STAKEHOLDERS AIM TO SCORE DURING WORLD CUP
The Steering Committee of the Karoo Development Foundation got off to a good start planning the way ahead for the region for 2010 – set to be an action-packed year. During 2009 two conferences were held to discuss development of the Karoo and both were highly acclaimed. This inspired stakeholders to plan meetings for early in the New Year. The first is scheduled for January 22. The aim is to follow-up on the achievements of 2009 and structure plans for this year, arguably one of the most exciting in South Africa’s history. The focus will be on tourism. Discussions will centre on how to promote a variety of routes through the Karoo for soccer fans and how to encourage those travelling through the area to pause and enjoy it. Other vital and important themes on the agenda will include arts, crafts, better information and branding.
HOW OLD IS OSTRICH BILTONG?
Ever wondered who made the first ostrich biltong? Fay Goldie did and, when she researched her book Ostrich Country. She wrote: “The first account I can find of ostrich biltong being made and enjoyed in South Africa comes from a report written in 1875 by John Parkes of the farm Wheatlands ‘in the Cape Colony’. He had a troop of 70 ostriches grazing on his land. It seems that one day a buck suddenly leapt up in their midst and these timid birds took instant fright. While racing off at full speed one of them put its fool in a hole and broke a leg. Parkes found it the next morning and drove it to his homestead in a cart. There he found it impossible to set the broken bone, so he had the ostrich killed and the meat cut into fresh steaks and biltong. He describes the meat as being ‘just like young beef, juicy and tender, with just a suspicion of a sweetish flavour, usually undiscoverable in the legitimate article’. Parkes went on to express his regret that the value of ostrich feathers on the English and French markets made it unprofitable to kill birds for their meat.”
IN SEARCH OF A FEATHER
Way back in the early 1900s South African ostrich farmers mounted an almost world-wide search for an elusive feather. It was known as the “Evans-type” feather. The feather boom was at its peak and, in the Klein Karoo, ostrich plumes were turning men into millionaires almost overnight. Then came a threat. American breeders would undersell South African feather dealers unless the quality of local feathers could be improved. Behind this whole threat was the demand for the “Evans feather”, said to be far superior and in great demand. Nothing South Africa was producing came near to it in quality. A search, backed by the South African Government, was mounted and this led to dangerous parts in Arab territory, romantic places, like Timbuktu and far-flung spots in the Sahara. And, just as the South African team of experts was about to give up in despair, one member saw a “small, perfect white ‘Evans-type’ feather for sale in an Arab market.” They raced to find its source, but their worst fears were realised. The French Government would not grant them permits. They were warned that hard-bitten Legionnaires would shoot them or throw them into desert prisons if they persisted. But the South Africans were made of stern stuff. They managed to outwit Americans, also on the trail of the Evans feather, and slip away with an Arab caravan leaving Timbuktu in the middle of the night. A dangerous trip followed. The South Africans were menaced by savage guerrilla desert gangs and Tauaregs who suddenly appeared on magnificent horses or threatening racing camels. In the end they managed to acquire 150 birds and smuggle them across hundreds of miles of desert in pitiless heat to the Klein Karoo. Thornton, the team leader, almost died of malaria on this trip, but fortunately a Roman Catholic priest, Father Orr, managed to get him to a hospital and nurse him back to health. And then, World War I broke out and the bottom fell out of the ostrich feather industry. The market collapsed overnight. Ostriches became a drag on the market. The men who had risked so much chasing a perfect feather across a burning desert were left to see their dreams blown away by the winds of war.
THE MAN WHO PROVED THE CAPE WAS BIGGER
Like many land surveyors of his day Edward Garwood Alston loved collecting artefacts from the veld. While working in the Karoo he often collected natural history specimens and noted specific meteorological data. In time his investigations were published. Garwood Alston, as he was known, also farmed in the Carnarvon and Van Wyk’s Vlei districts in the 19th century. According to research done by Cornelis Plug, Alston’s career in land surveying started in the Cape in 1861. He produced such high-quality work over the next four decades that the Government frequently commissioned him to carry out important contracts. “In 1871 and 1872 he was engaged to extend the surveys performed by Thomas Maclear to measure an arc of the meridian in the western parts of the Cape, by connecting Maclear’s Kliprug and Kebiscow stations to the village of Calvinia by a double series of primary triangles. During 1894 he surveyed the boundaries of a proposed Bushmanland Game Reserve just south of the Gariep and west of Pella Mission Station. Nothing came of this proposal, but his survey showed that in places the river was up to 14 km further north than indicated on existing maps. This meant that that the Cape Colony was larger than had previously been assumed,” says Cornelis.
GETTING CLOSER TO THE LAND
Alston’s work required him to regularly move across the Colony and adjacent territories. During the 1890s he lived mainly at Van Wyk’s Vlei where, together with his father, he managed an agricultural settlement which had been started in about 1884. Alston later moved to the Free State and Transvaal but, by the turn of the century, was back in the Karoo. His interest in natural history is evidenced by a number of specimens he donated to local museums. Between 1885 and 1886 he sent many insects, from the Van Wyk’s Vlei area, together with explanatory natural history notes, to the South African Museum in Cape Town. In 1897 he donated much new and rare material to this museum and most came from the Karoo. The specimens he sent included some semi-fossilized shells, snakes, scorpions, and solifugae. As a result, in 1899 he was named as one of only nine “correspondents” of the South African Museum, and as a regular contributor of specimens, he was entitled to receive the museum’s publications free of charge. Alston collected botanical samples on a smaller scale. He sent many succulents from the Carnarvon area and other districts in the arid zone to the Government Herbarium in Cape Town and to the Albany Museum in Grahamstown. Some specimens, such as the Trichocaulon alstonii and Adromischus alstonii were named in his honour.
BREAKTHROUGH PREVENTS BREAK-OUTS
Alston was responsible for much ground-breaking research. In 1886 colonial botanist, P. MacOwan, obtained seeds of the Australian salt bush, Atriplex nummularia and A. inflata, and gave them to Alston for test planting at Van Wyk’s Vlei. He was able to raise the plants successfully in this part of the Karoo and in 1893 distributed seed to farmers in many parts of South Africa. He described the experiment in a pamphlet published in Cape Town in 1893 by the Department of Lands, Mines and Agriculture. Within short the Atriplex nummularia species had spread widely in the saline soils in parts of the Karoo and it was regarded as an important fodder plant. It became popularly known as Alston’s Saltbush. He made another important contribution to agriculture in the early 1880s and this was one of the earliest applications of electricity in stock control in South Africa. In an article in the Cape Quarterly Review of July 1882, he describes how the incorporation of an electric circuit in a fence around an ostrich camp will aid the detection of break-outs and so eliminate stock loss.
MORE GROUND-BREAKING RESEARCH
Alston made a name for himself in meteorological circles in 1873. He wrote a short paper on meteorological data in the Karoo and this was published in the Cape Monthly Magazine. In it he advocated that meteorological observations should be made systematically at selected stations. In 1882-1883 he published a description of the climate of the Calvinia-Carnarvon and Gariep regions. This too appeared in the Cape Quarterly Review. Years later Aliston made a comparison of the water supply (precipitation) and loss (evaporation, run-off, and percolation) at Brandvlei Dam in the Karoo to conditions in New South Wales, Australia. The study was published in the Transactions of the South African Philosophical Society. He became a member of the society around that time, and joined its successor, the Royal Society of South Africa, in 1917. Among other interesting articles written by Alston were papers on Van Wyk’s Vlei, a response to the Report of the Commission on Van Wyk’s Vley in 1892, and an open letter to the Commissioner for Public Works on Van Wyk’s Vlei in 1906.
GIVE ME A HOME WHERE THE ANTELOPE ROAM…
Proclaiming a village in the Central Karoo in 1818 and naming it Beaufort was one thing. Getting building material transported that far inland to build houses was another. In 1823 when George Thompson went to Knysna on a business trip he was stunned by the magnificent scenery and seemingly inexhaustible forests. He wrote: “These forests supply not only Cape Town, but also a great part of the inland districts with timber for building and other purposes. The wood is exported to Cape Town by sea from Plettenberg Bay and The Knysna and then carried up overland even to the Drostdy of Beaufort and other unwooded parts of the Great Karoo.” He added that the woodcutters of the Knysna forests were the poorest class of white people in the country “They are never sure of enough food. They earn a livelihood through service, labour and conveying timber by wagon to the ports.”
A WILD AND DANGEROUS PLACE
The Karoo was still a wild place in the 1850s and news was not always reliable. On January 10, 1851, the people of Somerset East were relieved to hear that Bear Moorcroft and his son had not been murdered as they had previously been told. But sadly, they were told, by travellers reaching town that “the Tambookies were still burning everything in the Tarka area”. In a letter to the Graaff-Reinet Advertiser, January 10, 1851, one man wrote: “I have been here now more than a week, endeavouring with Currie to raise a Volunteer Corps to go to their assistance. We hope to start out on the 20th with about 300 burghers and volunteers and 100 black men. A patrol under William Bowker went out the other day to Stockenstrom’s and the Kaga but has not yet returned. The people of Somerset are in great alarm. They keep guard all night and patrol the neighbourhoods by day. Some of them have already sent part of their goods to Graaff-Reinet. The only news that is cheering at the moment is the fact that we have had beautiful rains.”
THE WINDS OF WAR
Later the father one of the volunteers wrote: “The bad news of last week has, of course, made us anxious to hear from you and from the Frontier in general. Yet, no post has arrived. About 40 volunteers, chiefly Englishmen, started off on horseback from Graaff-Reinet today. The Civil Commissioner supplied them with all necessities. Octavius Bowker and William Shaw are also mustering a party of mounted men, again mostly Englishmen, and they will proceed towards Cradock and Somerset. The drought has been grievous, but fortunately some heavy rain fell over the district and a considerable tract of country yesterday. The Sundays River is running strong, but luckily still passable for wagons and horses. Many people from the surrounding farms are going to the war. I will go myself as soon as the sheep are shorn.”
HOT NEWS FROM THE FRONT
Graaff-Reinetters scoured the newspapers for “war” news. They relished letters like the one that appeared in the Graaff-Reinet Advertiser of February l, 1851, from “English Volunteer”. “Last Friday the Graaff-Reinet European Volunteer Mounted Troops, under Commandant Nunn, marched to the scene of action where 125 Burghers and 75 members of the coloured population held themselves in readiness to proceed to Grahamstown. However, as a consequence of certain objections raised by Stephanus Meintjes, all suddenly declined to move off, so until further instructions are received from His Excellency all further movements are suspended. The Camdeboo and Sneeuwberg Levies, under the command of their respective field-cornets, arrived last Saturday and, for reasons which I am unable to explain, these men have also refused to proceed. Such a state of things is lamentable, particularly now, when alacrity of action, cheerfulness and a ready obedience to orders should be guiding principles. The Camdebo Burghers, after having been supplied with rations for themselves and forage for their horses, all at public expense, have returned to their homes! A Hottentot Levy is being formed but progress is slow. On first hearing news of the outbreak of war inhabitants formed themselves into a volunteer corps for the protection of the town, and Meintjes, I am informed, was nominated as one of its officers. A subsequent ballot it seems has induced him to alter his opinion, and that led to the objections alluded to above. One would hardly have expected such a course of action from Meintjes, who is a very formidable man who cuts a warlike figure. When the war broke out, he was often seen in public wearing a broad belt, containing a large killing-looking knife in a bright red sheath. So one hardly expected him to suddenly become a stumbling block!”
AMAZING TALES WARM HEARTS AFTER A COLD WINTER
The winter of 1845 in the Colesberg area of the Karoo was a severe one. A letter, published in the Grahamstown newspaper, of Thursday, November 20, confirms this. It states: ‘The frost hereabouts during the winter were very severe and general; most of the wheat crops were totally destroyed.” The letter also reports that big game hunters Oswald and Murray were welcomed to Colesberg on their return from the interior. “They appear to have travelled further into the interior than any others. They have shot much large game including elephants, rhinos and giraffes and have had many hair-raising escapes.” The locals were greatly entertained by their stories and almost everyone in the village gathered to hear exciting tales of the almost unexplored areas of the vast South African hinterland. They were amazed to hear that these two intrepid men had seen a huge tree which was at least 51ft (15,5 m) in circumference and 17in (43 cm) in diameter. In a place like the Karoo where trees are sparse many locals longed to see this giant.
ATTACKED ON A PEACEFUL ROAD
A young English woman travelling back to her home on isolated farm was brutally attacked on Saturday, May 8, 1847, by a wagon driver. After visiting family for a few days this respectable young English woman, whose name was Enis, and her young daughter, were on their way home. They lived on the farm, Burnt Kraal, which belonged to a Mr C. Maynard. It was a lovely Karoo morning and they were the only passengers on the wagon. They were thoroughly enjoying the peace and tranquillity, chatting quietly and languishing in the soporific sounds of softly plodding oxen, clinks and clanks of metal on metal and metal on wood, the creaks and groans of the wagon, periodic whip cracks, the smell of dust and muted animal noises. Enis and her daughter chatted away totally unaware of any danger. Then suddenly the wagon driver, who had been sipping something from a barely concealed bottle all morning, leaped from his seat and attacked Enis. Aware that the man was quite inebriated Enis screamed to her daughter to run as she tried to fend off the man. The little girl sped down the road, remembering she had seen some fellow travellers in the distance, but they had vanished.
SAVED IN THE NICK OF TIME
The road was deserted. The poor girl had to run all the way to Grahamstown and when she reached it she was so exhausted she could almost not speak. She eventually managed to explain that a man was trying to kill her mother. This was enough for young John Painter. He leapt onto one of the horses in George Scott’s stable without even pausing to saddle it. As locals watched this bare-back rider raced out of town with a few other young men hotly on his heels. All had one aim in mind, stated the local newspaper: “They were all intent saving the poor woman’s life.” When they reached the spot, they found that her assailant had overpowered her and brutally beaten and ravaged her “in a way that dare not be described.” She was found upon the ground bleeding badly and quite exhausted. “The ruffian was standing over her grasping her by the throat. Her deliverers instantly seized the villain and made good use of a knobbed kieries upon his person. They overpowered him, tied him up and dragged him back to town where he was ultimately lodged in gaol. The poor woman is still in a very precarious state. Her husband is a most respectable and industrious Karoo sheep farmer.”
BERBER WORD MAKES SOUTH AFRICA ITS HOME
The word assegai, generally unknown in indigenous African languages, is a Berger word, says Charles Pettman in Africanderisms. “The name was adopted by the Moors and subsequently applied by the Portuguese to the slender javelins used by the natives of Africa. The Portuguese brought it to South-East Africa from where it filtered down to South Africa where it was later taken over by the Boers and British.” Pettman quotes Cowel as saying that after Richard II banned stabbing spears, all words for them disappeared from the English vocabulary and only returned with their association with South Africa, where two forms of these weapons were widely used. The throwing assegai was called the um Konto, and the short stabbing one, the i Boqo. In 1685 Sir T Herbert wrote of natives brandishing assegais – small lances, barbed with iron. “These people know how to jaculate as well as any in the Universe,” he proclaimed. Kolben mentioned them being used by Hottentots in 1745 and in 1834 Pringle wrote of Bushmen retaining “the light javelins, or assegais of the Hottentots.” By 1836 the word assegaied was being used to indicate someone had been killed in an assegai attack.
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