Table Bay

“ Into this island, malefactors are generally banished from the Cape, and from most parts of India. Here, besides the punishment of being separated from all their friends, they are kept to the hardest labour.
Table Bay is very fine and large, of a semi-oval form, entering several leagues into the land, and may be about nine leagues in circuit; but the anchorage is not every where equally good, and there is some danger near the shore. The middle of the bay is commanded by a very strong fort, being a regular pentagon, and each of its fine bastions mounts twenty pieces of heavy cannon. ”

“ From this date onward the fleets of the English East India Company made Table Bay a port of call and refreshment, and usually procured in barter from the Hottentots as many cattle as they needed. In 1614 the board of directors sent a ship with as many spare men as she could carry, a quantity of provisions, and some naval stores to Table Bay to wait for the homeward bound fleet, and, while delayed, to carry on a whale and seal fishery as a means of partly meeting the expense. ”

“ We remained several days in Table Bay; during which time most of the passengers lived on shore, and some even ventured a considerable way into the interior. Cape Town extends along the shores of the bay at the foot of the far-famed Table Mountain, towards which the ground gradually rises from the waters. The streets are straight, regularly constructed, and run at right angles to each other. ”

“ Table Bay in itself is not very imposing; is a bad roadstead, and vessels intending to make any stay at the colony, go round to Simon's Bay, which is a safe roadstead within the larger one called False Bay. Numerous windmills along the shore are remarkable objects, and prove the scarcity of water to grind the corn. It is a feature in the economy of Southern Africa, that streams, which are torrents at one season, become almost dry beds in the other. ”

“ On Monday the 23d of November, we discovered the coast of Africa; at day-break on the 28th we made the Table Land of the Cape of Good Hope, and the same evening anchored in the bay. We found here only a Dutch ship from Europe, and a snow belonging to the place, which however was in the Company's service, for the inhabitants are not permitted to have any shipping.
Table Bay is a good harbour in summer, but not in winter; so that the Dutch will not permit any of their vessels to lie here longer than the 15th of May, which answers to our November. ”

“ Where we happened to be, it blew two ways at once, as is often the case in Table Bay, round the bluffs of the mountain, and as soon as she brought up again with a surge at the windlass, the heave of a long swell took her right on the quarter, lifting her in to her anchor again with a slack of the hawser, at which every second man sung out to 'hold on!' Over she went to port, a sea washing up the starboard side, and throwing a few dozen bucketfuls at once fair into the companion, where our friend the harbour officer was sticking at the time ”

“ Table Bay was then about 20,000 toises distant from us.
The currents, which had made us fall off so much from our course whilst we were in the track of the regular winds, having fortunately taken an opposite direction where we met with the variable ones; what we had lost to the west was very nearly made up to us by what we gained to the east, as appeared when we made the land of the Cape of Good Hope. ”

“ The shore is barren, consisting largely of stretches of white sand or thin soil sparsely covered with scrub. The Cape peninsula, which forms Table Bay on the north and False Bay on the south, juts pendant beyond the normal coast line and consists of an isolated range of hills. The scenery here becomes bold and picturesque. Dominating Table Bay is the well-known Table Mountain (3549 ft.) , flat-topped and often covered with a “tablecloth” of cloud. On its lower slopes and around Table Bay is built Cape Town, capital of the colony. ”

“ The Harbour.—Table Bay, 20 m. wide at its entrance, is fully exposed to north and north-west gales. The harbour works, begun in 1860, afford sheltered accommodation for a large number of vessels. From the west end of the bay a breakwater extends north-east for some 4000 ft. East of the breakwater and parallel to it for 2700 ft. is the South pier. From breakwater and pier arms project laterally. In the area enclosed are the Victoria basin, covering 64 acres, the Alfred basin of 81⁄2 acres, a graving dock 529 ft. long and a patent slip for vessels up to 1500 tons. ”

“ We found him a very pleasant addition to our family party on board, and I soon got to look on him like one of my own sons; he was, besides, of great assistance to us in navigating the little schooner. The gale at length ceased, and we stood for Table Bay. I was afraid of venturing the run across the Indian Ocean without landing at Cape Town, lest we might get short of water; a want, which besides exposing us to suffering, would have caused the destruction of all our sheep. We remained but a few days at Cape Town. ”

“ They live on raw flesh, and a kind of roots, which they have in great abundance.
[Footnote 66: This Bay was probably that now called Table bay, which all the early navigators seem to have denominated Saldanha, or Saldania bay.--E.]
We continued here from the 9th April, till the 3d May, by which good recreation on shore and excellent refreshment, we were all in as good health as when we first put to sea. The 7th May we were off the Cape of Good Hope, ten leagues south by estimation, and that night we passed over the shoals of cabo das Aguilhas. ”

“ My brother was anxious to have a little sea-bathing, so we stayed for a few days at a small place called Muizenberg, on the shore of False Bay. I have never bathed in such deliciously warm water before. I [Pg 45] believe there are some sharks around Table Bay, but False Bay is considered quite safe; so many Cape Town people go out there to bathe, and some of them have bungalows near the sea.
I was very keen to climb Table Mountain, so I left P. for one night at Muizenberg, and went to spend the night again at Kenilworth, with some friends who were making up a "mountain party." ”

“ The distance, the badness of the road to Cape Town, the difficulty of procuring supplies and stores, with various other inconveniences, combine to give the preference to Table Bay, notwithstanding the reputed hazard. At Cape Town abundance of accommodation, of every description, may be had; whereas, at Seamon’s Bay, there are not more than two or three houses where persons of respectability could lodge. ”

“ The bay is large, and almost landlocked. The little white town is built along the foot of a lofty mountain. Beautiful walks can be had in every direction, along the hard sandy sea-beach, over the mountains and on to extensive table-lands, or away up into dark rocky dingles and heath-clad glens. Nothing can surpass the beauty of the scenery, or the gorgeous loveliness of the wild heaths and geraniums everywhere abounding. There is a good hotel and billiard-room ”

“ The whole country, where the soil is not absolutely barren, teems with all that could enrich a pleasure garden; among these, the wild geraniums bear a large proportion: the plain beyond the camp at Wine-Burg absolutely resembling a rich carpet!
The opposite side of Table Bay, as seen from Cape Town, offers nothing pleasing to the eye; the coast appearing to be low, sandy, and barren, rising gradually into a range of hills, displaying little arborage, or verdure, which connect with those on the east side of False Bay, forming a part of the district called Hottentot Holland ”

“ What is required, they say, is communication and the presence of a community.
Big Bay, which we first entered, misled by the haze along the shore, although it appears on the chart as a mere indentation of the coast-line, compared with the magnificent harbours to the southward, is a fine crescent bay of considerable depth, and with a long-extending shelter on its north side, consisting of a line of table land, terminating in a low spit and a reef of rocks. It is possible for a mistake to be made as to the identity of the two bays, going by the chart of the mere coast-line ”

“ The journey to the bay by stage requires two days, with a stop at Camp Stranahan, on New River. You will obtain more fun, though, if you take the schooner at Lake Worth and sail down the Atlantic, a distance of eighty miles. Going south the boat hugs the shore to avoid the northward flow of the Gulf Stream. During the autumn the band at the Royal Poinciana Hotel, at Palm Beach, can be plainly heard. The freight and passenger boats that run between the lake and the bay generally use Bear Cut entrance to the bay. ”

“ This head land lies from Cape Table North 24 degrees East, distant 12 Leagues. Between them the Shore forms a Bay, wherein lies Poverty Bay, 4 Leagues from the former and 8 Leagues from the Latter. From Gable end Foreland the land trends North by East as far as we could see. The land from Poverty Bay to this place is of a moderate but very unequal height, distinguished by Hills and Vallies that are Cover'd with woods. We saw, as we run along shore, several Villages, cultivated lands, and some of the Natives. ”

“ Going from Po-Po’s house toward the anchorage of the harbour of Taloo, you catch no glimpse of the water until, coming out from deep groves, you all at once find yourself upon the beach. A bay, considered by many voyagers the most beautiful in the South Seas, then lies before you. You stand upon one side of what seems a deep green river, flowing through mountain passes to the sea. Right opposite a majestic promontory divides the inlet from another, called after its discoverer, Captain Cook. ”

“ It is curious to rise from a seat in the amphitheatre where you have been lulled by the light touch of the wind and the soft lapping of the waves, to contemplate two or three rods beyond this scene of mighty wrath. It is more curious still to stroll through expanses of sedgegrass to the other side of the Point and behold the bay. A quiet little bay it seems, with its diversified edge of sandy beach and tumble of small rocks, with its lobstermen's sheds clinging to the shore and further inland the houses. ”

“ We anchored on the north shore, off a sandy bay, which I think as good a birth as any in the bay; Cape Banks bore east-south-east, and Point Solander south-south-east, the ground clear and good. The wind, either from the north-east or south-east quarters, set in a prodigious sea. Higher up the bay there is a spot of four fathoms, where a few ships might be laid in tolerable security, but they must be lightened, to enable them to pass over a flat of twelve feet, and that depth but of narrow limits. ”

“ Just before sunrise next morning, while we were loading our first boat, one after another the rest all slipped past us, out upon their homeward way, for the wind had come fair. Hicks Bay is perhaps the most picturesque spot on all that picturesque coast; and a lovely sight it was that morning. A tawny, grass-grown promontory ran out upon the sea to our right, the opposite barrier was a tumble of black rocks and Bush, and the head of the bay was formed by lofty mountains, covered almost to the water’s edge with thick virgin forest. ”

“ The other place is a good situation for a town, having a considerable flat space at the mouth of a river navigable for small vessels for a short distance; and being on the land side of the bay, is a more fit emporium for the produce of the country, as well as more convenient for merchandise. I do not by any means consider the bay the place where a settlement should be formed, as the whole of the northern part of the island is a mere neck of land, in comparison with that to the southward of the Thames; and nearly the whole of it, if not owned, is at least claimed by Europeans ”

“ We have been driving across a narrow mainland, from the ocean to the ocean, and before us, gleaming softly in the evening sunlight, is the beautiful Bay of Conception. The surrounding cliffs are quite purple, the ocean is a golden sea broken up by green islands. Far below us is a cluster of houses, a fishing settlement, with a lobster factory and some flakes run out over the rocks. There are boats idly rocking at the quay, whilst others are catching bait for a fishing schooner, lying at anchor in the bay. ”

“ Sailing thence to the southward towards the large island, we discovered a very large bay, well peopled, and very fertile in yams and fruits, hogs and fowls. They are all black people and naked. They fight with bows, darts and clubs. They did not choose to have peace with us, though we frequently spoke to them and made presents; and they never, with their goodwill, let us set foot on shore.
This bay is very refreshing, and in it fall many and large rivers. It is in 152⁄3° S. latitude, and in circuit it is twenty-five leagues. ”

“ We leave behind us the musical sand, and reach the point of the promontory which forms the northern extremity of the Bay of Laig. Wherever the beach has been swept bare, we see it floored with trap-dykes worn down to the level, but in most places accumulations of huge blocks of various composition cover it up, concealing the nature of the rock beneath. The long semi-circular wall of precipice which, sweeping inwards at the bottom of the bay, leaves to the inhabitants between its base and the beach their fertile meniscus of land, here abuts upon the coast. ”

“ In and out of this harbour small sailing-vessels make their way; and certain scattered cottages, the Bridport Arms Inn, and some few recent houses, all standing in the sands and minute gravel of the Chesil Beach, which ends here, make believe that West Bay is a seaside resort. On either side of it the cliffs rise to great heights, and are partly of a friable, earthy nature, yellow in hue. ”