an island is a round hill, joined to the Cape by a low narrow neck of land. Upon the Cape we saw a Hippah or village, and a few inhabitants; and on the south-east side of it there appears to be anchorage, and good shelter from the south-west and north-west winds.
We continued to stand off and on, making N.W. till noon on the 21st, when North Cape bore S. 39 E. distant thirty-eight leagues. ”

“ The advantage of a place of refreshment in South Africa was obvious, and as early as 1613 enterprising individuals in the service of the East India Company drew the attention of the directors to the advisability of forming a settlement in Table Valley. Still earlier it was rumoured that the king of Spain and Portugal had such a design in contemplation, with the object of cutting off thereby the intercourse of all other nations with the Indian seas, so that the strategical value of the Cape was already recognised. ”

“ That the Cape Colony occupies the southern coast of the African continent, and that the colony of Natal is on the south-eastern coast, are facts of which few readers will need to be reminded. Will it, then, be sufficient to say, that the 'sovereignty' in question is situated in the interior, between these two colonies, having the Cape on the south, and Natal on the east? It will be necessary to refer briefly to the manner in which it acquired its rank as a colony, and its peculiar name. Just two hundred years ago, in the year 1652, the Cape Colony was founded by the Dutch ”

“ Cape Town, the capital of the Cape Province, South Africa, in 33° 56′ S., 18° 28′ E. It is at the north-west extremity of the Cape Peninsula on the south shore of Table Bay, is 6181 m. by sea from London and 957 by rail south-west of Johannesburg. Few cities are more magnificently situated. Behind the bay the massive wall of Table Mountain, 2 m. in length, rises to a height of over 3500 ft., while on the east and west projecting mountains enclose the plain in which the city lies. The mountain to the east, 3300 ft. ”

“ In German East-Africa, in parts of the Transvaal and in the Delagoa Bay region there is still a similar state of affairs. But Cape Colony, the Orange Free State and Natal were then, and are at the present time, almost entirely free of this dreaded disease. For weak lungs it was discovered that no finer country exists in the world than the Cape, and for the development of general healthfulness and vigour the settlers of the Colony soon found themselves in an ideal region. ”

“ Not only Mr Rhodes, but all the politicians of the Cape Colony and Natal. The best work the British Government ever did was in sending those five thousand English people to South-East Africa in the early part of this century. The experiment unfortunately has never been repeated. There is a different kind of population going out now. When they go to the Cape, they begin to spread themselves over every part of South Africa as far as Salisbury. It seems to me that there ought to be three or four hundred families going out every week to settle in new homes. ”

“ Though divided into two British Colonies, with several other pieces of British territory, and two Boer Republics, the habitable parts of South Africa form one community, all the parts of which must stand or fall together. The great plateau is crossed by no lines of physical demarcation all the way from the Zambesi to the Hex River (some fifty miles north-east of Cape Town) , and the coast regions are closely bound by economic ties to the plateau, which through them touches the outer world. Popular speech which talks of South Africa as one whole is scientifically right. ”

“ The great ice current, flowing down the east coast of Greenland and diverted by the Gulf Stream, sweeps round Cape Farewell and is closely packed along this shore until late in the season. Almost the whole coast, with numerous islands and entrances to the deep fjords, may be taken in at a glance from Cape Farewell, or at least from Cape Christian to Cape Desolation. It comprises the whole of the ancient colony of the East Bygd. Great precipices face the sea, with black mountains, 3000 to 4000 ft. high, rising above them. ”

“ His political activities were soon concentrated on that northern expansion which formed a great part of his completed work. The Cape Colony was then bounded on the north by the Orange River, beyond which lay Bechuanaland, of vast extent and the only avenue to the coveted northern territories which were the objective alike of Rhodes and of the Transvaal Boers. By the Pretoria Convention of 1881 the westward expansion of the Transvaal was limited to a line east of the trade routes from Bechuanaland. ”

“ North-west Cape was visible at noon, bearing east three-quarters north, distant twenty-five miles; our latitude being 22 degrees south; and longitude 113 degrees 18 minutes east. The Cape appears to have an elevation of 500 or 600 feet, and to be of a sandstone formation; the soil back of the hills appearing good, and clothed at this period of the year with an abundance of grass, wattles of large growth and flooded-gum trees growing on the slopes; the character of some of the lower hills and valleys is that of a mineral district. ”

“ The natives, who less than one hundred years ago ruled the whole of South Africa with the exception of a small fraction of Cape Colony and several square miles on the east coast, have been relegated by the advances of civilization, until now they hold only small territories, or reservations, in the different colonies and republics. ”

“ The railway from Cape Town to Hope Town avoids this singular formation, consequently the great traffic is carried round in another direction, more to the east, passing through Beaufort West and Victoria West, over a flat and barren part of the great Karroo. The mountain pass at Franschehoek is very fine, also Baiu’s Kloof, both possessing grand scenery.
The principal towns in the colony beside Cape Town, in degree of importance, are Port Elizabeth, Graham’s Town; the capital of the eastern province is pleasantly situated in a fertile valley. ”

“ Behind the low coast strip rise the hills whose slopes constitute the second region. They rise in most places rather gradually, and they seldom (except in Manicaland, to be hereafter described) present striking forms. The neighbourhood of Cape Town is almost the only place where high mountains come close to the shore—the only place, therefore, except the harbour of St. John's far to the east, where there is anything that can be called grand coast scenery. ”

“ Fighting continually amongst themselves, trading occasionally with the white men and stealing cattle wherever possible from the gradually extending settlement, these natives proved a source of much trouble to the pioneers.
The Dutch East India Company
Between 1652 and 1783 the European population of the Cape increased to about twenty-five thousand persons, in comparison with an increase of four millions in the English population of the thirteen American Colonies during much the same period. But conditions were different and the character of the settlers still more so. ”

“ Southern Africa may be described as consisting of a series of terraces rising one above the other as they recede from the sea, and then declining towards the great Orange River, which, after a long course, generally from east to west, falls into the Atlantic Ocean about 500 miles north of the Cape. ”

“ We had a fine run during the night, and at Nov. 24.noon the following day we were in latitude 36° 27′ S. and longitude 177° 34′ E. In the evening the land of the East Cape was distinguishable, bearing S. 15° W. (true) . I was informed by the master of a schooner belonging to the Church of England Missionaries, who had made frequent visits to Poverty Bay, that there is a dangerous reef eighteen miles off shore, bearing due east by compass from the north head of the bay; it lies in a N. W. and S. E. direction, is three quarters of a mile long, and over it there is only five feet water ”

“ The point of the main which forms the side of the channel through which we passed, opposite to the island, is the northern promontory of the country, and I called it York Cape. Its longitude is 218° 24' W., the latitude of the north point is 10° 37', and of the east point 10° 42' S. The land over the east point, and to the southward of it, is rather low, and as far as the eye can reach, very flat, and of a barren appearance. To the southward of the Cape the shore forms a large open bay, which I called Newcastle Bay, and in which are some small low islands and shoals ”

“ The contrast is great between the Cape flats as a dreary waste of drifting sand and a succession of little farms with comfortable houses and hard roads, with screens of trees and green fields and gardens, with even a railway to convey produce to market as is seen to-day, and it depicts what can be effected in South Africa by the industry and; patience of such men and women as these immigrants. ”

“ Admiral Rio d’Infanté landed there in 1498, and fixing upon the mouth of a river for the site of a settlement, recommended his countrymen to establish a colony there; his advice was, however, not followed, and other Portuguese navigators failed in some [5] slight attempts which they made to colonize this interesting part of Africa.
The Cape forms one of the great landmarks of the globe, separating the Atlantic from the Indian Ocean, and dividing the voyage to Hindoostan into two nearly equal portions ”

“ A ten o'clock, Cape Van Diemen was distant three miles, and we tacked to the east; and from that time till evening, continued to work up between the cape and a shoal lying two leagues from it to the E.S.E. This shoal is a narrow ridge of sand, over which we had passed in going to Bountiful Island; but there were now breakers upon a more southern part. It seems to be formed by different sets of tide amongst the islands, and to be steep to; for in passing over, the soundings had been 13, 4, 5, 7, 11 fathoms, almost as quick as the lead could be heaved. ”

“ All the persons of consequence in these places know one another and follow one another's doings. All mix frequently, because the Cape Town people are apt to be called by business to the inland cities, and the residents of the inland cities come to Cape Town for sea air in the summer, or to embark thence for Europe. ”

“ This I have witnessed in South Africa to a most wonderful and pleasing extent, how from one solitary member of a family who has gone abroad to the Cape there has been diffused, from his success, through his whole family connection, improved well-being, new hopes, higher aspirations, and the whole family has risen, not merely in what may be named comfort, but even in habit and character as well. ”