Stellenbosch

“ There have never been people less inclined to submit quietly to grievances, real or imaginary, than the early colonists of Stellenbosch and Drakenstein. Even at this infant stage of the settlement’s existence they showed that great difference from the inhabitants of Capetown which is observable to the present day. They did not know it then, but it was they who were destined to impart that spirit of hostility to oppression and wrong which has ever since marked the country people of South Africa. ”

“ The colony of Stellenbosch is said to have the most fertile soil of all at the Cape, and the different plantations thrive there incomparably better than any where else, particularly the European oaks, which are said to have attained a considerable height and flourishing appearance, whilst they do not seem to succeed near the town, where the tallest we saw was not above thirty feet high. The interior mountains are certainly metallic, and contain iron and copper ”

“ Your readers shall be the bravest, noblest, proudest soldiers who ever served an earthly race.
You can ask no more. You can ask nothing else.
But in the meantime we want "copy."
We published also a brief communication respecting the Dutch name Stellenbosch. This needs a word of explanation. It had long been noticed that whenever an officer was prominently connected with a losing battle, or exhibited marked incompetence in any field of military work, he got a billet at Stellenbosch, a bowery village deep down in the Cape Colony, where was established our base camp of supplies. ”

“ To-morrow we shall cross the highest pass I have yet crossed, and sleep at Paarl—then Stellenbosch, then Capetown. For any one out of health, and in pocket, I should certainly prescribe the purchase of a waggon and team of six horses, and a long, slow progress in South Africa. One cannot walk in the midday sun, but driving with a very light roof over one’s head is quite delicious. ”

“ On the 23rd of November 1699 the governor with a party of attendants set out on a tour of inspection of the settlement. He visited Stellenbosch, Drakenstein, and the farms about the Tigerberg, where he found some persons to whom no ground had yet been allotted. The country was inhabited by Europeans, though thinly, nearly as far as the present village of Hermon. Small Hottentot kraals were scattered about, of which the occupants were found to be very poor and very lazy. ”

“ In this journey among the Dutch towns which lie around the capital I missed Stellenbosch, which is, I am told, the{158} most Dutch of them all. As good Americans when dead go to Paris, so do good Dutchmen while still alive go to Stellenbosch,—and more especially good Dutchwomen, for it is a place much affected by widows. The whole of this country is so completely Dutch that an Englishman finds himself to be altogether a foreigner. ”

“ The history in detail of this first European settlement in South Africa is of surpassing interest; but, here, it must be sketched in the briefest outline possible, up to the first contact of Boer with Briton. [15]
For the first twenty-five years the aim of the colonists was to keep within easy reach of the fort at the Cape. Up to 1680 the most distant agricultural settlement was at Stellenbosch, about twenty-five miles from the Cape. Not till the end of the century did they push pioneering enterprises beyond the first range of mountains. ”

“ When I have done my visit to Simon’s Bay, I will go ‘up country’, to Stellenbosch, Paarl and Worcester, perhaps. If I can find people going in a bullock-waggon, I will join them; it costs £1 a day, and goes twenty miles. If money were no object, I would hire one with Caffres to hunt, as well as outspan and drive, and take a saddle-horse. There is plenty of pleasure to be had in travelling here, if you can afford it. The scenery is quite beyond anything you can imagine in beauty. I went to a country house at Rondebosch with the J—s, and I never saw so lovely a spot. ”

“ Although it was a remarkably enjoyable life which the boys led at Stellenbosch, they quickly wearied of it, and began to long for something more exciting. The riding lessons which they took with the sons, and the gun practice were all very useful, yet humiliating also, since they could never hope to compete with those born marksmen and centaurs. It is almost impossible for a true Africander to miss his mark or be unseated from his horse. ”

“ In the interior the people had risen up in a mild revolt, had dismissed [27] the local magistrates who were the appointees of the Company, and had instituted incipient republics under the government of representative assemblies. Even in Stellenbosch and Cape Town the majority sympathized with these movements, and only waited a favorable opportunity to declare against the Company’s rule. ”

“ Few ships remain long enough to allow of passengers proceeding to the interior; where, however, they would find much to admire. At some of the farms they may be well accommodated, with the great advantage of finding their purses far less burthensome on their return! The famous vineyards of Stellenbosch are well worth seeing, as is the Salt Lake, which annually dries, leaving a bed of muriate of soda many miles in diameter, and of unknown depth! ”

“ Even nearer to Cape Town, in the fertile and wine-producing districts of Stellenbosch, Paarl, Ceres, Tulbagh, and Worcester, all most difficult to deal with, owing to the broken character of the ground and its intersection by rough mountain ranges, a portion of the inhabitants had shown signs of great restlessness. If even small bands of insurgents had taken up arms in these parts, the British lines of communication would have been imperilled. A very large force would be required for their protection.
The enthusiasm of the loyal furnishes large numbers of Volunteers. ”

“ A good many men got their discharge after the fighting was over, and among them my father. He liked the country, and found plenty of employment, and higher wages than he could get at home. He was a skilled workman, particularly clever at house-building. An English settler wanted a house built at Stellenbosch, and my father undertook the job. He lodged, while employed in the work, in the house of a Dutch farmer named Van Schuylen, and there he soon became very intimate. ”

“ Rhodes never varied.
“I have my own views as to the future of South Africa, and I believe in an United States of South Africa, but as a portion of the British Empire. I believe that confederated states in a colony under responsible government would each be practically an independent republic; but I think we should have all the privileges of the tie with the Empire. Possibly there is not a very great divergence between myself and the honourable member for Stellenbosch, excepting always the question of the flag.” ”

“ I hear that Worcester, Paarl, and Stellenbosch are beautiful, and the road very desolate and grand: one mountain pass takes six hours to cross. I should not return to Capetown so early, but poor Captain J— has had his leg smashed and amputated, so I must look out for myself in the matter of ships. Whenever it is hot, I am well, for the heat here is so light and dry. The wind tries me, but we have little here compared to the coast. I hope that the voyage home will do me still more good ”

“ The most beautiful thing is the view from the stoep, which is of almost unrivalled beauty, across a richly cultivated plain with woods and fields to the seas and the cliffs of False Bay and beyond the seas the grand range of mountains around Stellenbosch. ”

“ The Malay driver had an assistant by his side, who seemed, however, chiefly to serve as ballast, in order that our two-wheeled vehicle might not lose its equilibrium; for the disconsolate condition of the horses rendered the fear of their running away quite superfluous. Our charioteer drove his horses, which now and then were rather restive, with so much adroitness, that we arrived as early as nine o'clock in that charming settlement Stellenbosch, which Wilkes, the American Commodore, even in 1839, designated as the loveliest and most beautiful in the whole colony. ”

“ It was more than three weeks since they had left Cape Town. They had stayed at different places, until, hearing of the shanty from a man in Stellenbosch, who was anxious to let it, and who told wonderful fairy-tales of the sport to be enjoyed in the neighbourhood. Lawless had decided to take it, and having paid the first month’s rent in advance, bought provisions and hired horses and set out with his companion to take possession of what the owner described as a comfortably furnished shooting-box. Comfort is largely a matter of comparison. ”

“ The ground in rear of this village is beautifully timbered, and rises with a more or less gradual ascent, towards a mountain range extending from Table Bay to Muissenburg; an old fort and military station about two-and-a-half leagues from Simon’s Town; and upon one of the rocky spurs of this range, overlooking Rondebosch, there used to stand an ancient Dutch block-house, from the summit of which a splendid view of the surrounding country, and “veldt,” stretching far away to the foot of the Stellenbosch Hills, could be obtained, on a fair, clear day. ”

“ When Simon van der Stel became commander the settlement comprised only the cultivated ground at the foot of Table Mountain, two little outposts of the Company at Saldanha Bay and Hottentots-Holland, a cattle station of the Company at the Tigerberg, and land beyond the isthmus on which seven burghers were experimenting in cattle breeding. He is almost as much entitled to be termed the founder of the colony as Van Riebeek is, for Stellenbosch, the Paarl, Drakenstein, and French Hoek were occupied under his supervision. ”

“ Perhaps the main body may never come here at all. Even rooineks learn in time—and so we may lose even the scouts.”
“I have thought of that too,” said Jan, with slow contempt, as the Stellenbosch boy delivered his shot. “If you had been my 48son I should have sjamboked you more when you were a youngster. I shall put you and four or five more on the Nek [the pass] , where the road comes from their camp into these kopjes. You go there before it is light. Let the scoots pass in or I will sjambok you myself. ”

“ He didn't want to go to the hospital, and the house at the Farm is good enough for anybody. Anyhow, you get away from the smell of disinfectants and the business of the hospital. It's a snigger little place is Brinkwort's Farm. There's an orchard of peaches and oranges, and there are pomegranate hedges, and plenty of nice flowers in the garden, and a stoep made for candidates for Stellenbosch—as comfortable as the room of a Rand director."
"Mrs. Byng is with him?" asked Stafford, his eyes turned towards Brinkwort's Farm miles away. ”

“ Work on the farms practically ceased, for no man or woman could tell what might not happen from hour to hour, and no one considered himself safe. The military outposts, excepting those at Waveren, Klapmuts, Groenekloof, and Saldanha Bay, at which twenty-four men in all were stationed, had been broken up before this date, so the burghers felt free to act. In the early morning of the 18th of September the{231} farmers of Waveren, Riebeek’s Kasteel, and Drakenstein rode armed into the village of Stellenbosch, and at beat of drum drew up near the landdrost’s office. ”

“ During the campaign several thousands of pounds sterling were contributed towards the work, whilst the Soldiers’ Christian Association was directly represented at the following camps:—Cape Town, Stellenbosch, Orange River, Enslin, Kimberley, Dronfield, Sterkstroom, Dordrecht, Arundel, Boshof, Hoopstad, Bloemfontein, Kroonstad, Pretoria, Eerste Fabriken, Estcourt, Frere, Dewdrop, Ladysmith, Elandslaagte, Ingagane, and Newcastle, where active operations were carried on by the staff of thirty workers. ”

“ The governor had instructions from the directors to attend more carefully to arboriculture than had yet been done, and they complained that if a sufficient number of trees had been planted in earlier years there would be no necessity to send timber from Europe for housebuilding purposes and no want of fuel for the ships. These instructions he carried out, and during the first winter after his arrival twenty thousand young oaks were planted in the kloofs at Stellenbosch and Drakenstein, where the native forests had been exhausted, and over ten thousand were set out in the Cape peninsula. ”

“ Von Manger that he should remain under their government, but he declined, on the ground that he had taken an oath of fidelity to the king of England. On the 20th he and Mr. Bresler left the drostdy to return to Capetown.
On hearing of these proceedings, General Craig sent Major King wdth three hundred men of the eighty-fourth regiment to Stellenbosch, to be in readiness to move forward at short notice. Supplies of ammunition and goods of all kinds were cut off from the district of Graaff-Reinet. A corps of Hottentots was raised for service in the interior. ”

“ Quiet as Pretoria is, the echoes of the noisy Rand are heard in it, and the Rand questions occupy men's minds. But outside Pretoria the country is lonely and silent, like all other parts of the Transvaal, except the mining districts. Here and there, at long, intervals, you come upon a cluster of houses—one can hardly call them villages. If it were not for the mines, there would not be one white man to a square mile over the whole Republic. ”

“ Pretoria lies in a shallow basin in the heart of the hills—a fitting home for the Sleeping Princess. It is hushed and drowsy and overrun by a tangle of roses. Weeping willows edge the streets, which are wide and as neglected as a country road. Open gutters carry off, or rather contain, the sewage of the town. Its altitude is lower than that of Johannesburg, and the climate very relaxing. Every month or couple of months the town is full of stir and life. The Boers trek in from neighbouring farms with their long span of oxen, as many as eighteen and twenty being yoked to a wagon. ”