FOR MEN MUST WORK

AFRICANA VOTES & VIEWS VOL 1 # 5

Since work takes up a large slice of our waking hours, it is fitting that you and I should show some measure of interest in it - besides which it helps to pass the 45-odd years that you are going to be stuck on the old treadmill, beavering away to earn your daily bread. However, I seriously doubt that a person with a fascinating career in insurance broking, undertaking, housekeeping or equally repetitive work, will feel as captivated by their vocation at the end of a useful and industrious life, as someone who, say, has run away from home at an early age to join a circus, eloped with an exotic dancer and slaved on a potato plantation in the pestilential jungle of some far-off land, before taking to the high seas to promote the trade in bootleg sardines, followed by a spell as a hanging judge in a small town in the western USA - or some equally bizarre modus operandi for earning an honest income.
I can count myself among the lucky in that my career-path has changed radically every seven years or so of my working life; partly due to serendipity, partly because I have a really short attention span, requiring new challenges to keep boredom at bay. Still, I enjoy reading descriptions of working careers in a host of categories. Civil engineering might not be to everyone's taste, but you have to admit that there is something grandiose in the idea of a fine bridge spanning a foaming torrent, a sweeping pass hugging the perilous flank of a looming crag or even the building of an unusual habitation. Ben Uys’ book, ‘My Friend Adventure’ (Timmins, 1960)describes a whole slew of such projects that the author tackled during a varied career. He built a number of bridges from Namaqualand to the Northern Transvaal, as well as irrigation works. His modest book includes a number of other interesting interludes, such as riding transport for the Germans in Namibia during the Nama War, a spell as a sawmiller, he washed gravel for diamonds and recruited labour for the mines. A good yarn, full of interesting anecdote and personalities.
The next dam builder gets to be a lot more technical. Henry Olivier’s book, ‘Damit’ (Macmillan, 1975) is not for the faint-hearted in engineering matters. The author writes well and his material is interesting, but the human factor is dwarfed by the scale of his gargantuan projects. Along with a number of pioneering schemes worldwide, he was principally involved in many of the African mega-projects, like the Owen Falls hydro-electric scheme on the White Nile, the great Kariba Dam, the entire early Orange River Scheme and Cahora Bassa Dam in Mozambique. If earth-shaking human activity rocks your boat – this book has it.
Roads and their builders have a romance and fascination of their own. Our country can boast a number of prominent pioneers in that department, starting with Andrew Geddes Bain, who was originally an saddler, but found this too monotonous and became a hunter and explorer, before becoming embroiled in the 6th Frontier War. A short spell of farming was cut short by an about-face of government policy which deprived him of his farm. This is the point when Bain turned to road construction, for which he showed extraordinary aptitude, and a number of iconic passes were constructed during the next twenty years under his supervision. Bain was an immensely talented man, and he achieved much in the fields of geology, palaeontology as well as writing and art. His ‘Journals of A. G. Bain ‘ edited by Margaret Lister (VRS, 1949), as well as numerous other books and articles testify to his lasting monuments in the subcontinent.
His son, Thomas, had some forty six years in the service of the government ( with only a month holiday in the entire working life !!) and the number of projects he executed brilliantly are legion. Probably the best known book about his work is by Pat Storrar – ‘Colossus of Roads’ (Murray & Roberts, 1984), but this short resumè, though an interesting read, hardly scratches the surface of the great man’s endeavour. A later book, which appeared in 2002, by my friend Graham Ross, entitled ‘The Romance of Cape Mountain Passes’ is a much expanded and well-researched volume on all the roads in the province – in the reconstruction or construction of which the author often had a hand.
From construction let us go to destruction. Though I am not a supporter of the art of shortening my fellow-man by means dexterous or mechanical, I do read the odd military work – and find it fascinating to boot. One that immediately comes to mind is Major P J Pretorius’ book ‘Jungle Man’ in which he describes his spying activities in the Rufiji delta, which led to the sinking of the German cruiser, the Königsberg during WWI. Another is Kenneth van der Spuy’s ‘Chasing the Wind’ (Books of Africa, 1966). The author got into aviation during the box-kite stages, so to speak, and during the early days of WWI graduated to chucking buckets full of darts and jam-tins full of explosives at enemy troops below him, and firing off revolvers and sawn-off shotguns at opposing aviators. In the author’s own words “ I was beginning to enjoy myself “ – and so he should. Happy days indeed before the advent of atom bombs and ICBM’s!
Another work I read recently was David Tyndall-Biscoe’s ‘Sailor, Soldier’, in which he chronicles his great-uncle’s military and naval experiences on a wide front, from the bloody battles of the futile Mahdist war in the Sudan and Egypt, to the Matabele Rebellion and the Anglo-Boer War. Taken from the diaries of the long departed old warrior, the book is a must for those who revel in the movements military, of men and ships, the deployment of guns and the spilling of gallons of gore. The book does not mince matters, but it does a fine job of mutilating words.
Building empires is another fascinating job, so popular during the previous two centuries. There were those of the ilk of Rhodes and Jameson, to be sure, and even Bismarck could be jollied into partaking a little of the colonial cake by the likes of Lüderitz and Peters, but with these gentlemen it was more of an obsessive-compulsive disorder than a form of employment. No, I’m thinking more along the lines of a ‘Chirupula’ Stephenson, who set out as a callow lad to do something related to stringing a telegraph line across the lastest of Mr Rhodes’ acquisitions in Central Africa ( or so I seem to recall). He ended up buying himself a ‘local princess’ for the princely sum of ten bob, married her (as well as another lady from a different tribe – or was it two of ‘em?) acquired large tracts of land, and farmed/ranched with the assistance of his descendants and almost the entire tribe he had, so to speak acquired through marriage and become the chief thereof.. Now THAT’S ENTERPRISE for you! He immodestly describes his life’s work in ‘Chirupula’s Tale’ (Geoffrey Bles, 1937) as does K S Rukavina in ‘Jungle Pathfinder’ (Hutchinson, 1951) – in a more fuzzy, romanticized way.
A most admirable man, on the other hand, was Stewart Gore-Brown, who carved a pocket empire out of the Zambian bush on the shores of Lake Shiwa. An English gentleman to the core, with an unhappy romance overshadowing his entire life, he built his African Dream, a manor house on the heights; he experimented expensively with a number of pioneer farming ventures and later entered politics, earning the respect and admiration of colonialists and Zambians alike. Christina Lamb’s work, ‘Africa House’ (Harper Collins, 2004) does credit to the man and his works, a treat to read.
Hans Merensky, on the other hand, acquired fame for his skill at geology, and in particular his uncanny ability to sniff out Mother Earth’s riches. His missionary parents seem to have had little influence on the young man, and after a fitful start at finding his niche, he settled in on his geological path – to whit, at the coalface of a mine in Silesia – literally. This was the sort of apprenticeship students faced in those days and this was followed by technical studies. After completing his degree, he returned to Africa, and was soon fossicking round the Western Transvaal Bushveld. This was to culminate in the discovery of the immense lode of platinum, later dubbed the Merensky Reef, which stretched for dozens of miles. Just a few years later he played a pivotal role in realizing the discovery of the Namaqualand diamond finds. He was the man who figured out the relationship between the fossil oyster beds and the presence of diamonds – something that other prospectors like Cornell, Carstens and Reuning had not connected.
Merensky’s empire, though founded on mineral riches, was something quite different though. It lay on the slopes of the misty mountains of the Woodbush Range, in the kingdom of Modjadji, the Rain Queen, and it was called Westfalia. This acquisition was followed by a whole string of other estates in Germany and elsewhere in the Union and Namibia. Each farm was dedicated to one or other activity, but Westfalia became a sort of personal experiment; firstly with teaching sustainable agriculture to the African inhabitants, and later with a number of crops which he thought might be suited to the subtropical climate and high seasonal rainfall. The lack of sufficient permanent water led to an investigation of how to conserve this precious resource – and he constructed a huge dam, which even today (in its enlarged form ) is of great importance in the region. He planted tens of thousands of trees, to combat soil erosion on the steep slopes, as well as to enrich the topsoil with life-giving humus. A whole book could be written on the man’s life and work – and so it was, by Olga Lehmann in her work ‘Look Beyond the Wind’ (Timmins, 1955). As a youngster I often roamed around parts of his estate and the sawmill that was harvesting the timber he planted, though the doctor had finished his life’s work some years back. It was only many years later that I read his story and it was certainly one of the books that fuelled my desire to become a field geologist, and later possibly a farmer. The former was not to be, except perhaps as a hobby, but I was fortunate later in life, like Karen Blixen, to also be able to say: “ I had a farm in Africa…”
Scientific endeavour and discoveries are fascinating subjects, especially to the layman. While Africa has not produced, to my knowledge, any of the great physicists or chemists, we have our fair share of prominent geologists like Merensky above, and earlier Bain, Atherstone, Mauch, du Toit and Martin, to name but a few. Much of their pioneering work is ably described in Carl Anhaeusser’s book ‘A Century of Geological Endeavour in Southern Africa’ (Geol. Soc of SA, 1997) There were also numerous innovators in the development of the mining industry, an extremely technical field, which probably is not for the general reader. So far I have not come across a book to explain basic mining techniques and the development of some of the deepest mining capability on this planet, and what little I have learnt, has been from the odd older books like C B Jeppe’s ‘Gold Mining on the Witwatersrand’ (Tvl Chamber of Mines, 1946) through which I paged, scanning the numerous diagrams and so picking up a few grains of knowledge without being blasted by the hailstorm of technical terms that I didn’t understand. My days on the diamond drilling rigs of the sixties and seventies, and the long conversations with geologists and miners, have filled in a number of blanks spaces, but much remains a mystery.
The geologists and the mining engineers can be said to be the success stories of mineral riches – the prospectors were more often than not the losers in the game – but their quests are so much more romantic. The epitome of the glorious failure, to my thinking, must be Fred Cornell, whose evergreen work ‘The Glamour of Prospecting’ (T Fisher Unwin, 1920 plus many reprints) relates cheerfully all the ‘slings and arrows of outrageous fortune’ that are slung at the diligent seeker of treasure. There is thirst, fatigue, heat, hunger, cold – and hope, in every chapter and it seems as if the hapless fellow was jinxed as he missed striking it rich at every turn, before being killed in a motor accident in London, when he seemed to have success in his pocket. One of those ‘must read’ books.
Jack Carstens was also dogged by ill fortune, but more cruelly so, since he actually found some of the first traces of the enormous wealth that was to be extracted from underneath Namaqualand – he just didn’t profit from it to any appreciable degree. Others employed him to do their rough work for him, as he ably describes in his book “Fortune Through My Fingers’ (Timmins, 1962), since he lacked the capital to develop his finds.
A totally different prospector was John Williamson. He was a brilliant Canadian geologist, who had a dream, as well as the faith, tenacity and capacity for hard labour under an equatorial sun, which kept him going for year after year, prospecting the incandescent Tanganyikan bush until he actually found his El Dorado. The Mwadui diamond mine was to make a major contribution to the impoverished African nation, and made its discoverer hugely wealthy. His story is told factually in H Heidgen’s book, ‘The Diamond Seeker’ (Blackie, 1959) – or if one prefers to have the story spiced up with a little fiction, one can read John Gawaine’s effort of the same (unimaginative) title, complete with femme fatale and imaginary dialogue (Macmillan, 1976).
The medical field too, holds much of interest. Whether it is a morbid curiosity in all that ails the human body; the freak accidents and disasters that can befall this frail construct, or the human face of distress and succour – there is a never-ending source of information and fascination. Even the relatively placid life of a country doctor, as described by Con Weinberg in his work ‘Fragments of a Desert Land’ (Timmins, 1975) during his stint between the World Wars in the Gibeon and Maltahöhe regions of Namibia, is much material of incident and drama. Another charming cameo work is the book ‘Salt River Doctor” by B A Mackenzie (Faircape, 1981) this time dealing with the afflicted of the Mother City.
The development of neurosurgery comes under the spotlight in David Gamsu’s book entitled ‘Adventures of a South African Brain Surgeon’(Hugh Keartland, 1967)– which seems a rather inept title for such a cerebral tome. However, that aside, the author does succeed in giving the layman a comprehensible insight into a profession, the description of which could be spiced up to be completely indigestible to the ordinary mortal. Much of the work described is forensic, and thus for the criminological fans even more interesting.
In a minor medical key, the calling of the nurse during the early days on the Diamond Fields is painted in the little book ‘The Lure of the Stone’ by W M & V Buss (Timmins, 1976).Sister Henrietta Stockdale had the fortitude to care for the ill and the injured on the dusty, dirt-ridden, overcrowded slum that was the Diamond Fields, where living conditions during the first few years must have been truly horrid. Similar experiences are to be found in Rose Blennerhassett and Lucy Sleeman’s ‘Adventures in Mashonaland’ (Macmillan & Co, 1893 or Books of Rhodesia, 1969). These two intrepid ladies pioneered the first bush hospital at Penhalonga and did valuable service in providing the first medical service of any kind in the territory.
The veterinary field, of course, spawned South Africa’s first Nobel laureate, Sir Arnold Theiler. From Thelma Gutsche’s work, ‘There Was a Man’ (Timmins 1979), I managed with great difficulty to extract a faint picture this extraordinarily gifted man’s vocation and the development of veterinary science in the subcontinent and further afield. Somehow the actual ‘beef and bones’ of the science never appeared out of the flood of soup, and after spooning laboriously through almost five hundred pages of the author’s offering, I was still left in want.
Possibly more in the James Herriot vein, but vastly more entertaining, was ‘From the Horse’s Mouth’ by W J van Rensburg (van Schaik, 1983) in which the author relates in lively and interesting prose, his country veterinarian experiences, as well as a stint at Onderstepoort, like Theiler. Needless to say he did not get the Nobel Prize – but then he managed to avoid Gutsche as well!
Obviously there are still a large number of glamorous occupations that should come under consideration. The transport-riders, as epitomised in Percy Fitzpatrick’s ‘Jock of the Bushveld’, have left a legacy redolent of camp fires and creaking oxwagons, perilous paths and the crack of whips and the shouts and whistles of the drovers. The heroes have their shoulders to the wheel, and the villains zoom through the leafy glades to inject the deadly trypanosome into the straining beasts, or assume the shadowy forms of the great cats lying in ambush along the rutted ways. Ah, what pictures one can see: from Poultney and Bee’s ‘Kalahari Campfires’ (Knox, 1941), to Stanley Portal Hyatt’s books ‘Biffel the Story of a Trek-Ox’, ‘Off the Main Track’ and ‘The Old Transport Road’ dealing with treks in Rhodesia, to works like Cecil Cowley’s ‘Schwikkard of Natal and the Old Transvaal’ (Struik, 1974) and C T Stoneham’s ‘Africa All Over’ describing his working life in post-WWI Tanganyika. There are a number of excellent books available in Afrikaans on the subject of transport-riding; C F Gronum’s work ‘Transportry, Runderpes en Poskoetse’ (Pro Rege, 1975) is a good example.
What would Africa be without its animals? Although the spread of man endangers all other living species on the planet, at least humankind seems to realize there is a problem, and attempts are being made to preserve remnants of former glories for future generations. Enter the conservationist, the game ranger, the anti-poaching patrol, and those kind and loving souls who succour orphaned rhinos, lions and other beleaguered beasties, raise them with the aid of large bottles of Klim plus supplements, and then find that they have to spend the rest of their days looking after them. Surely this heartbreaking work has more glamour and romance attached to it than any other career in the subcontinent; almost any little girl would want to be a veterinarian at some stage in their lives; most boys would want to be game rangers, but of the legion of books that have been written by people in this vocation, many testify to the hard life, dangers and disappointments that come with intensely exciting action, interesting challenges and occasionally a sense of a worthwhile job well done, and with visible, lasting results. A man of legendary status in South Africa is, of course, Harry Wolhuter, who wrote of his experiences as ranger in the early days of the Kruger Park, in ‘Memories of a Game Ranger’. His claim to fame lay not in conservation, but rather in killing the lion that attacked him, with his hunting knife – but he could claim extreme provocation as the said kitty was chewing his shoulder at the time.
A book that made a lasting impression on me just after we came to South Africa, was Mervyn Cowie’s ‘Fly Vulture’ (Harrap, 1961), which chronicled the fight to establish game reserves in Kenya. I must admit to being completely won over by the film version, in which the Hollywood Bunch had the baddie get his come-uppance at the horn of an angry rhino which consigned his truck into a donga. I seem to recall that I erupted into loud cheers and clapping at the sight. Since then I have read more sobering versions of the fight against poaching, which is often paid for by organized crime, such as Richard Leakey’s ‘Wildlife Wars’ (Macmillan, 2001), or D W Potgieter’s ‘Contraband’ (Quellerie, 1995).
There is a long list of authors and locations to choose from: like Nick Steele’s Natal books ‘Gameranger on Horseback’ and ‘Bushlife of a Game Warden’, to George Adamson’s ‘Bwana Game’ in Kenya, Cronje Wilmot’s ‘Okavango Adventure’, Daphne Sheldrick’s ‘Orphans of Tsavo’ and ‘The Tsavo Story’, Hannes Kloppers’ two volumes, ‘Veldwagter’ and ‘Gee My ‘n Man’, dealing with the Kruger and the Kalahari Parks respectively. I have read dozens of these offerings, and found something to keep me at it in each one. The writing may not be exceptional, the subject matter is rarely unique, but each account of the work done by these dedicated people involves the reader to a degree seldom felt with books dealing with other occupations – and so, read on.

AN AUTO-WHATSIS OF THE MAN ?

AFRICANA VOTES & VIEWS VOL 1 # 4

The word autobiography is almost an oxymoron. I mean, how can a person trust anyone to tell his or her own life story as it really was. It's almost certain to be a bunch of gilded fabrications, self-laudatory rubbish, glamour spots in a dull life which was occasionally brightened by the odd ray of brilliance. Trust those vainglorious enough to write such a book only in that they will seek to portray themselves in a favourable light; that they will leave out all their failings except those they are proud of; that they will omit their mistakes, bury their blunders and conceal their crimes. Was it no' wee Robbie that said:

O wad some Pow'r the giftie gie us
To see oursels as others see us!
It wad frae mony a blunder free us,
And foolish notion.

So take heed biographer - auto- or not, for the road is strewn with thorns and rocks.
Let's take the swashbuckling hero, Sir Harry Smith, who had the temerity to write a fairly laudatory story of his own eventful life, which was published posthumously in 1901 ( with a little help from one G C Moore-Smith as editor, who might have been a descendant for all one knows). This book became an instant success as the public took to the man who epitomised all that was brave and British in the Victorian era, for the next decade, as reprint after reprint rolled off the presses. It is still accorded the accolade of being 'a classic of love and war', and I see that you can buy an expensive and nasty paperback edition, complete with all " occasional imperfections such as missing and blurred pages, missing text, poor pictures, markings, dark backgrounds and other reproduction issues " for a tad over $50 delivered in SA. In 1977 another book appeared, under the title " Remember you are an Englishman " by Joseph H Lehmann. This citizen of the good old US of A had a fair amount of admiration for the soldier/lover, as far as I can remember from cursorily reading a chapter or two, but the book seemed much of the same as the autoversion. Not so the volume by one A L Harrington, more aptly entitled "Sir Harry Smith, Bungling Hero" which appeared only a scant three years later. You'd swear it was an entirely different man the book was written about. Gone was the adulation for his reckless bravery, his leadership in suicidal charges where his men (and enemies ) fell in swathes around him; instead we have sharp criticism and insightful analysis of his rash political decisions, which caused his Whitehall masters no ends of headaches, and indeed resulted in his recall from the Cape at one stage. When in doubt - read about a man's life written by his enemy.
But not all is gloom on the autobiographical front. Every now and then a jewel emerges, which is taken to the bosom of the population at large - and it remains there. One such is the slim volume called simply "The Diary of Iris Vaughan" by herself. It takes a child to describe in uncritical, simple terms, the grown-ups around her, her interaction with them and her sibling, the realities of the country towns in which they lived and how the Boer War swept by in a tumultuous wave. Her stern, magisterial Pop, was apt to 'be savige', Mom stern and controlling, while her brother Charles aided and abetted her in all things naughty as children do. She decided early on that 'everyone should have a diery', because if you always told the truth, you were told you were rude and you get into trouble, or you could lie and that was wrong too - so you must either write whatever it was you couldn't say in the diary, or you had to keep quiet. She chose the former, and the result is a hilarious romp through Edwardian South Africa, complete with idiosyncratic spelling and frank pen-pictures of some of the staunch pillars of society. A must for biography addicts.
Humorous tales of this genre are often a fair bet as a good read. Somehow a person that doesn't take themselves too seriously is hardly likely to dwell on the high points and achievements of their own life in favour of the droll events that happened around them instead. So it is with Olga Levinson's "Call me Master", which purports to be full of fictitious characters in a mythical town called Windhoek - presumably in an erehwonian state of German South West. She describes herself as the last and non-rhyming sister in a slew of six girls, all -ita's. Within the first couple of pages she chronicles the arrival of a young man who announces to her parents that he has come to marry their daughter, whom he had met a week before - to whit Olga, and to whisk her off to South West Africa. Before long she entrains for the long and dusty ride to the capital, which does little to endear itself to the city girl, before she is once more relocated - to a farm in the wilds for good measure. Levinson writes mainly about other people, so the book can be likened to Betty Macdonald's famous "The Egg and I", in which the main character becomes a mirror from which to bounce all the other images. A cheerful and amusing book, which can be reread a few times.
Here's the third lady-writer in a row: Elspeth Huxley's twin volumes "The Flame Trees of Thika" and "The Mottled Lizard" are among my favourite personal memoirs of East Africa. Huxley's reminiscences of her early days on the trackless veld, where her family had been deposited in a manner very reminiscent of the unpreparedness of the 1820 Settlers further south. We are taken through the painful learning curves of the aspirant farmers, as they hack a clearing in the savannah, build some kind of shelter and decide on all the wrong choices before finding crops and methods that will work in the alien soil. Her writing is interesting, full of feeling for her adopted country, and her extensive use of dialogue to flesh out the characters and the interaction between them, though fictional, of necessity, never intrudes or gives an impression of a fictionalised account. I can smell her Africa, I hear its sounds and I see the colours shimmering in the equatorial sun. These two books have a virtuosity of their own, which her other non-fiction work never reaches, though a number of her travel and socio-political books are very readable, while I found her novels to be completely indigestible.
Must be my day for the ladies. A few paragraphs back I mentioned one Karen Blixen as another failed coffee planter. She is of course, the renowned author of "Out of Africa" and coined the immortal phrase "Once I had a farm in Africa…" for both which efforts she has been enshrined among the American pantheon of literary deities on African matters, along with Stanley and Hemingway. In the matter of her book, I would hesitate to call it an autobiography - it is too ethereal, too much like a saga, with shifting scenes and actors walking on and off. They make stilted speeches, of deep matters and thoughts, and their sculpted faces are cunningly lit by hidden lights in the wings. That there is some great writing, one cannot dispute; that it be accepted as 'the truth and nothing but,' would be unrealistic. The view presented is from one side of the auditorium only. None of the nasty unpleasantness of reality seems to intrude, least of all the personality of the author, who comes across as a manipulative harridan from hell in the documentary film I have seen on the subject of the last few years of her life.
From iconic books, to an icon: George Adamson, Bwana Game, the lion man. He was born in India and his parents passed Kenya on their way down south, got hooked and bought a farm, a la Huxley's parents. Coffee farming was an ill-researched pastime in those days, and neither Adamson senior nor the Huxleys (nor Karen Blixen, for that matter) got it right. George had an interesting time of it, trying out all manner of agricultural pursuits as he gravitated to his promised land - the Northern Frontier District, NFD for short. In no time he had added the trades of goat-herding, gold prospecting, hunting, and a slew of other exotic occupations to his CV, before finding his vocation as a game warden at the tender age of 32. Disaster was to strike some six years later, when he was confronted by his nemesis, Joy, the Austrian lady of "Elsa - the Lioness" fame, who decided that he was husband material, and who subsequently ditched her then husband to hang George's scalp on her belt - figuratively speaking.
From certain accounts I've read, it was a marriage made in hell - for George, and certainly what I saw of the lady during a documentary film which interviewed both, separately, she was the sort of person I could really take an un-shine to, while the old boy warmed the cockles of my heart in a taciturn, sincere, nature-boy sort of way. Reassuringly enough, other writers on matters Kenyan also tended to take extreme views on this relationship. Elspeth Huxley was very much in the lady's camp, while another author ( whose name was Ricciardi, I seem to recall ) in turn gave me all the dirt on Joy's tricks and made George out to be the good 'un. No doubt the truth is somewhere in between, as it usually is. His book is a thoroughly interesting read; though there is little literary merit, just a life full of incidents, cobbled together into a more or less contiguous narrative. Throughout the work his love of nature and animals are the predominant themes, while his efforts frequently place him as arbiter in the struggle between the tribesmen and the game he protects.
Great events have often triggered worthy books by some of their participants. Wars must rank highly among favoured subject matter, and while not my personal choice, I do occasionally read books of the genre that have caught my attention. Not for me the undoubted military skill displayed by von Lettow Vorbeck and related in his immensely popular book "My Reminiscences of East Africa" - that's more for students of tactics and military science, or serious historians. No, I would prefer a slim volume of personal reminiscences of the same campaign by a South African gunner, ineptly entitled "On Safari" by F. C. if I wanted to get a feel of warfare during WWI in East Africa; the bouts of malaria and dysentery, the poor food, if any, the murderous heat and inimical landscape - added to which was the spice of dodging sniper fire or a full attack.
One of the great autobiographical works on the Boer War must be Deneys Reitz's "On Commando". How well he describes the gung-ho approach to war by a callow youth, which is so quickly bled dry by the heat of the first battle; by the stench of corpses and the howling of Howitzer shells overhead. One can share in his despair of the lost battle, the exhilaration of a charge and the sorrow felt at the death of a comrade. The book exposes the human side of the dogged struggle as experienced by one participant, not an analysis of military tactics, not individual or collective bravery - not right or wrong. Reitz went into exile after the war, refusing to swear allegiance to the British Crown. He, together with his brothers and a few likeminded companions fled to Madagascar, where they eked out a living of sorts on the edge of starvation, before they were persuaded to return by Isie Smuts' letter, which implored them to rather work for the unification of the country. Reitz's two subsequent books, "Trekking On" and "No Outspan" make equally good reading in a lesser vein, as Reitz becomes a fully fledged military man, an MP and minister of state.
As a complete opposite to the above works, my choice would fall on General Manie Maritz's "My Lewe en Strewe". I know I take my life in my hands to criticise this Afrikaner folk hero, as there are still people in Namaqualand and elsewhere, who frankly worship his memory (just as they would take a Lee Metford to Jannie Smuts if he came riding down those dusty track today), but I read his book not once, but twice in the course of trying to get a picture of the war on the region which has become my main interest. The first reading aroused a deep antipathy in me; Maritz's bombast, braggadocio, self-importance, and not to put too fine a point on it - bunch of lies about his personal exploits and their effect on the course of the war - all these put my teeth on edge. Where this ex ZARP policeman got his rabid anti-Semitism from was a mystery to me until I read Lennox van Onselen's book referred to in V & V # 2, which records at length Maritz's interaction and eventual defeat at the hands of the low-life that ruled the Reef underworld before the war. Still, the man must have had something - even the famous prospector Fred Cornell was impressed most favourably when he met the Rebel general at Prieska in 1914, describing him as an " alert, bluff, soldierly man " with "the manner of an educated man". He also refers to his astonishing feats of strength, courage and leadership during the Boer War, as well as during his service with the Germans in SWA during their two colonial wars. Maritz had a solid reputation, so much so that he managed to quell the simmering rebellion that the government faced when they effectively gave the treasure trove of Namaqualand's diamonds to 'foreigners' so beggaring the locals in the 1920's. So then why did he have to exaggerate his undoubted courage (or it could be called lack of imagination) in hand-to-hand fighting, during which he was often wounded grievously, why were there always many more dead enemies after battle, and why was every skirmish a victory ? My second reading was accompanied by all the books of his companions: Reitz, Bouwer, de Kersauson, Meyer and Smith, as well as works by historians from the British side - and the most charitable conclusion I could come to was that Maritz was suffering from some seriously senior moments by 1938, when he was about 62 years old, at which time the book was published shortly before he died in a motor accident.
Enough of all these dogs of war, let's see how the men of science and letters fare. Certainly one of my early favourites was Dr Robert Broom, who dashed off a small volume entitled "Finding the Missing Link" in 1950. A somewhat presumptuous title, as well as erroneous, as was proven later, but in the heat of battle in those pioneering days of palaeoanthropology - it was quite excusable. In this case again, the event overshadowed the person to some degree, and Broom's cantankerous, headstrong nature, his inattention to his personal finances and his eccentricity don't really emerge from the book. Broom, one reads elsewhere, would do his dustiest fossil-hunting wearing a dark suit - but would strip buck-naked when it got too hot. The indefatigable Scot promised that he would "wear out, not rust out", and kept his word. At the age of 85 he had just completed his monograph on the ape-men, when he is reported to have whispered "Now that's finished ... and so am I". He died moments later. Perfect ending.
Take Dr Sidney Harold Skaife; the extremely popular natural history boffin, who lived on the slopes of the mountain above Hout Bay in a house he built himself. I was forced to reacquaint myself with the book yesterday, as I had read it just too many decades previously to remember much of it. While no one can deny that Skaife led an interesting and varied life, full of incident, worthwhile pursuits and groundbreaking discoveries in the entomological field, very little emerges of the man, except that he was certainly gifted, able to communicate his wide knowledge by means of the then 'new' media of radio and film, as well as writing natural history books on a wide variety of subjects. My respect for him increased when I was reminded that he, an Englishman born and bred, also achieved a measure of literary fame with a series of Afrikaans thrillers of the "Skiet, skop en donder" variety. I have a sneaking suspicion I actually read "Adriaan Hugo - baasspeurder" at some stage of my youthful indiscriminate appetites. His autobiography shows none of those skills - instead it consists of short passages of (to me) intensely interesting biological anecdotes and facts, a litany of where he went from where to where and what he did in each place, and a whole autograph album full of names of prominent people even I have mostly never heard of - and I've been around some time. What does that prove? Merely that he should have stuck to his favourite subject - biology. It was the thing he was really good at, and he knows this, as he writes "it has been said that the writing of autobiographies is as common as adultery, and just as reprehensible" at later he confesses that his only excuse was that "it was a pleasant form of self-expression, of recalling happy memories of the past, and perhaps boasting a little - to show off a special talent that we may have". Bravo, Dr Skaife. I find your autobiography eminently credible - even if only because of these expressed sentiments.
The legal fraternity, too, is not shy of recording their illustrious careers. A number of semi-biographical books by magistrates, lawyers and judges grace my shelves. Some are ponderous tomes such as J G Kotze's "Memoirs and Reminiscences" in two volumes, as he obviously acquired a taste for the game and had to bring his audience up to date some five years after the publication of the first volume. Others like Herman's "The Law my Master", Juta's "Reminiscences of the Western Circuit", and Corder's "Judges at Work" and "The Truth and Nothing But", focus mainly on the frailties of others instead of the careers of the arbiters of their fates, and it is that which makes them entertaining. One or two of these 'Frontier Lawmen' stand out in my memory as having written books filled with both dramatic and humorous content, well worth a revisitation now and then. They are F H Guthrie's "Frontier Magistrate' dealing with his experiences in the Eastern Cape and Walvis Bay; and lastly, my personal favourite legal man, William Charles Scully. He went in for ponderous titles: 'Reminiscences of a South African Pioneer' as well as 'Further Reminiscences…', but the contents are generally written in a light, modest vein, with a ribald sense for the ridiculous in the behaviour of the people around him - not excluding himself. Scully led an adventurous early life as a gold and diamond prospector, and missed becoming a rich man by a combination of ill-health and circumstances, as he relates his misfortunes at Du Toit's Pan and Barberton - where he lay within inches of untold wealth. Only after these escapades did he settle down to the humdrum existence of a government clerk, and later magistrate, but one always gets the sense that here was a romantic, waiting to burst out into the world. A number of his novels and stories are also good reads - but once does have to forgive the odd passage of Victorian Purple Prose.
Although it was intended to include an offering in this genre by a poet, writer and/or artist, when it came to making the choice, my eye fell on Guy Butler's trilogy " Karoo Morning", "Bursting World" and "A Local Habitation". As I had previously read no more than an odd chapter here and there, I sat down to them with a will, fully intending to give a blow by blow account of the engagement. Then reality struck, and I must confess that I have chickened out. After reading a hundred or so pages, I was suddenly struck by my presumption and crass stupidity. Who the heck did I think I was anyway ? To take on a long-deceased general with an army at his beck and call, to roast a little old lady in print, or to deflate a pompous politician, all these seem like fair game. To even consider writing a 'literary criticism', however humble, on the work of an esteemed professor of the English language, a noted poet, playwright and writer, smacked not only of foolhardiness but looked like literary suicide. So let me say only that Butler's work deals largely with his experiences in academia and with his work in literary circles, some religion and a liberal dusting of politics with a smidgeon of family life - and with the exception of the latter, I have no knowledge on these matters. Nuff said.

HUNTER BY NATURE

AFRICANA VOTES & VIEWS VOL 1 # 3

Hunting has become unfashionable; abhorred in many circles; part of the instant gratification market - but that bloodthirsty urge that impels little boys to terrorise the neighbourhood's birdlife, and later, possibly the world's dwindling game, just won't go away. Just so we understand each other, 'hunting' does not figure in my vocabulary as equating to a bunch or braying jackasses in red coats, mounted on half a ton of horseflesh apiece and accompanied by a pack of yowling curs, who chase a small carnivore hardly larger than the pet cat, across field and hedgerow with bloodthirsty intent. No, hunting involves a man, a noble beast and a gun. Call it 'bringing home the bacon' or something a little more high-brow, like 'satisfying the primeval instincts', the fact remains that no hunter can explain his addiction to a non-hunter satisfactorily.
Let me give it a go anyway! It goes something like this, according to that great writer/hunter Robert Ruark: one of life's wonders is the potential for a puny man to slay a great beast, like a lion or an elephant - not by means of his muscles, but using his brains. So, instead of using his mental muscle in a nice peaceful game of chess, or for solving a crossword puzzle, man goes out, fashions himself a spear, or digs a game pit - or buys an impressively noisy gun. He then converts some few hundred kilos of more or less aggressive beast into a series of lunches for his tribe, and he can hang some of the inedible bits on a tree outside his hut (or a wall inside if he is so minded) while he brags to all and sundry about his prowess. Better than saying checkmate; or putting down the completed Sunday Telegraph Crossword? I'd think so.
Many of the modern hunters are passionate about the great outdoors, the wild beasts that roam the veld; they want to preserve them for their children and grandchildren to enjoy in the future. Yet when the spoor has been followed, when the quarry is within range, that finely crafted weapon will be aimed, and as the cross-hairs zero in on the lethal spot, the hunter holds his breath and the force that squeezes a trigger comes into effect. In the moment that the bullet strikes and the buck crumples, it is consigned into immortality in the mind of its killer. He owns that glorious particle of the wilds of Africa - even if humanity builds a smoke-spewing power station on the very same spot in the next year. If fate would have it that the beastie took exception to a few ill-placed grams of lead, and a charge resulted, necessitating the expenditure of more ammunition or a bit of frantic exercise, so much the better for that mental photo album in full magnificent technicolour with action-replays galore. The regret at having extinguished a life comes later. Sometimes decades later, or never, for some.
Enough. Those who have done this, will know what I'm talking about, others will shake their heads. Let me just say that some of the earliest books I read on Africa, were hunting books. I hungered for a taste of the wilds, the wide savannah, the cool forests and the lush swamps of Africa; I wanted to feel the heft of an elephant gun, the brute force of the kick, the slap of the bullet as it reached its target, and the sweet triumph of holding the heavy head of my prize - the essence of the romance of the Dark Continent. It didn't always quite work out like that, but hey, it's OK to aim high. One of the highlights of hunting in Africa with said elephant gun, was sitting in the middle of a herd of buffalo on a breathless hot day in the Okavango swamps with my tracker. In front of me was a scrawny bush, and on the other side of it about a thousand pounds of buffalo cow was peering suspiciously at me while her calf grazed a few metres behind me. High drama potential indeed, but when a whiff of us finally reached the herd around us, they just thundered off in a cloud of dust, while we resumed breathing. I hesitate to confess this, but my most life-threatening experience came when a duiker gored me. In defence, I must hasten to say that I had only just arrived in Africa from grey, gritty Germany; I was ten years old and I was trying to feed the supposedly almost tame beastie a handful of grass, when it charged, put two holes in my knee and shoved me arse over tip into a goldfish pond. S'truth - you can ask my sister - she was watching.
Back to hunters. John Hunter was one of my early favourites; a man of action this Scot, a large man in the mould of the legendary hunters like Cummins, Cornwallis-Harris, Baker and Selous. He ran away from home, did all manner of exciting things and then drifted into ivory hunting, rhino and lion control as well as becoming a Bwana Mkubwa in the safari trade. His first book is now a highly prized collectors' item; "White Hunter", (Seely Service & Co 1938) but it lacks any pretension of writing skill; I really enjoyed his second effort, baldly entitled "Hunter" ( Hamish Hamilton, 1952). It may have been that the style really appeals to the young and young at heart, but there must be some merit in the book, since it was translated into several languages - French, German, even Afrikaans. His publishers were obviously emboldened by the success and they managed to convince him to take on a co-author from their stable for his third effort, which was probably a fairly daunting project.
They picked on one of my favourite authors of my youth - Dan Mannix. This was a man who could make any young lad's heart beat faster. He ran away from home and joined a travelling circus. He made it his business to learn a bundle of tricks, including magic, sword-swallowing, fire-eating and light-bulb chewing among others.
(Memoirs of a Sword-Swallower) I suffered from burnt gums and lips and an overactive gag-reflex for some months after the first reading of that volume. Anyway, Mannix did an admirable job with John Hunter, and "African Bush Adventures " was published in 1954. Again they drew on Hunter's experiences of the bush, animals, game control, and even conservation. Mannix later collaborated with a Swiss animal collector and hunter Peter Ryhiner, and the book " The Wildest Game " was the result.
The fourth Hunter book appeared in 1957 with the help of Alan Wykes, who was a recognised author, with a number of titles to his credit; "Hunter's Tracks" is essentially more of the same as dished up in his previous three books. Lots of safari hunting adventures, pulling wounded dangerous game out of thickets for his clients, and fending off dangerous clients' wives while the inept hunters were drowning their sorrows in camp. A lengthy manhunt adds some variety to this volume. Another enjoyable read, probably made more so by Wykes' collaboration.
The latter also wrote two other good hunting biographies: "Snake-Man" (1960), which is the story of C J P Ionides, who was a conservator, a hunter/collector of a number of rare animals in addition to becoming Bwana Nyoka, an eccentric snake catcher in his latter years. Ionides also wrote two books himself, "A Hunter's Story" (W H Allen, 1965) and "Mamba's and Maneaters" a year later - both eminently readable works. Wykes then wrote "Nimrod Smith" which appeared in the next year, and which features the exploits of another Great White Hunter of the early 20th century.
Another early hero of mine was W D M Bell - Karamojo Bell, as he was known from the region, which contained his favourite haunts. His books are mainly on elephant hunting; to him an elephant was 'X' number of pounds of ivory, which could be traded or sold to equip another shooting expedition during the next hunting season, which enabled him to lead the footloose roaming life that he preferred. Bell knew the structure of an elephant's skull better than most other hunters. He hunted with a ridiculously small-bore rifle - 7mm, but his accuracy and skill in getting up close to his quarry ensured his success with a minimum of woundings and dangerous charges. This was a far cry from some of the great nimrods of the previous century, who would at times have to fire several dozen shots to fell one animal, riding hell for leather to get out of the way of the enraged beast between shots, to enable them to reload their ponderous ordnance. Bell chalked up round about a thousand elephants during his career, but his hunting lacks romance, though he is an able raconteur and a master at bushcraft.
Most of the hunting books I read in the fifties and sixties had to have one premier quality - affordability. I would walk past the CNA and look longingly at the Africana Collectanea series displayed there at astronomical prices like 8s.6d. for Baines and Lord's " Shifts and Expedients of Camp Life, Travel and Exploration ", and I would sigh and move on. Those hunting titles that appeared in softcover, priced at a modest 1s. 2d. or thereabouts, were more in line with the depth of my pockets. Still, one could pick up reasonable secondhand bargains if one knew ones way around the city and the antiquarian shops. So it was that over the years I picked up a treasure trove of hunting books, 'Poor Man's Africana' but nowadays quite sought-after titles.
There was "Crocodile Fever' by L Earl (Collins, 1954), featuring hide-hunting of the scaly saurians in Zimbabwe and Mozambique, while Cronje Wilmot's book "Always Lightly Tread" (Timmins, 1956) carried on in the same vein in the Okavango, with game control, meat hunting and a bout of bubonic plague thrown in for good measure. One of the famous books to come from the Transvaal Lowveld of that genre, were A C White's "Call of the Bushveld" , an evocative hunting book by the owner of 'White's Avoca', a game farm near present-day Hoedspruit. The latter two volumes are beautifully illustrated by my old friend Charles Astley-Maberly's drawings. I got to know the old man and his wife on their Duiwelskloof farm when I was a youngster. I often stayed with a neighbour during holidays, and used to visit the old couple for tea and scones, when we would sit outside on the verandah, and as dusk fell, the bushpigs would ghost out of the surrounding forest onto the lawns.
Those times produced a number of interesting titles; T V Bulpin wrote the classic "The Ivory Trail" - the story of S C Barnard, also known as Bvekenya - who played about evading the police round about Crook's Corner in the far north-east of the Kruger Park. Bulpin followed this up with "The Hunter is Death", which was the story of George Rushby, another one of the great elephant hunters of the lion-infested Njombe district in Tanzania. South Africans had a few greats among the 20th century Nimrods as well; J F Burger won renown with his tales of hunting angry beasts - " African Jungle Memories", "My Forty Years in Africa", "Horned Death" and "African Buffalo Trails" - were some of his most successful books. One of the evergreens is, of course, P J Pretorius' "Jungle Man" which not only recounts his hunting exploits, but for good measure, devotes a few chapters to hunting down the German cruiser, the Königsberg, which had holed up in the almost impenetrable Rufiji Delta in southern Tanganyika during WWI. Although one must deplore the slaughter of most of the Addo herd of elephants that he writes about, one can but rejoice about the change of attitudes which has led to their preservation under present-day human pressures.
The East African safari trade was the subject of many books by game conservators, hunters and outfitters. A number of well-known authors come to mind; Donald Ker wrote "Through Forest and Veldt", W D Holmes' "Safari RSVP" was another such, as was Dennis Holman's "Inside Safari Hunting", while the firm of Cullen & Downey wrote a book about the other side of the coin, entitled " Saving the Game". The spice in many of these tales is the human-animal interaction, when city-slicker meets beast. Most of the pro's are not too economical with their past clients' dignity, but to my taste, one Osborne stood out as a hunter who despised most of his clients to such a degree that it spoilt his book "A Guiding Son", which I recently read. One of my favourite tongue-in-cheek writers is Alexander Lake, who penned the tame-sounding title "African Adventures" and the more perilous "African Killers", which I seem to recall had the subtitle "All about killers lying in wait and hunters lying in print" - that had a ring of truth about it.
The omnipresent District Officer in the African colonies, or 'DO' as he was generally known, was another class of hunter that wrote some thumping good yarns. For a part of each year they would be tasked with patrolling their remote region, accompanied by sufficient bearers to sustain life in the wilds, but which also meant shooting a considerable number of heads of game for the pot, as well as despatching any problem animals that plagued the populace. One of my favourites is G Muldoon, who wrote about his game control adventures in Central Africa in his two well-written books "Leopards in the Night" and "The Trumpeting Herd" (both published by Rupert Hart-Davis in 1955 & 1957 respectively). This brings me out of Africa, to one of the most respected hunter/naturalists who had to be judge and executioner in the conflict between man and beast on many occasions. Jim Corbett the slayer of the maneaters of Kumaon, the Temple Tiger and the man-eating leopard of Rudraprayag, among a host of problem cats, was no ordinary hunter, who killed for trophies or glory. His role was as the last resort between a defenceless cowering population of rural Indians, and the few rogue cats that caused panic and disrupted all life in the hill villages. His unrivalled knowledge of bushcraft, tracking and the habits of his quarry are used in describing the hunts in painstakingly beautiful detail - as one puny man pits his wits and quick reactions against a huge predator who sees him as his prey. I am the proud owner of all the books Corbett has written, and I reread them often - sharing in his fears as he stalks, and is in turn stalked by the maneating leopard in the stygian darkness; I marvel at his skill in following the progress of his quarry through the jungle, by track and by the sounds of the other beasts and I delight in his sharing his thoughts and deductions about the behaviour of the animal he is following. I have not read another writer of such talent in that genre, though another comes close - one Hugh Allen, an invalided soldier, who emigrates to India after WWII with his sister, buys a farm in the jungle and attempts to do battle with the deer, wild pigs, monkeys, as well as big cats. His book, "The Lonely Tiger" (Faber & Faber 1960) is a tour de force of one man's struggle against the forces of nature that surround him, which he does not want to destroy, but which he cannot ignore.
While I am on hunters in other parts of the world - let me not forget my hunting hero Bob Ruark. I was introduced to "The Old Man and the Boy" when I was barely in my teens. Strangely enough I didn't like it - then. A year or two later I read the story of his first hunting safari to Africa, "Horn of the Hunter" and I became an instant 'Ruarkophile' to coin a phrase. His zesty language, robust sense of the ridiculous - even when he was the subject of the ridicule, his descriptive passages of the hunts and the philosophical musings in camp after the first couple of Martinis - were all to my taste. I acquired his other hunting books, like "Use Enough Gun" and "I Didn't Know it Was Loaded", as quickly as I could, and the duo of the "Old Man and the Boy" and its sequel "The Old Man's Boy grows Older" last of all. As my son grew up, I gave him copies of both the latter, as well as "Horn of the Hunter". There is much home-spun philosophy, wisdom, humour, etiquette and just plain horse-sense in these books; I felt anybody who reads them can't help but get a little improved by doing so. Well - my boy hasn't robbed a bank yet, he's not an alcoholic or a drug addict ( Bob Ruark fancied his tipple, but not in the hunting field) and last year he shot an elephant cow at a range of about two metres after she had flipped a Yankee student out of the tracker seat on an open vehicle full of kids. I reckon reading Ruark didn't do him any harm.
Back to some of our local talent. One George Michael, a Joburg lad, I seem to remember, became a 'noted' Big Game Hunter in the fifties, and he wrote "African Fury" which did not impress me. Possibly to make up for his defects, his wife wrote " I Married a Hunter" two years later - which did nothing to charm me either. The books were full of cutesy snapshots of Ma, Pa and the babies with some deader on the ground in front of them. At least, that is how I remember the books. One of the few books by a lady author, which charmed, was a cheerful tale by one Sally Macdonald, who joined her husband on a home-crafted safari in pre-war Tanganyika. "Tanganyika Safari" (Angus & Robertson 1948) is an entertaining read, as is her other book, which has nothing to do with hunting - "Sally in Rhodesia".
Then there is the gifted writer, and I believe, talented concert violinist of his day, Victor Pohl. He wrote a number of books of short stories about the Basuto people around his family farm in the Eastern Free State, as well as his family's lot during the Boer War in "Adventures of a Boer Family". However, his real talent came to the fore in the book "Bushveld Adventures" (Faber & Faber 1940) in which he describes his youthful hunts with his black companion and a dog trotting at his heels. Very reminiscent of 'Jock', and a charming read for young and old, hunter or not.
I have read a goodly number of Afrikaans hunting books, many of which are of interest, but I must confess to finding a fundamental difference between this genre in English and the same in Afrikaans. Possibly it has to do with the attitude to the hunt and the animal. For the Brits it's a noble animal they're pitting their wits against, and a sport (of kings, mind you, not so long ago) which carries a certain aura of romance. For the Afrikaner, the animal is historically so much biltong, and the hunt is a way of bringing home the biltong. Possibly I should not decry the delicious snack (of which I caused quite a few hundredweight to be made in my time), nor should I slander a good roast, but their literary efforts don't make romantic reading matter.
To name but a few, J Bruwer's " Noord van die Zambesi", Lucas Potgieter's two books "Staanplekkies langs my geweerpad" and "Fonteintjies langs my geweerpad", P Duplessis' "Duinestories", S le Roux's " Baanbrekers en Jagters van Suid Afrika", Sangiro's couple of books, J von Moltke's interesting three works on the early Southwest Boer hunters, and P J Schoeman's hunting reminiscences, are all good workmanlike examples. One J Sproul excelled with the title "My Vier-en-tagtigste Leeu en ander Jagverhale" but I could not wax lyrical about it - in fact I have forgotten everything about the other 83 cats, it was that unmemorable. For my money, I still prefer Pieter Pieterse's humorous anecdotes as on offer in his book " Boude en Blaaie - en nog 'n Paar Bosveldstories" (Uniboek 1991) - though it's still biltong that's being "platgetrek", but at least there's some pepper on it!
I fully expect a howl of protest from my audience, that's you, firstly because of the subject matter of this contribution, secondly because I've left out all the "Big Guns". Not to fear, at some future date I shall have the temerity to review the great, the brave, the accurate and the merciless killers.
Yours, from the hunting trail,
Arne

TWO TALENTS IN ONE FAMILY

AFRICANA VOTES & VIEWS VOL 1 # 2

The name van Onselen is probably familiar to a number of South Africans, as two of them, Lennox and Charles are well-known writers. Their beginnings could not have been more different. Lennox was a policeman, but his first book dealt with the relatively little known subject of antique furniture. As he says himself in the foreword of “Cape Antique Furniture” ( Timmins 1959) when he tried to obtain information during his Cape Town days, from bookdealers – possibly along Long Street – there were none to be found, so the enterprising man decided to write a modest introduction himself.
He attempts to give a brief outline of the origin of individual items, the timbers used and illustrates their development with some black and white photos. Interestingly he already acknowledges the early Eastern influences of the Malay craftsmen on the early Dutch efforts; they probably brought designs such as the ball and claw, and the cabriolet leg, as well as marquetry, rattan and laquer work to the Cape. The second wave of influence came through the Huguenots, who were to have a profound effect on local designs. Then came the English occupation and further continental ideas were brought into the mix.
The author wrote chapters on furniture development in the city and country districts, and features items which would grace reception rooms, bedrooms, dining rooms and he concludes with a chapter on long case clocks and some tips for the aspirant collector.
This little book was published in a limited edition of a thousand copies, so copies are reasonably hard to find, especially in good condition. Still, a worthwhile addition to your library, if antiques are in your field of interest.
Not surprisingly, his second book entitled “A Rhapsody in Blue” (Timmins 1960) deals with the development of the police, starting with the office of Fiscal in the late 17th century, later ably assisted by men of the Watch. A further body of men, the Dienaars, followed, and the office of Fiscal was made purely administrative. By the mid-19th century the Cape Constabulary was organized according to London principles, while in the country districts the Landdrosts were assisted by their veldcornets in keeping the peace..
The same period saw a proliferation of various armed, semi-military bodies, such as the Cape Regiment, Cape Mounted Riflemen, Imperial Cape Mounted Riflemen Corps, Cape Police, Frontier Armed and Mounted Police etc. Many of these were deployed in the Frontier Wars that were being waged on the Eastern Cape and on the Orange River. In the Boer Republics too, there were the notorious ZARP’s and the OFS Republican Police, while Natal had its Natal Mounted Police. After the cessation of hostilities the Transvaal Town Police and the S A Constabulary paved the way to the formation of the SAP. The author’s narrative is full of anecdote, as well as solid historical fact, but occasionally the book is a little ‘bare-bones’ for the serious scholar, as all this information is crammed into the first thirty pages of the book. The remainder is an ode to the life of a policeman, mostly tough, sometimes rewarding, often heroic, with dashes of humour – an eminently readable work.
He concludes with some of his own experiences, including his time as a personal bodyguard to General Smuts. He also saw service in the Sixth Infantry (Police) Brigade during WWII in North Africa, where he was captured by the Italians at Tobruk. With a few friends he escaped in 1943 and made it to Switzerland, where he had to remain due to that country’s neutral status, until the end of the war. A short concluding chapter sketches an ideal police force in an ideal state – a far cry from what happened in the thirty years after the book’s publication.
His third book is probably the most sought-after. “Trekboer” was published by Timmins in 1961, and once more the author draws on his own meetings and interviews with these nomadic stockmen of the arid interior and in the Northwest. By the time the book was written, they were already an almost extinct breed. The advent of the water-drilling machine, and then the ubiquitous windmill, made it possible for stock farmers to lead a more settled life with their flocks on the plains of Bushmanland, and the government promoted land-ownership as well as fencing of properties. All was well during the years when the Twa grass stood knee-high after good rains, but drought inevitably followed and the farmers had once again to muster their starving flocks, pack their wagons and trek along the dusty roads in search of better pasture.
Both van Onselen in “Trekboer” and F A Venter in his book “Kambro-kind” sketch the heartache and privation of the desperate farmer and his dwindling capital on the seemingly endless plains, shimmering in the white-heat, hoping to find a flush of green from a fleeting shower of rain. Many of them ended up eking out an existence on the banks of the Gariep, often dependant on the goodwill and charity of their more fortunate kinfolk, while others trekked into the Kalahari, which though a desert, still could support livestock in years when Bushmanland lay bare under successive droughts.
The author also had his brush with the glittering wealth of Namaqualand and he relates some of the history of the discovery of diamonds, their effect on the Namaqualanders, who saw so much wealth coming from their lands, without any benefits coming their way. One senses a certain amount of sympathy in this policeman’s stories of IDB’s, police-traps and men who became inexplicably well-off almost overnight.
Lastly, as a dessert, he dishes up an account of the searches of a Pretoria chiropractor for the Lost City of the Kalahari. This struck a real chord in my memory, as I shared a schoolbench with the good doctor’s two children. After each vacation, which they had spent flying up and down the desert and camping within earshot of the lions’ roars, Lynn and Scott Haldeman would give their classmates another thrilling episode of their adventures – enough to make me green with envy. On the other hand, they never did find anything, nor were they likely to do so. It is now generally accepted that the much-vaunted Lost City described by the American traveler G A Farini ( actually his real name was William Hunt) was a geological phenomenon amplified by a fertile imagination and some good old-fashioned showmanship.
His fourth, and presumably last book, “Head of Steel” was published in 1962. This time he traces the development of the rail network from the Cape into the Transvaal. While quite an interesting read for the layman, I would suspect it is a little superficial for the railway enthusiast. Generally all of Lennox van Onselen’s books are worth reading and they are good, unpretentious ‘poor man’s Africana’.
Charles van Onselen, on the other hand, is an academic, a sociologist and historian, who has written a number of books on the economic development of the Southern African region, labour exploitation and crime. His first book, “Chibaro” (Pluto Press, 1976) is certainly an eye-opener. Most people know about the Belgian king, Leopold having the chutzpah to not only assume ‘ownership’ of a huge chunk of Africa, but then he set his minions to enslaving the population, and strip-mining everything in sight, from ivory to rainforest timbers and minerals, while committing some of the ghastliest atrocities you can imagine. His descendants still own a few dozen palaces spread around Europe – makes you think, doesn’t it?
The Rhodesian populace underwent similar exploitation; van Onselen examines the labour practices of the mining companies in Rhodesia, after the BSA Co had successfully quashed the last remnants of rebellion. Taxes were imposed, to pay which meant that men had perforce to work in the mines. When mining proved to be unprofitable due to the patchy presence of pay-dirt, the first to suffer were the African mineworkers, who laboured under horrendous conditions, ill-fed, and ill-housed, for progressively lower pay, powerless to alter their working conditions. Life in closed compounds became the standard option imposed by the capitalists of the whole subcontinent, and vice, alcohol, drugs, and credit were all used to keep workers in lengthy labour contracts which resulted in increasing social upheaval, poverty, disease and often death.
Lastly, the author considers the response of the black worker to this labour coercive economy: drunkenness, theft, desertion, property destruction, forgery and absenteeism – the only responses that the workers, brutalized and cowed by the system, could use against their masters. Not a pretty picture, and a far cry from the benevolent face which mining companies would like to portray to the world. In short, an uncomfortable read; typically a reworked doctoral thesis, which requires some specialized interest to persevere with.
The author then wrote a duo of books on the social and economic history of the Witwatersrand up to WWI. Entitled “New Babylon” and “New Niniveh”, van Onselen approaches the phenomenon of unlimited wealth generation, not from the perspective of the beneficiaries, the Randlords, but from the points of view of the underclasses. In the former book, he examines the role alcohol played in ridding the ZAR of agricultural surplus, while providing an anodyne to the masses as well as an incentive for labour recruitment. Sex was the other attraction, and prostitutes streamed to the Rand, first from the Cape, then in increasing numbers from the slums of America, Britain and Europe, closely followed by their symbiotic pimps and gangster elements.
President Kruger, the arch-reactionary statesman, actually connived in the launching of Republican rotgut, and condoned prostitution as a necessary evil, only to be forced into passing the ‘Ontugt Wet’, in effect the first legislation which prohibited relations between black miners and European women – when the ‘swart gevaar’ raised its ugly head in the minds of the local gentry. The Boer War altered all that, but only briefly, and soon Milner was forced into putting the first Immorality Act into force.
Lastly, transport, and in particular the cabbies, come under the magnifying glass. As the New Babylon grew from a scant few square miles some forty-fold in size within a few years, the transport needs of the masses had to be addressed. Once again President Kruger proved to be the reactionary influence, as he wanted his constituency, the agriculturalists, to have an outlet for their products, ie forage. He steadfastly refused to grant concessions for anything but horse-drawn vehicles and trams, when electricity was already a viable alternative. The author follows the power struggle between cabbies from different racial groups, their organizations, changes from the basic Cape cart, to the modish Victorias and Landaus, and on to the motorised taxi. He describes the stratification of cabbies by laws and regulations into classes, which in turn determine the fares and race of the passengers. Lastly, in 1906, the electrified tram, or trolley, made its appearance – and to my wonder, I actually still made use of those historic conveyances in the late fifties and early sixties!
The second book in this series “New Niniveh”, concerns itself, among others, with the role and composition of the servant-class. Firstly sturdy Irish and Scottish lasses were the preferred imports (after all in a society of 88% unmarried men, they could prove to be useful as breeding stock) but these inevitably succumbed to the white colonialist class-consciousness, which decreed that manual labour was unfitted for those of paler hue. Enter the Zulu ‘houseboy’ who would handle the menial work under supervision of the cook-general. Inevitably the economic fluctuations in the fortunes of the mining industry, made this structure too expensive, and black women joined the rank of servants, and then ‘picaninnies’ became the logical lowest rung of this labouring class.
Another interesting sub-class was that of the dhobi’s, or amawasha – who laundered the dirty apparel of Rand society. These consisted again mainly of Zulus, who formed a guild of micro-entrepreneurs wielding no little power and influence in the burgeoning city. The author sketches their rise and inevitable decline as mechanized steam laundries, shortage of water and capitalist intrusion crept into their kingdom.
A section of the book deals with the role of the Afrikaner poor, especially after the Boer War. From the ruins of their agricultural origins they streamed into the city and competed for work with foreign workers and the black labour force. The author traces the proletarianisation of this group, unemployment and the rise of a class-consciousness which was to play a growing political role as the century progressed.
Lastly the book deals with the shadowy criminal army that inhabited the caves, derelict mines and prisons on the Reef – the Umkosi Wezintaba – a Mafiosi-type brotherhood, rooted in social injustice, but which changed to robbery, extortion, burglary and murder. The mine compound system, the prisons as well as the free-roaming members of this army, were well-organised and informed and became a serious threat to law and order for several decades. Both of the above books are recommended reading for serious historians and students of the South African industrial revolution, but for a casual reader they may be too academic in flavour.
Another tour de force by this author was “The Seed is Mine” (Hill & Wang 1996); an award-winning biography of a black share-cropper, Kas Maine, whose life spanned most of the 20th century. From the edge of the Kalahari, where he spent the first half century of his life, he was a subject of the forced removals that became such a feature of the apartheid regime. As farming became increasingly mechanized, his services became less and less valuable to the white farmers on whose land he lived. Finally he ended up in the puppet state of Bophutatswana, with a plot of land which was too small to be farmed economically, and from where he had to send his children off to the cities to make a living.
Politics hardly entered into this man’s life, rather it was the economic and social changes that affected him most, leaving him powerless to alter the environment in which he lived. His working relationships with the white landowners and the representatives of the white government, both only concerned with their own interests, were surprisingly good, though he was never their equal socially. He is often portrayed as being critical of individual whites, but never rails against them as a group. The book is a real tribute to a hard-working black farmer, who showed remarkable forbearance and patience with his lot.
The latest book written by this author, “The Fox and the Flies” is visibly the result of his previous researches into the underbelly of the Witwatersrand demi monde. It chronicles the life and times of Joseph Liis, aka Joe Silver, thief, burglar, racketeer, gangster, whoremaster and psychopath. His nefarious career started in southern Poland, from where he emigrated to London with one of the early waves of migrants in the 1880’s. He wasted no time in establishing himself as a petty criminal and pimp on the streets of the East End at the time of the horrendous Whitechapel murders – of which more later. At the ripe old age of 21, already syphilitic, he decided to bless New York with his presence.
His American chapter saw him continuing in a similar vein, but even though he made full use of the corrupt lawmen of his adopted country, he spent his first two spells in Sing Sing and Riverside prisons in Pittsburgh, after which he left the States as a naturalized US citizen and returned to London, where he was soon incarcerated in Pentonville for a stretch. His next target was Johannesburg, and here van Onselen gives a fascinating insight into the low-life of this city in the making, where almost ninety percent of men were single, perpetually thirsty and looking for diversions. He describes Silver’s racketeering, his interaction with South African notables, such as Smuts, Manie Maritz and Mostyn Cleaver, which was to result in lengthy court cases as well as the first stirrings of an immorality act being passed by the old president, Kruger. The beginning of the Boer War found Silver in jail once more. First the Fort in Johannesburg, then the Potchefstroom prison. When the Brits threatened the town, Silver was shown the open gate and he departed thankfully to Kimberley, which was celebrating the lifting of the siege. Here again he did not last long doing what he did best, and once more he landed briefly in jail before being deported to Cape Town.
The Mother City, and particularly District Six, proved to be congenial surroundings until the war ended, when our man departed to – wait for it – Bloemfontein, of all places. Yes, even that placid Boer capital was to feel the impact of the brothelkeeper and white slaver from hell. But once again his intrigues resulted in imprisonment and finally he was deported back to the Cape. He managed to spend a year there more or less out of trouble – except for leaving a ‘wife’ maddened with syphilis in Valkenberg, for whom he had to pay maintenance, so when the Germans were forced to ship out large numbers of troops to quell the Hereros in South West Africa in 1904, he judged that he might as well make the sleepy little town of Swakopmund, and later Windhoek, his new business locale. Finally, in 1906, his luck ran out and several of his prostitutes ganged up on him and the German authorities incarcerated him once more before deporting him again. In vain he tried to leave ship at Cape Town, as well as at Durban, but the subcontinent had become too well informed about his activities, so he had to return to Europe.
His further adventures include Germany, France, Belgium, Argentina, Chile, New York and London again, before he finally departs almost inexplicably towards Poland, where he belatedly meets his just deserts – apparently for a completely different reason. I’m not going to spoil that one for you though.
The book is a tour de force of meticulous research and dogged pursuit of information. The subject is not a pleasant one; in fact, the author makes a case for Silver to have been ‘Jack the Ripper’, but to all devotees of things criminal, this book is a must. For those with an interest in the social history of the late 19th and early 20th century, it is also a valuable work and a thumping good read. Happy reading!

THE WILD NORTHWEST IN PRINT

AFRICANA VOTES & VIEWS VOL 1 # 1

From the earliest times of European contact with the subcontinent, the West Coast of South Africa and its forbidding interior was shrouded in mystery. The illustrious Bartolomeu Dias sailed down the Namaqualand coast in the first few days of 1488 and he reputedly sighted the mountains near Clanwilliam and named them Serra dos Reis. Near Lambert's Bay he seems to have encountered the famous southeaster, which blew him offshore, and that was the last he was to see of the subcontinent until he made landfall after having rounded the Cape. Some nine years later Vasco da Gama clapped his eyes on the forbidding coast in the region of Hondeklip Bay and he landed in St Helena Bay. He and his men made contact with Khoi tribesmen, and though relations were cordial at first, a misunderstanding occurred soon enough and a fight ensued in which several people were wounded. Both accounts only made it into print second- or even third-hand, much later.
The death of Francisco d'Almeida with some 57 of his compatriots in Table Bay in 1510, during a pitched battle with the local Khoi, did not endear the Cape to the Portuguese, and they tended to steer clear of it subsequently. In the course of the next one and a half centuries, the British, Dutch and French made sporadic landings on the West Coast, but the scarcity of water, exposed anchorages with the exception of Saldanha Bay, and generally uninviting appearance of the barren shores, meant that by the time van Riebeeck started the settlement at the Cape, very little was known beyond St Helena Bay. Before the days of the Dutch occupation, the numerous landings at, or near the Cape, were chronicled in the book "Before van Riebeeck" by R. Raven-Hart.
The good van Riebeeck had his hands full for the first few years of his occupation, but soon mention was made in his Daghregister that his thoughts were turning to the exploration of the northern interior. The visiting Commissioner Ryklof van Goens in 1657 spurred him on to discover the whereabouts of the River Spirito Santo and the fabled city of Monomotapa. The semi-myths of these places, the fabled empire of Prester John, names like Vigiti Magna, Davagul and the like - all these were the drawcards that led the commander to send out men like Gabbema, van Harwarden, Danckart, van Meerhoff, Everaert, de la Guerre, Cruythoff and others in search of the untold riches that were to be found to the north and northwest. Some of the reports that these men brought back with them, can be considered to be the first 'Northwest Literature', although the reports were not published as such at the time. Nowadays they can be found in compilations, such as the first two volumes, subtitled 'Tochten naar het Noorden' contained in E C Godee-Molsbergen's work "Reizen in Zuid Afrika", E. E. Mossop's "Old Cape Highways", and lastly the three volumes of Jan van Riebeeck's Daghregister or Journal, which is available in English, Dutch and with Afrikaans footnotes and summaries.
Needless to say, the commander's brave explorers met with little success in their quest for walled cities, cloaked people, precious metals and jewels. Instead they met unforgiving deserts, mountains and extremes of climate. They did meet up with the Nama people; the rumours of the existence of at least copper in the north, was confirmed, and yes, there was a 'big river'. Van Riebeeck's term at the Cape ended, and his successor Commander Zacharias Wagenaar, made one half-hearted attempt towards the fabled region, but an early upset caused him to abandon the attempt, and from then on his expressed opinion was that the fabled cities of the North were travellers' tales, not worthy of being followed up.
The next traveller was Olof Bergh, who was despatched on two expeditions in 1681 and 1682, following contact with copper-bearing Namaquas who visited Governor van der Stel at the Cape. His expeditions penetrated as far as present-day Garies, and his journals are available in print in the VRS first series, No 12, translated by E E Mossop. Bergh's superior was to follow in style, mounting a huge expedition in 1685, which was successful in reaching present-day Springbok, and the famed 'Koperberg', where a trial adit was sunk, samples were taken and smelted and a full report was written, which appeared in print for the first time in Valentyn's five volume work, the English title of which is 'Description of the Cape of Good Hope'. This is then the first printed work on the region to appear, by Johannes van Braam, Amsterdam, Gerard onder de Linden 1724-6. Although my copy lacks the title page, it is one of my really treasured items. Also contained in the same volume is the travel diary of the Landdrost Johannes Starrenburg, who led a trading expedition north of the Olifants River in 1705.
The next publication took more than fifty years to eventually appear. Although several trading journeys had been made towards the North, as evidenced by the inscriptions left on the walls of the famous Heerenlogement Cave, north of Graafwater, the travellers Slotsbo and Hem did not leave any published record of their trips. However, the next traveller, I T Rhenius, left a journal of his 1721 trading trip, which again has been published by the VRS in 1947 (#28). The names of Messrs Blass, Breedt, Giebeler, and Lourens then appear, as they passed the cave between 1721 and 1739. In 1760 a short record appeared in the records of the Council of Policy, of one Jacobus Coetze Jantz, a farmer from the Aurora region near Piketberg, who went on a hunting expedition, and became the first European to cross the Orange, Eyn or Gariep River, and to penetrate into what is now Namibia. This short report appears in both a VRS volume (#15) as well as in Godee-Molsbergen's books, Vol 2.
A most informative record of life along the Great River, was left by one Henrik Jacob Wikar, who deserted from the Company's service in 1775. He lived an adventurous life with the Khoi tribesmen along the Orange, and returned to the Cape in 1779 to be reinstated by the Company. A copy of his manuscript was preserved, among others in the Swellengrebel Archive - it appeared in print for the first time in 1926, and in book-form in1935 by the VRS (#15). However - back to the second book to be published about Namaqualand - it was Carel Frederik Brink's ' Nieuwste en Beknopte Beschryving van de Kaap der Goede Hoop, nevens een Dag-Verhael van eenen Landtogt naar het Binneste van Afrika door het Land der Kleine en Groote Namaquas' published in 1778, that is, some fifteen years after the journey was actually made.. The first part of the book was compiled by R S Allemand and J C Klockner, while part two describes the journey made by H. Hop, whom Brink accompanied as surveyor and scribe. During the return trip, one Scheffer (hopefully no relation - but one can't be sure) murdered one of the Khoi servants while in a demented state. Scheffer was later tried for the crime and banished to Robben Island. To return to the journey; it did break some new ground, crossing the Orange River near Raman's Drift and penetrating deep into Namibia, it is thought, just short of Windhoek, which makes it also the first published work of Namibiana
The rest of the 18th century saw much exploration. Col. R J Gordon explored the lower reaches of the Orange River, which he named, as well as penetrating to Warmbad in Namibia, and inland way past where Upington is now located. In part he was accompanied by William Paterson, who was to have his journal published in 1789 - while the more illustrious traveller Gordon's manuscript was lost for almost two centuries, and only saw the light recently in the Brenthurst Library's fine work.
The inimitable Francois le Vaillant was there too. Fresh from his successful "Voyage de M le Vaillant…" covering the first five years of meandering through the southern and eastern Cape, he now tackled the northwestern route. Admittedly, his three volume work on his latest expedition "New Travels into the Interior of Africa " translated into English in 1796, could have been considerably condensed, but it was written for a public eager to share in the intrepid voyageur's privations. A modern publication on le Vaillant's travels, and especially paintings of the Library of Parliament's 1973 "Francois Le Vaillant - Traveller in South Africa, with contributions by a number of historians and specialists, is also a very worthwhile investment.
The last great, enduring book of travels in the North West during the 18th century, must surely be John Barrow's "An Account of Travels into the Interior of South Africa" during 1797-8, though published after 1800.

Shortly after the turn of the century, the first missionaries appeared on the scene. From humble beginnings in a hostile land, men of the calibre of Christian Albrecht and Johannes Seidenfaden endeavoured to start a mission among the Namaqua, first near present-day Kakamas, as the Cape Government was against any form of missionary endeavour within its boundaries, then at Warmbath in Namibia. The Cape authorities relented a few years later and the missionaries were able to establish themselves with Cornelis Kok's people in the Kamiesberg region. However the Great Namaqua chief Jager Afrikaner came into dispute with mission's people and razed the fledgling stations to the ground. Then Messrs Sass, Helm, Ebner and Schmelen of the LMS took to the field. The latter was to play a huge role in furthering the aims of the missions in the region, besides establishing numerous stations in Namaqualand and across the river in Namibia. But it was Ebner who was to get into print; all that is left of Schmelen's efforts are the reports, that were included in the annual publications of the London Missionary Society. Ebner's "Reise nach Süd Afrika…etc' was published in 1829 in Germany - and it is one of the books still missing from my collection.
1813 saw the advent of Rev John Campbell on a prolonged tour of inspection. His charming book "Travels in South Africa", published in 1815, is a delight to read, and is therefore the first work on missionary endeavours to get into print. The Wesleyans established their first mission in 1816 at Leliefontein, and the Rev Barnabas Shaw was to spend several years there, of which he wrote in his " Memorials of South Africa", published in 1840. A young missionary, by name of Threlfall, made the mistake of wanting to explore terra incognita in bad company in 1825. One of his companions, named Naugaap, murdered him, which led to reams of martyrdom being published about the lad for more than a century subsequently. The said Naugaap was later apprehended and tried by Cornelis Kok, whose followers executed the miscreant at Silverfontein. There was Robert Moffat, who also had his introduction to missionary labours in Namaqualand before departing for Afrikaner's kraal in Namibia, as described in his 'Missionary Labours and Scenes in South Africa' published in 1844. The same year too, saw the publication of James Backhouse's "Narrative of a Visit…", during which he did the Grand Tour of the missionary establishments of the Cape as well as in the Northwest. James Kitchingman's short term at Leliefontein was described in 'The Kitchingman Papers" published relatively recently by the Brenthurst Press. So there is no real shortage of hearing about the experiences of the men of the cloth.
More recently, during the second half of the 20th century, it became the fashion to publish a swathe of books, usually entitled something to the tune of " Eeufeesgedenkboek van die Gemeente…", referring to each and every community of the NG Church in the region. I have assiduously collected as many of these I could find, since not only do they document the ecclesiastical matters of the region, there are usually short, regional, general histories, names of early farms and their inhabitants, construction of churches, irrigation projects, roads and a host of other detail.
The era of grand exploration may have been past, but there were still some intrepid souls who wished to experience the hardships and dangers of the road untrodden. A good example was George Thompson, a man of commerce from the Eastern Cape, who professes some curiosity about the lesser known regions. While earlier traveller recorded the natural history, tribes and geography, all Thompson desired was to be on the move and to experience new scenes. The second volume of his work "Travels in Southern Africa" sees the author coming down the Orange river into a desperately drought-ridden Namaqualand. His adventures are well-described, so much so that it is thought he received more than passing assistance from Thomas Pringle in writing up his journal. No matter, as long as it is entertaining.
The next explorer was James Edward Alexander. After a stint of soldiering in the Eastern Cape, he was intent on exploring the West Coast of Africa - starting at Cape Town. Under the aegis of the Royal Geographical Society and with the blessing of the Governor of the Cape, the intrepid soldier set off, getting as far as Walfish Bay. His 1837 account is most entertaining, and has been reprinted in USA, as well as relatively recently by Struik. After the first half of the 19th century had passed, there is almost an abrupt halt to all information published about the region in books. True, short articles appear in periodicals and reports, but it seems that copper-fever has overtaken the region - so this is the subject of a book that I am at present assembling - that 'lost' half century 1850-1899.
A few other books deserve mention in the annals of exploration and missionary work in the Northwest. They are A A Anderson's "Twenty-five Years in a Waggon" published in 1888 - but infuriatingly he gives very little data of where he was travelling and when - instead these are discontinuous episodes strung together into a book. The there is Benjamin Ridsdale's "Scenes and Adventures in Great Namaqualand" which mainly describes missionary work at Nisbeth Bath in Namibia, but has some absolutely charming and humorous experiences during his travels through Namaqualand as well. The book was published in 1883. Lastly there is the stern and scientific work by Leonard Schultze, entitled "Aus Namaland und Kalahari". No light reading this, but rather an enumeration of geological and topographical features, tribes of peoples; their appearance, habits, economies etc, lists of plants, and animals - but nowhere is a trace of the author and his travels up the Orange river to be found. Only for real enthusiasts!
Maps are an integral part of many books on exploration. So it is natural that sooner or later maps find their way onto the shelves as well. There are several dozen maps in my collection. The oldest are French maps of portions of the West Coast by de Maurepas and Bonne, from the early and late 18th century. One could amass literally hundreds like this, but to do them justice, a lot of wall-space is needed, which I do not have. So maps are not of great importance as items of my collection, though I am striving to get a complete set of British Intelligence Maps from the Boer War period. Another desirable set of detailed maps was made before and during WWI by the Union Government, since they anticipated trouble in the region as well as hostilities with the Germans across the Orange River. My most-used map is a three and a half metre long by one a half metre wide abomination, which I have taped together from a number of 1:250 000 sheets of maps from the Topocadastral Survey. It has travelled with us all over the region and led us onto some memorable places.
This sparsely populated region was inhabited by some of the most hated, feared, despised - and romanticised people in the subcontinent - the San or Bushmen. There are a number of more or less recent books on the cave-art sites, as well as rock engravings that are to be found in the region. An early book on the prehistory is E J Dunn's "The Bushmen" published in 1931. It relates the author's encounters with some of the remnants during his career as a geologist, and also gives an overview of the Middle Stone Age in the region. There is G W Stow's Book "Native Races of South Africa" which deals extensively with Khoi and San. Although the author only met a few tribespeople, and he based most of his work on other sources, his findings are still consulted today, though first published in 1904. Other seminal works were J A Engelbrecht's work "Koranna", Isaac Schapera's "Khoisan Peoples of South Africa", Winifred Hoernle's and Peter Carsten's several works on the Nama people of Steinkopf and the Richtersveld, among others. Most of these books are for the specialist student, though there are a number of lesser, general publications
1899 saw the start of the Ango-Boer war, which heralded the establishment of the Border Scouts, who were made up of local coloured people, a move which caused much animosity between segments of the Northwest population. The first invasion led by Gen. Herzog early in 1901, took the towns of Calvinia and Vanrhynsdorp among others, and the Boers penetrated as far as Lambert's Bay, but this was not to last. The last part of the war was bitterly contested in Bushmanland as well as Gordonia and the copper-mining district around O'okiep. There are about two dozen works dealing with the conflict in the region, mostly in Afrikaans - generally in the genre of " My part in the war.." - touching on the conflict in Namaqualand and Bushmanland. Many of these are poorly written, and equally poorly published. Probably the most readable account of the war was by Deneys Reitz - "Commando", and two in-depth books on the siege of O'okiep by P Burke and B L Kieran for ardent students of military matters (by the way, such is the nature of the rough terrain around the mining town, that one can still discover previously unknown small fortifications or 'sangers', complete with cartridge cases and empty bully-beef tins, among the rocks surrounding the town ), and lastly, Bill Nasson's book" Abraham Esau's War".
Mining and geology has been of great importance to the region. Although its mineral wealth has been largely stripped; the copper mines have ground to a halt, the yield of diamonds has dropped, but is continuing, while there are still reserves of metals like zinc and titanium to keep the industry going. There may still be some undiscovered lodes or deposits. One of the classics of the search for riches is, of course F C Cornell's " Glamour of Prospecting", first published in 1920. Cornell spent months, literally sleeping metres away from untold riches, which he never found; though I know that when he died in a tragic street accident in London, he was carrying two small, uncut diamonds for which he had a permit (which I have seen). Hans Merensky too, was involved in the search for diamonds, and he and his partner Reuning, persevered and reaped the benefits. Reuning wrote a lengthy article on the finds. Merensky had a biographer who chronicled his life, Olga Lehmann, who wrote the book " Look Beyond the Wind". There are dozens of theses, articles, contributions to learned journals on earth sciences - all dealing with the Northwest, only one has become an enduring standard work on the subject: Henno Martin's "The Precambrian Geology of South West Africa and Namaqualand". UCT has published a whole series of geological work done in the area, most of which I have been fortunate to acquire - though I don't profess to read and understand the contents. Though geology might not seem much of a spectator sport for most laymen - I would recommend the glacier track, south of Niewoudtville to the most blasé observer. It is almost inconceivable how a layer of ice, carrying boulders and pebbles, will melt the rock surface it is sliding over through the friction exerted upon it. Truly awesome.
Talking of nature, there are few books on the fauna of the region. Barry Lovegrove's fine work, "The Living Deserts of Southern Africa", published by Fernwood in 1993, is probably the closest you can get to an all-encompassing book on the arid ecosystems of the region. To my mind, it is a wonderful work and succeeds admirably in explaining the secrets of survival of life in a mainly hostile environment. There are a number of bird-lists, and a few booklets on the fauna of reserves of the region. A more general, but very worthwhile work, is Joan Schrauwen's "West Coast - a Circle of Seasons in South Africa", published by Winchester 1991. There are also more scientific works - the reports of museum expeditions, led by men such as H H W Pearson who led the Percy Sladen Memorial Expedition of 1908-9 as far as the Kunene, describing the fauna and flora as they wended their way up the coast through Namaqualand; in 1930 there was the Vernay-Lang Kalahari expedition which researched the inland fauna and flora.
In addition, there are large numbers of publications dealing with the palaeontology of the region, especially so since the vast fossil beds of Langebaanweg are still giving up their secrets and increasing our knowledge of the period between 1 and 25 million years ago. Up on the Gariep River, at Arrisdrift, there are river terraces containing similar fossils, while in the Cederberg, once over the Pakhuis pass, there are hundreds of square kilometres of rounded hills containing fossils by the million - dating back up to 400 million years ago - and of which there are also learned monographs to consider.
Since the epic explosion of spring flowers is a yearly phenomenon, which some say, is visible from space; it is fitting that some truly beautiful books have appeared to celebrate this event. Even Sima Eliovson's 1972 book " Namaqualand in Flower" still never fails to enchant me, though the photo reproduction may not be as good as in modern books. Enid du Plessis' and Hilda Mason's book, "Western Cape Sandveld Flowers", published in the same year, is an evergreen of the artistic sort, to be ranked with Barbara Jeppe's work in "Spring and Winter Flowering Bulbs of the Cape", OUP 1989, which contains much of the regions' flora. There is Cowling, Pierce & Paterson-Jones' "Namaqualand - a Succulent Desert", and Williamson's " Richtersveld - the Enchanted Wilderness" among a large number of mainly photographic works. The guidebooks published by the Botanical Society, covering the various floristic regions contained within the area under consideration, are not to be despised either, and no visitor to the spring flower display should be without the full complement of four volumes.
A scarce genre is that of hunting books. With the exception of the millions of springbuck that gathered periodically for their migrations, which were described by Cronwright-Schreiner in "The Migratory Springbucks of South Africa", as well as by Scully and Conradie, game was scarce, and even the noblest of desert antelope, the gemsbuck or oryx, hardly rated expeditions by the Nimrods of the period. There is only one regional work which richly deserves a place in a collection of books on the chase - Scully's " Lodges in the Wilderness". Unlike most hunters of the day, he creaks off into the waterless desert in an ox-wagon, to a strange Bantomberg, out on the endless plains, where he and his companions ambush passing game.
But back to people - as they are a necessary ingredient in 'fleshing out' a geographic region. There are a number of biographies, mainly autobiographies, some of which I have already mentioned above, as the lives described were those of missionaries, explorers and discoverers of mineral wealth. There are many more of the same - all giving the reader pictures of life at different times and milieus in the arid zone. From V C Malherbe's "Krotoa, Called Eva" which chronicles the largely forgotten life of the brave Khoi lass who accompanied van Riebeeck's early explorers into the Northwest as an interpreter ( and later married the surgeon van Meerhoff), to Ursula Trüper's " Die Hottentottin" - which describes the life of the shadowy Nama woman, Zara Schmelen, wife of the missionary at Komaggas, who helped him with the almost insuperable task of translating the bible into Nama. There are a number of biographies of Gordon, who played a large part in the exploration; Lady Anne Barnard travelled as far as Langebaan, where she spent some time with friends on a farm; Louis Leipold spent some of his early years in the Clanwilliam district; Frank Wightman, the intrepid sailor of Wylo fame, whiled away a few years as a hermit on his yacht moored at Kraal Bay, as recorded by Lawrence Green. The quirky magistrate, poet and writer, William Charles Scully, although rather sparing with his Namaqualand experiences in "Further Reminscences of a S African Pioneer", contributed much to our knowledge of the people of Namaqualand in the 1890's, with snippets in a number of other works. In Afrikaans there are a number of well-written biographical works by such as F A Venter, with "Die Middag voel na Warm As", "Werfjoernaal" and "Kambro-Kind", A A J van Niekerk's " Boetie van Namaqualand", W Conradie's "Ondervindingen van een Jong Predikant in Namaqualand" - as well as a number of fairly rustic memoirs by people from all walks of life, from fishermen to farmers and shopkeepers; yet all contribute a little something to the overall picture.
What is a region without its own literature? There is a lovely word in Afrikaans for it - kontreistories, which could be loosely translated as 'country-tales'. Namaqualand is rich in those, but mainly in Afrikaans - to which we will return a little later. What, then, is the first novel to be published on the region. Anthony Trollope visited there in the 1870's - but his Namaqualand experiences seem to have left no permanent impression as the region gets only a fleeting mention in his work 'South Africa' published in 1878. That able writer, W C Scully, wrote several novels with a Northwest background. His most well-known is "Between Sun and Sand", which features trekboer life and the lonely existence of a young Jewish smous, or shopkeeper. Another of his novels is "Vendetta of the Desert", but both of these appeared only in the 1890's. No, it was a French novel, by none less than the master of science fiction Jules Verne, that had a setting in Namaqualand. His "Aventures de trois Russes et de trois Anglais dans l ' Afrique Australe" was published in Paris by Collection Hetzel in about 1872. The English translations followed from 1873 onwards under various titles like my copy " Adventures of three Russians and Three Englishmen in South Africa". His characters embark on an unlikely voyage of exploration by steam boat up the Orange River ( totally ignoring the Augrabies Falls, and meeting with a further series of unlikely adventures on their quest to Central Africa). John Galsworthy too has a connection with the region. His father was the Copper Company's solicitor, and John trekked round the region and even rode the copper train to Port Nolloth. He is reputed to have written a crime story set in the desert, but so far I have not been able to identify it - any help would be welcome. Galsworthy started the O'okiep library with works selected by himself in London, so it would only be right if one of the volumes there was his tribute to the desert. Except for a few minor, historical novels, juvenile adventure books and the like - that seems to be the sum total of English literature.
In the Afrikaans language we are absolutely spoiled for choice. The pithy Namaqualand Afrikaans idiom, as spoken by white and brown, combined with Cederberg, Sandveld, West Coast, and Bushmanland idioms and variations, are a pure delight. I must mention authors such as van Niekerk, von Wielligh, Suttner, Rossouw, Murray, Leipoldt, E Kotze & T Kotze, Joubert, Deist, Deacon, de Roubaix and Branca, among many more. These writers have done much to record the trials and tribulations of the rural people, the shepherds and goatherds, the tillers of the soil, the craftsmen and the crafty, the rich and the poor, the transport riders and the prospectors, the law-breakers and the lawmen. Even though some of the language used is so 'foreign' to city-dwellers' ears that it is almost unintelligible - and I would challenge some of the Afrikaans speakers here to translate a few choice pages from a book such a T Kotze's
"Latjiesboud en Horingsmanooi" - larded as they are with antiquated stock-farming terms and Nama words, yet they are part of a unique regional linguistic heritage, well worth treasuring.
As mentioned before, there are a number of charming children's books, some in English, but most in Afrikaans. G Sauerman's "Roep van die Riviervoels", Willem Steenkamp's "Namakwalandse Oustories", and several books by A A J van Niekerk are good examples of what is on offer.
Lastly, there is poetry. Yes, again W C Scully comes to the fore with several poems featuring his beloved Bushmanland. Unfortunately there was never a collection of verses dealing with the region only. The honour of having a book published containing that, must go to padre Henry Wigget of "West Coast Poems" fame.

I hope that this not so short presentation on the literature of the "wild west" has explained and shared with you my fascination with the region and my desire to amass a collection of its written work. For those of a practical bent - the northwest is ideal since the subject is reasonable in size and scope (my collection contains about 800 items, ranging from pamphlets to tomes). Although some of the earlier works are scarce and expensive, these are in the minority; many of the Afrikaans novels can still be picked up for a song at charity sales.
In conclusion, I would just like to express my wish that somewhere in Namaqualand, Cederberg, Bushmanland or on the West Coast, there was a library which had the facilities to house my collection, when I no longer need it, where it would be available to scholars and enthusiasts in future.

A Little Research can be a Dangerous Thing

Every now and then one is presented with a book that leads one down previously untrodden paths. So it was that a very tatty copy of Sir Ernest Dunlop Swinton's book, entitled Eyewitness, did not immediately invoke cries of delight from me, but my interest quickened when I saw the inscription on the front end-paper, 'to H. G. Wells, with the compliments of the author' etc. That alone would save it from the rubbish heap, if I had anything to do with it. However, the subtitle of the volume declared it to be personal reminiscences of the Great War, including the genesis of the tank - both subjects of almost complete indifference to me - so I thought it prudent to do a little research before trying to sell the book to the highest bidder and so on.
In these days of the web, it should be possible to find almost anything 'on-line', as they say, but this does require some expertise, which I do not profess to have acquired. It must have been by sheer dumb luck that somewhere round about the eleventh answer among many, offered by my web-crawler/spider, the magic phrase popped up "Papers and correspondence relating to Swinton's libel action brought against Herbert George (H G) Wells on the origin of the tank". This was merely the title of a file full of papers held by a military archive in the UK; so the information stopped right there, and no matter what I tried, I obviously lacked the credentials to enter the hallowed halls of military history. A few other avenues supplied some meagre facts, which at least enabled me to piece together a satisfactory description which tempted some clients to place their bids, and the item was subsequently sold.
Still, there was that unrequited curiosity, to really discover what had happened. Recently I had some spare time and decide to consult my oracle once more - but in different directions. To google is to emerge triumphant, or so the modern generation would say, while others swear that Wikipedia is king. In this case I have to acknowledge the worth of both. In less than an hour of earnest endeavour, much was revealed.
Major General Sir Ernest Swinton had the abovementioned book published in 1932. He describes his revelation to the art of tank warfare as follows: " ..within the last two weeks my vague idea of an armoured vehicle had definitely crystallized in the form of a power-driven, bullet-proof, armed engine, capable of destroying machine guns, of crossing country and trenches, of breaking through entanglements, and of climbing earthworks. But the difficulty was to find or evolve something which would fulfil these conditions - especially the last three. It was upon this that my mind was concentrated, straight ahead, in the clear morning air above the ground mist, came into view the phare(strait) of Calais. Like a beam from that same lighthouse the idea flashed across my brain - the American Caterpillar Tractor at Antwerp ! I recalled its reputed performance. If this agricultural machine could really do all that report credited it with, why should it not be modified and adapted to suit our present requirements for war? The key to the problem lay in the caterpillar track ! " He was possibly a little economical with sketching the part that the Royal Naval Air Service and a certain commodore were to play in the actual development of the idea, leading to some acrimony from the latter in the events that were to follow.
Of H. G. Wells there are but two mentions in the book. In it Sir Ernest admits to the following : " I was also shewn an old copy of the Strand Magazine of 1903, containing Mr. H. G. Wells' marvellous forecast - The Land Ironclads - in which immense armoured machines, propelled on the Pedrail system, were employed in land warfare. I had read this story when it first came out, but had looked upon it as a pure phantasy and had entirely forgotten it. The development of the internal-combustion engine seemed likely to bring about the realization on a less grandiose scale of Mr. Wells' dream." This was by way of an afterthought somewhere in the middle of the book.
All might have continued well if he had not become somewhat immoderately proud of his achievements. On the 15th of February 1940, Swinton made the public statement on air, during a BBC programme, that ' I put this idea forward and so the tank was conceived,' referring to caterpillar propulsion proposal put forward in 1914.
This was reported to H. G. Wells by some well-meaning person, and the rather irascible old writer dashed off a letter to The Listener, launching a vitriolic attack on Swinton, who was supposedly declaring himself as the inventor of an idea fully and explicitly described as early as 1903 by Wells in his work The Land Ironclads. As a coup de grace Wells added that Sir Ernest did not even fully understand the idea that he was 'lifting' from the author's earlier work.
So another puzzle raises its head. If the fateful statement was made in February, why was the book's inscription dated September 1940? Did Swinton try to appease Wells by presenting him with his entire genesis of the idea of tank warfare - did he think that when Wells saw that Swinton did, in fact give him 'honourable mention', he would desist or retract? In the book, the two quoted passages above are both highlighted with pencil in the margins, and one cannot help but wonder - was that Wells' hand, to emphasize the slight he felt, or Swinton's - a conciliatory and explanatory gesture? Or just a subsequent reader who knew the story?
Whichever, Wells had his head in a legal noose, even though he did not claim to be the inventor himself. His description of the 'ironclads' and the technology described, was neither clear nor practical. Wells' claim that Swinton did not understand the use of tanks was certainly defamatory. While Swinton's ideas on tank construction were in their infancy, but he had a conception of how useful they could be on the field of battle. The aged writer made a fool of himself and the libel suit brought by Swinton in 1941 was settled out of court, and Wells had to pay damages and costs.
All of which may have contributed to the rather derelict and unloved appearance of the book in question. It would not surprise me if H. G. had binned it in a fit of pique.

Bibliography:
Harris J. P, Men, Ideas, and Tanks, Manchester University Press 1995
Swinton, Major General Sir E. D, Eyewitness, Hodder & Stoughton 1932