ROADS TAKE YOU THERE, BUT THE PEOPLE REMAIN IN YOUR HEART!
Some yearn to change course on the Road of Life – others just do it. One of these is Nicholas Yell. His adventures began when he moved to Aberdeen in the Karoo and began restoring a traditional, old ‘platdak’ (flat roofed) Karoo house. To relax he indulged two loves – photography and the absolute joy of roaring down a little-known gravel road on a dirt bike exploring the Great Karoo. In time this led to a planned “circumnavigation” – an adventure through this vast arid area. He captured it all in a fascinating book. Now there is a follow-up. In this second book Nick records fictionalized impressions of the quirky characters he met along his rides into lesser-known parts of the Karoo. It is a delightful read. Some stories are poignant, others amusing and yet others have a “smile in the tale.” Nick admits “some of these stories reflect only the vaguest truth, others rely on my own off-beat imagination to entertain the reader.” Be that as it may, Karoo Tales and Images iss a superb collection of stories worth reading. Published by Springbok Press (ISBN: 978-0-620-40583-6) and costing R129, the book contains 13 short stories and about 36 black and white picture each exuding an air of the Karoo. It is the ideal Christmas present for anyone interested in the Karoo. “People-watching, especially in the Karoo, is fascinating,” says Nick. “It allows poignant glimpses of people living happily from hand-to-mouth while letting the world float by as well as peeks into the lives of former city-embattled souls striving to free their spirits and find or lose themselves in the vastness of the Karoo. Essentially I found a genuine warmth in these encounters – an honesty seldom found elsewhere.” Veteran journalist and author, Harvey Tyson, says “Nick’s short stories reminded me of O.Henry’s writings of the late 1800s, but he has his own style and his stories have layers of innuendo and meaning often revealed only at the end.”
MORE SOON ON POLAR EXPLORER DOCTOR
Dr Reginald Koettlitz (1860 to 1916), who is buried in Cradock, is one of the fascinating characters of the Great Karoo. He accompanied Captain Robert Falcon Scot on a trip to the Antarctic, has a polar peak named in his honour, but sadly was eventually blamed for the men contracting scurvy. He came to South Africa, worked in the Karoo and died at Cradock. Now, Gus Jones and his wife, Ann (nee Koettlitz), who live in England, are writing the first biography of this distinguished polar explorer. “I was delighted to see Dr Koettlitz still receives attention in South Africa. He was a member of Scott’s team on the first expedition on the Discovery 1901-1904, but not part of the expedition which claimed the lives of Scott and his companions. Ann and I will complete the book within about six months. Reginald’s time in South Africa is an important part of the story so we visited Cradock and Somerset East three years ago to find out more about this time. Perhaps some of your readers may be interested in this biography when it is published.”
IN SEARCH OF A ROSE
Jane Murray, who lives in the United States, is the great grand niece of Max Rose, who farmed on the Nuweveld mountains outside of Beaufort West. She is researching the South African branch of this family and would be grateful for any information about her great grand uncle and any other family members. “The family history seems closely linked to the history of Beaufort West,” says Jane.
SPECIAL CHRISTMAS OFFER
The Van Riebeeck Society is offering some of their earlier volumes at the special price of R70 each, plus postage. Anyone who is interested should contact Cora Owens
STOP OVER OFFERS A PEEK INTO THE PAST
Rietpoort, a pleasant farm alongside the N12 route, offers travellers quality accommodation and a fascinating peek into history. Situated 30 km north of Victoria West on the way to Britstown, Rietpoort’s story begins way back “in the 1700’s, when nomadic European farmers started to settle in the Karoo and trying to tame the land for their flocks,” say owner Dick Ras. “There was a strong spring at this spot and that’s what attracted them.” All that remains of the first stone cottage built here is its foundation. This is near the present-day homestead, which itself is over 200 years old. Over the years other dwellings were also built, but in time turned into stables and barns. Fortunately, however, many interesting features like the old fire-ceiling, (brandsolder) made with reeds and clay, as well as original lofts, broad beams and wide planks have survived. “The spring, the source of life for people and animals of yesteryear, still supplies enough water for a popular grove, ancient pear trees (almost all over 150 years old), other fruit trees, agriculture and the general needs of the household. Also nearby are the remains of an old water mill where early farmers ground meal for their bread while irrigating their fields.” There are many signs of ancient civilization at this spot. Artifacts, remnants of stone tools, ostrich egg shards and rock engravings of eland, elephant, other animals, something that resembles a sabre tooth tiger, have been found near the spring. There is also a rock gong or Bushman piano. This is a huge flat rock that emits clear musical notes when struck with another piece of dolerite. No one has yet fully explained what the San used these for rock gongs for.
ENJOY A PEEK INTO YESTERYEAR
Stone kraals near the homestead date back to the early 1800’s when the area abounded with predators and farmers brought flocks home at night to protect them. Over the years the layers of dung in the kraal built up to such an extent that sheep could jump over the walls. The owner at that time used a special device to cut this dung into sods which he used to build the wall higher. This interesting kraal survives to this day. History has treated the original old homestead at Rietpoort rather well. It was built of stone, clay and raw clay bricks. Walls are half a metre thick in places, but the structure has stood the test of time, while many neighboring buildings have fallen down, been demolished or turned into barns. The old house still boasts floors and ceilings made from 30cm wide yellow wood planks trundled up from Knysna by ox wagon. Originally it had sash windows with shutters, but in time these were replaced with Oregon trimmings. “A Victorian-style veranda was added and in the 1920’s, when my grandparents married, they installed pressed steel ceilings in the dining room, reception and main bedroom,” says Danie. Another interesting feature at Rietpoort is an old slave bell which frames a beautiful scene from the front porch, across a valley of reeds and fields to a poplar grove. One of the main attractions at Rietpoort is a well-preserved paleo-surface of fossilized mud and footprints.
ANCIENT HUMOUR UNCOVERED
Mark Bowen, editor of Vernacs Online Bulletin, feels French naturalist and adventurer, Francois le Vaillant, had a wicked sense of humour. In the “Trivia Department” of the October issue Mark says he discovered this while studying a painting of Slaber’s Farm, done by Le Vaillant during his adventures in South Africa in the late 1700s. This picture appears in José Burman’s book “Towards the far Horizon The story of the Ox-wagon in South Africa”. It depicts a number of dwellings, Le Vaillant’s wagon and tall tent, three matjieshuisies, two brick farm buildings and what looks like three thatched beehive-type huts. What really is funny about this painting is the little figure in European dress urinating against the wall of the brick farmhouse! Who would have guessed that the French had such a wicked sense of humour?”
DON’T UNDERESTIMATE THE ANCIENTS
Iron Age Societies had a most effective way of storing grain, states Mark Bowen in the same Vernacs Online bulletin. Some, it seems dug pits in which to store their grain. “The inside was smeared with cattle dung and then the pit was then sealed with stones,” he writes. “The methane gas from the dung killed the insects and the grain could thus be stored for several years if kept dry.” This interesting snippet appears in Thomas N Huffman’s book Iron Age: The Archaeology of Pre-Colonial Farming Societies in South Africa. “This serves as yet another reminder that we should never underestimate the knowledge, sophistication and technology of the people of the past.”
A PICNIC THAT ALMOST ENDED IN DISASTER
The Somerset East\Cradock area was a dangerous place in the mid-1850s, yet this did not put locals off. They often set off to enjoy a day picnicking in the veld. And, so it was that on one Saturday in February 1853, a group of 50 youngsters accompanied by “ten gentlemen” gambolled off into the veld to enjoy the Spring air and sunshine. Their route led to the mountains and a delightful spot near a waterfall. They gave no thought to the fact that several head of cattle had been stolen in the area only a few days before. After all this was not unusual. Some threw blankets on the ground, started a fire and began unpacking food, while others, hot from the long walk, leapt into the pool beneath the waterfall. Little did they know keen eyes had monitored their approach, nor that they were near one of the raiding parties. Two adults discovered this when they set off into the kloof to “bag a buck for lunch.” Armed with rifles W. Bowker and R Hart, had only got a short way into the kloof when they saw a young Xhosas lookout virtually in front of them. He was so well camouflaged they would have missed him had he not brushed a fly from his face. Bowker raised his gun to fire, but Hart stopped him. They had no idea how many rustlers were in the area and the children were very close by. Realising he had been spotted the young man bolted and with that Hart and Bowker saw several more Xhosas rise from the nearby grass and flee. They gave chase. They heard one man slip, fall and hit the ground. Bowker fired, hoping to scare the marauders. When he and Hart reached the spot where the man had fallen, they found that he had been injured because there was blood on the ground. It left a trail which they were easily able to follow into a krantz.
SECRET STRONGHOLD DISCOVERED.
Hot on the heels of the cattle rustlers Bowker and Hart closely followed the little trail of blood. They had not even paused to think they may have been rushing headlong into an ambush, their thoughts centred around driving these Xhosa men away and warding off an attack on the picnickers. The trail led into a hole in the rocks and once they went through it they found an almost inaccessible, virtually invisible hiding place concealed by an immense quantity of carefully placed wood. A steep path, which could only safely be traversed by one man at a time, led to a summit and from there down into a cave. It was an excellent stronghold, totally invisible and easily be defended, if necessary, by only one or two men. Hart, who had climbed the steep path, was horrified at finding such a place so close to his father’s homestead, yet he realised how those who straggled behind fending off the commandos, allowing the raiding parties to make a clear getaway, had so often been able to disappear into thin air. He and Bowker ran back to the picnic party, terminated the event abruptly and everyone set off for home. The following day a party of farmers were led to the spot by Hart and Bowker. They set fire to the wooden structure and exposed a large cave well set up as a hiding place. They also followed their spoor of the rustlers for a few kilometres, found a place where an ox had been slaughtered, but shortly afterwards the ground became very rocky and the trail ran dry. The picnickers felt they had had a lucky escape. They dramatically told the villagers that if they had begun adventuring about, they may have walked right into an ambush of raiders.
WHY PHANTOM?
The Great Karoo has many spooks and ghosts, but none has yet lent its name to a road or pass. This only happened on the Garden Route where to this day many wonder how Phantom Kloof and Phantom Pass near Knysna got their names. “There are three theories about the origin of this name,” writes Patricia Storrar in A Colossus of Roads. One is that the rocky outcrops on the east bank shine eerily in the moonlight, creating the impression of spectral figures which move in rhythm with the movement of a cart or horse. They certainly look quite ghostly in certain lights. The second explanation is that at a certain time of the year myriads of white butterflies burst out of their chrysalides almost overnight, filling the air with a fluttering, whitish veil. The third is a homely legend concerning the Honourable Henry Frederick Francis Adair Barrington, squire of lands up at Portland, during the last century. He was known to spend convivial evenings with two old cronies down at the drift. Then, climbing onto his horse at midnight he would set its nose for home. He would be disconcerted on warm nights by the flashing and dancing of fireflies, which he took for some manifestation of the supernatural. The route also had a dangerous drift where many travelers got spooked and met with disaster, falling from their horses and getting a ducking in the river. Thomas Bain corrected this when he built the pass by pushing many huge boulders into the drift and so making it a safe passage even for wagons.
CURSE OF THE KAROO
Drought and locusts are the curse of the Karoo. Many early writers describe both. Magistrate Stockenström, did this in the mid-1800s riding back and forth across his stricken territory. He wrote to Lord Charles Somerset describing pitiful conditions in a vast area which for years had been in the grips of severe drought and supported petitions of farmers to be allowed to cross the Orange River to save their stock. The Governor reluctantly agreed insisting that they return when the rains came. He was only too aware that once frontier farmers moved northwards to new pastures they seldom returned. The farmers moved and at times the Cis-Gariep was completely abandoned, writes Thelma Gutsche in The Microcosm. Of course, the rains eventually came, but with them came locusts “and after the locusts, the trekbokken – the strange mass migration of springbok. These bucks seemed to congregate in tens of thousands in unknown parts and then come down towards the Colony like a flood, devouring all the grazing in their path.” One magistrate reported “locusts in number exceeding anything the imagination can fancy” adding that “they eat up the grass as it springs and rob the exhausted cattle of support.” Writing from Graaff-Reinet in 1827, Stockenström had worse to tell. “An unprecedented plague of locusts is devouring the livelihood of farmers’ right before their eyes. The country is in a frightful state,” wrote Stockenström. “The locusts have left nothing, the drought continues, cattle are dying by the hundreds and there is no market for what remains.” The animals were too thin and butchers could not afford to cross the Karoo to collect such a poor quality product.
POOR HYGIENE AND NOT VERY CLEAN
The immense heat of Karoo droughts brought problems for humans as well as animals. In The Microcosm Thelma Gutsche writes that the great heat of 1852 was accompanied by locusts and a fever like typhus. This affected the entire Colesberg district and absorbed all of the energies of the local medic, Dr Orpen. All races suffered and many people, among them children, died. Infections, particularly measles and typhoid constantly swept across the district and its “healthy” reputation seemed founded only on pulmonary cases. “But, then there was little notion of hygiene in early Karoo towns. Travellers constantly complained of the streets of Colesberg. These were full of refuse, stones and dead cats. There were no pavements and the spruits, which burst their banks during rainstorms often lapped at the doors of homes, stores and warehouses. Carts, wagons, tree trunks, poles, planks, huge scales and massive weights, as well as the inevitable stones, rocks, and boulders, impeded the progress of pedestrians, making walking very difficult.
OFF TO WORSHIP IN STYLE
The contrasts between religious persuasions of farmers and townsfolk became quite striking on Sundays and provided some memorable sights, particularly in Colesberg. “The landed gentry of the district would come to town in traditional style a day or two before the service. Their dress hardly varied from their pioneering days – 30 or more years before. Men wore colourful embroidered waist coats under short blue jackets with six brass buttons and stand up collars, white calico shirts – without a tie – yellow moleskin (a kind of corduroy) trousers – ending above the ankles – no socks and homemade veldskoens. They also wore large locally made hats of a kind of felt compacted from local wool. To these some added an ostrich plume. In their pockets, farmers carried a dassie-skin bag containing home-cured tobacco, a stone pipe with a long horn stem and a bowl covered by a silver cap attached by a silver chain. They also carried small brass tongs to pluck a coal from an outspan fire to light their pipes and to scrape them clean. Some had a tinder box, flint and steel. Women wore high waisted voerschitz dresses, shawls, huge kappies and veldskoens without stockings, whereas ladies of the town preferred Victorian styles and modes. Oppulent families rode to church in carriages drawn by teams of greys, roans, chestnuts, bays, blacks, in fact horses of virtually every colour pranced up the main street every Sunday. The Doppers were no less rich and proud, but their appearance varied. The men wore their hair long and cut off square near the nape of the neck and in a fringe above the eyebrows. Disproving of moustaches and beards they shaved clean except for a surrounding fringe beginning with whiskers and ending under the chin. Their wives were drab by comparison and children dressed identically to their parents. “No records exist telling us what the Boeremense thought of the townsfolk in their stove-pipe hats, fussy cravats, spongebag trousers and incipient crinolines,” writes Thelma Gutsche in the Microcosm.
It is easy enough to be pleasant,
When life flows by like a song
But the man worthwhile is the one who will smile
When everything goes dead wrong
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
