HARBOURS OF MEMORY A book of personal experiences along South African and other romantic waterfronts, odd characters encountered by the author and the strange tales they told.

BY LAWRENCE G. GREEN Author of “On Wings of Fire”, “To the River’s End”, “Full Many a Glorious Morning” and other books on Africa FRONT COVER If you love the waterfront atmosphere these harbours of Lawrence Green’s memories will give you hours of enchantment. Readers of Lawrence Green’s previous books are aware that this experienced author shuns the well known stories and seeks the strange, weird and curious episodes that other writers have missed. His characters are not always respectable, he finds many of his people in bars and taverns, and their behaviour is often riotous and abandoned; hence every page is filled with unexpected and fascinating material. Most of these harbours are in Southern Africa. The book opens in Table Bay and there are tales of Simon’s Bay, Mossel Bay, Port Elizabeth, Port Alfred, East London, Port St. John’s and Durban. East African harbours form part of this rich narrative and there are meetings with magicians in North Africa. Two of the most vivid chapters in the book deal with Gibraltar and Marseilles. Lawrence Green has a way of passing on to his readers his own enjoyment of life’s pleasures and surprises. You will remember these adventures, including the wine and food. CONTENTS 1 The Road to the Harbour 2 Jaggery and Tamarinds 3 Skeleton Harbour 4 Old Naval Base 5 Harbours on the Veld 6 Aloes and Oysters 7 Bay of Lost Cargoes 8 By Wagon to the Kowie 9 River Harbour 10 The Wild Coast 11 Point Road 12 Ports of the Portuguese 13 Haven of Peace 14 Rum Harbour 15 Harbours on the Nile 16 Suez Magic 17 Gibraltar 18 Cous-Cous and Cobras 19 Gateway to Africa 20 London’s Dockland have vanished for ever. Most of the seamen’s canteens and saloons have gone, too, but there are times when the voices and the music I heard in the sailortown of my youth come back to my ears. I find myself dreaming my way through the centuries in that atmosphere while Neptune’s heroes stream past the dock gates to slake their thirsts as they have always done CHAPTER ONE in the taverns of Cape Town. THE ROAD TO THE HARBOUR Table Bay washed the fringe of the Dock Road at the turn of the century DOCK ROAD was a roaring waterfront and long afterwards. That old water- very close to Table Bay early this front from the Castle to Mouille Point century when I first passed over the had not changed much since the cobblestones bound for the harbour. Dutch departed. The town between Sailormen all seemed to be going in its frontiers of Buitengracht and the opposite direction, heading for the Buitenkant still held many buildings thousand delights of the land. I can designed and adorned by master still see a ghostly panorama of sailing craftsmen long ago and a little of the ships off the broad thoroughfare of beauty remains to this day. Granite Dock Road, square-rigged ships that cobblestones that came from Scandi- wooden jetties where coasters landed navia as ballast in timber-laden their cargoes. Little factories and the sailing ships are still there, too, and I shops of all sorts of craftsmen only wish that other relics had flourished there. Brewing is left to proved indestructible. However, I the financial giants nowadays but the have my own memories and the tales inspiring aroma of beer came from I heard from bygone seafarers and many small premises early this observant characters of the old har- century. If you had barley, hops and bour. the right sort of water, mash tuns, copper dome, coolers and casks, you Cape Town lost the sea and many could go into business. Those old waterfront buildings between the brewers made brown ales, bitter and wars of this century. I met old citi- mild beers with their own distinctive zens who could remember the storm- colours, strengths and flavours, lashed waters of Table Bay beating differing one from another like the against the Castle walls. Not so long wines of various estates. One of the ago the sea almost reached Garlick’s large breweries stood almost on the store and in that area you could smell sands of Woodstock beach. Every the fresh tang of seaweed on the member of the staff had a glass on rocks at low spring tides. House- his desk and two bottles of ale were wives walked down to Rogge Bay supplied free every day. Some and bought line fish for their ordered more and got it. Martienssen luncheons. Townsfolk strolled on of “tickey beer” fame had a brewery them go and unleashed the fox- in Queen Victoria Street, of all terriers; a fierce sport that no longer places. Stott brewed at Green Point disturbs the sedate city of today. “to avoid the noxious vapours of the Shipwrecked sailors and other city”. Malay coopers passed on their mariners have had a home near Dock secrets to their sons, using their eyes Road for more than a century; and as they planned the curves of there, as a young reporter, I listened to wholesome hand-made casks. I their adventures, the tales of men who watched their descendants still at had faced the ordeals of the sea work in recent years under aged unafraid. Along the waterfront their vines in the Somerset Road yards. language was fearful, their behaviour riotous and abandoned. How well the Along the Dock Road or in the landlords in the harbour area knew seafaring streets leading out of it there their customers! Every seafaring were not only brewers and wine nation had its own favourite bar; sea- merchants but cigar makers and men from all the ports of the British pawnbrokers, fish curers, ship Isles, from Norway and Portugal, chandlers and consuls. Drysdale the could toast the barmaids in their own diver had a shed in Dock Road language and feel at home as long as towards the end of the last century, their money lasted. close to the fish jetty and Kamp’s ice factory. Stable boys at Attwell’s Billy Biddlecombe catered for blue- bakery caught rats in cages, then let jackets at the Royal Navy Hotel while Germans from the Woermann steam- engraved mirrors reflected the colours ers went to the Hansa or the Hamburg. of the bottles; walls were covered with Union-Castle firemen paraded Bree flowered paper; doors and windows Street with bands and pantomime were decorated with the proud elephants made of canvas, raising symbols of the liquor trade, from money for drinks at the Fireman’s sheaves of barley to vine leaves. Arms. There was the Cambrian for Some places went in for stained glass, Welsh sailors who came from Cardiff so that the drinks, the polished copper in full-riggers loaded with coal. Irish measures, the porcelain and brass beer shellbacks rolled joyfully in and out of pulls, the lamps - and the customers - McCullie’s pub the Limerick, or made up a kaleidoscope worthy of the Murphy’s renowned Ship Hotel. An brush of a Hogarth. But against this Italian named Dimaio welcomed conventional background there were fellow-countrymen at the Sicilia in all sorts of curios and oddities Riebeek Street, while the Queen’s at gathered at the ends of the earth and the dock gates entertained all the sea- presented to attractive barmaids by faring nations as it does to this day. Of seafaring admirers. You could find course the bars, canteens, inns and anything from a Mexican stone idol to taverns of this quarter were all cosmo- Japanese netsukes in those waterfront politan, but each one had its own pubs. Murphy of the Ship Hotel went strong personality. The atmosphere in in for small panoramas, forerunners of most was Victorian. Splendid the cinema. He also had peep-shows; seamen dropped their coppers into the hands with Mick Sheehan and then say box and were a little disappointed decisively: “You red-headed old rat - I when they stared at Queen Victoria’s don’t want to speak to you”. At that coronation with all the peers and horse-drawn period Koko had great bishops in perspective. Battles were fun stopping hansam-cabs and other better and execution scenes best of all. vehicles outside the Star with a loud and authoritative “Whoa!” Drivers Parrots were kept in a number of pubs; shouted back and their angry remarks Amazonian parrots with exquisite added to Koko’s vocabulary. Koko green feathers touched with rose; endeared himself to customers by African grey parrots with red tails and calling to the Cockney barmaid: “Let long-tailed Macaws. African greys yer ‘hand tremble Liz - give the gent a were the most amusing talkers and proper tot fer ‘is money.” And Mick Sheehan of the Star Hotel in business often picked up during a dull Waterkant Street owned one that was evening when Koko shouted supposed to have come to the Cape in persuasively: “Hany horders ? Give a man-o’war early last century. This yer horders fer the love o’ Mike”. bald parrot Koko looked the part However, there was a rival in the same though its longevity was probably street at the Table Bay Hotel owned by exaggerated. “Give the fellow a George de Lacy. This old parrot made groat”, Koko often remarked, clear clicking sounds in time with the piano proof that it had lived in the days of and danced on its perch. When a dog that departed coin. Koko would shake or cat appeared it snarled: “Get out her health in ports as far apart as you brute!” It would lie on its back at Bombay and Valparaiso. Trixie main- a word from George de Lacy and tained law and order with a wink and a pretend to be dead. Then, raising its gesture; she never had to call a head, the parrot would announce policeman. gravely: “Trixie drinks like a fish.” In those days before darts and radio Trixie, barmaid at the Great Eastern in every enterprising publican tried to Bree Street, was a large but shapely provide something to accompany the woman who had spent years at sea as a unfailing charm of liquor. Teutonic stewardess. She understood sailors, hosts like Dolfie Scharfscheer ran she had a philosophy of life and a deep proper beer halls with alcoves for knowledge of the trinkets and odd- secretive parties and counters laden ments brought in by customers. Trixie with sausages, pickled herrings and could value sapphires and moonstones sauerkraut. Dolfie had an impressive from Ceylon, ivory and jade, carved German fork beard and flowing teak, scarabs from Port Said, bead moustache; and when he handled the necklaces, gold and silver filigree and beer engine and served the heady Kashmir shawls. If the customer was Munich beer with his wife playing a thirsty but penniless Trixie gave credit waltz at the piano a breath of Bavaria or accepted a piece of amber, a prayer drifted out on to the Table Bay rug, or a cameo from Naples. Seamen waterfront. Short drinks such as a admired the shrewd Trixie and drank glass of beer, sherry or hock cost a tickey at the turn of the century. Pale Jacob Watermeyer, a Strand Street ale came from England in hogsheads, ship chandler, was the far-sighted but that cost more. Hungry seamen business man who transformed the paid sixpence for pea soup or fish, a curry and rice dishes of Cape Town. shilling for roast beef or steak. Many This remarkable episode brought him generous hosts provided bread, cheese and his assistant a fortune. The and pickles free of charge. A favourite master of a British sailing ship owed meal in many harbour taverns Watermeyer money for stores and he consisted of a plate of mulligatawny departed without paying the bill. soup followed by sosaties and rice, Next time he called, however, the curried fragments of mutton on bam- honest captain entered Watermeyer’s boo skewers. This cost one shilling shop and announced: “I still can’t and sixpence, including a glass of pay, but if you care to come down on wine. board my ship I will show you something valuable.” Watermeyer Curries of various sorts were and his assistant lunched in the favourite everyday meals in the saloon and were given the finest seafaring quarter. If you passed curry they had ever tasted. After down Waterkant or Bree Street lunch the captain handed them a list between certain hours there were of ingredients and showed them how such pungent aromas of chillies and to mix the curry powder which had garlic, mustard oil and onions, that made the lunch memorable. I do not you might have been in Calcutta. pretend to know the exact amount of rious stimulating quality to a thick turmeric, ginger, chillies and other stew. People glowed and perspired spices that went into the powder; it and declared that Watermeyer’s was a secret recipe. No one could say curry powder made them feel cool in that it was dominated by this or that the heat of summer. The assistant condiment. It was a true blend, and married Watermeyer’s daughter and compared with the other curry inherited the secret. He built a store powders of the period it seemed to in Adderley Street far more ornate have an almost magical effect on than the little ship chandler’s shop soups, pumpkin, beans, crawfish or down on the waterfront. The store snoek, eggs, chicken and meats. The has gone but the curry powder captain revealed to Watermeyer the survives and is still mixed just as that whole secret process and gave him a forgotten sea captain showed Jacob sealed barrel of the curry powder. Watermeyer in the Indiaman’s saloon Watermeyer cancelled the debt, three more than a century ago. hundred pounds, a substantial Few old people record their memo- amount to write off in those golden ries and I was lucky to hear the curry days. He put the curry powder on the saga before the origin was lost. market in tins and Cape Town When an interesting person dies a flocked to his store to buy more. whole page of the past is torn away. I Here was a powder with just the right am grateful to those who spoke to me bite. It gave a rich, almost myste- and left their most vivid impressions for me to pass on. Such a man was night with interminable throbbing Mr. W. H. Hinton, a railway pioneer. Khalifa sessions. On their high He knew Table Bay in the fifties of stoeps the citizens took their ease last century, before the breakwater and drank their wine; and there were was built. He saw the English unkind visitors who said they would navvies coming on shore in their rather drink than eat. When the mail sleeved waistcoats, moleskin or steamer arrived from England she corduroy trousers and heavy boots to fired two guns; the Castle replied and lay the first railway line. everyone hurried down to the Central Wharf to hear the news. Only when Cape Town ended at the early the newspapers were landed did Cape morning market. Papendorp, with its Town learn of the assassination of fishermen’s cottages, had not yet President Lincoln and other great become Woodstock. London omni- events. buses served the suburbs. Salt River had only one house, Mrs. Slabbert’s Hinton saw troops embarking for homestead. Hinton went to a dance Algoa Bay in a wooden man-o’-war there, in the forage loft, with a with paddle-wheels. He watched concertina and violin orchestra. He captured slaving vessels brought into said Cape Town was a late town at Table Bay by the navy; seventy-foot that period. Youths paraded the Arab dhows from East African waterfront with guitars and banjos waters and Portuguese brigs from and the Malays kept people awake at Angola. Slaves were housed at a “negro station” at Papendorp and the door in this building where he sometimes they escaped into the had stood shovelling refuse into interior, vainly seeking a way home Table Bay. So many sand sharks overland. “Prize negroes”, as the gathered for the feast. that they slaves were called, were apprenticed called the place Haaibaai. Now the to farmers. Slave ships were put up shambles has been demolished and to auction with their cargoes. In this the nearest sea is more than twelve way many useful craft found new hundred yards from Wharf Square. owners in Cape Town and many Perhaps you remember the Protea cargoes of silk and cigars, tea and Bar, part of the old Cape Town coffee, were purchased by the shops. station, a bar noted for its tickey Leopards were still visiting the sherry rather than for a clientele of shambles at the foot of Adderley connoisseurs. This bar stood over Street in search of offal when Hinton Van Riebeeck’s first reservoir, built was a boy. Wharf Square, outside the to hold the water from the mountain old main line railway station, was stream. Steps led down to the beach close to the wharf. The slaughter where sailors waited to lift the water house, built long before the station, barrels into the boats. They needed supplied meat to troops bound for the water, but I think they would India before the Suez Canal was rather have had the powerful sherry built. Shortly after World War II an of later years. aged coloured man showed officials Hinton was present when the corner- figure along the Table Bay water- stone of a great waterfront landmark front. was laid. He saw Sir George Grey British officers and civil servants from the Governor, pouring oil and wine India, officials of the Honourable East on the masonry that became a India Company and others, were still massive building with seven castell- visiting Cape Town during Hinton’s ated towers. Grey wanted a building youth. They regarded the Cape as a as magnificent as the Castle and so great sanatorium after years of ill- he chose a hospital design which health in the East. They came in might have been mistaken for an sailing ships with their horses, their Elizabethan palace. Newcomers carriages and Indian coachmen in arriving by sea still gaze in wonder turbans and white muslin; and often on the grand old-fashioned façade of there were two thousand of them his New Somerset Hospital. This is a spending their rupees generously in monument not only to an able gover- the Cape Peninsula during the late nor but also to the naval surgeon Dr. summer. People called them Samuel Bailey, founder of the origi- “Hindoos” but it was an affectionate nal Somerset Hospital and still in nickname. They brought new life as practice when the New Somerset was well as money to the town. Some of built. Bailey served in H.M.S. Vic- their favourite Indian recipes are tory at Trafalgar, a man of many followed by Cape Town cooks today. adventures, certainly a memorable They also left us Indian names, words and phrases. When the Suez Canal that two “turret ships” had capsized. opened they departed. Most of them Two of the Clan Line vessels of this never returned, but there were some design were lost on the coast of the who saw the Cape again because they Cape Peninsula, but not because of the had married girls they met in Wynberg unusual design. Those old “turret and Constantia. ships” brought many heavy cargoes into Table Bay, railway material and Martin Leendertz, a waterfront report- other “Glasgow jewellery”. The small er who passed on a few years ago, boys of Cape Town were more spoke to me of the Norwegian barques concerned about the arrival of a ship with square sterns that carried timber called the Crown of Aragon, which from Scandinavia. They were unsink- came in from Shanghai every year in able but they leaked badly, so they good time for November the Fifth with were fitted with windmill pumps to her cargo of fireworks. empty their bilges without the usual back-breaking labour. This was also I asked Martin Leendertz to describe the hey-day of the “turret ships”, those the waterfront aromas of his day and peculiar steamers with narrow upper- he replied at once: “Fish drying on the decks and full bellies designed to beaches, bales of snoek, piles of defeat the Suez Canal charges based rubbish, seaweed and ozone, open on deck measurements. Some master drains and malodorous steegs - and the mariners regarded them as fine ships scent of pines as an occasional relief.” in heavy weather; others pointed out He said the south-easters and the winter rains saved Cape Town from where are the old houses? Stately disaster. mansions with massive walls and lofty rooms stood side by side, lovely Electric street lamps were switched on homes with small-paned windows and in Cape Town before the end of last warm tints in. their rooms. Town century, but the waterfront bars clung houses always had stoeps, often five to hanging lanterns or gaslight for feet above road level, stoeps with years. Carbon filament lamps were basements where the slaves once lived. unpopular; they were not bright Holland saw the creation of the stoep enough and electricity was expensive. for the Dutch raised their floor levels However, the harbour area was several feet to allow windows in their illuminated by harsh electric arc basement rooms. Holland sent hun- lamps. They burnt steadily without dreds of thousands of handsome bricks sputtering and showed many an called klompjes to decorate the Cape unsteady seaman the way to his stoeps; bricks that weathered and gangplank. Candlemakers were among became a rich golden yellow. Cape the first to suffer from the advance of Town enjoyed the open-air stoep life electricity, and few of the small crafts- but these obstructions in every street men of last century have survived. In became a nuisance. Yet the old Cape the streets near the harbour sixty years Town houses would have lost much of ago there were blacksmiths and their beauty without the flight of steps saddlers, tallow-chandlers, carpenters, and the raised floor running the whole sailmakers and shoemakers. And length of the façade with benches at the merchants in Cape Town’s sea- each end. Those were the days of faring streets were much smaller dwel- Mauritius teak and Knysna stinkwood lings with a charm of their own. These beams, heavy carved doors, pediments were the single storeyed homes of with decorated panels, gables with artisans and others, a central door sweeping scrolls, slates from Robben flanked with a window on each side, Island, reeds from the Liesbeek river, often with a Malay parapet and flat wrought-iron and. brass railings, iron roof in obedience to the fire laws. and brass lanterns worked into fanlight Whale oil and molasses made the roof designs, dark and cool dining halls, waterproof, a fitting mixture for a trellised vines in the courtyards and seaport. pomegranate trees twisted with age. Once the cooks of waterside Cape Some of the ancient vines are still Town were able to hear the breaking yielding mellow crystal grapes and of the seas as they lifted their nostrils dwarf fig trees still give their fruit. to a salt tang that mingled with the Most picturesque of all adornments to kitchen aromas. You can still find the façades of large houses near Table some of those old kitchens. Fireplaces Bay was the dak-kamer. The purpose were ten feet wide and there was a of this roof-room is controversial but I raised brick hearth and hooks for the cling to the belief that it was intended burnished pots. A flue was built into to give the owner a view of the the chimney for curing bacon with the shipping. Among the fine houses of smoke of dried mealie-cobs. Water spouted from an ornamental tap in the the huisvrou of other days, a faint shape of a copper dolphin. Sheets of reflection of hooped skirts in the glass. brass hung on the walls to protect the Some of the old tavern names remain, lime-washed surface. On the shelves but the buildings, the bars and the were lacquer boxes of spices, blue people have been transformed by the earthenware Flemish jars for pickled wand of respectability. The waterfront fish, oriental stone jars for holding resorts were not all romantic but they pickles and ginger, flagons with held in their strong fumes the true flavouring essences. They needed breath of adventure. I wish that I could many servants and they had them. listen now to the conversation in the When you stand on the stone flags Queen of the South, the Dolphin or the (once polished daily with wax and ox- Limerick during some long-forgotten blood) the scene returns. Dark, bare- evening when the old sailor men came footed girls bustle round the tart-pans. up the road from the harbour to find Joints sizzle over the coals. From the release from the great wealth of oven comes a whiff of bobotie, from a memory. stewpan a ravishing promise of curried chicken, while the vark-karmenaadjies crackle on the grill. Look through the windows of lilac or pale-green panes from Holland and you may imagine CHAPTER TWO ing speculatively at a hansom named JAGGERY AND TAMARINDS “Liffey” when a lyric brogue fell on my ears. “Sure sorr an’ ye’ve an eye HORSES still dominated the road to the for a horse - there aren’t many left like harbour for two or three decades this you sorr,” came the flattering words. century. Strong wagon horses with “Is it to the docks ye’re going sorr?” I shaggy hooves drew the cargoes from was looking at the wheels, not the every wharf at Table Bay Docks and horse; the iron-shod wheels that mule carts hauled coal round the port. promised a bumpy ride. However, the Good light horses were owned by blarney was irresistible and I jolted hansom cab drivers and those who over the cobblestones in the Irish cab. favoured victorias and growlers, broughams and other romantic four- When the first hansoms reached Table wheelers of that graceful era. The Bay Docks from London in the middle sounds of the world of horses never of last century they brought with them jarred on people like the abominable the reputation of being fast and disre- motor-car. putable. This was never shaken off. They were decorated with names and Most of the hansoms were in charge of peculiar emblems which took the place Malays wearing the pointed straw of armorial bearings, but Cape Town pagoda hats but long ago there were changed the names and the designs. also a number of Irish drivers. I was “My Sweetheart” and “Forget-me- bound for the docks one day and look- Not” became “Flying Dutchman” and “Lismore Castle”. Hansoms were for for one shilling early this century. short journeys without heavy luggage, You could pay by the hour, half-a- of course, as there was little room crown. Cheap enough, but disputes inside or out. They were dashing were frequent, with the driver vehicles with poor brakes. When the shouting angrily through a little trap- horse fell the passenger was thrown door in the roof of the cab. off his seat on to the glass doors. No Cape Town’s vast horse-drawn lady rode unescorted in a hansom. traffic kept a vanished army of Four-seater hansoms were known as craftsmen at work. Wheelwrights “parlour” models, two passengers made spokes and rims by eye. Some sitting on each side; but few of these of the paintwork was exquisite and were seen in Cape Town. Rubber undercarriages were given curves tyres were first fitted towards the end and scrolls of real beauty. You saw of last century and then the hansom elegant cane panels, lamps of frosted drivers hung bells on the collars of glass, fine leather fittings and their horses. Certainly the jingle was upholstery. All this gave scope for more pleasant than the noise of iron individual skill and ideas for there tyres but there were old fashioned or was no mass production in the parsimonious drivers who preferred carriage trade. It was a gay world of metal to rubber. Hence the blarney. polished brass and happy clattering However, a hansom carried two horses, the honest smell of harness people from the station to the docks and the sweat of horses. A few wheelwrights and other craftsmen copy the list of shipping arrivals and were still using their old tools after departures and gather any news that the middle of this century. Reliable was offering. I returned to town by drivers are vanishing, however, and train, called at the meteorological never again shall I hear an Irish office for the unreliable weather voice assuring me (with the greatest forecast and then walked to Caledon possible inaccuracy) that I have an Square for the real work of the day, eye for a horse. the police courts. Crime had its interesting episodes but I would rather Hansom cabs and taxis were for have spent the whole day at the docks. emergencies when I was a young reporter and I often took the little Of course I had known Table Bay train from Monument station to Docks, every corner of the docks, for Table Bay Docks. They called it the years before I became a reporter. No “Dolly” for no known reason. The one thought of putting guards at the fare was fourpence. Native dock gangway and so I was able to walk on labourers had their own train, the board all manner of unusual and “Bombela”, a fearsome cavalcade of adventurous craft. I was also fortunate dingy coaches drawn by such an in meeting friendly waterfront ancient engine that one almost characters who helped me to peer expected to see William Dabbs on through those strange doorways which the foot-plate. “Dolly” landed me open into the world of seamen, ships near the port office, where I had to and the wide oceans. They shared their experiences with me so that I could and many a shilling I handed him out look back on long-departed vessels, of my pocket-money for the joy of large and small; unknown and pulling a dinghy round the ships in the unrecorded sea dramas were played bay. “Young Bob” told me about a out again; I could almost hear the crimp named Charlie Mitchell who voices and feel the lash of the salt had a place in Mechau Street where spray. I came to know the cafe near sailors were entertained generously the port office where Ma Rees kept a and shipped away senseless with a cow in the bathroom; and I voyaged “donkey’s breakfast” and a bottle of with young David Wasserfall the dop. Charlie cashed the advance note, ferryman from the port office to the three pounds for an able seaman. Yes, clock tower without ever realising that there were all sorts of sharks in human this hard-working oarsman would still form along the old waterfront. “Young be rowing the same boat nearly half a Bob” said his greatest shock came century later. when a young woman hired a boat and asked him to row out into the bay. He Among my first waterfront friends was turned his head and when he looked “Young Bob” Stephens, son of “Old back she had vanished. Piet Fourie of Bob” the boatbuilder. “Old Bob” the harbour police recovered the body brought his family to the Cape from some days later. She had loaded her Sydney in 1900 and set up in business. clothes with lead so that she went He hired out pleasure boats from the Central Jetty and later from the Pier; straight down when she dropped over from a brass blunderbuss. That old the stern. trade was coming to an end. I missed the Josephine but some years later I Another waterfront friend spoke of saw the last of all the sailing memorable craft that called before whalers, the Canton. She was a my time. He saw the New Bedford barque, built at Swansea in 1835, whaler Josephine sail in after a South wrecked in 1909, not long after Atlantic cruise that had lasted four- leaving Table Bay. There were many teen months. All about her rose the venerable ships in those days, and pungent odour of sperm oil. She was their timber lasted much longer than manned by Cape Verde islanders, the modern steel. Portuguese, negroes and half-castes, with American master and mates. My World voyages in small craft were friend had a meal in the galley; it rare early this century. A few years was unexpectedly good, a rich after the pioneer Joshua Slocum mutton stew with potatoes and hunks called at Table Bay in the Spray there of bread. They had called at Tristan came a nine-ton ketch that circled for meat and vegetables, and that half the globe without any publicity explained the fresh mutton. The at all. She was the Brighton, bound captain had his wife with him; it was from Brighton, England, to Broome strange to find a woman on board a in Western Australia on a pearling whaler. They hunted the sperm in venture. The Brighton was manned open boats and fired their harpoons by two men and a twelve-year-old boy Antonio who had stowed away from Table Bay, consisted of tinned under a heap of sails when the ketch mutton and pudding. If they had not called at the Cape Verde islands. caught flying fish they might have Skipper A. L. Napper had previously starved. After taking on provisions and commanded a millionaire’s yacht, water the adventurers sailed away to the Vanderbilt turbine-engined Australia across the stormiest ocean in Tarantula. During the passage of ten the world. thousand miles they had watched a Another yacht that aroused great whale fighting a swordfish and two interest was a large vessel, the thresher sharks. The sharks killed the Pandora. As H.M.S. Newport, a whale. Another whale menaced the gunboat in the Royal Navy, she had little Brighton, diving under her been present at the Suez Canal open- repeatedly, so Napper brought his ing ceremony. Then she had surveyed rifle on deck and put a bullet in the routes in the Arctic and the Straits of head. Their pet spaniel Nelson went Magellan. An adventurer named T. C. mad and was lost overboard. In a Kerry bought her in the hope of northerly gale the decks were swept, making a fortune in some mysterious the rudder was damaged and they had way. He was bound for New Guinea. I to use the sea anchor and oilbags. never heard of the Brighton or the Steering difficulties delayed them for Pandora again, but I often wondered. so long that they ran short of food. I suppose there is no one now who can Christmas dinner, five hundred miles tell me the true story of the American three-masted schooner that entered railways and went sailing in her. He Table Bay during my schooldays and sailed the little yacht up to German anchored far out. She had no South West Africa and made so much communication with the port authori- money that he was able to buy the ties; but “Young Bob” rowed out and fifty-ton steamer Magnet. I have told spoke to the visitors. He said they Wearin’s story elsewhere,1 but there belonged to some weird religious sect was one famous episode which I and were bound for Patagonia to start have not related before. It was in a settlement. However, they had been January 1914 that Wearin was blown off their course and had fetched suddenly asked by Colonel F. H. P. up in Table Bay. Did they ever reach Creswell (then leader of the Labour their destination? Party) and Advocate Lucas whether he could take the Magnet to sea “Old Bob” Stephens was a fine yacht- immediately on a mission which they builder. Among his customers was a would disclose after they had left the fellow Australian named Edward docks. Wearin was tempted by the Wearin, a railwayman with a deep amount offered for the charter but love of the sea. “Old Bob” built the pointed out that the boilers were cold Advance for Wearin; a yacht rather and a scratch crew would have to be like the scow types that raced in Sydney harbour at that time. She was only twenty-two feet overall, but 1 In my book “At Daybreak for the Isles”, seaworthy. Ted Wearin left the published by Timmins, found. However, the ship got away order. Few ships carried wireless in within a few hours at eleven that those days. Creswell failed to secure night and Creswell gave Wearin his a government tug and Wearin’s orders. Magnet was the only available ship. In spite of all the difficulties the plan Wearin was to intercept the S. S. might have succeeded but the train. Umgeni outside Table Bay and bring bringing Lucas to Cape Town arrived back a group of Rand strike leaders late. Wearin steered westwards at who had been deported by General full speed and sighted the Umgeni but Smuts. Creswell had secured a court he was unable to overtake her. A order, an injunction for the deportees daring and ingenious plan had failed. to be released on bail. Meanwhile the If only Wearin had been able to leave Umgeni had sailed from Durban Table Bay Docks two hours earlier secretly with the whole passenger he would have intercepted the accommodation booked for the Umgeni. However, the episode did deportees. She was bound for not influence the course of history to London direct but when she passed any extent for all the deportees the Agulhas light her master signall- returned to South Africa after a free ed: “All well.” By this time the if compulsory trip to England. action by Smuts had been published “Young Bob”, who often sailed with and Creswell thought it would be Wearin, told me that the Magnet possible to meet the Umgeni at sea and present the captain with the court earned more that day than she Strange, romantic and mysterious usually made as a sealer. craft entered Table Bay in the early years of the century. They were Forgotten adventures! The Kinfauns under observation, whether they Castle came into Table Bay early in knew it or not, and there are one or 1914 with a strange tale. About a two secrets which I can now reveal. hundred small fishing craft had been Some ships departed with their blown out to sea by a West African stories untold, leaving my burning tornado and the few ships equipped curiosity unsatisfied. For years a man with wireless at that time were asked with the eyes of a seaman and the to keep a sharp look-out for them. bearing of a soldier wandered about More than three hundred lives were the docks with a small camera. His saved by this early use of radio. A name was Jones and I have some of cable ship searched the ocean for six his faded photographs before me. He days and rescued a number of thirsty, showed great interest in the starving men. A seaman in the experiences of all sorts of seafarers; crow’s nest of the Kinfauns Castle but few of those who spoke to him noticed a tiny speck on the ocean. It realised that they were talking to a was a canoe with two negroes lying naval intelligence officer, later Lt.- unconscious under a white cloth. Colonel H. L. Jones of the Royal They soon recovered, and told the Marines. He loved his work and had captain that two steamers had passed a special regard for the men who by and left them to their fate. sailed to German South West Africa Colonel Jones told me that he in little coasters. Among them was a became uncrowned King of Table drunken but amusing skipper named Bay Docks when war was declared in Anderson, owner and master of a 1914, and he ruled his domain from lovely white three-masted barquen- the Clock Tower. One noteworthy tine. This vessel had been the British episode, remembered all too vividly yacht Sunrise (not to be confused by those who were there, was the with Lord Brassey’s famous Sun- arrival of the Italian barque Mincio beam). Then she had been renamed towed by two Norwegian whalers. Yves de Kerguelen after the discover- The Mincio, an iron ship of 1739 er of the French sub-Antarctic island. tons, built in 1877, was two hundred She made several voyages to and fifty feet long with a beam of Kerguelen under the French flag; thirty-eight feet. (Note those dimen- then Anderson bought her and sions, for they have a direct bearing changed the name to Isles of on the story.) Launched as the Kerguelen. He used to sail her to Cleomene, she had been sold to Walvis Bay and in the course of his Italian owners and she had called at legitimate business he gathered Luderitzbucht for provisions a few information about German activities days before the declaration of war. along the coast. All this he passed on War came and the Germans did not to Jones. know what to do with more than two thousand Cape coloured labourers who had been working on the dia- disease was suspected. The Germans mond fields. They sent two hundred placed the ship in quarantine, disin- of them to Table Bay in the German fected her and kept the sick men coaster Bismarck, but nearly two under arrest on shore. Meanwhile the thousand remained. When the Mincio coloured labourers were still at work anchored off Luderitzbucht the on the Kolmanskop diamond fields. Germans informed her captain that Luderitzbucht was abandoned by the they would sell him provisions only German forces and civilians, stores on condition that he carried away the were taken up-country, the railway unwanted labourers. The captain for- line was dismantled. German esaw the frightful and dangerous officials of the diamond company conditions which would be caused by read out faked messages to the so many passengers and pointed out coloured men; they were told that the that his crew would be unable to German army had entered Paris and handle the sails with such a crowd on that the British fleet had been sunk. deck. “You refuse? Then you cannot Then they were asked to volunteer have food or water,” replied the for service as transport-riders with German harbourmaster. the Germans in South West Africa, but very few responded. So the Mincio remained at anchor while her captain grappled with his At this period of crisis two Norwe- insoluble problem. Some of his men gian whalers steamed in and asked for fell ill and some communicable coal. They were told they could have the coal provided they towed the impossible to serve proper food during Mincio to Table Bay. The Italian the passage to Table Bay but the agreed to this plan and all non-German Italian cook handed out mealie meal subjects were asked to leave Luderitz- and rice at intervals. In spite of the bucht in the sailing ship. White people hardships only one man died during had to pay five pounds a head, the six days at sea. He was sewn up in coloured labourers three pounds; and canvas and put over the side early one every passenger had to buy food morning. before embarking. “Sleep where you Colonel Jones told me he looked out can,” the unhappy passengers were of the Clock Tower window when the told when they went on board the Mincio was towed into Table Bay Mincio. For most of them sleep was Docks and it seemed to the astonished out of the question. Mr. G. K. Forbes, onlookers that the ship was crawling a British passenger, and twenty-eight with ants. No one had ever set eyes on other white people were given shelter, such a human cargo before. As she but the coloured men were huddled in passed between the Clock Tower and every corner of the open deck. There port office an appalling stench smote were eighteen hundred and ninety-one the whole area. Colonel Jones noticed of them standing and lying down in that the ship was listing to starboard as turn, and with only the most she approached the West Quay. “She elementary sanitation. The Mincio was had hardly touched the fenders when crowded like a slaver. It was nearly two thousand labourers jumped on shore and raced for the dock gates,” had the Mincio towed into the bay declared Colonel Jones. “I have never immediately. seen anything so funny in my life. Cape Town banks were invaded by They poured through the gates into hopeful coloured labourers who Dock Road without taking the slightest presented the wages they had received notice of the helpless officials. After from the diamond companies in the horrors of the Mincio they just German paper marks. Not a penny wanted to get home.” would anyone give them. The “Cape There were sequels to this most Argus” suggested that wealthy sensational arrival Table Bay Docks Germans who had not yet been had ever witnessed. Colonel Jones interned might consider redeeming the found that he could not work in the paper money of their Fatherland. Clock Tower owing to the smell from There was no response. A coloured the Mincio, so he and Captain “Bully” labourer named Jack Johnson was Leigh, the port captain, paid an official charged with stealing worthless notes visit. They got no further than the from his comrades during the voyage gangway. Her upper deck was a foot but the magistrate decided that he had deep in every sort of filth, but the no jurisdiction over a foreign ship captain of the Mincio remarked: “I am outside the three-mile limit. William quite happy - why should you worry?” Small, an American negro who had Captain Leigh exploded at this and been serving in the Mincio, complained to the American Consul that the Germans had given him cushtaes; bales of salempores, the twenty-five lashes in Luderitzbucht cotton fabrics known as baftahs and gaol after he had been knifed in the carridaries; strong towels called stomach in a fo’c’stle brawl. He went humhums; Calcutta silk loonghees and to hospital. And to the relief of paunch mats. She had the coarse everyone at Table Bay Docks the brown sugar called jaggery on board; Mincio sailed in ballast for the Gulf of gunny bags of mirabolines like acorns; Mexico without putting her nose into casks of tamarinds and bales of the harbour again. madder, the root that yields a brilliant red dye. Were the cargoes handled at Table Bay Docks more romantic in the days Zanzibar sent beeswax in beer of my youth? I set eyes on strange hogsheads. There were bales of bales and cases, and there always cinnamon and chests of cloves, coffee seemed to be a friendly stevedore at in casks. Bags of pepper arrived, too, hand to explain the names to an eager stowed away from all other edible schoolboy. I saw dragon’s blood from cargo so that the aroma would not Japan, the resin used as a medicine; spoil more delicate flavours. Dates camphor and cassia-buds, aniseed oil came in cases and barrels. Tea ship- and musk. Once there was a barque ments bore marks such as “Gun- from India with a manifest that called powder”, “Hyson” and “Pekoe”. for an interpreter; she had piece-goods Western Province wheat was loaded such as palampores, doosooties and for Mauritius, a treacherous cargo that shifted at sea if it was not stowed carefully. You could find barrels of anchovies, kegs of sturgeon, Irish hams in casks, puncheons of rum. Palm kernels sometimes proclaimed their presence by an odour that made the stevedores giddy. Rice was another dangerous cargo in old-fashioned ships; it heated the hold like an oven. Yes, I studied commerce and geography in my own way when I was a schoolboy. Table Bay Docks, the small harbour of those days, taught me to recognise everything from copra to whangee canes. up into the sunlight and I tried to guess how they had died. Professor M. R. Drennan the anatomist made a collection of skulls found by chance. Oldest of all were the Strandlopers who roamed the Table Bay beaches long before Van Riebeeck’s arrival. The banks of the Salt River yielded skulls of many South African native races and the CHAPTER THREE professor could not explain. why so SKELETON HARBOUR many primitive people should have gone to their graves in that area. CAPE T OWN IS a city built on Perhaps there were devastating skeletons. In the mud of the harbour epidemics so long ago that the folklore and along the old shoreline rest of the Bushmen and Hottentots held thousands who perished during the no memories of the old disasters. gales and the plagues of the centuries. When railway engineers demolished Often as a reporter I was sent to Fort Knokke to build a new main line excavations where builders or drainage they searched for the legendary gangs had unearthed skulls and bones. secret passage between the fort and Sailors and citizens of long ago came the Castle. All they found were South African War relics: dixies, I was reminded of these strange stirrups, rusty rifles - and skeletons. encounters with old Capetonians No doubt they were the bones of when the mile-long tunnel was made soldiers buried there in the days recently between the post office and when star-shaped Fort Knokke, the the new railway station. The tunnel powder magazines and other build- runs along the edge of the site of Van ings were links in the “Sea Lines” Riebeeck’s mud fort, the square stretching along the waterfront. “Good Hope” fort with four bastions, Ziekestraat has also given up its dead and the Amstel or Fresh River in recent years. You know it as flowed past one bastion. This fort Corporation Street but in the early covered almost half the present days of the Cape settlement it ran Parade and parts of it remained there beside the Company’s hospital. for half a century. As the Parade was When the zieketroosters failed in not built over, the ground was not their task, when scurvy-stricken disturbed until the post office tunnel sailors died, the bodies were buried pierced the unexplored area. Fore- close to the first of all Cape men in charge of this sort of work hospitals. And when the ground was are alive to the possibility of excavated for a new parking garage a discovering historic relics, and Mr. few years ago the skulls appeared of R. O. Gericke reported finding old men who had never dreamt of motor- glass and pottery, porcelain and cars. seventeenth century clay pipes in the Amstel River bed. Finally he came became silent. People chewed angelica upon two coffins, side by side. root and orange peel in the hope of University archaeologists and other warding off various plagues. Horses scientists then carried out a clever did their work with herbs in their piece of detective work and decided nostrils. There were panic-stricken that the remains went right back to days and weeks when the death-roll the Van Riebeeck period. These may seemed to threaten the whole have been the remains of Siven population. Erasmus and Jacob Hartensz. Important people who died at sea in According to an entry in Van the Dutch East India Company’s ships Riebeeck’s diary on May 20, 1652, were not always buried at sea. When these were the first two men to die as the ship carried sand ballast the body a result of illness in the new Cape would be interred in the hold and re- settlement. The excavations also buried in church on arrival in Table brought to light old Dutch and Flemish Bay. This was the procedure when the pottery, Chinese ware, corroded glass wife of a merchant died in the and parts of a shoe. Relics found under Vliegende Swaan towards the end of the railway station were fairly recent; the seventeenth century. Soon after- late Victorian inkpots, mineral water wards the Council of Policy decided to bottles and china. remove the church and burial ground Cape Town has known many epide- from the fort. Hundreds of people mics, some so deadly that the streets were buried in and round the Dutch Reformed Church at the top of the It seems that the first smallpox Heerengracht. During a funeral in the contagion entered Cape Town in the eighteen-forties a vault fell in and clothing of people who had been ill several people disappeared suddenly. during the passage from India. They escaped with their lives and the Washerwomen at the slave lodge were graveyard then received attention. among the first victims. Corpses of so many Hottentots lay about the settle- Smallpox reached Cape Town early in ment that the air was fouled and burial the eighteenth century. This was the parties had to be sent to every kraal. epidemic which almost exterminated The diarist recorded that the air was the Hottentots and carried off one- “very unwholesome” and noted that quarter of the white people. Smallpox two pigeons fell dead from the was then known as kinderziekte governor’s house in the Castle. Soon because so many children died. During there was no timber for coffins. Nearly one epidemic the military authorities one thousand white people died in one were unable to call up the forces for epidemic and more than that number the annual parade. It was reported that of slaves. Smallpox was, of course, the “owing to the mortality in the ranks scourge of the world during the and the loss of trumpeters, pipers and eighteenth century and it accounted for drummers the muster would make a ten per cent of the mortality from all miserable show and would far from causes; thus the world was willing to impress any foreign vessels that try any promise of a remedy. Jenner’s happened to be riding in Table Bay.” investigations into the link between arm was shown to the poor fellow and cowpox and the immunity enjoyed by a cordial was given to him, when he cowherds from smallpox led to said: ‘God be thanked that I have been vaccination and very early last century able to endure the pain.’ He died two a Portuguese ship brought the first days later.” consignment of vaccine to the Cape. Conditions in the Cape Town hospitals Many patients were treated at during the eighteenth century were Rentzkie’s Farm within sound of the responsible for many deaths. Governor Table Bay breakers. More than a Louis van Assenbergh investigated the thousand people who died of smallpox high death rate and discovered various were buried on the farm. scandals. People suffering from all Only the toughest people survived the sorts of illnesses were in the same surgery of the eighteenth century. wards. Patients able to crawl visited a Valentyn, the Dutch clergyman and tavern close by. One cook and two author, watched a soldier’s arm being slave assistants prepared the meals for amputated above the elbow after it had five hundred people. Towards the end been shattered by a cannon shot. “He of that century there were two was placed in a chair and only begged physicians and they often had one the surgeon not to hurt him more than thousand patients in hospital. Every was necessary,” Valentyn wrote. “The ship brought one hundred or more surgeon having made the incision cut scurvy cases. One eighteenth century through the bone with three jerks. The visitor gave other reasons for the high death-rate in Cape Town. “Vast when the floor gave way and a man numbers die between forty and fifty fell into a dark passage among a heap so that a very old man or woman is of bones. When the bones were reckoned a wonder,” she wrote. examined some were found to be “They are a gross people, eating a human, others animal. They must good deal of grease in their food and have been there for centuries, and no needing exercise. Labour is left one was able to solve the mystery. entirely to the slaves.” Mr. G. W. Allen, soldier and guide at the Castle, explored all the tunnels as Under the Castle lie countless far as possible, until he reached skeletons, as one might expect in a points where they had caved in. Now building where so many men were all the entrances and exits have been tortured and executed. Skulls and sealed as a safety measure. skeletons, iron neckbands and thumbscrews have been found in the Cape Town’s small police force was dungeons. Dutch governors built five in charge of sanitation just before the long tunnels from the Castle as middle of last century. Two wagons, escape or communication routes. One fourteen carts and two water carts led to Roeland Street, the second to were provided; but a quarter of a Hof Street, the third to Fort Knokke century passed before the citizens and the fourth and fifth to the Imhoff approved of an efficient service for and Craig batteries close by. One the removal of buckets and the tunnel was discovered in recent years cleaning of the streets. This was a time when people believed that The death-rate among the afflicted was smells caused disease. The first view one in five. Dr. Landsberg, the dispen- of Cape Town was from the sea. sary doctor, first reported the epidemic When the newcomer landed he was when he found an unusually large shocked to find stinking canals number of fever cases arriving for bearing every sort of rubbish to the treatment. Patients suffered from harbour. Much of the filth was flung weariness, cold chills and persistent back on to the beaches by the tides. headaches; some became deaf, others Skeleton harbour indeed! were delirious. The attack lasted ten days and those who recovered were A mysterious epidemic added more soon back at work. Dr. R. Lawson, than one thousand skeletons to Cape inspector general of hospitals, had Town’s graveyards a century ago. prophesied that a wave of illness This was the so-called “Mauritius would occur in mid-winter; and the fever”. Some doctors swore it had same disease was reported almost come from Mauritius; others simultaneously in Mauritius and Cape declared it had arisen in Cape Town Town. It was not malaria but small as a result of the weather combined doses of quinine were given as a tonic. with filthy conditions. To this day the The doctors also prescribed aperients medical historians have been unable to and emetics and encouraged perspi- find an accurate scientific name for the ration. The Rev. T. E. Fuller, then disease that haunted Cape Town for editor of the “Cape Argus” (afterwards months and killed one person in thirty. Sir Thomas Fuller, M.L.A.) raised Among the six hundred lepers on £500 for soup kitchens. The govern- Robben Island there had been two ment provided extra medical help but mild cases and no deaths. Major the doctors were overworked and the Thornton deduced that “Mauritius New Somerset Hospital was over- fever” had been caused by dirt and crowded. Dr. Landsberg went down want and a flagrant disregard for all with the fever but recovered; Doctors the ordinary laws. He recommended a Graf and Brown were among the better water supply, examination of victims who died. The epidemic fresh food and cemeteries outside the became so serious that the Old city limits. He was also in favour of Somerset Hospital, which had been the registration of births and deaths. closed for years, was re-opened by the Major Thornton emphasised the government to help those who could wisdom of calling in a doctor as soon not find beds elsewhere. Altogether as possible. “Those who did not get more than five thousand people caught medical help suffered most,” he said. “Mauritius fever”. “The worst doctor a man can have is himself. He may take the right thing When it was all over Major R. at the wrong time.” Thornton, a military surgeon, pointed out that there had been only two I discovered a queer sidelight on deaths in the garrison of nearly two Cape Town’s attitude towards vital thousand men. Nine hundred convicts statistics a century ago. Incredible had escaped the epidemic completely. though it may seem, the signalman on top of Signal Hill was expected to stench was dreadful. Doors collapsed keep the death records. He could see or were torn down by vagrants in the funerals in the Somerset Road search of shelter and the bones of the cemeteries and also the Malay dead were exposed. Men burrowing funeral processions near Hottentot in the Somerset Road cemeteries Square (later Riebeeck Square). So were sometimes buried alive when a he entered up each funeral in his log- vault caved in; luckier ones were book and that was the only record. arrested and sent off to the treadmill. Burials carried out stealthily at night It was claimed that most of the were common at that period but these smallpox victims during the epide- escaped the signalman’s telescope. mic in the middle of last century Only in the eighteen-seventies did were people who lived near the Cape Town realise that the cemeteries. The worst areas was cemeteries and unofficial burial known as White Sands, close to the grounds within the Municipality had New Somerset Hospital. Early last become a menace to health. For century a peculiar negro sect known decades the cemeteries had been so as the “Angolas” had started burying crowded that gravediggers were their dead at White Sands; then it always cutting into coffins and became the place where dead horses skeletons. Scores of vaults had and cattle were buried or just left to become a nuisance, for very few rot. People who did not belong to coffins were lined with lead and the any congregation used White Sands as a graveyard and the conditions or may not have been entitled. Among there became intolerable. “The those buried in this area was the graves are dug on the Common at the famous architect Louis-Michel pleasure of the parties who make Thibault and Herman Schutte the them,” reported the “Cape Argus”. builder. Professor D. Bax, who “The sandy soil is only three feet searched the records kept early last deep so there is not much covering on century in the hope of finding the bodies. Cattle graze among the Thibault’s grave, thought the site was graves.” All the cemeteries, official in the middle of Buitengracht Street and unofficial, were closed in 1886 about fifty feet from the Somerset and a healthier era opened with the Road corner. A picture of Thibault’s proclamation of the Maitland ceme- tombstone is to be seen in the Cape teries. archives but the stone has never been located. Museum directors keep in It was not until a few years after touch with builders and excavators in World War I that the Somerset Road the hope that historic relics will come cemeteries were finally cleared up and to the surface when trenches and levelled. Official notices appeared in foundations are dug. Skeletons, seven- the newspapers inviting relatives to teenth and eighteenth century china claim any relics they wished to and porcelain, glass bottles, coins and remove. Many coffins and gravestones “post office stones” are greatly valued were taken away. Anatomy students by museum staffs. claimed skeletons to which they may Those who know the gruesome story garrison marched past the corpse, by of Somerset Road and Gallows Hill order of the general, for example’s are not surprised when skulls and sake.” skeletons are found in. that neighbour- Gallows Hill was paved with blue hood by men digging foundations. I flagstones and there were sockets for remember one skeleton that still had the crossbeam from which the bodies rusty irons round the legs. Criminals were suspended. Then the bodies and soldiers convicted of military were buried on the eastern slope of offences were hanged or shot and the hill. I found this account of an buried at the scene of execution. execution in the eighteen-thirties: Petrus Borcherds in his “Autobio- “On Thursday last the two brothers graphical Memoir” described the convicted of a series of robberies shooting of three army deserters at underwent the dreadful penalty of the Gallows Hill during the Batavian law at the usual place of execution. Republic regime. One was the son of a They seemed resigned and patient clergyman. “His coolness when and possessed fortitude to the last. preparing to meet his fate was Having shaken hands with the remarkable,” Borcherds wrote. convicts who were placed round the “Methinks I see him yet, kneeling gallows they joined in prayer with upon the small heap of white sand, the clergyman. They then ascended taking off his military cap previously the scaffold and while the execu- to being blindfolded. The native tioner was adjusting the fatal cord they employed their few remaining the eyes of the dead to keep them moments in warning the immense shut, and some people believed they multitudes of the effects of small came in useful for paying Charon for crimes which were sure to lead to the journey over the Styx. greater. Hence the ignominious and Paarden Eiland and the area where premature death which now awaited Brooklyn now stands were scenes of them.” About thirty years ago post a number of dramatic finds years ago office men were excavating the when the ground was a waste of foundation of a telephone pole at the sandhills and bush. I remember Gallows Hill site when they visiting Ysterplaat with other report- uncovered two skeletons. Perhaps ers more than forty years ago to they were the robbers who had rested investigate the discovery of a burial there for a century. vault after heavy rain had washed When old graveyards in Cape Town away part of the Salt River bank. are dug up, George III copper Ysterplaat homestead, occupied by pennies are sometimes recovered. the Ehlers family, was the oldest They bear the date 1797. Many of building on the river. The family had them reached the Cape during the never suspected the existence of the first British occupation; they were vault, but a queer story came to light given the value of two pence and as a result of the publicity. Near the were known as koper dubbeltjies. vault there was a slate headstone with These heavy coins were placed over German lettering which read; Here rests in God Johan Siems, a carpenter who had Friedrich Adolph Siems arrived at the Cape as a soldier in 1775 Born May 23 1783 and had been granted land on the Diep And happy in the Lord River some years afterwards. Friedrich Fell asleep March 11 1799 Siems had a slave mother but in 1790 My first years were sixteen in the mother and child had been freed. number and gave me pain and When the facts were published the great Ehlers family remembered that two suffering, therefore I forsook it Germans had come to the farm and and went to eternity stated that they were searching for the graves of two German sailors who had Inside the vault there were two coffins died at the Cape in the early days. which appeared to have been smashed Later the Germans called again and deliberately. Name plates had been reported that the search had been removed but some bones were found. successful. The mystery of the vault People living in the neighbourhood and the tombstone has never been said they remembered the vault and cleared up but it seems possible that one old man informed me that he had the Germans removed the name plates attended funerals in a small cemetery from the coffins. Lt.-Colonel Graham at that spot. It was used by the local Botha told me that he thought the men farmers. Records at the Cape Archives were tracing a line of inheritance were searched, and it was established that Friedrich Siems was the son of leading to a legacy. Friedrich Siems may have committed suicide. Hundreds of bodies were washed up on Paarden Island after shipwrecks in Dutch East India Company days and the drowned seamen were buried there in long trenches. Hottentots who died during the smallpox epidemics were also buried there. The shores of Table Bay have revealed even more ancient skeletons. I saw one skeleton four feet six inches in height, in sitting posture, with stone implements beside it. There were the axe-heads and arrow sharpeners and grinders the little Strandloper had used in his lifetime. He had rested in a sand- dune since the late Stone Age, possibly for seven thousand years. CHAPTER FOUR there. Among the oldest houses close OLD NAVAL BASE to the Simon’s Town beach is the restored eighteenth century residence SIMON’S BAY, that small and called Klein Visch Hoek and marked crowded harbour within the great arms on the charts as “conspicuous white of False Bay, has its own rich past, its house.” Lord Charles Somerset went own memories of ships and seamen. fishing and hunting from this thatched You may hear the clatter of Malay and gabled house; and his son, Colonel clogs on worn stone terraces and smell Henry Somerset, lived there early last the menacing smoke of bush fires; but century. The walls are two feet thick always in the streets of Simon’s Town and the kitchen chimney is one of the there is the salt air that comes in from largest in the Cape, with an enormous deep waters to remind you of sailors bread oven. Millions of harders have and vanished fleets. Now and again been salted in oaken tubs on the beach the naval harbour gives up its secrets. close to the stoep. Simon’s Town is Between the wars, I remember, an old full of old guns, so old that some were residence near the Dutch Reformed cast long before the Dutch settlement Church was demolished; and then, at the Cape. You can see the heavy after more than a century, the sunlight Portuguese cannon bearing the royal fell again on the dungeons where Mrs. arms and tiny swivel muzzle-loaders Martha Hurter once kept her slaves. used by slave traders or pirates in the When the sealed rooms were opened bows of their cutters. One retired the instruments of torture were still pirate bought a mansion at Simon’s had been fashioned out of oak from Town and lived so well there with his one of Nelson’s ships and had been family that people called his home presented to the dockyard by the great “The Palace”; hence the Palace admiral himself. Long ago I met Barracks. The bones of many slavers Simon’s Town people who remem- lie in the sands of Simon’s Bay and bered a coal hulk that was moored in modern divers find their keel timbers, the bay for many years, formerly cannon-balls and cannon. All sorts of H.M.S. Badger, the ten-gun brig old-fashioned nautical relics come to commanded by Horatio Nelson as a the surface; earthenware jars that held young lieutenant during the blockade marmalade in Nelson’s day; pots that of the Bay of Honduras near Panama. contained “Holloway’s cure for gout His duty was to guard British mer- and rheumatism”; soft copper chant ships threatened by American cartridges with heavy bullets; clay privateers. Yes, the small anchorage of pipes by the score; brass candle-lamps Simon’s Bay has known great seamen. and anchors with wooden stocks. Fishermen were the first settlers on the Huge piles of rubbish were being shores of Simon’s Bay during our thrown on to bonfires during World three centuries but they came War II when a naval chaplain saved a thousands of years after primitive man. pair of antique chairs from the blaze. A cave in a precipice at Waterfall Small brass plates were revealed when Kloof was inhabited by people of the the chairs were cleaned. The chairs Middle Stone Age. This natural fortress, with a sheer drop of three at Cape Town is destitute of that hundred feet below the entrance, gave advantage, whence twice as many of them a perfect sanctuary in their world the patients die there as here.” of dangerous beasts. The fishermen Simon’s Bay had a wharf two appear to have been sent to the “Baay centuries ago. Cattle grazed on Redhill Fals” by the Dutch East India and in the valleys, meat and vegetables Company in the seventeen-thirties. A were sent out to scurvy-ridden ships in rough track was made from Kalk Bay the bay. Adriaan de Nys, ancestor of to Simon’s Bay. Then came govern- Colonel Denys Reitz, was an early ment buildings, the powder magazine, postholder, and he kept a diary stores and barracks, the bakery and recording the weather and movements hospital. Stavorinus, the master of ships. It was still a tiny settlement mariner, described the hospital late in the eighteenth century, building. “One hundred patients can however, and Andrew Sparrman the with ease be admitted,” he wrote. “It is Swedish physician remarked: “A built on the brow of a hill, with a triple tradesman or two have got leave to front towards the sea. The apartments build an inn here, in which however which are lofty without ceilings are there is not always room and very airy. In the centre is a large conveniences sufficient to receive all square court, so that the sick here have such as, after a long sea voyage, are always fresh air which contributes desirous of refreshing themselves on largely to their recovery. The hospital shore, the ships that land here being chiefly such as contain not much “as riots and disturbances are not above twenty passengers.” Sparrman infrequent.” In the end Ecksteen had to said the lodging-houses kept a move his wine-house away from the “tolerable good table.” A farmer wharf. named Ecksteen built a wine-house at Naval executions were carried out on the shore end of the wharf, the first of board ships in Simon’s Bay at many. Admiral Elphinstone was intervals of years. James Hoiman, a horrified by the conditions on shore Royal Navy lieutenant who retired and reported to the Fiscal, W. S. van when he lost his sight, was present in Ryneveld: “There is a licensed wine- H.M.S. Tweed in 1829 when a bo’sun house where boats are sent for water. was hanged for murder. A gun was Seamen are constantly intoxicated and fired and the murderer was hanged commit the most unwarrantable from the fore yardarm. There he excesses, chasing the officers ashore remained for twenty minutes. The and alarming the inhabitants. Nine body was then lowered into a boat and men who put off with a boat have not taken on shore for burial. since been heard of; they were overcome with liquor and are When the Russian sloop Diana called supposed to have been drowned.” An at Simon’s Bay early last century Vice early British governor recommended Admiral V. M. Golovnin recorded his that a military detachment should impressions. He thought the farmers always be stationed at Simon’s Town neglected other forms of agriculture in favour of wines and spirits; and he praised the Constantia wine made found seal meat very wholesome but from Persian grapes and sold in small the admiral preferred the kidney and barrels each holding five buckets. The liver. Simon’s Town people showed mutton supplied to the ship was fat the Russians how to prepare steenbras and tasty and far superior to the beef. so that it would lose its toughness and Butchers prepared fine mutton hams keep for some time; they marinaded and polonies and these kept fresh in the firm white flesh in vinegar, onions, any climate. The polonies were a foot garlic, pepper and saffron. The admiral long, one inch in diameter, made of had to contend with scurvy in those pork and other meats and fat with days and he sent his men to collect various spices; they were bound in young shoots of wild asparagus on the bundles of twenty-four and sewn up in Simon’s Town hillside. Cooked with airtight bladders. Admiral Golovnin meat and rice, it served as an antidote. also noted that seabirds were caught The Russian sailors also gathered alive and fed on flour mixed with tepid nettles and gout-weed. water. After a fortnight on diet the Among the Simon’s Town characters birds lost all flavour of seaweed and early last century was Sampson Dyer, fish and were ready for the table. He an American negro who was granted was assured that an albatross treated in British citizenship. He arrived in a this way became as tasty as a domestic schooner from Nantucket and joined goose. His crew salted fifty shear- the Cloete, Reitz and Anderson waters and a few penguins. They also whaling enterprise as a harpooner. Then he was sent from False Bay to Simon’s Town in the middle of last take charge of a seal island west of century was still a single row of flat- Cape Agulhas. Myriads of seals roofed houses with a fort at each end. flourished on the coffin-shaped island Ships of the Royal Navy went out and the seabirds darkened the sun. from there to Mozambique and American sealers were raiding most of Mauritius, St. Helena and Sierra the South African islands at this period Leone; steam gunboats and brigs and sending the skins to China; but cruising in search of slavers and earn- landing at Dyer’s Island (as it was ing prize money. The captured called) was so dangerous that the Portuguese slaver Eolo was sunk next Americans left it to Dyer and his men. to the Admiralty pier to strengthen the Dyer lived in a hut on the mainland pier and many other slavers were opposite the island. One night he heard broken up on the beaches. An account gunfire and rowed out to find a large of Simon’s Town in 1858 says that the vessel of the English East India population of fifteen hundred was Company firing the distress signals. “very mixed.” White people were the She had sailed in among the rocks and business men, the natives were the kelp in a fog and could not find a way “coolies” or labourers. The town lived out. Dyer saved the ship and the almost entirely on supplying the men- captain paid the clever negro a o’-war and the dockyard. There were miserable reward of one guinea. four churches, five schools and a reading-room, but no municipality worth mentioning. The writer purple; and sunrise over the same hills suggested that this was hardly a disad- is as brilliant a prospect as can well be vantage when one considered the imagined.” “stinking drains, overcrowded houses, Twelve oxen were needed to haul the scarcity of water and heaving burial wagons up the steep road behind the grounds of Cape Town.” Simon’s bay. “Horsemen can go up readily Town had a magistrate who was also enough and a pleasant ride it is when collector of customs, and the writer you emerge on the tableland above evidently preferred the naval port to and feel the cool air,” goes on the Cape Town. He spoke with pride of centuryold description I have quoted. the handsome and commodious hotel “Staid, elderly parties have been with its raised stoep and billiard room. known to frisk like kittens under its “Some people think that Simon’s Bay influence. Game is not abundant, but is not a pretty place,” he remarked. if preserved would soon become so. “Others again admire it. It has fine This narrow peninsula is shot over in scenery, hill and water. The outline is season and out by people from the bold as artist can desire, and the view ships, the town and farmers who hunt to the eastward at sunset on a clear for the market. The game consists of evening is gorgeous. The range of hills roebuck, grysbok, klipspringer and from Cape Hangklip to away beyond hare, a small pheasant the size of the Paarl show the most beautiful grouse, partridge, quail, snipe and effects of light and shade, gold and wild duck.” Malays were among the first Kaap- had washed the clothing of three stad people to migrate to Simon’s British princes during the eighteen- Bay, and their descendants settled in eighties. He declared that H.M.S. white cottages round the Thomas Raleigh was the favourite British Street mosque. The pioneer Malays man-o’-war of last century. When were fishermen; then came trades- she paid off hundreds of Malays men and craftsmen. Recently there followed her in decorated fishing were a thousand of them, fishermen, boats, shouting their farewells until builders, tailors, launderers, hard- she passed Roman Rock. As a boy of working people who preserved their twelve Bakaar Manuel saw the first religion and traditions in this shelter- train steam into the small, low ed corner of the Cape. Here they cut Simon’s Town station. That was in up and steamed fragrant orange and 1890, and many people enjoyed a fig leaves for the feast on the Pro- free ride to Glencairn stone quarry phet’s birthday. Here a learned and back. They welcomed the imaum translated the Koran into opening of the railway as cart drivers Afrikaans; the priest who was also had been charging passengers ten principal of the Malay school for shillings a head for the ride from several decades. Simon’s Town has Kalk Bay to Simon’s Town. Often it known fine personalities among the was easier to transport goods by sea; Malays. Hadji Bakaar Manuel used and old Malays have spoken to me of to boast that his father Tifley Manuel the cutters that sailed in with food. Farm wagons also arrived from Point was named after a famous Stellenbosch with dried fruit. Good skipper. My account of Simon’s Bay a coffee cost sixpence a pound, sugar century ago describes the Malays as twopence, rice twopence half-penny. “muscular, long-winded oarsmen.” Wine was a tickey a bottle and brandy Five or six men formed a boat’s crew sevenpence. Each ox-wagon had to in those days, and when fish. were pay one shilling and twopence at the plentiful each man earned from fifteen Simon’s Town toll gate. There cannot to twenty shillings a day. They worked be many still living who remember the from five to noon as a rule and basked toll system - or the time signals fired in the sun for the rest of the day. at five in the morning and nine at night Stumpnose, roman and seventy-four, from British men-o’-war in the bay. rare in Table Bay, were among the The early morning gun warned main catches of the Simon’s Town dockyard labourers that they would fishermen. “Quantities of mullet are have to rise if they wished to earn their captured in the course of the year,” pay, half-a-crown a day. And nine says the writer. “They are a small fish, o’clock was closing time in the public something like the herring in appear- bars. ance, but do not come near them in flavour. They are a great addition to Malay fishermen have left their mark the breakfast table, but it would be on the Simon’s Bay maps. Certain sacrilege to mention them in the same rocks bear Malay names, Bat Besar breath as a Loch Fyne herring or a and Bat Sattoe. Jaffer’s Bay at Cole salmon trout. It is great fun to see a net flung harpoons never killed the whale. hauled in and the different fish The boat approached the palpitating jumping and gleaming; the silvery black mountain cautiously. When the mullet and the zebralike stripes and sharp iron entered the flesh the whale hues of others contrasting with the usually made off, towing the boat. bright vermilion of the stumpnose or Sometimes it lashed out and then the the deeper red of the roman.” boat was smashed and the crew would have to be rescued. When the whale Hauls worth up to two hundred pounds streaked off, mad with pain, the were made at that period. Mullet were skipper let the harpoon line run free, salted and sold to the farmers at three then made fast and allowed the whale pounds a thousand to feed their to tow the boat. Scores of people raced labourers. Oysters were punched off along the waterfront to watch the the rocks with crowbars at low water. drama. Sometimes the whale headed Crawfish were far more common than for open sea and at last the harpooner they are today. Strange to say, this would have to make a hard decision writer does not mention the snoek that and cut the rope. But if the whale lost gave Simon’s Town the nickname of blood and became tired the boat would “Snoekie”. creep in and the harpooner would Malays manned some of the open stand in the bows with lance poised. boats that hunted whales in those One shrewd thrust would finish the waters. It was often a dangerous game, whale. Hundreds of people then the sport of heroes, for the old hand- assembled on Long Beach to see the risk, however, and struck out with the blubber go into the cauldrons. Once idea of swimming round the training there was a skipper named Abdol ship General Botha. He was half way Clark who came alongside a right to the ship when he felt a swirl of whale with calf, lost his head and water and then a shock as though a lanced the calf. The mother whale torpedo had collided with him. Pells dived to lift the calf, found it was dead realised at once that it was a shark. and attacked the boat in a frenzy. The Next moment the rows of teeth were crew tried to go astern but the whale tearing at his back and left thigh. Then took the bows in her mouth and tore the shark moved downwards, carrying the whole forward part of the boat Pells with him. away. Those men were in the water for Pells fought hard and tore himself free. two hours before Hablutzel came out He was about fifteen feet below the in his whaler Sea Queen and rescued surface and he could see the dark them. shape looming beside him. In spite of Sharks have found human victims in pain and shock he kept his head. His Simon’s Bay, but the shark episode main fear at this point was that he that lingers in my mind was an escape. would be unable to hold his breath I was sailing in those waters at the long enough, for his lungs were almost time, May 1922, but never did I dare bursting. At last the green light to plunge into the warm anchorage. A changed to sunshine. Pells saw white young man named E. G. Pells took the foam and his own blood on the surface - and a small rowing boat with three officer caught a shark with a leg of elderly Malays on board. The Malays pork, a strong hook, steel drum and had observed the attack and were steel hawser. The jaws of the shark hauling up their anchor, a large stone fitted the scars on the body of Pells. on a rope. Pells swam weakly towards Teeth in the lower jaw corresponded the boat and clung to the side. As the exactly with the shape of the injuries. Malays were dragging him on board The shark was twelve feet long with a the shark raced up. Pells always girth of nine feet. remembered the look of horror on the Simon’s Bay has known many famous faces of the Malays as they saw this seamarks, old ships that seemed over ferocious enemy. It seemed that the the decades to have become fixtures. boat would be upset but the shark Then at last they were taken out and moved away. Within minutes Pells sunk - and almost forgotten. In the was on the wharf. Very soon he found days of Rudyard Kipling there were himself on the operating table with the the gunboats Gadfly, Griper and district surgeon attending to his Tickler and the corvette Penelope; dreadful wounds. and they were succeeded in the Pells told me that the shark must have historic seascape by the training ship been a coward. It had failed to kill one General Botha, formerly H.M.S. who had proved that he was ready to Thames. I met this antiquated cruiser defend himself. Soon after this on a grey afternoon in March 1921 at encounter the Simon’s Town port the end of her last voyage, when she came wearily alongside the quay in However, two more boilers were Simon’s Town dockyard. She looked repaired. Engineers, seamen, firemen battered and tired of the oceans she and stewards were signed on and one had been riding for nearly forty thousand tons of coal were taken on years. The men and boys on board board. Lloyd’s surveyor shook his were even more exhausted. Captain head over a large workshop on the F. B. Renouf, the old sailing ship main deck and told Renouf that he master who commanded her, told me would have to nurse the ship in the story of that strange ordeal. heavy weather as her stability might be affected. Early in January the Renouf had taken charge of the three General Botha steamed out of the thousand ton ship at Sheerness. Two Thames and worked up to her top experienced deck officers and speed – six knots. Very soon the twenty-four raw little sea cadets were worried captain decided that he on board. The hull was covered with would have to put into Plymouth. barnacles and she moved so slowly that she had to go into drydock for When the dismantled cruiser passed cleaning. Her war service as a Plymouth breakwater in the darkness submarine depot ship had left her in the naval authorities looked upon her an unseaworthy condition. “I could as a ghost ship. They were not have swum as fast as she travelled expecting her and a pinnace was sent with steam in only two boilers,” to investigate. After some delay the remarked Captain Renouf bitterly. General Botha sailed again with six extra firemen and another boiler in and five-year-old daughter on board. action. She had been designed for a His wife’s cabin was flooded and full speed of seventeen knots. many of their possessions were lost. Renouf hoped to make seven knots The cadets were kept baling day and on the passage to the Cape. In the night and though they behaved well Channel, however, he had to heave- many of them were sorry they had to. When the four-inch guns had come to sea. been removed the open spaces in the At eight in the morning Captain sides, like bay windows, had been Renouf was on the bridge when he boarded up with strong deal. Heavy saw an enormous sea approaching. He seas smashed the timber, main decks estimated the height at thirty feet. were flooded and water swept below. “You know, captain, the lower drawer Dynamos were damaged by salt in my cabin chest is full of water,” water; coal and stores on deck went remarked the second mate at this over the side; the stern gallery (like a moment. “Here comes a sea that will verandah outside the captain’s fill your bunk as well,” Renouf replied quarters) was swept away. Large stern grimly. As the sea hit the ship the old windows were smashed. All they cruiser put her bows right into it. The could do was to close the doors and sea broke solid over the foredeck, hope for the best when she pitched rolled like surf across a beach, over the violently and put her poop under bridge and round the funnel and then water. Captain Renouf had his wife swept the quarterdeck. That was the greatest sea of the whole voyage. It to his astonishment that he had only carried away the last of the deck-load three hundred tons in the bunkers. He of coal and Captain Renouf decided to took on more than six hundred tons at put back to Plymouth for repairs. He a high price. was hoping that the deck workshop Now the weather was fine and all went with its lathes and heavy machinery well until a steward rushed into the would be swept overboard before they wardroom one night while dinner was arrived. being served and shouted: “I’ve seen When they anchored Captain Renouf a ghost. There’s a ghost in naval discovered that his wife had lost nearly officer’s uniform bending over the all her clothes. A large oak sideboard, dynamos.” Others reported the ghost wine locker and the wardroom silver in various parts of the ship from time had vanished through the opening in to time. Nevertheless the General the stern. Mrs. Renouf had to go on Botha reached Simon’s Bay thirty- shore in her slippers. They sailed again eight days out from Plymouth without after eighteen days in harbour. Off further trouble. All those who had Lisbon the rudder-head glands jammed brought her to South Africa left her for and by the time the engineers had good, but the ghost remained on made repairs they needed double, tots board, a legend that died only when of rum. Coal became the captain’s the General Botha left her moorings main worry, and when he reached St. for the last time. Vincent in the Cape Verdes he learnt How well I remember that old but her officers told a different story. anchorage in Simon’s Bay! Those She was really a river gunboat built for were happy Sunday mornings when I the Yang-tse-Kiang, and at sea she woke up in a canvas berth on board the rolled so heavily that newly-joined cutter Innisfallen, lit the primus, ratings expected her to capsize. Hard made the tea, and then stood on deck to steer, difficult to handle, the Dwarf taking in the great sweep of land and was not the most popular ship in the water. There in the sunlight slumbered navy. She was only seven hundred old Simon’s Town with its Martello tons, a lieutenant’s command, with a towers and solid masonry, its sea walls number of Kroomen from Freetown in and slate roofs, its balconied British her company. One officer described Hotel, its memories of sail and her as a “hot floating tin kettle”, and powder. I remembered the ships I had complained that turtle (from Ascen- seen there. One has remained in my sion) was often on the menu when mind over the years even more firmly there was no butter in the storeroom. than those I joined as a reporter for Men who sailed in the Dwarf suffered manoeuvres or voyages. She was from malaria and “yellow jack”; they H.M.S. Dwarf, a famous little gun- endured the fogs of South West Africa boat that patrolled for many years in and the tornadoes of Benin. More West African waters. With her white fortunate naval officers rode and hull, grey upperworks and yellow played civilised games; the “Dwarfs” funnel she made a romantic picture; hunted goats on St. Helena and caught sharks at Fernando Po. Yet that was the ship in which I would gladly have sailed away from Simon’s Bay, bound for the South Atlantic isles and the swamps and forests and long beaches of sweltering West Africa. Everyone has his own ideas of adventure. Simon’s Bay aroused my imagination long ago and sent me off at last in the seatracks of the Dwarf. boldest and most enterprising men considered the possibility of naviga- ting the interior waterways. It was a dubious sort of investment. Ship- builders, usually in Britain, had to build these vessels in pieces, assemble and number them and then take the vessel apart and crate the pieces for shipment. Dubious and expensive. The parts often had to be carried inland on

wagons or by native bearers and the CHAPTER FIVE loss of a few parts caused long delays. HARBOURS ON THE VELD Mr. John Owen Smith, one of the SOUTHERN AFRICA, with its great Namaqualand copper pioneers, owner irrigation dams and other sheets of of the Jessie Smith mine at Kodas in water, has many inland fleets nowa- the Richtersveld, decided to avoid all days and harbours on the veld. But this bother. He secured plans for a when you left the ocean a century ago small but seaworthy steamer which the sight of even a small craft was a could reach the Orange River mouth rarity. Rivers had not been surveyed from England under her own power. and the Orange River had long She would slip into the river during unexplored stretches. Thus only the the flood season when the mouth was open, steam up to a point on the south Orange) otherwise than in the most bank near the Kodas mine, take on her enthusiastic terms,” Alexander wrote. cargo of copper ore and deliver it in “Besides its beautiful African features Table Bay. He had already shipped ore its utility is very great. To the from Alexander Bay; and it was wandering tribes dwelling near it reported that the mine was yielding affords an unfailing refuge in seasons from forty-five to seventy-five percent of drought and famine. I found great pure copper near the surface. “Mr. store of iron and copper ores. But there Smith is very sanguine and will not may be even more precious metals, desist from operations before, by gold and silver. I saw no rocks or actual results favourable or unfavour- dangers at the mouth. With care, it able, he has satisfied himself and the seemed that the mouth of the river public whether or not the mines in that could be entered by a schooner.” quarter will pay,” reported the Smith was probably also influenced by “Eastern Province Herald”. That was a much later report by Charles Bell, in 1854. surveyor-general of the Cape Colony. “A minute examination as to the Sir James Alexander, the explorer, had practicability of navigating the Orange visited the Orange River mouth about River should be made,” Bell wrote. “I eighteen years previously and had can hear of no insuperable difficulty in given a glowing account of the lower the way, at least during the floods, if river. “It is difficult to speak of the Gariep (the Hottentot name for the the ore be heaped on its banks and safely. John Owen Smith lost his shipped when opportunity offers.” money. There is a harbour near the Orange River mouth today, but only So the eager Smith paid for his for yachts and other small craft. steamer. Only after it had been launched did he learn. that nothing Thirty years after Smith’s disastrous larger than a rowing boat could venture there arrived in the Cape a venture across the bar into the Orange determined Scot named John River. Thorburn. He made a small fortune on the Kimberley diamond diggings Jules Verne, a pioneer of a different in the eighteen-seventies. Then in sort, the first popular-writer of science 1880 he settled down to an occupa- fiction heard of Smith’s scheme but tion which he regarded as less preca- not the unhappy sequel. He wrote a rious; that of a storekeeper on the novel called “Meridiana” based on a Vaal River bank near Kimberley. He voyage up the Orange River by three was doing well, but the Vaal rose un- Englishmen and three Russians, all expectedly, sweeping away house astronomers, in the steamer Queen and stock. Thorburn and his wife lost and Czar. They were accompanied everything. They had to borrow by a faithful, noble Bushman who clothes before leaving for Kimberley. spoke the polished English of a There he bought fresh stock and professor and assured the scientists opened another store on higher that the river was navigable. Jules ground. Verne’s ship crossed Southern Africa The swollen river had given Thor- a barge loaded with three hundred burn an idea. Old residents assured bags of coal. Edwards and Symes of him that the river was navigable London started building the steamer every winter and Thorburn decided after Thorburn had paid a deposit of to order a steamer to bring coal from one thousand pounds. Meanwhile the mines on the upper Vaal to Thorburn secured permission from the supply the river diggings and Transvaal and Orange Free State Kimberley. The distance was one governments to clear the Vaal River hundred and eighty miles. Water for navigation. He built the barge transport would obviously work out himself. Then he spent three years much cheaper than ox-wagons. removing obstructions in the rivers; Thorburn was an enthusiast and a trees, boulders, anything that might man of great determination, but he impede the progress of his steamer and lacked the vein of caution necessary barge. in such an enterprise. First he At last the great day arrived when ordered his steamer, a twin-screw Thorburn heard that his little steamer vessel to be built of steel. She was had reached Hopetown, then the only thirty-seven feet overall, with a railway terminus. It had been shipped beam of eight feet six inches and in crates. Thorburn assembled the draught of twentytwo inches; but he vessel at his harbour on the Vaal and specified towing-gear which would launched her. She behaved well, the enable the steamer to bring with her engines ran sweetly; but Thorburn soon made the tragic discovery that the thousand miles lay before him. He was Vaal was navigable only over short menaced by grass fires and the wagons distances. New sandbanks had formed were stuck so often that he felt like and it was impossible to reach the coal abandoning the Tembe in the bush. mines. Thorburn had spent four Near the headwaters of the Vaal River, thousand pounds on the venture and he seven thousand feet above sea level, was unwilling to let his ship rust on the large wagon fell over and the the river diggings. He loaded it on to Tembe was almost wrecked on dry ox-wagons, trekked to Potchefstroom land. One side was smashed, the hull and launched her again in the hope was knocked out of shape, rivets were that people there would take river drawn, an iron bulkhead doubled up excursions. Unfortunately they soon and the cabin-fittings were splintered tired of this amusement. Thorburn and used on the camp-fire. “I felt quite looked round for another way of beaten,” Thorburn confessed. Never- making a fortune as a shipowner. theless he repaired the Tembe and Someone advised him to take his went on and launched her in salt water steamer to Delagoa Bay and carry at Tembe drift. freight along the Tembe River. So he Thorburn had sent for his wife and named his steamer Tembe, loaded her family, and now he steamed down the on a huge ox-wagon, put the engine river in triumph. “A sultry hot day, the and other parts on another wagon and monkeys jabbering, the parrots set out for the sea. A trek of nearly two squeaking,” Thorburn recalled. “Away she went like a duck. At the thirty-six feet wide, looking rather sound of the steam-whistle the like a battleship with her massive monkeys went screeching and steel mast and conning-tower, with scrambling through the forest. But projecting tubes like guns. our speed of seven knots was too fast Beaumont was a civil engineer who and we ran into the jungle and had dredged for alluvial gold carried away the funnel.” However, successfully in South American the Tembe reached Delagoa Bay rivers. He dug for diamonds below safely. Sometimes she carried freight the Barkly West bridge; and there he to Swaziland; often she was stared into the large deep pool and chartered for pleasure trips. Thorburn saw visions. Surely it would be shot hippo in the swamps, towed possible to dredge up the diamond- lighters and made another small iferous gravel and make a huge fortune. His little Tembe was still at fortune? work in those waters in 1908 when Thorburn died. Beaumont and his partners had to pay about thirty thousand pounds to I can remember the Vaal River vessel get the dredger to Barkly West. known for years as the “Barkly West Wagon after wagon arrived, loaded battleship”. She was launched by an with huge steel plates, cranes, optimist named George Beaumont engines, 4 sorts of machinery and just before the end of last century: a anchors. Workmen arrived from huge dredger, one hundred feet long, Britain and assembled the dredger on the river bank. She was launched Beyond the Limpopo, of course, there with champagne at a party which are large fleets and well-equipped those present remembered for the harbours far from the smell of salt rest of their lives. Unfortunately the ocean. Along the two thousand miles rocky formation of the riverbed of the Zambesi all sorts of craft are to defeated the expensive machinery on be found. It was on a remote stretch of board the dredger. The scoops failed this river that a retired officer of the to raise the hard masses of conglo- Royal Navy put the crews of his power merated alluvial gravel. Beaumont’s barges into uniform worn by British diver went down and confirmed the seamen, traditional collars, bell- disastrous situation. This was not a bottoms and all. pool for conveyor-buckets. Only in recent years has a paddle Shortly before World War I the Vaal steamer appeared in the waters above River “battleship” was sold to an the Victoria Falls. She is the Chobe Indian and dismantled. The engines Belle and her harbour is at Kasane on were used elsewhere on the river for a the Chobe River. She was built by “breakwater” scheme. The great pool Colonel Charles Trevor, proprietor of where Beaumont’s “battleship” lay at the Chobe River Hotel, to carry anchor for years has yielded a fortune passengers along the interesting in diamonds since then, but they were stretches of lagoon and river where not recovered by dredging. four territories meet: Bechuanaland, the Caprivi Strip, Rhodesia and opening in 1949 of the railway to Zambia. Moatize close by. Stern-wheelers loaded at Chinde and steamed up the Steamers have navigated the lower Zambesi for four hundred miles to Zambesi for more than a century. Tete. David Livingstone started the Rhodesia set up a naval base at traffic with his steam pinnace Ma Katsanya, twenty-six miles east of Robert, a spectacle that almost Tete, many years ago and put a fast frightened the primitive river people launch on the river. H.M.S. Harari, as out of their wits. Then came fleets of she was called, was built at Durban to stern-wheelers owned by sugar and a special design which enabled her to railway companies. They carried the use the river from the sea to trade goods of Europe up-country Kabarabasa rapids at all seasons. The and returned with coal and sugar, Harari was painted battleship grey. grain and rice, cotton, cattle, sisal, Her duty was to protect native copra and ivory. labourers travelling home with their earnings. Before the Harari arrived Tanganyika, the largest lake in the there were pirates on the river and world, has several modern harbours. many natives were robbed and One named Mpulungu was the spot murdered. in the present Zambia where Livingstone set eyes on the lake for Tete is the oldest town in Southern the first time. Here you may see all Africa and it was an important river sorts of craft from dugout canoes, harbour for decades before the dhows and trimarans to steamers grand fleet ran on the Congo and its capable of voyaging round the world. tributaries. Mpulungu has a proper quay, cargo Ah, the Congo! I have some pleasant sheds, customs and immigration memories of the river harbours of offices, police and a cold storage that equatorial basin. Belgian plant for fish. steamers built in Antwerp had to last I sailed from Mpulungu in the S.S. a long time on the river. One Liemba to another lake harbour, passenger vessel, the Flandre, was Kigoma. This is the main port on the launched early this century and eastern shore of the lake; a pretty remained in service for fifty years. harbour with a horseshoe of hills. Missionaries had their own little Kigoma has replaced Ujiji, five miles ships. Stern-wheelers were sent from away, as a port, but Ujiji has a huge the Mississippi to the Congo. One population and various claims to tug called Kalina was a typical two- fame and notoriety. It ceased to be a funnelled Rhine paddleboat. The port when the level of Lake Kigonaa, a large passenger steamer Tanganyika fell and left Ujiji high which I knew best of all, was built in and dry. Across the lake at 1915 and was still in service as a Albertville the Belgians launched training vessel half a century later. some fine steamers, the Baron Dhanis American landing craft reached the and Cuc de Brabant; but most of their Congo after World War II for use as pusher tugs on the main river cargo routes. No longer do the passenger and freight services run to schedule but there are still many splendid vessels on the river. CHAPTER SIX the Portuguese explorers in South ALOES AND OYSTERS Africa. (Cape Cross, where Diego Cam landed in 1486, is in South Six oceans had their will of us West Africa). Portuguese mariners To carry all away - were calling regularly at Mossel Bay Our galley’s in the Baltic, years before they discovered Table And our boom’s in Mossel Bay! Bay. RUDYARD KIPLING. “The I can almost smell the fumes of boil- Merchantmen” ing aloe juice when I think of Mossel Bay for this is the land of Aloe ferox KIPLING’S SHIP was lucky to have and the old industry that gives the lost nothing more than her boom in world a favourite purgative. Perhaps Mossel Bay. This sandy curve in the it is better to recall the other cele- coast behind Cape St. Blaize was a brated speciality of Mossel Bay, dangerous summer anchorage before man’s oldest food, the oyster. My the harbour was built. It has known earliest memory of the bay, however, many shipwrecks, many sea dramas was rather different; an experience since the day when the first white which would make me unpopular in explorer Bartholomew Diaz stepped the town if I dwelt upon it with too on shore there and named it Baia dos much emphasis. I was on board a Vaqueiros, the “bay of herdsmen”. coasting steamer at anchor. The This was the first landing place of master was on shore. Several young members of the crew decided to However, there would be no sharks’ swim from the gangway and I joined fin soup on the menu if I planned a them in the water. Soon I noticed typical Mossel Bay meal. I would that men on deck were putting down start with oysters, of course, as a barrage of lumps of coal, keeping visitors have done for centuries. Not the sharks at bay. I swam for the the giant oysters but the smaller, gangway and dared not bathe again. narrow ones. And I would eat them To this day I cannot tell you whether raw; cold and fresh from the dripping the sharks were man-eaters. I thought hand of the sea; without red pepper of the episode not long ago, or tabasco or vinegar and only an however, when a surfer at Mossel occasional drop of lemon juice. Bay was attacked by “a seal or a When I first stayed at a Mossel Bay shark”. He escaped with a severed hotel there was an Italian chef named artery near the toes. Mossel Bay is Luigi who was a great man for really as safe as Muizenberg but cooking oysters. He knew that there is no harbour in South Africa Escoifier disapproved of heating which is not visited by man-eating oysters; but he said that when people sharks on rare occasions. An entry in could have oysters by the hundred the Mossel Bay records long ago every day at low prices they demand- read as follows: “Sharks very bold. ed a change from the untouched Anderson harpoons one eleven feet oyster, even though the wild and long.” inimitable tang of the living oyster oysters is to send them to the table was lost. So he served “pigs in raw.” blankets” (oysters wrapped in bacon Now for the soup. Luigi was a grand and fried) or oysters au gratin, sole soup hand and his kitchen gave off and oyster pie, oysters sweated in many nostalgic and old-fashioned butter and served on hot fried bread, aromas. He could turn out a thick pea oyster soufflees, oysters with soup such as good ships’ cooks spinach, grilled oysters and fried simmer; his zuppa di pesce was a work oysters chopped and mixed with of art worthy of a Neopolitan scrambled eggs. All very interesting restaurant; and his strong meat soups and I must say that Luigi’s oyster were memorable. Luigi also had in his sauce for roast mutton was a repertoire a Mossel Bay soup which he masterpiece. But I am still with made at my request. The main in- Excoffier, whose words should be gredient was the fine avocado pear remembered by every oyster-eater: grown in the Little Brak Valley; an “Oysters are the dish par excellence; avocado puree flavoured with brandy, their delicacy satisfies the most mustard, salt, lemon juice and fastidious of epicures and they are so Worcestershire sauce. easily digested that the most delicate invalid can partake of them freely. Fish is easy at Mossel Bay and I The real and best way of serving would select the local sole, fresh or smoked. But you could have snoek or geelbek, kabeljou, leervis or galjoen. The main course I would set before One was protea nectar, gathered when you would be that which a bygone the Protea millifera was in flower; a Cape governor, Sir Walter Hely- rare syrup nowadays, rare and delect- Hutchinson, enjoyed to the full when able. The other, believe it or not, was a he arrived unexpectedly at the farm jam made from the bitter leaves of the Kleinberg many years ago. “Ouma Aloe ferox, the red-hot pokers that Kleinberg” (Mrs. Muller) had a flourish on the Mossel Bay veld. Luigi splendid kerrie-afval, curried sheep’s peeled and sliced the fleshy leaves, tripe, on the stove that day. Some of soaked them in lime water and boiled the local coriander had gone into the them with sugar and lemon juice. curry; a carminative with a pleasant When he could secure green shoots aroma. The governor ate his curry with from a fig tree in spring he used them sweet potatoes and stamped mealies as a flavouring. Aloe konfyt reminded and came back for more. me of its watermelon counterpart. Dessert? In the Mossel Bay district Probably the first meal eaten by white you will find the largest privately- people at Mossel Bay consisted of owned custard apple farm in the mutton. As you know, Vasco da Gama southern hemisphere. Here, within a put in there with his fleet in the mile of the sea, grow those expensive summer of 1497 and gave the and exotic fruits with yellow pulp like Hottentots small bells and other custard. Luigi made use of two other trinkets in exchange for sheep. The local delicacies with his puddings. explorers remained at anchor in the bay for about twelve days, so there Mossel Bay again on his return from may have been a braaivleis (or India. He hung a shoe from a branch Portuguese asado) beside the stream of the milkwood tree, with a letter or under the milkwood tree. How- which was found by Juan de Nova ever, there are other possibilities. not long ‘afterwards. Juan de Nova Vasco da Gama’s men caught fish built a little stone church there, the and penguins and clubbed seals on first place of Christian worship in the return voyage and all these foods South Africa. The ruins of that were salted. The explorers listened to church, parts of the walls and the reed flutes of the Hottentots and timbering and the flagstone floor, a Portuguese musician recorded the were still to be seen in the eighteen- tune with its range of three notes. seventies. There was no Historic Thanks to that written fragment of Monuments Commission to save the history, members of a fairly recent church and it was demolished. Kalahari expedition were able to According to local legend the stone identify the same flutes and the was used for another building in the identical tune played by Hottentots in town, a new warehouse, but it cannot the desert. be traced now. A few pieces of tough green heart timber and some square- Pedro Alverez Cabral called at headed, hand-forged Portuguese nails Mossel Bay a few years after Vasco have been preserved, the only da Gama; his first landing after fragments of the little church. discovering Brazil. Cabral put into However, there are a few other relics down by the Hottentots while Vasco of the Portuguese period, when da Gama was still in the bay and no Mossel Bay was more important than fragment of these monuments has ever Table Bay. Portions of two engraved been found. Dr. Erik Axelson, leading stones were found during the demo- modern authority on the Portuguese lition of an old government building explorers, searched for the Vasco da early this century. One showed a Gama padrao some years ago. He had cannon and this stone disappeared been successful in discovering padrao mysteriously. The other remnant is to fragments at other paints along the be seen in the South African South African coast, but the Mossel Museum. Experts have found the Bay padrao defeated him. Dr. Axelson mutilated inscription very baffling, felt sure that the Portuguese would not but it was in all probability a “post have carried a stone cross weighing office stone” left there in 1501 by one thousand pounds to the summit of Juan de Nova. Cape St. Blaize. He selected a rocky knoll to the south of the old watering Vasco da Gama set up a stone pillar place for his search. According to the or padrao with the Portuguese coat- “Cambridge History of the British of-arms; and several historians have Empire” the cross was set up on Seal stated without authority that this was Island at Mossel Bay. Dr. Axelson has placed on the site of the present found evidence proving that this could lighthouse. This pillar and a wooden not have been the site and he thinks cross made from a spar were thrown that pieces of the padrao may still be Fortunately the white milkwood tree found somewhere in the vicinity of the described by the Portuguese has milkwood tree. After deep research in survived the centuries and is now the Lisbon archives and elsewhere Dr. much larger than it was when the Axelson has corrected a number of explorers landed. This species, statements by earlier historians. He has Sideroxylon Inerme L., known in shown that the Bahia San Bras of the Afrikaans as melkhout or jakkals- Portuguese records was not Mossel bessie, is a low, compact evergreen Bay but the modern Fish Bay to the tree that loves the beaches and does west of Cape St. Blaize. not suffer from salt spray. Dark green leaves provide deep shade for men and Mossel Bay gave up a very old anchor animals. The berries have an unpleas- about sixty years ago and the design ant flavour but they are eaten by birds. suggests that it was lost by one of the Grazing animals will not touch the early Portuguese ships. It has been foliage and Marloth was puzzled when placed in the park. An egg-shaped he learned that milk from cows vase, found in a cave by a Mr. Meyer sheltering in these groves had the under eight feet of bat guano, may also odour of the flowers. He discovered be a relic of the Portuguese visitors. that the milk had been tainted by Mr. Meyer sent it to the South African pollen. The specimen at Mossel Bay is Museum. It would hold about two now about twenty-two feet high with a gallons. spread more than fifty feet in diameter. It must be approaching five hundred First of the Mossel Bay coast years of age and it should last another shipwrecks occurred in 1504 when a five hundred. Milkwood timber has fleet under Lopo Soares sailed past been used for fencing and boat- Cape St. Blaize and one ship ran building but this historic tree will not ashore in the night. Pedro de be cut down. It is surrounded by Mendonca was the captain. The wreck chains. Two old ships’ cannon of was sighted in the breakers at dawn unknown origin lie in the enclosure. but it was impossible to help the crew The official notice reads as follows: and the fleet sailed on. A year later Cid Barbudo put into Mossel Bay and POST OFFICE TREE landed two degredados or convicts to So far back as A.D. 1500 Pedro de search the coast for survivors. They Ataide placed in this tree a letter returned after three days, stripped by containing a record of a disaster to the Hottentots, and reported that they a Portuguese fleet en route for had found a ship’s mast and a India. This letter was found by Joas skeleton. It appeared that the Hotten- de Nova who had put in with his tots had set fire to the wreck to secure ship to Mossel Bay for water. De the metal. The crew must have been Nova built a hermitage within a few massacred. yards of this tree close to which was a spring of water. An official Mossel Bay guide states that Santos Beach was named after a Portuguese ship lost there in the early days. In fact the name is much more bought the wreck for one hundred recent. The Santos was a small pounds. Cargo and tackle fetched German schooner which was at anchor another three hundred pounds. The in the bay on a fine day in July 1874 people who watched that drama have when a heavy swell set in from the all passed on and the Santos has been south-east. The master was on shore forgotten. and the mate was ill. Soon the Santos The British three-masted schooner was dragging her anchor and moving Rosebud broke adrift during a gale in towards the head of the bay. Distress Mossel Bay during the eighteen- signals were seen and the captain eighties and became a total loss. The offered a large amount of money to beach where she broke up was known anyone who would row him out to his for years as Rosebud Beach; then the ship; but no one was prepared to risk name was changed to Pansy Beach on his life. Then the anchor chain parted account of the rare and lovely pansy and the crew of the Santos made sail in shells found there. Before the century an effort to beat out of the bay. Too ended another schooner, the Sea Gull, late. The ship would not answer her had been wrecked in Mossel Bay. First helm and she grounded between two of the wrecks this century was the reefs. The rocket apparatus failed to barque Poseidon in August 1902. Two reach her but a rope was floated ashore months later there occurred one of the and the crew reached safety by means strangest and most costly wrecks ever of a “traveller”. Mr. A. B. Munro known on the Mossel Bay coast. Durban harbour authorities had able to walk on shore. You can still ordered a huge floating dock, nearly see a rusting shape at Glentana. Iran four hundred feet long with a beam of railings outside the Anglican eighty feet; a dock capable of lifting cathedral at George and a flight of ships weighing more than four iron steps outside a house in York thousand tons. The dock was towed Street are relics of the wreck. The from the Tyne by the steamer Bara- dock had been insured for £72,000 long and she rounded the Cape safely. and the towing fee was £8,000. In a tremendous gale off Cape St. Durban had to order a new floating Blaize, however, the towing hawser dock. snapped and the Baralong was unable Last of the Mossel Bay wrecks to save the floating dock. Captain occurred during a southeast gale in Dryden, the Mossel Bay harbour November 1903. Rain fell in torrents, master put out in the small tug houses were flooded. The Norwegian Morning Star, but the seas were sailing ship King Cenric had two running high and the tug had to return anchors down but both cables parted to shelter. Dryden tried again with a and the ship took the ground. All larger vessel, the steam trawler hands were rescued by the rocket Undine, but the dock was close brigade. The steam trawler Thrasher inshore now and had to be left to her was lost on the rocks that day. Six fate. The dock was lifted so far up on ships were wrecked in Algoa Bay the beach that the men on board were during the same gale. Portugal dominated the Mossel Bay enter Mossel Bay. Captain Jan de scene during the sixteenth century. Molinaar noted that the natives Manuel de Perestrello, navigator and “seemed savage yet friendly to us”. author, left this record of his visit: He bartered oxen and sheep for old “At this bay, upon the top point of iron. Early in the seventeenth century the cape, I left fixed a wooden cross the Dutch commander Paulus van and fastened to it with brass wire a Caerden anchored in the bay on his tube enclosed with cork and wax way back from India. He took twenty within which was a document as of his men on shore with him from follows: ‘In praise of our Lord Jesus the Hof van Holland and Christ and exaltation of His holy complained that he could only get faith and for the service and oysters when he wanted fresh meat. enlargement of the kingdoms and Van Caerden was responsible for states of Dom Sebastian, the most changing the Portuguese name to serene King of Portugal, Manuel Mossel Bay. Nearly seven decades Mesquita de Perestrello who by his passed before the Dutch thought of command came to explore this coast. exploring the Mossel Bay hinterland. Placed here on seventh January Then a party under Jeronimus Cruse 1576’.” No trace of this cross or were put on shore and they marched document has ever been found. through unknown country to Table Bay, discovering the Attaquas tribe Only towards the end of the sixteenth of Hottentots on the way. century did the first Dutch ships Jan de la Fontaine was the first Cape Mossel Bay saw an impressive governor to visit Mossel Bay and in cavalcade in the seventeen-sixties the seventeen-thirties he put up a when Jan Willem Cloppenburg, beacon with the VOC emblem to Fiscal at the Cape, arrived with a establish ownership. Cattle farmers coach, army wagon, horses and a had already settled in the district. retinue of servants. Cloppenburg Ignatius Ferreira, a Portuguese who wrote a long report describing the had been wrecked in Table Bay, Hottentots he met. There is a settled at Mossel Bay some years mountain ten miles north of Mossel afterwards and became field cornet. Bay called Bottelierskop, and Clop- The old house with yellowwood penburg included in his report this floors near Brandwacht where he rather puzzling reference to the lived is still there. Another old farm origin of the name. “By the Klein is Geelbeksvlei, owned by the Brak River is a little mountain called Meyers in the eighteenth century and the Botteliersmutje (steward’s cap) afterwards. When a ship was lost in which name was very obviously Mossel Bay in the seventeen-thirties given to it by seventeen sailors of the Esias Meyer rode to the Castle with Huis Marquette that lay in Mossel the news. He took seven days, Bay some time ago. With the wife of changing horses fifteen times. For a certain burgher Jacobus they this service he was granted land in diverted themselves in a cave nearby freehold. that is now named the ‘Chamber of Seventeen’.” Possibly the bottelier scattered about the adjoining country,” (ship’s victualler) had some part in noted Le Vaillant. the affair. A large granary was built by the Dutch Mossel Bay was on the route of a towards the end of the eighteenth number of those famous old century, for the policy was to travellers, botanists and others, who encourage wheat production in the enriched South African literature district. Leading farmers of the period with their scholarly observations. were Jan and Nicolaas Meyer, J. Carl Thunberg the Swede stayed on Pienaar, M. le Grange, A. Barnard, H. the farm of Dirk Marcus, a great Heyns, Rademeyer, Botha and Wiese. elephant hunter, in the seventeen- The granary cost nearly a thousand seventies; and soon afterwards came pounds. Another store intended for Dr. Andrew Sparrman, another timber cost slightly more. It was one Swede, on horseback. Le Vaillant the hundred and fifty feet long and twenty Frenchman visited the bay at the same feet wide. Stone walls were two feet period and smacked his lips over the thick. Yellowwood was brought from oysters. Hyenas disturbed his oxen at the Outeniqua forests for the floors. night and he had to light fires. He Mr. Colin Graham Botha, the archi- exchanged tobacco for mats at a vist, found the walls of these buildings Hottentot kraal. Pelicans and still standing after World War I, and flamingoes were seen in thousands. “A parts of the granary may be traced to number of good habitations are this day. Survivors from the wrecked Dr. Heinrich Lichtenstein, the German Grosvenor passed through Mossel Bay explorer, gave a lively description of a late in the eighteenth century, bringing Mossel Bay farm when he visited the the first news of the disaster. Four bay with Commissioner de Mist very sailors reported that “the Caffres had early last century. Klaas Meyer was come down upon the people, carried their host. “We were regaled with an off the female passengers and killed excellent breakfast of cold provisions, several of the men who attempted to admirable fruit and wines which protect them”. Heligert Muller, a might justly be called costly,” district farmer, fed and clothed Lichtenstein wrote. “Even though I survivors and became prominent as should excite a smile in my readers I leader of Grosvenor search parties. He must once more observe how much found “women’s torn clothing” but the we were struck with the attractions women had perished. During his third among the female part of this family. journey Muller reached the scene of We all agreed that we scarcely ever the wreck and found cannon, ballast, recollected to have seen more English porcelain and other relics. He personal beauty than in the eldest brought back two pieces of East Indian daughter, a young woman about redwood which were identified as eighteen. Her whole manner and air dunnage used to prevent chafing in the had in it much more appearance of cargo holds of the Grosvenor. refinement than is usually to be found among the African damsels and we really separated ourselves that the shells had been taken there with reluctance from so lovely a and eaten by Hottentots, not carried creature”. Lichtenstein found an there by birds as a previous traveller Englishman named Murray owning a had suggested. He found the oysters shop with a stock of cloth, hats, were of fine flavour but some were silks, glass and ironware. Murray had so large that they could not be raised his prices “owing to the war”. swallowed at a gulp. Lichtenstein He had a small brig and another dined with the widow Terreblanche vessel trading between Mossel Bay of French descent and described his and Cape Town but he lost both experience with obvious apprecia- ships on the Agulhas reef soon tion. “The number of dishes set afterwards. before us was greater than is almost ever to be seen at the tables even of Lichtenstein also called on the post- the most distinguished bon-vivants at holder, the government official at Cape Town. We found that our Mossel Bay, a Dane named Abue. hostess was celebrated in the country “He is a sensible, active man but for her excellent table and that she lives here secluded from the world prided herself particularly upon it. and unwedded,” said Lichtenstein. She gave us almost everything that “The fall of his patron made him take the chase or the fisheries could refuge in this remote corner of the furnish, with several sorts of vegeta- globe.” Lichtenstein explored the bles dressed in an immense variety cave at Cape St. Blaize and decided of ways; nor would she suffer such a the flute and dancing on the beach at thing to be mentioned as paying her. Mossel Bay. As a great rarity we had in the The Rev. Christian Latrobe, a dessert a cream cheese made upon Moravian missionary born in England, the spot. Attempts to make good arrived soon after Burchell. He stayed cheese near Cape Town had failed as with the Meyers at Hartenbosch and the milk was not sufficiently rich due recorded: “We found friendly faces to poor feed.” and excellent quarters for the night. Next on the scene was the great Mr. Meyer and his whole family gave William John Burchell, botanist and us the kindest reception and seemed owner of the most luxurious wagon much pleased with our visit. The ever seen in Mossel Bay. The forward furniture in Mr. Meyer’s house, made part was his bedroom and a canvas of stinkwood, yellowwood and other partition separated him from the curious woods, does him great credit, stores; goods as presents to chiefs, both as to beauty and strength. When clothing and blankets for his own we awoke in the morning the sky was Hottentots; books and other articles covered with black clouds and it packed into five large chests. Burchell lightened and thundered much. At gave dinner parties in the wagon. One eight it cleared up though the thunder of his menus consisted of boiled beef, continued to roar all round the rice, melted sheep tail fat and salt, tea horizon. Our friendly host at breakfast without sugar. I think of him playing gave us an account of the many wild beasts that haunt the woods and bushy difficulty saved by his people. coasts of the bay, where they have Porcupines are numerous; snakes good cover. Tygers and wolves now creep into the poultry yards and and then commit depredations; wild houses and do much mischief. Our buffaloes are sometimes seen; but wild host getting up in the dark and dogs are numerous and most to be walking into the hall felt something dreaded. A wolf hunts only at night, is like a rope about his legs. On calling cowardly and may be guarded against for a light he discovered it to be a by various means; but the wild dogs yellow serpent. Had he accidentally go in troops and hunt night and day. trod upon it he would have been They attack every living animal and bitten by the venomous reptile. the ‘dread of man’ is but slight upon About nine o’clock we took leave of them. Mr. Meyer related that if they the family. Nowhere have we yet met have killed a tame animal they will with a more cordial reception than at quit it on being attacked by man, but Hartenbosch.” not if their prey is wild game. Not long Admiral Sir Jahleel Brenton followed ago a troop of them hunted a rhebuck Latrobe; and he too, was entertained into his neighbour’s yard. The farmer by the Meyers. “The house stood sallied forth with his gun to drive off upon a gentle eminence sloping the pursuers and secure the fugitive for down from the mountain towards the his own table, but was instantly sea and commanded a splendid view attacked by the dogs and his life with of the valley, the river and the sea with the whole range of coast from He noticed the wagons loaded with Mossel Bay to the Kayman,” wrote yellowwood beams for buildings, Brenton. “Mr. Meyer is an example logs for planks, fellies for wheels, of what may be done by industry and tree-nails for repairs to ships. exertion. His family and his house Families, he said, lived mainly on were highly creditable. Hospitality, mutton, game, tea and brandy. “A neatness and every appearance of kind of Providence has showered domestic felicity gave a relish to this down all the essentials of life on this scene which is not easily forgotten favoured country,” Brenton declared. and would have been a subject for “Want of food is unknown either for admiration in any part of the world. man or beast. Houses built of clay All that struck the eyes conveyed an and thatched with reeds - are readily idea of comfort and respectability constructed; the woodwork for doors, and showed the effect of habitual windows and rafters are easily attention to arrangement and cleanli- obtained from the nearest bosch. ness. A group of beautiful and Furniture is confined to the frames of orderly children gave promise that a bedstead or two and thongs of this valley could flourish in future rawhide. A large chest serves as a generations.” store closet and table. Clothing is easily made from sheepskin tanned or Brenton, a clever artist, painted the untanned. A few loads of wood carried gabled Meyer farm under the moun- to the Cape Town market will procure tains, with aloes in the foreground. them brandy and tea, the principal that year the government gave the luxuries, also printed calicos and linen. place the official name of Aliwal A covered wagon is their dwelling- West, but the residents disliked it and house.” went on calling it Mossel Bay. The first Dutch Reformed Church was built James Holman, the blind British naval there seven years later with the Rev. T. lieutenant who travelled widely in T. van der Riet as minister. A turf club spite of his handicap, visited Mossel was formed in 1852. In that year Bay in the eighteen-twenties and Mossel Bay became a municipality encountered an English sailor there. named Aliwal South; but the obstinate He was an “easy and improvident inhabitants refused to adopt the name beachcomber,” catching whales and and in the end they had their way. gathering oysters; weatherwise, accurate as a barometer. Known as When a “Cape Argus” reporter visited Mossel Bay Jack, the beachcomber Mossel Bay in the middle of last also collected shells for the lime- century he said the place reminded burners, exchanging a wagonload for a him of Simonstown. There were one cow, ox or wheat. hundred and twenty houses, many of them solidly built. The new gaol, The Rev. James Backhouse, the however, was described as “a mean Wesleyan missionary, found only ten little hovel, so tumble-down that the houses in Mossel Bay in 1838, but authorities fear to incarcerate prisoners wagons with fifty people had assem- within its walls.” A jetty ran out from bled there to wait for a ship. During the beach and there was a landing and the Dutch church gave the place place with steps. Admiral Pringle had “respectability and character”. There sent an officer named Rice in H.M.S. were three hotels, an apothecary, Hope to chart Mossel Bay before the provision shops and a public reading- end of the eighteenth century. Now a room. Officials included a resident harbourmaster named H. W. Laws was magistrate, district surgeon, customs appointed. I have seen a report on the officer and police for the population of harbour by Laws in which he declared six hundred. A post-cart ran to Cape that Mossel Bay was perfectly secure Town three times a week. Between the from May to August and offered the years 1851 and 1858 more than four only safe anchorage along that iron- hundred ships had anchored in the bay. bound coast. The bay was the deepest Seal Island, which so many mailboat indentation between Simon’s Bay and passengers have seen on harbour Delagoa Bay, as Knysna and Port excursions by tug, was a scene of Natal gave no shelter outside their tragedy in the middle of last century. narrow entrances. Laws pointed out A shipmaster, a doctor named Syme that the opening of Meiring’s Poort and two others were drowned while through the Swartberg had given visiting the island. Some years later a Mossel Bay access to the interior and whale boat was stove in while the had helped the village to develop. crew were attempting to land on Seal Many houses had slate and zinc roofs Island. On that occasion another and some had two storeys. The chapel medical man was drowned, a Dr. named William Matfield was tried and Weinstein and three others. condemned to death. He wrote a confession shortly before the execu- Governor Sir Philip Wodehouse tion and this was published in the opened the Cape St. Blaize lighthouse newspapers: “I committed the crime and laid the cornerstone of a new jetty while in a mad state and it was like a in the eighteen-sixties and a “grand dream when I came to my senses. tiffin” was held in his honour. At this Since my sentence I have turned over period the newspapers reported that to the Catholic Church. I wish to thank Mossel Bay had become a fashionable the magistrate, police and gaoler for watering place. The hotels were the their kindness. I leave a wife and four Marine, Masonic, Royal and Victoria; children and trust the people of Mossel all of them offered “draught beer and Bay will be charitable towards them.” oyster suppers”. By the year 1875 Matfield was pinioned in his cell at a Mossel Bay had a town population of quarter to eight one morning in June twelve hundred with nearly four 1888 and accompanied to the scaffold thousand in the district. by Father Ballesty and two constables. Twelve years later the town was A service was read and Matfield shocked by the first murder among the responded. Crowds had gathered on white community. Louisa Ann Del- the hill overlooking the gaol and as the bridge, a schoolgirl, was found scaffold had been put up in the gaol throttled. Tracks showed that the yard the onlookers were able to watch murderer had worn odd boots. A man the execution. Before the noose was horse Gladiator driven by a Mr. adjusted Matfield addressed those Menzies. “The car attracted a deal of present. (According to the local attention as it careered merrily along,” newspaper the witnesses included the reported the local newspaper. “Mr. deputy sheriff, district surgeon, police Menzies is conveying a government “and a few other gentlemen”). official to Port Elizabeth and thence Matfield said: “I am about to suffer the northwards. He covered the distance just penalty for the crime I have between Cape Town and Mossel Bay committed and I commend my spirit to in twenty-four hours net, not including God.” The trap was sprung and soon stoppages for sleep and meals. The car afterwards the watchers on the hillside negotiates hills with a facility that dispersed. fully sustains the claims made for these vehicles in regard to their Towards the end of the century the capacity for speed and power.” first intermediate steamer called at Mossel Bay to load eighty thousand Trawling started in Mossel Bay waters oranges and ostrich feathers worth ten very early this century. The research thousand pounds. She was the brand vessel Pieter Faure fished off Cape new Arundel Castle of four thousand Infanta and brought up hauls too large tons, the second ship in the Castle fleet to lift inboard. Soles, which had been to bear that name. Another interesting regarded as a great luxury in Mossel arrival at the port, in the winter of Bay, were sold at a penny each; for 1903, was the first motor-car, a six- those were the days before cold storage and rail facilities. When the housed in a low white building on first train reached Mossel Bay in the Hartenbos farm, ancestral home 1905 there were no more penny of the Meyer family. Strandloper soles. implements form a contrast with the wagon equipment of the Voortrekker Mossel Bay still has a number of period and farmhouse furniture. Here reminders of its past besides the Ou are white linen kappies and a baby’s Posboom, the cannon and anchors. cape decorated with spotted guinea Marsh Street, the main thoroughfare, fowl feathers. Old musical instru- recalls Mr. George Marsh, the first ments and sewing-machines, a magistrate. Some of the old ware- wooden kitchen mincer, guns and houses of honeycoloured local stone medical kit, pewter and chinaware have arched doorways built in the are among the Hartenbos exhibits. days when high-piled wagons entered the yards of the merchants. I mentioned aloe fumes when I first Die Bakke, one of the three main entered Mossel Bay. This is one of beaches, gained its name at the time Africa’s ancient trades for the when farmers camped there and then Egyptians were using aloes as animals drank at the iron water medicine three thousand years before troughs (die bakke) on the sands. Christ; and at the Cape the Hotten- tots were collecting the juice for the Mossel Bay has a country museum same purpose long before the first where many fine specimens of old explorers arrived. Adrian van der Afrikaans culture are preserved. It is Stel sent the Aloe ferox seed to over a hollow in the ground. After Holland. Dried aloe juice weighing about twelve hours the juice is poured millions of pounds has passed into petrol cans. It looks rather like through Mossel Bay since the middle dark brown treacle when it is boiled. of last century. German schooners Finally it dries and hardens into brittle called for it and the dried sap was cakes. exported in special boxes made of Aloe tappers have to guard against the Outeniqua yellowwood. You may effects of the powerful medicine they smell herbs and sweet flowers and handle all day long. They find it fragrant heath in the Mossel Bay necessary to add dried beans and district; but when the aloes are boiled mealies to their bread and potatoes. in cauldrons the odour dominates the Even their sweat turns yellow after a countryside. spell among the aloes. Aloe juice You see the tall spikes of the red-hot contains the purgative drug aloin; the pokers along the roads and over large characteristic bitter taste is disguised areas of veld in the early spring. The by coating laxative pills with sugar or aloes look after themselves. Tappers saccharine. Fresh juice from the leaf is work at all seasons though dry weather used as an eye application for is best. Then you see the coloured opthalmia. The juice is also used for tappers hacking off the leaves and treating scab in sheep. Sweet nectar piling them in the traditional way, cut from the flower is a narcotic, causing ends inwards, on to a goatskin spread symptoms like curare poisoning. Buck are aware of the medical properties preparation were revealed by a dying and have been seen nibbling the Hottentot slave to his master. leaves. Some farmers think that dosing Mossel Bay has one other unusual sheep and cattle with aloes will affect industry, a factory for milling the the blood and force ticks to abandon yellow ochre mined in the Albertinia their hosts, but this is a fallacy. Dried district and worked into a fine powder aloe leaves give a smokeless flame and for paint. The resort claims the finest provide the finest of all fuel for flat- natural bathing pool in the world, the irons. Aloe ash mixed with powdered Poort with its rock walls and sandy tobacco gives just the right flavour floor, filled by each high tide. The (say the addicts) to certain forms of old fishing village of thatched snuff. Aloes were once used for cottages has grown into a town that embalming. Country folk painted the has covered the hillside; a town of woodwork in their homes with aloe modern shops and villas and one juice to keep beetles away and impart circular home on a pedestal admired a deep colour. Indeed the aloe has by architects. Oysters cost a bit more been valued since the days of than they did in the days when the Solomon, as you will remember: “All first hotels served oyster suppers. If their garments smell of myrrh and Vasco da Gama returned today he aloes and cassia.” According to would find no one simple enough to Mossel Bay legend, the secret of the supply him with a bull in exchange aloe medicine and the method of for a red cap. The tigers and wolves (in reality leopards and jackals) of Latrobe’s time are no longer a serious menace. Little schooners are in no danger of being driven on to Santos beach. Bushman paintings in the caves of Cape St. Blaize were blacked out by the fires of campers long ago. The oysters are still there, thank heaven, and so is the view of the distant Outeniquas, the range that inspired Francois le Vaillant nearly two centuries ago when he declared: “I was rapt in wonder. This land bears the name of Outeniqualand, which in the Hottentot tongue means ‘a man laden with honey’. The flowers grow there in millions. Nature has made an enchanted abode of this beautiful place.” masters of last century dreaded the black south-easters at Algoa Bay. Algoa Bay must be paved with lost cargoes, everything from steel rails and other “Glasgow jewellery” to slabs of marble and galvanised sheets. Hundreds of anchors have rested in the mud for centuries. Thousands of fathoms of valuable anchor chains have been abandoned there, enough to hold the fleets of the world. When CHAPTER SEVEN bales and cases dropped from the BAY OF LOST CARGOES slings the Customs men known as OLD sailormen have told me that Port “tide waiters” recovered some of the Elizabeth once had a seafaring quarter flotsam on North End beach; but as rowdy and dangerous as old Cape Algoa Bay has swallowed greedily Town’s waterfront streets. The surf- fortunes in heavy freight that should boat crews of Algoa Bay, they have gone to the shore in lighters. declared, were every bit as bold and Those who know only the modern skilful as the Table Bay watermen. all-weather harbour can have little Just as Table Bay skippers feared the idea of past hardships and disasters. winter north-westers so the ship- Again and again the builders of walls and breakwaters were defeated by anchored in six fathoms, grey sand the violence of the sea and Port over clay. October to April were the Elizabeth had to wait more than a months they feared. When haze century for the secure basin of today. appeared on the horizon; when the air became cold and damp; when the I can remember the wind-swept port office hoisted a warning, then anchorage where passenger ships and careful masters made for open sea. tramps plunged and bucketed with Some trusted their ground tackle but strings of lighters bumping heavily if their cables parted the surf claimed against their sides. Gangways were them and they pounded on the sand. smashed, passengers had to enter tall Others hesitated, tried to claw off the baskets and trust the magnificent lee shore; their topsails carried away, blacks of vast experience who mainsails split and they became handled the rattling steam-winches victims of the heavy, breaking seas. and lowered them safely to the decks Often by the next morning a fine ship of tugs. The trade of the port was would have become a mass of carried on over the years in spite of tangled rope and shattered timber. wild and frightening storms and all too many shipwrecks. In the days of As long as the wind blew from the sail a strong south-easter must have west Algoa Bay offered safe anchor- been a nightmare for those afloat. age. When it veered to the east of Shipmasters took compass bearings Cape Recife a swell rose and the of Fort Frederick and Bird Rock and lighters became hard to manage. Black south-easters filled the sky became invisible. They heard the with dark clouds and masters realised roaring of the gale, the surf on the the danger before the gale warning beach, the nerve-racking creak and was signalled from the shore. groaning of the windlass. All night Tarpaulins were dragged over the there would be the lightning and the holds of the lighters and all cargo rain; the wind blowing at seventy, work came to a halt. Small craft eighty miles an hour; men working made for the shore. Ship after ship frantically by the light of storm veered out more cable; sixty fathoms lanterns; rockets going up, tar barrels became seventy, eighty, a hundred, a ablaze as signals of distress. Dawn hundred and twenty, and men would show the black cloud masses wondered whether the great chains still racing overhead. Dawn on the would stand the test. Steamers with beach would bring sorrow to all who their fires burning were safe enough set eyes on the doomed and the dead. for they could use their engines to Sometimes the crowds on the beach relieve the strain or move out to sea were able to count the men in the if necessary. Sailing ships had to rely bows of a wrecked ship, but they had on anchors and chain and springs. to watch them drowning, one by one. Their crews stared across the anchor- Years ago during an early visit to age to see how others were faring Port Elizabeth I was advised to call and caught occasional glimpses on two old citizens named Josephus through blinding spray. Landmarks Winter and Thomas Morgan. After this lapse of time I can hardly seventh Regiment, eleven women believe my own notes, for these men and twenty-six children and a full talked freely of the eighteen-fifties. crew. She put into Aloga Bay for They remembered Port Elizabeth as a provisions and water and while at place of sandy roads like an up- anchor there a south-east gale blew country village; a Main Street up. Almost everyone in the town crowded with wool wagons; post-cart went down to the foot of Jetty Street drivers with bugles; masses of foam to watch the drama. “Above the fury blowing across Jetty Street and of the wind and sea we could hear the across Market Square during a south- cries of the women and children,” easter. They had seen a sailing ship recalled Mr. Winter. “They saw the break away from her anchor and danger even before the ship parted drive right through a wooden jetty, with her anchor.” The captain of the leaving a wide gap. Then she met her Charlotte got a little sail on her and end on the rocks. They talked of the tried to beat out of the bay, but it was wreck of the Charlotte, a troopship hopeless. The troopship crawled along bound from Cork to Calcutta under just outside the breakers, parallel with sail. She was no Birkenhead, for the shore. Off North End beach the everyone on board seemed to have mate jumped overboard and was been panic-stricken. The Charlotte drowned in the surf. Survivors carried one hundred and sixty-three declared that the mate had tried to officers and men of the Twenty- persuade the captain to beach the ship on the sand. When the captain refused of the troopship was to be seen at the the mate said he was going to give place where she had struck. Sixty himself a sporting chance of reaching soldiers, eleven women and all the the shore, and went to his death. The children were drowned, and the total Charlotte struck the rockiest part of death roll was one hundred and fifteen. the foreshore and broke in half. The Port Elizabeth regarded the Charlotte harbourmaster sent a rocket line across disaster as a mystery. As a rule people but no one in the Charlotte touched it. facing death are stirred to action but Then he sent out a lifeboat at great nearly all on board the Charlotte risk. “A panic at this time seized the seemed to have been paralysed by crew and troops,” reported the fear. By the way, this wreck which harbourmaster. “In defiance of was described to me by eye-witnesses repeated hails from the shore they occurred as far back as 1854. Captain jumped overboard. I launched the boat Salmond, who tried to organise the in a fearful surf and several times rescue, was awarded a gold medal, and pulled alongside. The boat filled and this has been preserved in the Port was driven on the rocks after several Elizabeth library. men had been washed overboard.” Mr. South-east gales brought work for the Winter said the Charlotte broke up local shipyards. They caulked the rapidly but the stern came so close to damaged ships, fitted new rudders, the shore that a number of people were fashioned new mainmasts and saved. At daybreak hardly a fragment topmasts and rigged ships of all sizes. When the Star of Empire was opened up the sealing and guano trade dismasted and abandoned the Port with the Algoa Bay islands. Elizabeth craftsmen fitted her out Whaling flourished all through last again and sent her to sea as the Lady century, the fierce old-fashioned Grey. Famous little Cape Town whaling which made bull-fighting traders were calling at Algoa Bay a seem a sport for timid people. Algoa century ago: the Lord of the Isles, Bay had several great harpooners. which went on to Mauritius for sugar, Rival whalermen kept a sharp lookout the guano island vessel Alert, Captain from the Donkin Reserve or St. Croix James Glendinning’s Admiral, the island; and a smoke fire was the signal Anna, Albatross and Tonquille. Port that a whale had been sighted. Right Elizabeth builders launched a schooner whales swam into Algoa Bay to calve of their own in the middle of last from June to September each year. century, the Penguin for communi- When the lookoutmen saw a “blow” cation with Bird Island. They had their the crews rushed down to North End own whaling industry, too, started by Beach and launched the narrow, Frederick Korsten, the Dutch aristocrat double-ended boats. Portuguese and merchant who was there before harpooners were among the pioneers. the settlers arrived. He was also a One daredevil named Fernandez often farmer and shipowner. Korsten’s ship jumped from the boat on to a whale’s Helena sailed to England and he back to drive the lance home. Searle, another skipper, used a small harpoon gun fired from the shoulder; it had a vertebrae of whales decorate his kick that usually knocked him over but garden. Among his nautical museum when the dart exploded in the right pieces are the figurehead of H.M.S. spot the whale died quickly. Among Medusa, one of Nelson’s flagships; the last of the North End whalermen ships’ lanterns, a signal cannon, bells was Old Darby, a fearless Malay. He and bollards and anchors. once brought in a huge sperm whale, Port Elizabeth had its pubs in the sixty feet long and valued at eight very early days, the Red Lion Tavern hundred pounds. They had their and the Robinson Hotel. In the blubber pots on North End beach, and eighteenforties came the Phoenix all the poor (and the dogs) of Port Hotel, named after the pioneer Elizabeth gathered there to feast on paddle steamer Phoenix that traded discarded fragments of fat whale meat. along the coast. Cobb’s coaches, Whalebone was cleaned and sold in drawn by eight horses, started from those days of corsets and unwanted the Phoenix. By the middle of last parts were dumped at sea. But the century there were rather more bars great skeletons remained for many and canteens than the little town years as relics of the hunting. Mr. needed. Strand Street, which had a Herbert McWilliams, the well-known vile reputation, was the resort of architect and yacht designer, uses the smugglers, drunken seamen, escaped old cauldrons as flowerpots at his convicts and army deserters. Here home on the Swartkops River. The the thirsty sailorman could refresh himself at the Standard, the Prince of With shoremen helping they would Wales, Kromm’s, Ted Sasse’s, the lift the heavy boat with slings and Caledonian, the Admiral Rodney and spars and rush her out of reach of the other hotels and canteens. In this sea. Passengers were carried on unlighted quarter, known as Irish shore by natives. Town, beachcombers slept in surf Irish Town was tough but an Irish boats and defended themselves priest named Father Murphy restored against a horde of rats. Here the law and order. He rode a black horse stevedores fortified themselves with and carried only a cane. When the brandy before pulling off to ships in black horse died he acquired a white the bay. Often they needed strong horse; and an admirer called his hotel drink for their boats capsized again the White Horse in honour of the and again in heavy weather. People priest’s steed. Thanks to Father loved to watch the surf boats coming Murphy’s influence the Roman in and waiting just outside the line of Catholic prisoners in the little wooden breakers for a word from the coxs’n. gaol were allowed out on Sundays to At the right moment the coxs’n attend Mass. For three decades Father would dip his long steering oar and Murphy visited the Irish emigrants shout; the men would pull together who settled in Port Elizabeth. He died and come roaring in on the crest of a nearly a century ago but the man and wave. Once the boat touched all his famous horses have never been hands would jump into the water. forgotten. Port Elizabeth had a German colony in white and red ribbons. They drank and the eighteenfifties and they gathered at sang and ate rollmops, and when the Hirsch’s Hotel, the Commercial in glasses were raised the toasts could be Queen Street. It was not only the heard in the street - Prost ! Zum fountain with goldfish and lilies that Wohle ! Zur Gesundheit ! Strange to attracted them. Hirsch also provided say, a favourite meeting place of the sausages and pumpernickel, Bavarian German colony late last century was cheese and pretzels. His cooks the Britannia Hotel. transmuted the plain local cabbage Other early hotels in Queen Street into a legendary sauerkraut, shredded were the George and Dragon, the and flavoured with carraway seeds, Oddfellows Arms, the Rose and garnished with apples and onions and Shamrock, Fountain and Albion. The frankfurters. Hirsch imported the Vine in Sea Lane was known for some typical German herb liqueurs as well reason as “His Lordship’s Larder”. as the Rhine brandies and Steinhaeger Queen Street also had, as a contrast, a gin; and he kept an unfailing stock of garden filled with one of the finest regional beers to suit the exacting collections of ships’ figureheads ever palates of residents and sailors. There seen in South Africa. Mr. Tee, the came a time when the German colony owner, did not exactly welcome in Port Elizabeth formed a Deutsche shipwrecks; but he was always on the Liedertafel, gathering under a huge spot when wrecks were put up for sale, imperial coat-of-arms with black, and the auctioneer could always rely on a bid for the figurehead. In this way There was an eagle from a Yankee Mr. Tee became the owner of a nauti- whaler and a lion from some cal museum far more romantic than unknown wreck. Carved from pine the rusty anchors, chain and other and brightly painted, these were marine equipment that surrounded the relics of the golden age of sail. George Hotel in Main Street. Where Dick Smithers, an American who are they now, those crude yet robust made a living by breaking up wrecks, wooden statues of classical figures was among the Port Elizabeth and naval heroes, those famous men characters towards the end of last and women staring with sightless century. He ran a boarding-house as eyes towards the oceans they had a sideline, and his dances with a lost? These images of good luck pianist and three fiddlers were were not always works of art. Some described as the best entertainment came from the benches of ships’ value of the period. Smithers charged carpenters, though now and again a an entrance fee of one shilling. Of shipowner commissioned a brilliant course there were scenes of wild woodcarver and adorned a prow with disorder when seamen of the a delicate figurehead that brought the different nations clashed, when fists whole ship to life. Mr. Tee had a and belts came into action. But on stupid-looking man with a walrus happier occasions the sentimental moustache between two lovely mariners gathered round the female effigies in flowing robes. orchestra and sang with tears in their Malay fishermen carried their fish on bloodshot eyes: long bamboo poles. Their mosques were at the lower end of Strand Street. But a maiden so sweet lives in that The fishermen moved to South End little street, later and lived in wattle and daub huts. She’s the daughter of Widow Like the Cape Malays this colony at McNally: Algoa Bay loved picnics on holidays; She has bright golden hair, and the and they streamed out to the boys all declare Swartkops River in their carts. The She’s the sunshine of Paradise fezzed men favoured brown suits with Alley. gold watch chains; women appeared in Among the picturesque corners of dazzling clothes. They danced their Port Elizabeth early this century was own volkspele and they sang: the Chinese market garden. Chinese growers took their vegetables from So lank as die rietjie in die water door to door in pannier baskets. Even lê in those days some people enjoyed In die water lê, in die water lê the authentic Chinese dishes; meat So lank as die rietjie in die water and fish cooked with sesame or lê peanut oil and mild spices; mush- Blommetjie gedink om my. rooms and bamboo shoots, shrimps Mr. McWilliams, the architect I have and almonds and soya sauce; cakes mentioned, has pointed out that the flavoured with powdered ginger. city has a number of very narrow buildings. He traced this peculiarity deposited on the beach and blown back to the days when wooden spars inland; then it seeped back into the bay from wrecks were used as main beams at the wrong spot and threatened the in new buildings. A spar twenty-seven harbour. The dune area, with sandhills feet long would span a roof or floor; thirty feet high, was known as the and so many a frontage was “Downs” and became a landmark for determined. Port Elizabeth owes its ships in Algoa Bay. Reclamation deep, narrow buildings to the gales in started almost a century ago, convicts Algoa Bay. planted Port Jackson willows, but the sand still appeared to be gaining. Port Elizabeth once watched the daily People spoke nervously of Port movements of the most remarkable Elizabeth being engulfed by sand. So a train in the country. It was not a train railway line was built into the heart of to boast about for it carried the refuse the sandy desert and the “Driftsands of the town, a train of trucks loaded Special” whistled off for the first time. with eighty tons of household rubbish. Convicts spread the refuse over the People called it the “Driftsands dunes. Self-sown tomatoes, pumpkins Special”. It ran for the first time and acacias grew out of the sand. towards the end of last century and Stable sweepings yielded unexpected completed its unromantic task during crops of oathay. But still a yellow the first two decades of this century. cloud of sand arose in a strong breeze Drifting sand menaced Port Elizabeth and fell on the decks of ships miles in the eighteenseventies. First it was away at sea. Only after years of locomotives have gone. It might also constant work was the desert trans- be known as the “Orange and Pear formed into the pleasant Humewood Train” for the Langkloof orchards fill resort of today. And only a few the trucks with these fruits. And there railway lovers mourned the passing of are times when the aroma of tobacco is the “Driftsands Special.” Mr. E. P. wafted through the countryside from Dimbleby, the Port Elizabeth editor, the “Apple Express”. It is a narrow- once told me that the sight he always gauge railway, two feet six inches gazed upon in wonder mixed with wide, built at one third the cost of horror was the fantastic horde of flies South African standard gauge. which hovered over the train and Railway-lovers flock to a miniature accompanied it to its destination. One railway but during the fruit season fly does not make very much noise, they have to make way for more but those millions of flies buzzing in profitable cargoes bound for the unison almost rivalled the engine- harbour. driver’s whistle. A more fragrant train is the “Apple Express” which brings the apple harvest into Port Elizabeth from stations as far away as Avontuur. Early this century it set out as the “Walmer Coffee Pot”; but those CHAPTER EIGHT I saw ostriches and oranges along the BY WAGON TO THE KOWIE road between Grahamstown and the coast, but not a single motor-car. This MY first journey to Port Alfred was by was still the heyday of the ox-wagon ox-wagon. The trek was memorable and the rough tracks resounded with because this was my only experience the wild cries of the drivers and the of South Africa’s traditional “ship of sounds of their long whips. I the veld”. I was ten years old, an discovered that oxen had names too unhappy boarder at a Grahamstown weird to remember; but I recall their school, and when the short holidays strength and patience and fearsome came it was almost impossible to go to horns. Sometimes the wheels sank into Cape Town and back in the time holes and I walked ahead while the allowed. So I went with other exiles to blacks struggled with the teams. I the school camp at Port Alfred. found the whole journey very much to It was considered a great privilege to my taste; the swinging trot of the oxen be chosen as one of the wagon party. over hard ground; the long outspan at The wagons, bearing tents, set out midday; the smell of the earth. A box several days before the end of the with a heavy lid held the food and it term, so that those arriving by train gave out a fine aroma of coffee and would find everything ready for them. brown sugar, rusks and pepper. In the The year was 1910, with Halley’s evening there would be stewed mutton Comet sweeping across the night sky. and askoek. I would have gone on for rushing of the waters. During a river ever provided the wagon was taking excursion by steam-launch we kept a me away from that hated school. look-out for buffalo; but there were However, the trek ended all too soon not many left even in those days for at an old-fashioned Port Alfred which the rinderpest had almost extermi- had none of the smart, modern shop- nated them. I saw a lifeboat crossing windows or tiled villas. the sinister bar that had caused so many wrecks and drownings. The Close to the camp was a store that port was a ghost harbour, a deserted could not have changed much since port where the stone embankments, the days of the Settlers. It was a low wharves and mooring rings were building like a stable with a stoep reminders of the long period when displaying felt hats and velskoene, Port Alfred sheltered steamers and pitchforks and saddles. Packing cases square-riggers. Then I went back to formed the counter and the dark school by train, over the graceful room smelt of moth powders used to Blaauwkrantz bridge of tragic protect the woollen goods; moth memories. More than half a century powders, great bars of soap and roll passed before I saw Port Alfred tobacco. I was interested only in the again. jars of sweets though I admired the gaudy handkerchiefs and guns. According to legend the Portuguese were the first white men to enter the We always called Port Alfred “the Kowie River. They must have Kowie”, a native name based on the sighted the mouth; but I doubt very went on: “Diaz left a box of docu- much whether such fine, cautious ments relating to his voyage together navigators would have risked their with an emblem of Christianity to boats and their lives so far from mark, as it were, the farthest limits of home by crossing the unknown bar the faith in this unknown country.” and sailing up the uncharted stream. Early this century an ironbound box filled with the remains of sodden Old charts show a Rio Infante and a documents was dug up at the Cove and Penedo das Fontes, which have been there were fragments of a devotional identified by some writers with the image. These relics were thrown away Kowie River and the Fountain Rocks by people who were ignorant of the close by. Dr. Eric Axelson, the most possible historical value. Schwarz may reliable modern authority, has have been right. declared that the problem is insoluble from the present known sources of Another legend which has been told in information. Years ago the imagina- some detail but still lacks an authentic tive Professor E. H. L. Schwarz (of source, placed a Portuguese castle at “Kalahari redemption” fame) declar- the Kowie River mouth. It was said to ed that Bartholomew Diaz took three have been built by Don Pedro Basto, a of his boats up the Kowie to a spot seventeenth century pirate, who called which he named St. Mary’s Cove. his stronghold “Eagle’s Nest.” From There he found a spring and secured there he attacked passing ships laden fresh water for his ships. Schwarz with rich Eastern cargoes. Don Pedro was supposed to have been deserted by drift was a quarter of a mile wide and his followers and he was wandering the water came over the backs of the alone in the bush one day when the oxen. Campbell found British soldiers blacks murdered him. The harbour from one of the forts on the beach master’s house was placed early last fishing. The entrails of gutted fish had century on a ruin and the builders were drawn sharks to the spot and Campbell said to have found dungeons with said that a ravenous man-eater rusty iron rings in the walls. Some attacked a child wearing a red dress. years later a number of skeletons of The child escaped. Campbell referred Europeans were dug up in the to the river as the Buffalo. Another neighbourhood. I doubt whether there distinguished visitor at that period was is much truth in the “Eagle’s Nest” Burchell the botanist. legend but a chance discovery in the When the 1820 Settlers first set eyes Lisbon archives may clear up these old on the Kowie mouth it was a marsh. Kowie mysteries one day. Great white herons were feeding John Campbell the missionary crossed there, no doubt, while kingfishers the Kowie River near the mouth last hovered over the lagoon and cormo- century some years before the first rants dived for fish. It was a barren settlers arrived. A Hottentot soldier led spot with the south-easter howling the way on horseback, following down the beach; but the newcomers elephant paths through otherwise must have found some comfort when impenetrable forests. At low tide the they took oysters off the rocks, speared soles and netted galjoen and boats went out and never returned. kabeljou. Very soon the Kowie (also Larger craft were reported missing known as Port Frances) was regarded and like the Waratah they never as a coming place. Sloops and other made port. James Holman, that small craft sailed into the river and shrewd, insatiable traveller, blind false hopes were raised; hopes that though he was, visited the Kowie in cost the Cape Government and others the eighteen-twenties and predicted half a million pounds sterling, spread the failure of the place as a harbour. over about half a century. When the He had been a naval officer and he schooner Elizabeth crossed and re- knew the dangers of a sand bar. crossed the bar safely the “Cape Holman said there was a village of Town Gazette” declared: “The thirty houses, but “the people would settlers after two seasons of unprece- leave if they could dispose of their dented calamity and distress have property without loss.” A rare and now the prospect of all the advan- surprising discovery on the beach at tages of water communication into this period was the last remnant of an the heart of the country. Vessels may Antarctic iceberg. Travellers com- discharge cargoes on the river banks mented on the shells to be found from their decks.” there, nearly two thousand species from the argonauts to chank shells. Port Frances unfortunately became a place of wrecks and drownings. Of course the man who really put the Boats were upset on the bar, fishing Kowie on the map for a time was that fantastic character William Cock. He back high tides, and changed the was the leader of a party of 1820 course of the river. Settlers; a . short, handsome young For days when the surface was man of great ability and tremendous breaking, sometimes for weeks on end, drive; a man who would never admit it took nerve and fine seamanship to defeat. Cock lost his money not long cross that perilous bar. Some made it, after landing but soon made a fortune many lost their ships and their lives. as a cattle speculator. Then he became The anxious master had to count the a shipowner. During a visit to the seas, judge the right moment and make Kowie he remarked to someone: a dash for it. Steamers came through “What a pity that such a fine estuary is the broken water quicker than craft not made available as a port.” The idea under sail; yet steamers were among grew in his mind until it became an the victims of the treacherous Kowie. obsession. Cock noticed that the river channel came in on a curve, and he Miss Kate Pigot, daughter of Major believed that if it could be straightened Pigot, watched an early shipwreck and the floods would scour out a deep left a fine description of it. “Everyone channel so that large vessels would be in the village gathered at the mouth of able to enter safely. He cut a new exit the river, men, women and children for the river through the sandhills on old enough to be out, wringing their the west bank, built a sea-wall to hold hands to see the ship leaning over and men clinging to the mast. They had but one boat and this capsized on launching and was carried out to sea. a cheer went up as he and the last The surf was too wild to send any boat man came within reach. All from shore and signs were made to the recovered now thank God and no men to swim for it. It was not far, but lives lost, though the schooner in that wind with the waves crashing battered beyond hope of salvage. no shout could carry far. We watched ‘Tis feared this will mean less with beating hearts while three sailors confidence than ever in Port plunged into the sea and fought their Frances.” way through the surf. Two-score eager Optimists said that when the harbour hands stretched to help them as they scheme was carried out “ships would struggled through. A fire of driftwood be as safe in the river as in the was lit to warm them and the flames, London docks.” Nevertheless, Cock blown ragged in the wind in the falling lost one ship after another. He had dusk, made the scene appear wilder the forty horse-power paddle-steamer yet.” Sir John St. Aubyn specially built for Donald Moodie the magistrate was the the Kowie trade; ninety feet long hero of this episode, for he swam out with two-berth cabins for sixteen to the wreck six times and brought the passengers. An advertisement stated remaining six men on shore. “Between that there was a ladies’ cabin with each trip he was sustained with brandy private W.C. and a dining-saloon. neat, and but for that he cannot have Cock was on board when she made a survived it,” Kate Pigot wrote. “Such record passage of three and a half days from Cape Town. She was place and he sank deep foundations damaged on the bar and sank in the in the sandy ground of the bushclad river. Cock also lost his schooner promontory. The snow-white walls Africaine: and after several years of are three feet thick. The flat roof was valuable service his iron schooner reinforced to stand the weight of British Settler foundered near cannon. Water tanks were built Saldanha. However, there was a undergound so that the castle might period when Cock was sending stand a long siege. profitable cargoes of “Kowie When the Kowie settlement was kippers” to Mauritius and meat to St. attacked by the blacks in the middle Helena. of last century Cock’s schooner Cock built his famous residence Africaine was lying in the river. Guns “Richmond House” in the eighteen- from the schooner were brought to thirties. This spacious, battlemented the castle and a brass swivel gun and home on the heights of the west bank cannon were mounted on the roof still dominates the river. Inevitably it and used to beat off the raiders. became known as “Cock’s Castle”, Berrington’s Inn went up in flames but never as “Cock’s Folly”; for it during the fight but “Cock’s Castle” was a fort as well as a house and it proved to be impregnable. Famous saved Cock and his family when the visitors were entertained there in later native hordes attacked the settlement. years: Prince Alfred, Sir Benjamin One of Cock’s sons designed the D’Urban, Sir Harry Smith and many of the frontier military leaders. The decades Port Alfred was the largest solid castle, with its view of the river convict station in South Africa. Five mouth and the surf on the bar, remains hundred prisoners of many races, aged one of the landmarks of the coast. Bird from seventeen to seventy, toiled in watchers love the quiet garden where the quarry and strengthened the Knysna louries and African hoopoes breakwaters against the hammer-blows still feed on the berries. Yet this was of the sea. Men served life sentences at the estate from which three hundred the Kowie, guarded by British natives, armed with guns, carried off soldiers. Some escaped, for sailing six hundred head of Cock’s cattle. ships left the river bound for distant “We gave them battle within one parts of the world; and though many hundred yards of my house,” Cock were caught there were a few “broad wrote. “We were only twenty.” arrow” stowaways who regained their freedom. Everyone in Port Alfred has Port Frances became Port Alfred heard of the convict ghost who appears during the second half of last century. only on Christmas Day. He was Cock handed over the harbour brought from Grahamstown by three development to the Cape Government warders; and as it was Christmas Day and for a time it seemed that the they dropped into an inn, leaving the Kowie might become a serious rival to manacled prisoner outside. The man Port Elizabeth and East London. hid in the bush while the warders Convicts were sent there in the drank. They searched and found him eighteenfifties and for nearly three without his chains. “Stop or we fire!” Dredgers worked on the bar. One shouted one warder. The convict dredger, the Perseverance, deserved dashed off and was shot dead. her name for she spent thirty years in the river. Yet ships were sometimes Port Alfred knew many vicissitudes as delayed for five weeks at a time a port. The year 1873 was a year of while tugs were sent out with “depth- wrecks: the African Belle with her charges” of gunpowder to blast away wine and brandy; the Catherine the bar. They killed shoals of fish but Marie and the Laetitia. Marine failed to remove the sandbank. insurance underwriters began demand- ing high rates for ships intending to Square-rigged mail steamers called enter the river. However, the harbour regularly at Port Alfred in the eight- work went on and an historic een seventies, anchoring offshore locomotive known officially as and loading from lighters. This was a “number nine” was landed there to prosperous decade; and in one boom carry stone from the quarry to the year the Kowie exports exceeded west pierhead. “Number nine” had £100,000. When the depth on the bar hauled the first train out of Cape was twenty feet, vessels of seven Town station; and this is the hundred tons could use the port. Old locomotive preserved as a national photographs show ten ships in the monument on the Cape Town station river at the same time. Sailors to this day. deserted and headed for the diamond fields; but the Port Alfred taverns were flourishing and ways were private venture; but the Port Alfred devised of finding crews for vessels payroll was £500 a week and that outward bound. Cock, the indomit- kept Style’s Hotel and the bars full. able Cock, turned to growing coffee Those early locomotives (and the and cotton. Tugs carried hundreds of tugs on the river) provided work for trippers over the bar at half-a-crown woodcutters; there was no coal avail- a head to see the ships and the able and the furnaces devoured wood fishing boats at work. Hunters came fuel. out of the Kowie bush with leopards Floods ravaged the Kowie banks and buffalo. A daredevil named eighty years ago, swamping the Thomas Houghton crossed the bar in convict station and mental hospital. a canoe and was drowned. And, of The railway offered excursion fares course, there was much talk of the “to see the Kowie wrecks”. Port coming of the railway. Alfred was nearing the end of its Mr. John X. Merriman “turned the time as a harbour. Coasters still first sod” early in the eighteen- entered the river occasionally; but eighties. Rails, sleepers and trucks when the Lily of Cape Town was lost arrived by sea. George Pauling, that on the bar in 1894 with a cargo of famous and resourceful contractor, cement, shipowners decided not to inspected the route and his men visit Port Alfred any more. Once it carried out the work with a subsidy seemed that the Kowie might have of £2,000 a mile. It was a costly been chosen instead of the Buffalo, but the tally of cargoes never kept world wars but not even a fishing pace with the hopes of William Cock harbour was completed. and his followers, and wreck after Artists and wet plate photographers wreck ruined Port Alfred’s hopes for have left an interesting panorama of the future. It is said that when Port Port Alfred’s past. First to settle Alfred was abandoned as a harbour there was the mysterious English Cecil John Rhodes made the Cape aristocrat Frederick Timpson I’Ons, Government a secret offer. He a flawless painter of landscapes and wanted a port for Rhodesia, a “free portraits. He was at Port Alfred in port”; and if his terms had been the middle of last century, but accepted he would have taken over photography cut into his earnings in the harbour works lock, stock and later years. Thomas Bowler painted barrel and made the entrance safe the Kowie looking seaward. John regardless of cost. Roland Brown, a distinguished artist, Interest in Port Alfred revived during was painting at Port Alfred early this the South African War, when all the century. ports were congested and an engineer If you want to take away a genuine named Methuen reported favourably souvenir of the Kowie, buy one of on the possibilities. Nothing was the walking-sticks with straight done. A little work was carried out handles made there from local on the west breakwater between the timber. I believe this little industry started during the South African War, when the men in the refugee missed Berrington’s Inn and the camp made these sticks and sold Britannia Inn; pubs the old sailormen them. loved. I saw the bones of the Donald Currie liner Finland on the rocks; but I saw Port Alfred in the ox-wagon it must have been a great spectacle era but there were earlier scenes I (eighty years ago) when the lifeboats would like very much to have pulled into the Kowie River with all watched. The shipwrecks and rescues the passengers and crew. Perhaps were long remembered dramas. Cock there are still a few old people who must have created a great stir when remember the wharves of Port Alfred his steam flour mill started grinding and the bold seamen who crashed imported wheat. Then there was the through the double line of breakers turtle on the beach, weighing one on the bar. This is indeed a dubious hundred and fifty pounds, bought by harbour of desperate adventure. a Grahamstown hotel-keeper; a fine load for an ox-wagon. I would like to have seen Mr. W. E. Fairbridge launching his imported racing skiff during the eighties of last century. This tall scholar lived to a great age; he compiled a little-known Africana and newspaper index and taught me the art of historical research. I dramas and disasters at the river mouth. Here the perils of the sea have been varied by dangerous floods. Down the winding seventy mile course of the Buffalo, at unpredictable intervals, come so-called “freshets” which are really walls of rushing water. Before the river mouth was opened roaring south-east gales drove ships ashore CHAPTER NINE and wrecked them. They were mainly RIVER HARBOUR sailing ships at anchor in the open roadstead off East London, waiting to EAST LONDON has often been called discharge their cargoes. Floods often “South Africa’s only river port” and damaged vessels in the river and this is almost true. Little steamers have sometimes swept them away to used the Berg and the Breede Rivers destruction. The peaceful East London and the Kowie. But the Buffalo is the of today with its breakwater, graving only stream that will allow huge dock and huge turning basin, looks passenger liners to berth; a marvel of back on many desperate adventures. engineering when you consider past Impatient shipmasters of a century ago were tempted to find a way over the Buffalo River bar. Some crossed Chinese junks visiting the river have safely only to find they could not get never been confirmed. After the out again. Others made for the river Portuguese came the Dutch, castaways because they were in distress and in from the wrecked Stavenisse who seeking the shelter of the river they built the small Centaurus from the lost their ships. East London had a bad wreckage. reputation during the long years when Small craft were creeping through the sailing ships lay outside, their crews drifting sandbanks of the Buffalo soon praying the anchors and cables would after the middle of last century. For a save them from drifting ashore when year at a time the mouth would be the dreaded south-easter blew at gale closed; then the floods would clear the force. Anthony Trollope the novelist sand and the little coasters would remarked in his book on South Africa reach the river port once more. East that some owners sent ships to East London had a shipbuilding industry at London hoping they would be this period; the coasting cutters Stoic wrecked. and East London Packet were Portuguese sailors were the first white launched and sailed along the Cape men to enter the Buffalo, but they coast. Later came a team of expert were using open boats after their ship shipwrights, blacksmiths and carpen- had been wrecked during the sixteenth ters from Scotland; they built many century. Rumours and legends of fine surf boats and other craft includ- Phoenician galleys, Arab dhows and ing the steam tug Agnes seventy feet long. Heavy lighters built by these hundreds of people from drowning. Scots served the port for more than Cargoes were brought into the river half a century. First steamer to move by surf boats. The tough, drunken into the calm waters of the Buffalo crews who handled these boats knew was the Bismarck, a coaster running their worth, laboured when they were between Cape Town and Durban. That in the mood, defied angry ship- was in June 1872, when crossing the masters and threw bottles at “Old bar was still a hazardous adventure. Blueskin” when he tried to reason with them. They lived in a row of East London was a collection of one- huts known as “The Ranch” on the storey houses in the eighteen- west bank and no band of cow- seventies. It was a military station, punchers could have been more forwarding depot for the chain of truculent. Old Billy Button the posts stretching along the Kaffrarian ferryman loved their wild parties and frontier; a village with only a few so the ferry service was often sus- streets. Strand and Smith Streets pended while the surf boat crews were there. Toby Street (named after were revelling. Yet these were the Captain. Toby of the barque that men who were always ready to risk unloaded at the first jetty) became their lives when ships were driven High Street. Captain George Walker, ashore in heavy weather. “Old a Scot known as “Old Blueskin”, was Blueskin” and “Big Harry” were port captain for twenty-five years; great lifeboat skippers and they and in that period he rescued handled their steering oars in heavy eight ships were driven ashore; the surf with enormous skill and barques Queen of May and Refuge, courage. the brigs Sharp, Elaine, Martha and Emma, the ship Jane Davies and the The steam tug Buffalo, which had steamer Quanza. For three days the cost £3,000, had paddled into the captain and his family and the river after a heavy flood; but “Old seamen of the Jane Davies had to Blueskin” said she was too large and remain lashed to the rigging; then the refused to use her. She was then sold lifeboat reached them. Years ago I met and used as the Robben Island a seaman who survived that gale. He packet. Captain W. C. Jackson was was James Grenfell, a Cornishman sent to Britain to find a suitable tug who had served in the Elaine. She and he bought the London of had a cargo of bantu pots and candles. seventy-tons. As she could only The master of the Elaine tried to enter carry enough coal for two days’ steaming, Jackson rigged her as a the river when he saw the danger of sloop and sailed her to East London shipwreck, but the brig was wrecked in sixty-six days. He kept his small inside the bar. Some of the cargo was supply of coal to bring the tug safely recovered through a hole in the side. into harbour. Then the Elaine disappeared under the harbour rubble. She lay buried for All through these years the list of more than half a century and Grenfell wrecks grew longer and longer. In never expected to see her again. He the south-east gale of May 26, 1872, joined a barque called the Crixea, and keel timbers remained. Sand and mud later in the year of the gale he was covered the M. M. Jones, but she, wrecked at East London for the second too, was identified during the work on time. After this escape he decided to the turning basin. leave the sea and found work at the It was the suction dredger Lucy that harbour. Grenfell saw the first block started making the Buffalo harbour laid for the breakwater by Sir John safer. She cleared the bar in the Molteno in 1873; and when the eighteeneighties and paved the way for turning basin was being excavated in the entry of the barque Wolseley. The 1929 he was astonished to see the captain of the barque received a purse bones of his old ship, the Elaine, of sovereigns from jubilant East cooking pots, candles and all. Another London business men. Before the ghost ship that came to light at that century ended the Buffalo was time was the barque M. M. Jones. sheltering thirty ships at a time. She waited outside the river for four months in 1876, hoping to enter and Floods and wrecks occurred at the discharge her cargo. When she came same period in the old days. The into harbour at last she was Buffalo has a dozen feeders, causing a condemned as unseaworthy; and for tremendous rush of water during a hot years she lay on the West Bank as a season when thunderstorms cause a hulk. Her fittings disappeared, wood- deluge. Apparently the greatest floods work was carried away until only her of last century came during the eighteen-seventies. The river was impassable. Natives marooned on an the Blinders at the Buffalo mouth island had to be rescued by rocket- when the coxs’n failed to take line. Trees and huts, boxes and ordinary precautions. Two of the barrels, wagons and watermill crew were drowned but a whaleboat wheels, sheep and oxen, swept down brought eight back safely. to the sea. East London beaches were Over the years a small fleet of hulks littered with driftwood. Always there grew and lay moored along the were snakes, especially puff adders, Buffalo banks. They seemed to have menacing those who were fossicking become almost as permanent as the among the driftwood. Old-timers houses of East London and some declared that the flood of July 14, were used as houseboats. However, 1874, was the most serious. Five the flood of October 1905 changed ships were lost, the Fingo, Natal Star, that restful picture of old ships Western Star, Flora and the Italian ending their careers in the quiet Nova Bella; but such was the heroism river. After two days of heavy rain of the lifeboat crews that only one inland a white wall of foam raced boy was drowned. These men down the river. It was seven feet showed a deep contempt for danger high and the current ran at eight and sometimes they were foolhardy. knots. East London was taken by One lifeboat, the George Walker surprise. A regatta had just been held (named in honour of “Old but fortunately this had ended when Blueskin”), capsized and broke up on the flood arrived. Parts of the town were swamped, and a reporter Clan Stuart (wrecked at Glencairn described East London as “a second some years afterwards) was at a wharf; Venice”. An island was submerged and her crew helped to save various and huts were carried away. Wagon small craft that were being carried parties camping beside the river lost past. The hulk Cerastes with a man their wagons and oxen. It was the and wife aboard drifted on to the Clan heaviest flood for more than eighty Stuart and was secured. A houseboat years and it created havoc among the which had been moored at Second wooden hulks and small craft Creek was smashed to matchwood at moored along the banks. The hulk the river mouth. Flashes of lightning New Blessing was lifted out of the revealed barges, lighters and boats main stream and stranded in the adrift on the swollen river. One barge bush. A coal hulk named Helene was was thrown up at Bat’s Cave. A coal flung ashore and broken in half. The hulk was wrecked on West Bank. hulk Alphen dragged but remained Once again the beach was alive with undamaged. On board the hulk snakes. One man killed fifty Inspector lived a caretaker with his puffadders while the boys of East wife and children. When the London captured leguaans and caretaker saw that the Inspector was dropped snakes into bottles. in danger he put his family on shore One tragic episode was recorded. and saved the drifting hulk by letting Before dawn the crew of the Clan go a spare anchor. Fortunately the S.S. Stuart heard a frantic cry for help. The small tug Caledonia had been the aftermath of a cyclone far away. moored some way up the river with On a windless day the sea rises one old man on board as caretaker. inexplicably until gigantic breakers This man, Guyer from Heligoland, make the river mouth impassable. awoke to find the tug moving swiftly Rollers come up from the southeast. down the river. No one could help Beaches are lashed by the fury of the him, the tug was carried out to sea, and waves and piled high with foam. The Guyer and the Caledonia were never first storm of this sort was recorded seen again. They were lost in the more than a century ago. Inside the wastes of the ocean. Beaches at East Buffalo River the rollers were so London have been covered with violent that the schooner Shrimp wreckage and cargoes since then, rice capsized and all on board were and coal, maize and timber; and when drowned. Then the schooner Elizabeth the S.S. Valdivia was lost sixty years and Mary was thrown on her beam- ago people helped themselves to ends and turned over before she thousands of cases of paraffin. But the could recover. night of drama that the old hands of East London was asleep on a dark today remember was the night of the and misty night in April 1902 when 1905 flood. another heavy sea swept into the Now and again, once in a generation, river and set every ship’s bell clang- perhaps, East London watches a ing. For those on board the vessels mysterious storm which appears to be outside and within the Buffalo it must have been a terrifying and Cerastes rolled so violently that experience; the weather was fine, yet their yards and rigging were the ships were behaving as though smashed. The tugs Buffalo and Cecil they were in a gale. At one wharf the Rhodes worked for hours carrying S.S. Winkfield had discharged horses new hawsers to the helpless vessels for the British Government and was and bringing them to the wharves. ready to leave at daylight. (This was The river was strewn with broken the same cattle-ship that had run spars and other signs of damage. down and sunk the Union-Castle Outside the harbour the S.S. liner Mexican in fog outside Table Mountley knocked a hole in the port Bay two years previously). When the quarter of the S.S. Darleydale, while sudden upheaval occurred in the five other steamers moved out to sea river the master of the Winkfield blew to avoid the risk of being carried his siren and kept on sounding the ashore by the phenomenal waves. alarm until the port officials turned The mail steamer Dunvegan Castle out and manned the tugs. They found arrived from Durban but was unable ships at the wharves ranging wildly to embark her passengers until the and breaking adrift. Two ships, evening. Then the sea went down and Mantinea and Tottenham, had been in the queer episode ended as suddenly collision and the stern of the as it had arisen. Mantinea had been damaged. At the East London can never forget its timber wharves the barques Anita gales and wrecks. According to my records about ninety ships have been wrecks. Some of the first houses in lost at or near East London. Orient East London were built at West Bank Beach saw the end in July 1907 of from the timbers of lost ships; and the Russian sailing vessel Orient. after a century a few of those houses She came over the horizon under full are still there. And in the cemetery rest sail, then furled her canvas as the tug those grand seamen who fought the Buffalo approached her. Just before dangerous seas on the Buffalo bar, the tug and ship entered the river the survivors of great gales. Many others hawser parted and the Orient drifted of that era went to the ocean grave- helplessly on to the beach. Gangs of yard. natives went on board to lighten her by East London has known other throwing the cargo of wheat over- spectacles, other dramas, apart from board, but the effort was unsuccessful. the floods and shipwrecks. An old The evil smell of fermented wheat resident described to me the scene in permeated the waterfront. For years late summer many years ago when a the battered hull showed above the large flock of parrots flew over the breakers. If ever you hear the bell rung town. They were Cape parrots, largest at the Cathcart market examine the of the South African species; yellow brass and you will see the name birds with green rumps and red-edged Orient. wings. Cape parrots flock more readily Quanza, Brighton, Cadwallon and than the smaller parrots; and East Bonanza streets were all named after London became aware of them when an incessant screeching came from the Flocks of fifty may be seen in the trees. In parts of the town the yellowwood trees of the East London screaming of the parrots was park during the winter months. deafening. Everyone turned out to A peculiar episode in the East London watch the flocks in the trees; there story was the acute water shortage four were so many parrots that the boughs years after World War II. After fifteen seemed to be weighed down by months of continuous drought the gorgeous flowers. Some flew into the reservoirs dropped to such a low point nets and fences and were killed. Out at that it was obvious that the town the Hood Point lighthouse parrots hit would soon be waterless. Fortunately the lantern and became casualties; there was an oiltanker, the Athelcrown others sheered off at the last moment. bound for the Persian Gulf on her In the morning the lighthouse platform maiden voyage. If she had ever carried was littered with dead and dying oil she would have been useless, for parrots. Parrots were not protected in the tanks would have been poisoned those days. Trappers snared the birds by lead tetra-ethyl. The Athelcrown with nets or injected fruit and berries was diverted to Durban, and there she with brandy so that intoxicated birds loaded fresh water at the special rate were easily caught. There was a time of two shillings for one thousand when the Cape parrot became almost gallons. She ferried water from extinct. Since the species has been Durban to East London until the protected the numbers have increased. drought broke. CHAPTER TEN of a little adventure of my own THE WILD COAST choosing. The Wild Coast!

I was at the wheel of a coaster Below thousand foot cliffs the dark sweeping northwards with the strong green river of St. John was calm as a Agulhas current when I first set eyes lagoon. I could imagine the life of the on Port St. John’s. Now and again I forests on each side of this gateway raised my eyes cautiously from the into Pondoland; bushbuck, wild pigs compass-card and glanced at the and blue monkeys, bush babies, tremendous cleft in the table-topped louries, rare parrots and rare moths; mountain where the Umzimvubu the huge yellowwood trees, wild River sweeps down to the sea. Forest- medlars with scented blossoms, wild clad gates opened and shut, opened jasmine and orchids; the sugar cane and shut, as the Ingerid passed the and coffee, paw-paw and custard apples; a sub-tropical paradise moist- lighthouse, the village and the western ened by the trade winds of the Indian banks under their primeval forest. The Ocean. The rich breath of the land coaster was close inshore. It was came out to me on the bridge of the superb, this first glimpse of the Wild Ingerid that evening and I was Coast; but the captain was on the grateful. I thought the Portuguese bridge and I was afraid to lift my eyes explorers must have been even more from the card. Soon he would haul off excited when they sighted these shores for the night. I was sixteen, in the grip after the weary months at sea. Bushmen were living in caves along Apparently the Portuguese never the St. John’s River in the days of the crossed the bar of the St. John’s River Portuguese navigators and there were in their ships, though they may have Hottentots in grass and wattle villages. used their ships’ boats to explore the Many of the river names in the river. I believe the schooner Rosebud territory are of Khoi-Khoin origin and from Cape Town was the first to enter the Xosa-speaking peoples adopted the river. That was in 1846 and them when they arrived later. It Captain Duthie sailed fourteen miles appears from the narratives of upstream to a landing he named Portuguese castaways, however, that Bannockburn. Soon afterwards the “blacks, very black in colour, with schooner Conch was wrecked leaving woolly hair” were already settled all the river; but it was said that her along the Wild Coast in the sixteenth timbers were “rotten as snuff”. century. Pondos are mentioned in a Another pioneer in the river was the Portuguese document of the late schooner William Shaw, built at seventeenth century. According to Durban, the first ship to be registered their own traditions, the Xosa, Tembu there. She was launched with tea and others were living on the upper instead of champagne and was reaches of the Umzimvubu River long nicknamed “the Teapot”. After a use- before they met the Portuguese on the ful life of twenty years the William coast. Shaw met her end on the St. John’s River bar. William Cock’s iron schooner British Settler reached a Unfortunately the captain of the point twelve miles upstream in the Alfredia was a daredevil who enjoyed middle of last century; and a small making circles in the most dangerous vessel named Clara loaded grain there places. He ignored the signal and lost and carried it to Port Elizabeth. Alfred his ship. Somewhere in the deep sand White, an 1820 Settler, was the St. at the river mouth lie the bones of the John’s trader who encouraged these Alfredia. ships to call. He died in 1870 after Later regular traders were the spending many years on the river Umzimvubu, Frontier and Border. The when few white people were seen Germans sent their small coaster there. He was on the spot when Sir Adjutant to the river early this century. Walter Currie shot one of the last lions I knew a magistrate, Mr. Frank in the neighbourhood. A harbour Guthrie, who was there at the time. He master was appointed ninety years had no seafaring experience but he ago. Probably the first steamer to trade was expected to act as harbourmaster regularly with Port St. John’s was the and customs officer. Fortunately he Alfredia in the eighteen-eighties. had at his disposal a whaleboat with a After a number of successful voyages Norwegian coxswain and a crew of this twin-screw steamer was sighted native police. When the Adjutant stuck off the port and the harbourmaster on the bar Guthrie and his men laid signalled to her to remain outside as out kedge anchors with the aid of two there was not enough water on the bar. spans of oxen on the beach. The little Adjutant came off safely at high tide. put up a better performance than boats This episode has been cited as the only with outboard motors: marine salvage operation carried out Pondoland was still an independent with the aid of oxen. native state in the eighteen-seventies, Guthrie told me that in his day Port St. for the Cape Colony ended at the John’s was a refuge for people who Umtata River. The barbaric Pondo needed a hiding-place. One man was territory formed a flourishing market supposed to have been a pirate in for gun-runners and liquor smugglers. China seas; another had committed a Some adventurers went overland, murder in Ireland; there was a fairly crossing the Umtamvuna River at Gun respectable Arab who had been a Drift; others landed their cargoes on waiter at the Hotel Cecil in London. the banks of the St. John’s River. Owing to rock and dense forest St. Tower muskets and other gimcrack John’s was indeed a secluded corner of firearms of that period are still the Cape. Travellers came down the treasured in Pondo kraals, and not river or arrived by sea. Ox-wagons merely as heirlooms. Police still seize took ten days or more from the port to old muzzle-loaders and carbines when Umtata. Among the Pondos, however, faction fights break out. The purchase are some magnificent oarsmen. They of land at St. John’s by Britain ninety load their boats with vegetables and years ago put an end to much fruit, row against the tide, and often smuggling, but there were a few who became more cunning and carried on the profitable trade. Mr. Frank Brown- as his armourer. This man would lee, magistrate and member of the repair an ancient musket in exchange famous missionary family, told me for a fat heifer; and for a suitable fee that he knew the trader Elias Thomp- he would doctor a gun to make it shoot son (Tomsoni to the natives) who more accurately. He also had a little smuggled guns and gin for years under factory where he made gunpowder the noses of the police. Thompson from charcoal, sulphur and saltpetre. transported saplings into Pondoland to Before the British annexation of replace trees which had been chopped Pondoland became effective a party of in the natural forest. Every one of Germans arrived with the intention of Thompson’s wagons had contraband gaining a foothold on the St. John’s hidden under the timber. Caps and River. Baron Steinacker the leader leaden bullets were concealed in bags secured a concession from a chief and cases of trade goods. Casks named Mhlangaso. Steinacker was a marked “molasses” held brandy. The renowned drinker and when he landed main camp of the Cape Mounted with his followers at St. John’s he Rifles was at Port St. John’s for years. brought with him enough wine, beer, Troopers kept a sharp look-out but liqueurs and groceries to keep a small many a little coaster went off with a army going. At first the Germans cargo of bananas after unloading guns. appeared to be peaceful traders and Sigcau, the redoubtable Pondo chief, they bought a trading station fifteen had a deserter from the British Army miles inland. Soon afterwards they paraded in uniform and hoisted the is said that a Portuguese priest saw St. German flag. However, they soon John the Evangelist in this natural discovered that Mhlangaso was an statue. Later visitors who have studied inferior chief and that only Sigcau had the face on the west bank buttress the right to sell concessions, so they agree that it has a remarkably human set fire to their illegal outpost of the likeness, but one clergyman found it Kaiser’s empire and departed. To this “evil rather than saintly”. day the spot near the Umzimvubu Umzimvubu, the river on which St. River mouth where the Germans first John’s stands, means “home of the landed is called Germany. hippo”. It is, perhaps, the grandest St. John’s is a name that goes back a river mouth in all Africa; but the last long way and the origin is contro- hippo was shot eighty years ago. (One versial. It was marked on the oldest of the last was almost a record, Portuguese charts as Sao Christovao; thirteen and a half feet in length). but it was probably changed to Sao Those were great days when the Joao after the wreck of the galleon Sao Pondos were able to feast on the Toao near there in the middle of the luscious meat of hippos killed in sixteenth century. However, there is an groves of wild bananas. Stray hippo alternative theory. A rocky pinnacle swam down the coast from Natal early standing out from a cliff at the this century; but the last of these entrance does bear a strong resem- migrants entered the Umzimvubu in blance to a robed human figure; and it 1929, the celebrated Huberta. Natives thought the spirit of Chaka had annexation. These names are seldom returned and saw that she went heard in the village, however, as unharmed; then a white man’s bullet residents usually speak of “the Gates ended the strange odyssey. The of St. John’s”. Umzimvubu is still the home of man- Among the residents of Port St. John’s eating sharks and natives have been between the wars was an old Zulu who killed six miles from the mouth. Stand was a member of the impi which on the eastern heights when the water attacked the Pondos near the precipice is clear and you will see the sharks now known as Execution Rock. This lying on the bottom like torpedoes has a face nine hundred feet high, waiting for a target. rising close to the river. The Pondos, Cape Hermes at the river entrance, knowing the terrain, laid a trap for the where the lighthouse was built, took Zulus; they set fire to the bush and its name from H.M.S. Hermes, a ship drove their enemies over the preci- that surveyed the coast long ago. pice. Three Zulus escaped, including Mount Thesiger and Mount Sullivan, the old man in the village. Execution guarding the entrance, remind us of Rock saw the end of many Pondos General Thesiger who hoisted the who had been condemned to death as British flag in Pondoland nearly a sorcerers. The Rev. Godfrey Calla- century ago, and Commodore Sulli- way traced a marvellous survival at van, the naval officer who brought the the grim spot; a sorcerer who troops up the river at the time of the bounced off a projecting rock and fell into deep water. The chief sent From the cliffs the sardine shoals out search parties but the man hid appear on the blue water like brown until nightfall and then found or silver .islands. It is a tremendous sanctuary with a rival chief. In the spectacle. One such “island” of fish bush at the foot of Execution Rock may cover five square miles and many broken skeletons have been contain fifty thousand tons of fish. found. Schools of porpoises, sharks and game fish attack the pilchard mil- One of the events of the year at St. lions and turn the ocean into a John’s is the “sardine run”. This is battlefield. Sharks and seabirds gorge something of a mystery. Scientists to such an extent that they are cannot tell us why the hordes of washed ashore bloated and helpless. pilchards arrive from the deep ocean And still the shoals approach the in the middle of June every year, coast like cloud shadows on the always reaching the coast between surface, rising and falling with the the Bashee River and St. John’s. swell, the water boiling as bonito and Often the Cape Hermes lighthouse barracuda tear into the flanks and keepers are the first to report the drive their prey inshore. immense shoals. But the seabirds also know the fish are coming; and All along the coast the pilchards are the birds are seen first, heading south herded into shallow water. Offices in great ravenous flights. shut down, schools are closed when the fish are stranded in thousands. Everyone is on the beach with sacks the fry stage in meadows of plankton. and buckets. Anglers bring their rods Warm currents brought the fish and land barracuda and kingfish northwards past St. John’s and the easily. Sometimes a warning cry migration continued until the shoals goes up, for the sharks are there in vanished off Durban. This theory has the shallows with the fish. They call been challenged by people who them sardines, but these seven-inch believe the pilchards spawn about fifty silvery cigars are very different from miles off Pondoland. At all events the those that come in tins with olive oil. sardine run is one of the great sights of Nevertheless, these Indian Ocean the Wild Coast. pilchards are so rich that they can be Ordinary fishing often becomes fried without fat. Commander Z. extraordinary at St. John’s, for one Marsh, a retired Royal Navy officer brindle bass caught in the river who lived at St. John’s for many years, weighed nearly four hundred pounds always deplored the waste of fish; he and a rock cod weighed three hundred wanted to see them caught for humans, and seventy five pounds. You can not left to the voracious birds and hook a forty-pound kabeljou at the other fish. Commander Marsh explain- river mouth. But please remember the ed the pilchard migration mystery in ordeal of an angler named Jeffreys this way; he thought the fish spawned who took his rod to the place now to the south of the Cape and the known as Jeffreys’ Rocks. His boat buoyant eggs were nurtured through came adrift and was carried out to sea. Jeffreys was marooned on the rock for They tell you the Waratah foundered three days with only his rod to keep near Port St. John’s and this is the hippos at bay. Coloured fishermen, probably true. Air crews have noted a experts who know the weather and the dark mass on the sea-bed which is not ways of the big fish, have made a marked on the charts. It is said that living at Port St. John’s without using natives picked up a lifebuoy with the nets. Seldom elsewhere does a rod name Waratah painted on it and tried provide even a bread and butter to sell it to a trader. But there was no income. Anglers at Port St. John’s wireless in those days, the newspapers carry off the prizes in fishing contests. arrived a week late at the lonely stores of the Wild Coast, and the trader had Wild Coast! Tales and legends, truth not heard the Waratah was overdue. and folklore and rumours are as When the news reached him it was romantic as the name. It is a coast of impossible to trace the lifebuoy or the ghosts and witchcraft, mysterious natives. However, the trader is said to shipwrecks, sunken treasure and have made a sworn statement to the unexpected flotsam. Names along the police; natives had not only picked up coast have the true ring of adventure. a lifebuoy but they declared they had Port St. John’s is the unofficial seen the liner sinking off the Bashee “capital” of the Wild Coast and in the River mouth. village you hear all sorts of stories which differ from the versions known. Long ago, in the ‘eighties of last to the outside world. century, a police patrol found the stern of a wooden ship on a Wild Coast tion, but she served a useful purpose beach. The name John Booth stood when she picked up survivors of Louis out in white letters. There was no other Trichard’s trek at Delagoa Bay. wreckage. Nothing was ever heard of Behind the bay is the Manubi forest. the crew. Coffee Bay, near the Umtata Giant Strelitzia augustifolias grow River mouth, is now a flourishing little along the coast with their strange blue holiday resort. In the eighteen-sixties, and white flowers and leaves like when a ship was wrecked there with a bananas. Cycads are found here, the cargo of coffee, there was just the bantu-bread trees belonging to the beach. Traders went down to the coast remote past. Many of the hundred-foot with wagons, fished and drank rum yellowwood trees have been cut down from the wreck, and shared out the but there are still giants in this Wild bags of coffee beans. Some of the Coast jungle; Cape mahogany and beans were thrown away but they took ironwoods, sneezewood and red stink- root along the shore; so that Coffee wood. Botanists revel among the sub- Bay became a most appropriate name. tropical rarities which are found only to the east of the Great Kei River. Mazeppa Bay, near the Qolora mouth Twenty miles to the north-east of Port to the west of Port St. John’s, was the St. John’s is the abandoned site known anchorage where the coasting as Port Grosvenor. It never was a port, schooner Mazeppa landed cargoes in and it is about ten miles south of the the eighteen-thirties. She had been a Grosvenor wreck at the Umsikaba slaver, a little ship with a bad reputa- river mouth. This was another Wild the name Buttall and many other Coast settlement with a story. At this relics. This find was the origin of the anchorage Captain Sidney Turner Grosvenor treasure hunts that went on landed cargoes in the eighteeneighties, for years near the Tezani River mouth. when Chief Mqikela granted him a It is now clear from discoveries at the concession in the hope that Port Umsikaba River mouth that Turner Grosvenor would become a rival to never touched the Grosvenor treasure. Port St. John’s. Turner put up a group His coins must have come from one or of wooden houses. His tiny steamers more of the other wrecks near Port Lady Wood and Lion called regularly Grosvenor. However, the Turner with freight from Durban and it was treasure was substantial, and he left to landed in lighters. The venture failed his descendants a large silver cup but Captain Turner dynamited the made from some of the coins he had rocks in the neighbourhood and found gathered. about eight hundred gold and silver Port St. John’s and the Wild Coast are coins. Venetian ducats and gold star museums of wreck relics. Many of pagodas were recovered with Indian these fascinating little historic silver rupees. Turner also found nine treasures will never be traced to their cannon, pistol and musket bullets, origins; others may be identified with crockery, brass ornamental work, glass fair accuracy. Thousands of beads stoppers, buttons, a gold clasp bearing have been dug out of the beaches or the initials J.S.C., a copper plate with scooped up from rock pools. They are known as “Grosvenor beads” and beads have been found on the lower some undoubtedly formed part of her clay floors at Zimbabwe. Many of cargo; but the beads have been the Wild Coast beads are so crude, recovered along the whole Wild Coast, however, that they may be as old as proving that they must have been the Phoenician explorers or the early spilled out of a number of wrecks. Egyptian, Persian or Arab naviga- Many of the beads are pleasing red or tors. Cornelian is an extremely hard yellow cornelians. They are mainly stone. Wild Coast cornelians are diamond-shaped, or cylinders two found with drillholes at both ends; inches in length, or flat. India was the but the craftsman sometimes failed to home of cornelian mining a few bore far enough to enable the beads centuries ago and these Wild Coast to be strung. cornelians were obviously native cut Treasure Island at the Umsikaba and polished with primitive tools. River mouth has yielded a number of Mr. and Mrs. Denis Godfrey, who beads and other relics. This is the presented a matched string of twenty Grosvenor wreck site, so that the of these cornelians to the Africana Treasure Island beads are probably Museum in Johannesburg, suggested genuine “Grosvenor beads”. The that they were the “red beads of flat, rocky islet is half-covered by the Cambaya” which the Portuguese sea at high tide. During the centuries traded with the people of Sofala in many small fragments of the cargo exchange for gold. Very similar had been washed into holes in the rocks. Mrs. Nina Elliot made an some came in too close to fix their impressive collection of Nanking position and were wrecked. Frag- china of the Ming period (1368- ments of red earthenware water jars 1644) during thirty years of (known as zeers) such as the Arabs searching at this spot. The coarse used for storing water have also blue china suffered heavily after the come to light on Treasure Island; so pounding of the sea and only one Arab dhows may have left their complete plate was recovered. bones on, the rocks among the other Celadon china, greyish-green in victims. China and beads are often colour, has come to light at the same found on the island. The rarities have place. This is older than Ming and is been diamond rings. A silver button not usually found south of Zanzibar. with the monogram C.N., may have Mrs. Frances Hamilton, who investi- been owned by Charles Newman, a gated the Treasure Island finds, Grosvenor passenger. thought the Celadon might have been Rusty old cannon are the largest of the carried by a Chinese junk that was Wild Coast wreck relics. Port St. lost there long before Diaz rounded John’s has one in the public gardens; the Cape. She pointed out that the and there is a bell from some unknown South Sand Bluff (close to the wreck. A more recent historic relic Umsikaba River mouth) was a which was rescued from a marble landmark known to the explorers. It quarry near Port St. John’s was South was then a dazzling white cliff; and Africa’s first locomotive, the engine named Natal that ran from Durban to remains are found in caves along this the Point in 1860. It had a wide- coast. mouthed American smokestack, green Rame Head to the south of St. John’s body and copper wheels. is a bold and precipitous headland Close to Port St. John’s, across the easily identified from seawards. Here, river and below Hobson’s farm, is according to native legend, white men another place where beads are landed long ago and left a monument; recovered by delving into the sea silt. probably a reference to a stone pillar This is Agate Beach. The amber- or padrao such as the Portuguese set coloured beads are four or five-sided up along the shores of Africa to mark and bored for stringing. Most of them their achievements and serve as land- are about half an inch in diameter. marks for those who followed. Expe- Bead collectors work at spring tides ditions have searched for the Rame and though the supply of agates is Head padrao, but so far in vain. never plentiful it seems to be inex- Along the Wild Coast round about haustible. Mr. C. R. Prance, an author Port St. John’s live natives with who lived at Port St. John’s for years, strange ancestors. It has been proved was convinced that the beads came beyond doubt that these little clans are from the Portuguese galleon that gave descendants of Portuguese and Dutch, the village its name. Gold has been British and Indian castaways of the mined near Agate Beach, though sixteenth century onwards. Possibly without much success. Prehistoric the foreign blood goes all the way back to the Phoenicians and Arabs. A there was a danger of a store being Pondoland legend describes raids and attacked when a trader pressed a invasions by men with flowing chief to pay his debts, and such garments armed with muskets; marriages were regarded as a form of obviously Arab slave traders. fire insurance. However, the white strain in Pondoland goes right back At one time the so-called “pale-faced to the Portuguese shipwrecks. natives of Pondoland” were regarded as the offspring of Grosvenor Sixty castaways from the Dutch East survivors who mated with the local Indiaman. Stavenisse spent months on people. Some of the unhappy the Wild Coast before they were Grosvenor exiles certainly added to rescued and they, too, became fathers the members of the weird clans but of half-castes almost a century before the racial mixing started very much the Grosvenor wreck. Again and earlier. Of course there are thousands again in the narratives of survivors of Pondoland coloured people who you hear of men who refused to be are of fairly recent origin. Army rescued and they remained on the deserters, elephant hunters, crimi- Wild Coast with their native wives. nals, outlaws and other dubious White people were at first regarded characters found a refuge there early by the natives as rather strange sea last century. Some of the first white monsters; yet they were often well- traders married daughters of chiefs to treated. Castaways from a French maintain friendly relations. Often ship, lost on the Wild Coast at the same period as the Stavenisse, were homeward bound from India. The murdered with the exception of a records state that she was worth a French youth, Guillaume Chenut. He million in gold, “for so richly laden a was wounded and left for dead. A ship had not left India since it was Xosa chief befriended Chenut and discovered”. She stranded near the sheltered him for a year. Chenut Umzimvubu River mouth “two cross- learnt the Xosa language and heard bow shots from the shore”. Nearly two from the tribesmen that a band of hundred Portuguese and three hundred white castaways were living not far slaves reached the shore. Some away. He was an unwilling exile, marched to Delagoa Bay, others were yearning for civilisation. The casta- left at various places along the coast. ways were Stavenisse men and in due Soon afterwards the San Bento was course the Dutch ship Centaurus wrecked at the Umtata River mouth. found and rescued them. Chenut Survivors made tents of rich carpets, sailed away thankfully but three gold cloth and silk. Again there was a Stavenisse survivors preferred to live desperate march along the coast; a out their lives among the natives on hundred Portuguese and two hundred the Wild Coast. slaves making for Delagoa Bay, living on shellfish and wild bananas. They The adventures of the Portuguese passed the Sao Joao wreck and found castaways are fully documented. First a Bengalese survivor who refused to there was the galleon Sao Joao in the join the San Bento party. This was in middle of the sixteenth century, the neighbourhood of Port St. John’s; of the hungry journey to Delagoa Bay. and here two weary Portuguese and There were more Portuguese disasters thirty slaves deserted from the column during the seventeenth century, and and settled in Pondoland. The column these castaways encountered fellow- marched on and encountered more Sao countrymen who had been living in Joao people; a Moslem named Gasper, Pondoland for years. Among those two slaves, and then a Portuguese. who were abandoned by the marchers According to the records “he was were women (including nuns) who naked, having been for three years could not keep up with the columns. A exposed to the cold and heat of those Jesuit priest remained with one family parts, so that his colour and appear- of castaways. But most of the tough ance had so altered that there was no Portuguese wished to see Lisbon difference between him and the again and they pushed on relent- natives”. lessly. Mutineers were beheaded, thieves were tortured and hanged. Another wreck near the Umtata River mouth was the Santo Alberto, almost After the Stavenisse wreck the galiot at the end of the sixteenth century. Her Noord was sent in search of men carried mats and chests of food survivors. Three of the men they on shore and sheltered under oriental rescued (in 1688) reported that they carpets and quilts. Again many of the had met a Portuguese survivor of the three hundred survivors remained in Nossa Senhora da Atalaya wreck. He Pondoland rather than face the dangers had lived among the Pondos for more than forty years. “This man had been stein, the German traveller, and circumcised and had a wife and George Thompson, the Cape Town children, cattle and land”, they merchant, both mentioned rumours declared. “He spoke only the African of these clans of castaways. language, having forgotten every- Fynn the elephant hunter met the thing, his God included”. half-caste chief Faku, son of a William Hubberley, a young sailor Grosvenor survivor. Fynn also wrote who was among the Grosvenor of “an English lady of remarkable survivors, wrote a journal in which beauty” who had died in Pondoland he described a clan of natives who before his arrival. Reliable accounts treated the white people with great of these strange clans were written kindness. He did not mention white by the first missionaries Shaw and women living among them; but these Shrewsbury in the eighteen-twenties. were undoubtedly people of mixed They were assisted by a rascal named blood. By the time Jacob van Reenen Nicolaas Lochenberg, a hunter who reached Pondoland with the second had a native harem and had lived in Grosvenor rescue expedition there the country for twenty years. He led were four hundred coloured people the missionaries to the kraal of in one clan, known as the Abelungu, Mdepa, chief of the light-skinned the “white people”. Lady Anne clan living near the present Coffee Barnard mentioned the half-castes in Bay resort. Mdepa was then a frail her writings. Dr. Heinrich Lichten- old man; but he was delighted at the sight of the white missionaries and name - “Bessie! Bessie!” There had told them the most remarkable story been a shipwreck, but no one has ever of the whole castaway saga. Mdepa discovered the name of the ship or the had blue eyes, a long straight nose date. Holt thought it was between and a lighter skin than his followers. 1730 and 1750. When he was asked why he lived near Professor P. R. Kirby, the authority on the sea he replied: “Because it is the Grosvenor and many other “Wild mother. From thence I sprang and Coast” episodes, heard another from thence I am fed when I am account of Bessie’s dramatic arrival. hungry.” She had landed from a small boat with Mdepa was a son of Bessie “the white several slaves, black people with long queen of Pondoland”. The Rev. Basil hair. There was no white man in the Holt, historian of the Transkei, boat. Yet another version gathered by authority on many phases of native Holt mentioned three white men life, investigated the story of Bessie in named Jekwa, Hatu and Badi; and it recent years but found that many was suggested that Badi was Bessie’s details had been lost in the mists of father and that he left Pondoland when time. According to one tradition some a ship called and offered him a Pondos were on the beach near the passage. Some writers have linked Lambaso River mouth after a night of Bessie with the Bennebroek, the Dutch storm when a white girl, aged about ship lost in 1713 near the spot where seven, ran towards them calling her the Grosvenor broke up seventy years afterwards. This is impossible as children. She reigned for more than Bessie died in 1815 near where Port half a century as Inkosikazi or queen St. John’s now stands, a whitehaired and was loved by all. old woman but not a centenarian. Bessie was in all probability the Kirby assumed that Bessie was the white woman Van Reenen met at the child of English parents travelling to Umgazana mouth during his search. or from India, and that her Indian There he found a village and gardens nursemaid and other servants may also planted with bananas and peaches, have survived the wreck. Bessie was kaffir corn, plantains, maize and brought up in the kraal of one beans. Van Reenen said the people Gambushe and became known to the were descended from whites, slaves Pondos as Gquma, meaning “the of mixed blood and people from the roaring of the sea”. She combed her East Indies. He offered some of the long black hair, using brushes and women help in reaching Cape Town combs saved from the wreck. Her and at first they agreed; but later they guardians presented her with three refused to leave their children and white cows and gave her all the white grandchildren. The Rev. Stephen calves born after her arrival. Bessie Kay, a Methodist missionary who first married a Pondo chief named worked in Pondoland in the eighteen- Tshomane, but had no children. After twenties, believed that the sweet the death of Tshomane she married potato came from the wreck when another chief, Sango, and had eight Bessie was cast on shore, and was cultivated by the natives who Pondoland compared with previous adopted Bessie. Kay gathered that episodes. Professor Kirby traced a Bessie was regarded as prophet. Her coloured man named Robert people declared: “The word of Saunders, living at Gun Drift on the Gquma was a great word.” Umtamvuma River, who is almost certainly a descendant of the Robert Tomsoni, an old Abelungu who had Saunders of the Grosvenor, then a taken the name of the trader child of about eight who was left in Thompson, informed the Rev. Basil the care of a friendly tribe. Two little Holt that a branch of his tribe had girls who survived the wreck, settled at the Xora River mouth. Eleanor Dennis, aged three, and There was an island between two Mary Wilmot, seven, appear to have branches of the river and this could been the daughters of Englishmen be reached only by boat. The and Indian mothers. Their descen- Abelungu planted bananas and dants may be living in Pondoland peaches there, but Tomsoni could not unrecognised. Professor Kirby has say where they had secured the pointed out that the wives of peaches. Holt thought the use of a survivors were not separated from boat, and the peaches, were signs of their husbands and left in native the foreign origin of the Abelungu. kraals. The only other possible So it is clear that the Grosvenor Grosvenor descendants might be wreck was responsible for only a traced back to John Bryan the black- small infusion of white blood in smith, who remained at the wreck site Holt nothing of his white ancestress. and made assegais for the natives; and Holt thought it strange to reflect that Joshua Glover, a sailor, who was left this chief probably had distant behind because of his mental relations living in Britain. “Such is our condition. George Cato the explorer knowledge of Bessie, the poor little found a half-caste male near the white waif of a storm at sea, who was Grosvenor site in the middle of last cast up on our coast and made the best century, but this man appears to have of the harsh circumstances into which been a grandson of Bessie. ‘outrageous fortune’ thrust her”, Holt summed up. “It is one of the strangest Holt encountered members of the stories ever to come out of Africa and Abelungu clan who showed clear signs tantalising because we know so little of foreign blood. Some had a yellow where we would fain, know so much skin tinge; one had the appearance of a more.” Red Indian; another was a light copper colour. He learnt that years ago the Sir Walter Stanford, another authority Xosa used to point at the Abelungu on Transkei history, said that the and say: “They are Englandi”. Holt descendants of Stavenisse sailors met Dalingozi, chief of the Tshomane, formed a separate clan in the present one of Bessie’s direct descendants; but Elliotdale district, Bomvanaland. He he showed no evidence of white blood. gathered that Bessie’s wreck was at His skin was black and he had African the Umneno river mouth in Western features and hair. Dalingozi could tell Pondoland. Bessie’s daughters were famous in the territory for their charm Mr. A. J. Lawlor of Nkanya, Elliot- and beauty; and one of them Nonibe, dale, informed me recently that there used her influence to protect mission- are hundreds of Abelungu in his area. aries and traders in time of trouble. “It is their general belief that they are descendants of Grosvenor people, but Ninety years ago the Rev. W. A. Soga, I have my doubts”, Mr. Lawlor wrote. a clergyman of mixed blood, tried to “I think they come from an earlier discover the origins of the Abelungu, shipwreck. A large number of them but even then he could gather only resemble our South African Indians vague information. One old man and unlike the natives of this coastal named Zali declared: “We came out of strip they are keen on cultivating the sea. We are not a black people - market produce.” there is white blood in our veins. Many years ago a vessel was wrecked Precisely. Portuguese and Dutch, at the Lwambasa River mouth beyond British and Indian castaways, all St. John’s. A house was built by the helped to form the strange Pondoland people from the wreck where they clans but it is too late now to draw up came on shore, and parts of the wreck the family trees. were still to be seen in recent times. Pondos went there for scraps of iron for their assegais. We do not know the nationality of our ancestors.” whale oil loaded at Saldanha swung out of the holds and clanged on the wharf. That was my way of spending the long school holidays and it taught me more than my schoolmasters had done. One evening I was passing out of the dock gates at the old Criterion Hotel when I was hailed by John Black, the chief steward. He was leading a party of my shipmates into the bar and I was CHAPTER ELEVEN invited to join them. The bo’sun was POINT ROAD there and the second engineer, both POINT ROAD was just about all I saw Norwegians; and Hoffman the second of Durban during my first visit more steward had come along wearing a than half a century ago, but it was a black morning coat and striped road to remember. I was free to roam trousers. (He was a young Jewish Point Road only in the evenings for I tailor who had gone to sea in a was at work in a little coasting steamer moment of sheer lunacy, and stayed Ingerid all day; polishing brass on the there). I was a little nervous in such bridge, scrubbing and cleaning while distinguished company and at the age the winches rattled and the barrels of of sixteen I found the atmosphere of waterfront bars rather too adventu- blessings of the land. Brazenly they rous. However, I drank a pint of beer ogled the girls and like giants they very, very slowly and noted the drank. growing joviality of my companions. Among our ports of call that night After a few rounds they decided to were the Drumcree, the Alexandra move on. In my innocence I thought and the Bencorrum bars. I was they had quenched their thirsts. I felt allowed, as a merciful concession to relieved, but not for long. my age, to switch to ginger beer. Point Road had more than a touch of That night formed chapter one in my Scandinavia in these days and my experience of bars, barmen and Norwegian shipmates met a number barmaids. It gave me a sentimental of friends. I recall a whaling outlook on Point Road and I went company’s office, the aptly named back there often in later years to fill Cafe Viking, a ship chandler named the gaps in my education. Yes, my Torkildsen, and a Norcap Cafe run shipmates knew the bars of the world by Mrs. Johansen; all places where I and they started me on an endless listened enthralled to the bubbling quest. Perhaps it was John Black’s good humour, the gay lilting accents story of Hell Cat Peggy that set my and rhythm of the Norwegians. Sad youthful imagination at work. She and dour they might appear to be at was a barmaid who dealt with an ill- sea, but now all their moodiness had behaved customer by seizing his ear gone and they were enjoying the between her teeth and dragging him outside. According to Black she bit bars have happier aromas than others. some ears right off and kept them in Malt and hops you have a right to jars of alcohol on a shelf in the bar as expect, sweet and moist; but the bars a warning to others; but this, I think, that glow in the memory are those was a magnificent piece of embroi- where clients are regaled with fish- dery. John Black’s characters had balls and fragrant stews, pretzels and wonderful resounding names; Mother spring onions. Given this background McBride and Pop Levinsky, Big and the right bartender or barmaid and Mose, Chuck Murphy, Dutch Karl a bar becomes a bulwark against and Liverpool Mary. They were all loneliness and a sanctuary from the stars in the saloon world I had only world. just entered. As the years passed I I was a schoolboy in Point Road but gathered the rules, the code and the instead of wickedness I smelt freedom. legends of that glittering stage behind Even then I saw the friendly barmaid the long mahogany counter; the stage as a wise and sympathetic creature with great mirrors and sparkling with an understanding which had not glasses and swinging doors; a stage been gained in drawing-rooms. Here where the human voices might be one could come with all sorts of happy or angry, but where other problems and return to the hard world sounds come in relentlessly; the crash mellow and decided. If you wanted an and jangle of cash registers, the fizzing alcoholic remedy for a stomach-ache siphons, rattle and roll of dice. Some the genius behind the bar would hand you a raw egg in sherry. Cramp was favourite drink even before you have treated with peppermint in whisky. closed the door; and if liquid solace is The barman would attempt to cure an not enough then she will settle your aching tooth or forecast the results of domestic worries or affairs of the heart future horseraces. He presided as as easily as she polishes the glasses. referee in frequent disputes, held John Black also had a few words to stakes or acted as banker; and in say about bar parrots. He declared that selected cases he would even advance the Point Road hotels had known some money until pay day. Yet I saw the of the most talkative and wittiest comforter of one moment suddenly parrots of all time. I heard about the become the man of action; one hand Drumcree parrot that could whistle a on the bar and he vaulted over like an psalm without a false note or sing a acrobat to deal with a disturbance that military march. The only parrot I met had gone too far. Yes, I saw the that night was an idiotic creature at the “bum’s rush” carried out with great Bencorrum; it spoke in a hysterical efficiency that night in Point Road. voice, swung by the feet and Barmaids, the right sort of barmaids, ejaculated in a queer falsetto: “Scratch are born into the trade. The girl who my belly boy - scratch my belly.” has known every customer from child- Obviously the parrots of other days hood takes charge of her counter with had been more amusing. Why, long outward camaraderie and the skill of a ago there was a parrot at the Criterion psychiatrist. She is pouring your that would come down from its perch, select a generous seaman at the crocodiles; a calf with two heads and counter and inquire politely: “How six legs; pictures of celebrated freaks, about a snifter for Poll eh? Bottoms up Tom Thumb and the Siamese Twins. and to hell with the barman.” This Then we paid something extra and parrot was susceptible to changes in watched a flea circus. I understand the weather and acted as a barometer there are highly-trained fleas capable in the bar. It could imitate a gesture, of racing in miniature chariots or dance to a tune, leap and skip on its playing in a football match. The fleas perch and denounce the barmaid in we saw that night had not reached proper seafaring language. such heights of showmanship. The flea master handed round a number of his Between frequent visits to bars John pets in small boxes with magnifying Black led the way into a “dime glasses as lids. One realised for the museum”. Here indeed was a museum first time that each insect of torment such as I had never imagined. My had a beak and six powerful legs. critical faculties were so poorly devel- “Would any gentleman like to oped that I gaped at the fake mermaid volunteer to feed a flea?” asked the (half monkey, half fish) and asked one flea master suddenly. of my shipmates whether such creat- ures were really to be found in the sea. The bo’sun rolled up his sleeve and I saw the crude wax figure of a man in offered a hairy arm decorated with a the electric chair; alleged photographs tattooed python. Thanks to a powerful of life on the moon; stuffed birds and magnifier we observed the flea turning away in disgust. There were no more other Point Road cafes. John Black volunteers. After that the flea master thought deeply and announced: “Pat coaxed his performers until they d’Hara runs a late place - he’ll give us operated a tiny merry-go-round, anything we want.” Pat O’Hara was danced to music and jumped through not running one of Durban’s most hoops. We heard tales of marvellous exclusive restaurants but I would have fleas that could juggle with balls; been sorry if I had missed the place. unfortunately they had died just before When I could see through the smoke I the show opened. “Must have been recognised it as an eating-house for feeding off the bo’sun,” remarked men from the ships. Their weathered John Black. All hands then drifted faces and shabby clothes proclaimed away to slake their own thirsts once their occupation; faces that belonged more. not only to the seafaring races of Europe. A few Chinese seamen were As time went by my shipmates enjoying their tea and the easy-going remembered that it was five hours or O’Hara had also served American more since Charlie our cook had mulattoes and a group of Filipinos. served them with his excellent stewed beef and macaroni dish. Where to go? O’Hara came over to us, a heavily- Mrs. Smith’s Cabin Grill was closed; built man with a merry face. Black so were the Addington tea room, the asked him what he would give us. Marine Club, the Bijou, the “Oi’ve two cooks here, a Zulu and an Manchester House, the Mascot and Indian, and between them they can fix almost any dish under the sun,” so respectable now as it was half a O’Hara replied. “Oi savvy the dago century ago; but it depends on what grub and the Dansk, oi give the Greeks you call respectable. I see that the their moussaka and the wops a whiff Criterion has gone, the only hotel in of garlic. Oi can bolo Hindustani bat the world that had its own customs’ and make a real biriani. Any kind of gate and a passage running through the spigotty or squarehead dish my cooks premises from the docks to Point can do. Oi feed Frenchies and Road. It took the authorities about a Portugooses, Scotchmen and Russkies. century to seal off that loophole with a But at this toime of night it’s ham and wire-mesh barrier. Then the old hotel, eggs or Oirish stew. What d’you say with all its memories, closed for ever. boys?” I miss the anchorage beacon, too, a I was ready for my bunk after the landmark eighty feet high that stood platter of ham and eggs O’Hara put in for half a century. Probably I would front of me. All too soon, I knew, the search in vain for that interesting little enormous binnacle on the bridge shop at the corner where Point Road would be calling for its daily polish. turned into West Street, the shop I Thankfully I rolled on board the knew as a boy. It was called coaster with my shipmates and dreamt Bingham’s Corner Emporium and it of the delights of Point Road. offered liquorice and shell-decorated work-boxes, man-o’-war caps, Point Road has been transformed since Victorian bonnets and acid drops. So my first visit. Old hands say it is not much has vanished that I often wonder Nevertheless I shall return to Point how long Dead Man’s Tree will Road one night and think of all the survive. Durban will never be as people I glimpsed there; natives and romantic, as full of unexpected Indians in the Boating Company’s encounters, as it was that night in compound, stevedores, water police, Point Road when I was sixteen. Men ostrich feather sellers, Teifel the diver, who boasted they could empty a fire the Chinese laundrymen. And I shall bucket filled with beer are not to be find out whether old Port Natal lingers found every day. Parrots that drank in the shadows. When night settles jorums of rum and swore in five over Point Road I shall try to visualise languages are rare birds. Waterfront the bay of sand dunes and bush, the cooks who could produce anything jungle of palm trees and wild bananas, from pepper-pot soup to Mexican where an unknown Englishman lived tamales were unusual craftsmen. (I with his native wives and children went back to O’Hara’s place a few early in the eighteenth century. I shall years afterwards and saw his faithful imagine the slavers coming in and Zulu making Cornish pasties while the finding victims; better slaves than Indian was busy with a fish chowder). those of Madagascar, “stronger and Those were wonderful times when I blacker.” Here, too, a buccaneer felt the magic of the “dime museum” settled, calling himself “a penitent long before I had realised that life is an pirate who sequestered himself from inexplicable museum of curiosities. his abominable community and retired out of harm’s way.” This was once a brought to the beaches in surf boats. swampy lagoon of shipwrecks and Coaches set off from the Britannia Inn castaways. In the eighteen-thirties for Maritzburg. Someone bought the came the trading brig Dove to land Star and Garter for two hundred and spirits. The whole settlement was fifty pounds. Durban was still largely a drunk for days. Here, in the middle of village of wood or tin bungalows a last century, wild elephants roamed century ago, shaded by syringas and among the new brick cottages and fig trees; a town of yoked oxen where wattle and daub shacks. On the Berea wagons had to be hauled out of reedy a settler was killed by a leopard. Lions swamps. Transport riders had their visited the Bluff and the floods outspan at the far end of West Street; brought crocodiles to the creeks. there they exchanged hides, wool and grain for bullets, sugar and coffee. Yet the London Tavern held a ball in Ivory and pumpkins were piled high the midst of these invasions. The under the bamboos. Horse trams widow Quested opened the thatched arrived, and oil lamps for homes and Kentish Tavern opposite the Phoenix streets. Sailors played skittles on the Hotel in West Street, while Drew’s beaches and drank at the Fig Tree Tavern in Grey Street offered music, Canteen. dancing, skittles and boxing. Fleets of sailing ships anchored in the open Even at the turn of the century Durban roadstead and lay there pitching their was still a small town. Only in 1904 bows under while cargoes were did the first mail steamer cross the bar. Long cavalcades of natives carried darkness. When I go back I shall hunt baskets of coal on their heads to fill for that last mysterious aroma in Point the bunkers. Few realised that on one Road. If I find it I shall meet John day in World War II more than one Black again and all the others, and I hundred merchant ships would find shall be sixteen years old. shelter in the bay while sixty-four more vessels waited outside. Certainly I had no visions of Durban’s future civic progress that night when I first set eyes on Point Road. Things were lively enough and I was not aware that a band of seafarers were playing out their little comedy on a darkening stage, living for the moment on rich memories and strong beer. Point Road had an aroma of its own; the harbour smells, salt and tar and carbolic; fried fish and coffee and the spicy Eastern odours; poverty and sweat and rickshaw boys; flowers and cane sugar, too, and something indefinable and glamorous that came with the CHAPTER TWELVE George Pauling the railway contractor PORTS OF THE PORTUGUESE and fabulous gourmand boasted that he and two companions breakfasted at LOURENCO MARQUES still had its a Band Square kiosk on one thousand Band Square when I first landed there of the small local oysters and eight thirty-five years ago. A nervous gover- bottles of champagne. As I sat there nor named Betencourt did away with the little Portuguese policemen this seductive praca on the ground that strutted past wearing swords and the sinister, whispering characters sombreros, accompanied by bare- sitting over drinks outside the kiosks footed native constables with red were planning a revolution. I thought fezzes and knickerbockers. White sun they were merely eyeing the blondes helmets were prominent in those days. from the liners but perhaps these Cool, dignified men appeared in malcontents were plotting other adven- tropical silk suits or white duck, their tures as well. womenfolk in Parisian creations. I loved the old Band Square. It was a “Boy!” Ali the waiter hurried to one’s glowing picture of idlers under the table, a black ghost in white raiment. jacaranda trees, marble tables, drinks “Bon dios, senhor.” He brought a of every sort and colour from golden newspaper, glasses of water and brandy to black coffee, green- toothpicks free of charge; and old shuttered windows and the mosaic of a customers could also rely on free million cobblestones underfoot. snacks, fried octopus with olives and onions, little dishes of potato chips, and interest on the Band Square, and peanuts and cheese straws. Then one on certain nights there was a band. ordered an aperitif. From the Band Near the Band Square was the Rua Square there was a grand view of the Major Araujo, a street that has shipping, gay house-flags and bright survived many necessary and unneces- funnels strung out along the quay. sary changes. Major Araujo, a Street vendors offered garlic and forgotten military hero, little knew the onions, live chickens slung uncom- decades of dubious entertainment fortably on poles, little handmade which were to make this street famous rugs, baskets of fish and fruit, flowers among the world’s seamen and others. and cheeses. Tourists wandered across It has acquired nicknames such as the square, peering into strange “Whisky Street” and the “Street of windows, pestered by bootblacks and Troubles”. Generations of sweating sellers of lottery tickets. Some of them policemen have patrolled the line of paused in an embarrassed way before a bars with swing-doors; thousands of small building with two doors, one for reckless drinkers have seen the dawn Senhoras, the other for Cavalheiros. It there and held their aching heads. In was great sport watching them trying my early days there must have been to make up their minds. Often they fifteen bars in this one short thorough- entered the wrong doors and came out fare. You could listen to the Greeks in with red faces. Always there was life the Akropolis or other less predictable drinkers in the Chandos, the Fauvette Parisienne, the Gaiety, Ginette and the of a sort. Dolly was one of the rest. A bar licence cost the equivalent personalities of Lourenco Marques. of £60 a year in those days, but the She had one weakness. I was at licence for each barmaid was £40 Bello’s Casino, where the roulette and extra. A totally unexpected atmos- baccarat tables raked in more escudos phere was to be found at the Frivolity, than some of the banks; and there was better known as Dolly’s Bar. I believe Dolly sitting at the baccarat table, she owned the place. apparently careless whether she won or lost. The croupier’s rake carried Dolly was a middle-aged, cultured away her stake. Other women bit their Englishwoman who used neither rouge fingers but Dolly smiled. She lost most nor pencil, a quiet woman usually of her profits on the gaming tables yet dressed in black. All the leading she went on playing. business men went to her bar and often they drank tea. It was a homely place. One evening I sat on the Band Square Dolly liked her clients to spend a with a local newspaperman, an pleasant evening and no one ever Englishman who owned a publishing drank too much. She was invited business in Lourenco Marques. I was everywhere in the British colony of enthralled by his stories of the town he those days, certainly the most remark- knew so well. There is an Avenida do able barmaid I ever met. Other bars in Duque de Connaught along the bay the Rua Araujo had weird bands, and when I asked him about this name jangling pianos and feminine company his answer recalled a great spectacle; possibly the greatest ever seen in acting as markers and in the centre Lourenco Marques. He said the Duke there was a single horseman, motion- of Connaught had paid an official visit less in the saddle. The dancers were very early this century and the hidden among the trees on the bluff. Portuguese had organised a grand Suddenly a war-cry rang out from the batuque in his honour. It was a tribal forest and four leaders raced out with dance on a scale Africa had seldom shields and assegais held high. Then known before or since. Thousands of came a human cavalcade that made the Shangaans and Mchopis came into onlookers gasp; hundreds of men, town day after day, until about twenty thousands of men in column of fours thousand tribesmen had assembled for rushing into the strong sunlight, the great event. Every man was plunging down on to the course, correctly dressed, with shield and turning sharply, moving round the area assegai. Football jerseys and other like an enormous human snake. The European. frills were banned. endless column began to curl within itself; and still more and more When the Duke of Connaught and the thousands poured out of the trees, rank white audience arrived at the pavilion after rank charging down the face of on the racecourse almost the only the bluff, chanting and waving their natives visible were those in the weapons, until the whole ground was massed orchestras of “bantu pianos”, surrounded by the gigantic spiral xylophones and hornblowers. Round growing always towards the horseman the course were a number of headmen in the centre. Louder and louder rose heads of those they killed and stuck the savage rhythm of the massed them on poles as a warning. Shiploads bands as the long sinuous line of hunters sailed out of Durban to uncoiled and moved faultlessly into shoot buck and wild pig at Delagoa long parallel lines facing the Governor Bay. Adventurers from the Barberton General and the Duke of Connaught. goldfields sometimes visited Delagoa And at precisely the same moment the Bay and they would have seized it if twenty thousand tribesmen stopped President Kruger had given them dead and gave the royal salute - permission. Indeed there were many Bayete ! The orchestras played the old clashes between the gold miners and Portuguese royal national anthem the tiny Portuguese garrison. After a Hymno do Carta and finally “God great deal of wild behaviour the Save the King”. Yes, that was drama Portuguese bought a small coaster, the and Africa has seldom watched Lady Wood, and fitted her out as a anything more impressive. gunboat to maintain law and order. Twice the crew were overpowered and I heard many other tales of the old the gunboat looted; once by the Delagoa Bay. The settlement was no Barberton crowd and again by a native more than a walled camp with a castel- chief named Mahash when the Lady lated fortress a century ago; drums and Wood ran aground on a sandbank. bugles and a mutinous black garrison. Wild tribesmen often attacked the Delagoa Bay knew the slavers and the place and the Portuguese cut off the ivory traders. Dutch settlers arrived at different periods and left the fragments Few visitors to the modern Lourenco of a stone fort near the waterfront. Marques know the grim background, Inyack Island, at the bay entrance, was the bloody pages of the city’s past. among the earliest Portuguese settle- Residents have created a little Lisbon ments in East Africa. You may at this old harbour which has seen remember the ancient black-painted great fires and hurricanes, plague and brig marked “Pilotes” that lay off rinderpest and the massacre of Inyack. Austrians backed by the Portuguese seamen on the present Empress Maria Theresa and led by an Polana Beach. In the old days the English officer, William Bolts, hospital was always full during the hot occupied Inyack Island for a time and season, the “suicide month” of built a fort. Indian Ocean pirates and November. One summer day the the old sailing whalers often called temperature rose to one hundred and there. Inyack was annexed to Natal a fifteen degrees in the shade and fell to century ago but the British withdrew fifty-two when a gale blew up during peacefully after arbitration. Within the afternoon. The old settlement was living memory the island was raided flooded on many occasions and once it by rebellious natives and Portuguese was almost burnt out. Lourenco storekeepers were murdered. Now the Marques has survived many vicis- tropic isle has become a pleasure situdes. resort and also a research station for Lourenco Marques was the navigator marine biologists. who explored Delagoa Bay four hundred years ago but the bay was to early graves. At one time Beira known to the Portuguese forty years was regarded as the toughest settle- before that survey. The municipality ment in Africa, drunken and lawless. was set up by royal decree almost a Steamers anchored far out, for the century ago and King Don Luis I deepwater anchorage close to Beira ordered the draining of the swamps. had not been charted. Passengers Engineers from Holland built the first were lowered on to tugs in baskets. wharf, known for years as the “Dutch The earliest arrivals found only a Wharf”. Indians built a white alabaster Portuguese fort and a few tents; for temple and the Chinese have their own Beira was simply a place for landing priest and pagoda. It is a city with a cargoes. As there was no wharf the drowsy charm of its own, a city with a lighters were beached and tons of background, a siesta city. galvanised iron, fencing wire, tinned Sail on to Beira and you are still in the foods and cases of the essential land of the siesta. This town is so whisky were carried on shore. Early recent that in a healthier climate you in the eighteen-nineties a row of one- would expect to find a few aged roomed tin shanties on piles grew up pioneers telling the wild story. But not on the sandspit called Beira, the here. Beira killed its pioneers. They Portuguese word for sand. The sand heard the ping-ing-ing-zzz of the was so deep that trolley lines had to invincible mosquito. Cholera, dysen- be laid to carry people and goods up tery, malaria and blackwater sent them and down the settlement. Every white resident owned a four-wheeled on many residents and the sight trolley and hired two Shangaans to provoked melancholy thoughts. push it. The governor had a little Heat was a burden in the primitive State coach with a coat-of-arms and houses of old Beira. There were a green awning. Soon the trolley- insects everywhere and the sandfleas lines covered twenty-five miles of or jiggers burrowed under one’s sand, with turn-tables at crossroads, toenails and were extracted by clever points and side-tracks and busy natives. Nearly everyone suffered junctions. Often the trolleys jumped from sore eyes. The garrison was the eighteen-inch gauge rails, but it small and feeble. When the Chief was better than walking. I travelled Gungunyana.’s warriors arrived by by trolley during my first visit to canoe in battle order to collect taxes Beira. I remember the muscular from a local potentate the Portuguese Shangaans and their cry at the end of were unable to oppose the impis the run: Presente ! Presente ! When I chanting war songs. However, the revisited Beira in the nineteen- settlement grew and railway thirties the trolley lines had been torn construction drew white adventurers up, the avenidas had been paved. But like vultures to a feast. Those men out towards the Ponta Gea I came who passed through Beira were hard upon a derelict line and a pile of ugly citizens and they left their mark on the ghosts, the trolleys flung aside for ramshackle seaport. They fought with ever. Beira has had the same effect fists, knives and revolvers and always they drank. One governor solved the watch black and white crows fighting problem by confining the police to the dogs for scraps. barracks when a contingent of British George Pauling once remarked that he railway workers landed! Serious riot- wished he had never heard of Beira. ing also occurred when three hundred When he started the two-foot gauge Arabs and Abyssinians arrived on their railway in the early eighteen-nineties way to the Rhodesian mines. They the climate was so unhealthy that he attacked and almost overpowered the lost six of his most experienced white garrison but on this occasion the men in one week. Within two years British section sided with the Portu- sixty per cent of his men had died. guese and saved the day. Pauling noted the peculiar fact that Old Beira was indeed a dangerous there were no teetotalers among the place. One British consul named survivors. “They do not stand fever McMaster was stabbed to death by an country even as well as excessive American cattleman. McMaster was a drinkers,” Pauling declared. He had popular official and there were two thousands of natives to feed, and one thousand people of all races at his of his Afrikaner hunters once shot funeral. Lions often raided the eight buffalo before breakfast. outskirts of Beira during the early Men of many nations worked as sub- years. Big game wandered over the contractors under Pauling. Some were Ponta Gea at will and roamed the main hiding from the law and the Beira street. The lover of wild life could also pioneers found strange characters in their midst. Beira was the only place Rhodes had intended to travel inland offering the chance of a spree; and by Cape cart and only when he subcontractors earning from £2,000 to reached Beira did he discover that £4,000 a year spent freely in the bars. there were no roads. He had to A stern-wheeler named Kimberley abandon his magnificent Cape cart in carried them from Beira to the base Beira and there it remained as a construction camp at Fontesvilla, forty showpiece for many years. miles up the Pungwe River. Captain When the Pungwe was flooded the Dickie was in command, a shrewd and water spread out over a vast area and fearsome character who provided food tugmasters had difficulty in finding and liquor during the voyage. If his their way. One tug loaded with railway passengers did not patronise the bar material left Beira and became lost in Dickie ran the Kimberley on to a the tropical forest. She was left high sandbank and stayed there among the and dry when the floods subsided and mosquitoes until everyone had been remained there, seven miles from the driven to drink. Cecil Rhodes once river, for three years. Then another travelled with Dickie at this period. flood transformed the forest into a lake Rhodes knew the trick and bought and the tug steamed on to Fontesvilla Dickie’s whole stock of whisky and with her valuable cargo. Pauling’s men champagne when the Kimberley left had other adventures. Trains and Beira. Dickie made the run to trolleys were halted by lions and men Fontesvilla in twelve hours, a record. took to the trees. Pauling, a celebrated drinker, claimed that during a railway public, so that it was difficult to journey of forty-eight hours he and his identify the gangsters. They wore engineers Lawley and Moore masks and carried out one robbery consumed three hundred bottles of after another, forcing white residents German beer. Trains were more like to hand over money and valuables. tramcars, wide open with seats along Then they made their victims bring out both sides. Tiny engines burnt wood, their whisky. The reign of terror so they stopped every ten miles for reached a climax when the gangsters water and fuel. When a train from murdered two Portuguese policemen. Fontesvilla reached the terminus at Maugham then decided to take a hand Chimoio the passengers transferred to and with the approval of the governor one of the famous Zeederberg or he sent to Salisbury for a party of Symington coaches, drawn by mules. detectives. They soon dealt with It was not until the end of last century Arizona Joe and his gang. One robber that the first train went through from was shot dead and the rest Beira to Salisbury. disappeared. Mr. R. C. F. Maugham, who went to Beira stands only eighteen inches Beira as British consul towards the above high tide, so that there was no end of last century, found the place margin of safety until a concrete sea terrorised by a gang of desperadoes. wall was built to keep the combined Arizona Joe was the leader; but these forces of the Pungwe and the Busi men never recognised one another in Rivers at bay. Again and again the sea swept houses away. Floods breached Francais, while an Italian named the first wall and the early disasters Martini was host at the Royal. These were repeated. When a cyclone swept men served buffalo meat braised with Beira the town was flooded again, the rich gravy so that it tasted like beef. bridge over Chievive Creek looked Their guests enjoyed eland, the like a concertina, tugs and lighters aromatic flesh of bushbuck, and other were flung ashore, cranes were blown venison done in port wine with onions over and the sea wall was smashed. and herbs. Martini often put on a casserole that tasted like tender Mr. P. J. Francis, a shipping agent who chicken or hare; and some of his lived in Beira before World War I, guests were upset when they found gave me his impressions of old Beira. they had been eating fruit bat. Now When he landed there were only two and again the fishermen brought in a hundred white people. There were dugong with fat as sweet as butter and eighty bars but no fresh provision very palatable meat. Oysters were stores. Dinner parties were always pickled, stewed, baked or served in arranged for the night when the fritters, patties and, puddings. Turtle Rhodesian mail train came in, as it soup and grilled turtle fins often brought fresh meat and vegetables appeared on the Francais and Royal from Umtali. However, there were menus. Ground-nut soup was a great pioneer hotel keepers who showed favourite. Smoked bêche de mer, a great ingenuity in “living off the sea slug that resembled a charred country”. George Vaghi ran the Hotel sausage, was not popular with all the Vaghi roasted elephant heart with con- patrons. Octopus was among the fritto siderable skill. I was told that Martini misto ingredients. George Vaghi had a was cheered by everyone dining at his bush pie recipe in which it was said hotel one night when he served a that Worcestershire sauce was used to tremendous lion casserole. mask the flavour of monkey. Zebra Game, pineapple and bananas still find meat was stewed with herbs, olive oil a place on Beira menus but in the and tomatoes. Pawpaw was served as a homes of the Portuguese the cooking vegetable, boiled and mashed. Livers is very different from the efforts of and kidneys of buck were cooked with Martini and Vaghi. You can still have garlic and red wine. Young warthogs shrimp omelettes and prawns a foot came to the table tasting like pork. long. Dried cod comes all the way Hippo was another dish with a strong from the North Atlantic to be pork flavour. Giraffe was more like transformed into golden bacalhau. coarse beef. No one complained about Hens’ eggs are as small as they were rhino and wildebeest was accepted. in the early days; if you find five eggs Elephant was a great delicacy, for on your breakfast plate then a Beira Gregorio Formosinho and other tradition is still being observed. But hunters sent in their ivory but seldom instead of hippo there will probably be did the meat reach the Beira hotels. Cozido a Portuguesa, a boiled dinner Martini let everyone know when he with rice and potatoes; or smoked was cooking elephant feet in charcoal. pig’s back with green peas; or ovos de paraizo, eggs baked with pastry, bam excellent savoury rice, the serra and cheese. Elephant meat has gone cheese from the milk of mountain for good; you will have to do with ewes. When you come to the sweets I vitella (veal) marinaded with bay leaf, can recommend the quince dish called garlic and wine; or gammon stewed Marmelada and the strange little with broad beans, onion, wine and desserts known as Sonhos (dreams) olive oil; or pigs’ tongues, or the meat and Suspiros (sighs). Old Martini balls called almondegas. The never reached those heights, though Portuguese call any roast rosbif, so do there was plenty of Collares in his day, not be surprised if you are offered the Portuguese claret, and the strong rosbif de porco. They are great eaters red wine called Bombarrel. and their fish dishes are especially In the bars of old Beira a character hearty. I tasted a Caleirada de peixe in nicknamed Zambesi Jack slaked his Beira, a fish stew rather like thirst. He became famous as Trader bouillabaisse but without the saffron. Horn, a successful author. Whisky was They give you a good sopa de three shillings a tot, beer three camarrao there, a shrimp soup with a shillings and sixpence a bottle; too brandy flavour. Sardines are fried in expensive for many customers, so they batter. Tunny is simmered skilfully bought vinho tinto by the keg and with onions and tomatoes, white wine diluted it moderately with water to and olive oil. I also remember the remove the burning sensation. Those chestnuts boiled with aniseed, the bars were gateways to adventure and the men who drank there went on to manager named Ellis, a generous man shoot big-game, to plant tea in who was always calling out: “Drinks Nyasaland or prospect the rivers of are on the house.” Some people took Mozambique for gold. Beira has been advantage of his good nature and transformed since the lawless days and signed his name on their bar chits. I have heard it described as a “re- Mrs. Ellis looked after the accounts formed harlot”. Yet the past can no and Ellis was often in trouble with his more be brushed away than the sand wife. I heard tales of the rakish dhaws that remains under the flame trees. in the harbour and the little coasters reeking of copra and overrun with rats I listened to the talk at sundown on the and cockroaches. Those people on the long verandah of the Savoy Hotel. verandah spoke in hushed voices of They spoke of the days when an treasure. on the caravan route to Sofala Indian barber came round early every and gold in unmapped gullies. They morning to shave male guests in bed; discussed many strange topics with and it made no difference whether they rich anecdote and emphatic ring of were awake, asleep or drunk; they all glasses as the sun went down. got a clean shave. I heard of the man whose friend was eaten by a lion; he No longer are there shots in the night shot the lion next day, found a to disturb law-abiding Beira. Most of clergyman and arranged a Christian the tin shacks and old iron balconies burial for the lion with the man inside. have disappeared. I visited the rusty They told me about a Savoy Hotel skeleton of a three-masted iron sailing ship in the jungle round the Makuti Mozambique spreads for more than lighthouse, thinking it was a ghost of sixteen hundred miles along the East old Beira; but no, it was just a useless African coast. It is the name of a huge hulk that had been dragged in there to territory and also of a tiny coral island bind the sand. The war against sand five hundred miles beyond Beira. goes on all the time. Yet modern Beira Mozambique is one more of those has fine villas with courtyards and tropical African outposts filled with slatted awnings and lovely gardens. It the elusive quality called atmosphere; has a Pavilhao Oceana on the beach one more of those towns built on a and streets and hotels the old hands grim foundation of human skeletons. would not recognise: The Rua Major This is the oldest white settlement in Serpe, the Rua Alvarez Cabral, the Africa south of the equator. Vasco da Hotel Embaixador and the Hotel Gama called there at the end of the Grande. But the black January storms fifteenth century. There his weary still sweep across the harbour with sailors mutinied after a severe heavy rain. Summer is still a Turkish buffeting; but they sailed on to India. bath, winter is still perfect. Beira, Nine years later the Portuguese started almost an island, still looks out on its building a fort, church and hospital on desolate mangrove swamps, its yellow the tiny green island three miles from sand and the unchanging brown water the coast. Parts of the town have of the Pungwe estuary. remained unchanged since the early sixteenth century. When you gaze on the ancient barred and bolted doors harbour. They anchored there outward and windows, the rusting cannon on bound with their hundreds of soldiers frowning parapets, the narrow streets and specie, their heavy casks of wine wide enough only for rickshaws then and water; and they returned with you are back in the East Africa of the spices and silks. But always there were explorers. outbreaks of malaria and scurvy, and the island became the graveyard of Mozambique Island, three miles long thousands of Portuguese soldiers and and five hundred yards wide has seen sailors. I think the Dutch East India the flag of Portugal raised every day Company showed great wisdom when for nearly five centuries. If the Dutch they chose Table Bay. But the Dutch attack had been successful the Dutch might have made better colonists than would have set up their refreshment the Portuguese. I have seen a priest’s station there instead of Table Bay; but note on early Mozambique and it is a they were beaten off. The Portuguese revealing description: “Mozambique is settled on this island because they not so repulsive as it is painted but the needed a secure harbour of refuge for Portuguese with their worldly desires ships making the long Carreira da and gluttony fill the burial places. The India, the round trip from Lisbon to provisions are ordinarily sufficient for Goa and back. Ships which failed to there are luscious oranges and lemons, catch the favourable south-west good sucking-pigs, good cows, figs, monsoon when homeward bound and I even saw pomegranates there. spent the winter in Mozambique Wheat and rice come from Sena on the castellated parapets. Only the huts mainland and both are excellent. Yet thatched with palm leaves belonged to few places in the tropics have claimed Africa. I remember the stone landing so many lives.” steps, historic masonry trodden by generations of conquistadors and Certainly the Portuguese showed slaves and labourers burdened with tremendous drive when they built the gold and ivory. great fort they called San Sebastian. I stood one sweltering afternoon on the San Sebastian was held by the ramparts of the grey old castle Portuguese against attack after attack dreaming of the energy and courage of by the Arabs. The riches of India and the men who founded this pioneer Africa passed these grey battlements. outpost. They brought the dressed The courtyard rang with the cries of stone all the way from Lisbon in adventure and the echoes have hardly caravels. Ship after ship came in, died away. I could almost hear the decade after decade; and only after survivors of the lost Portuguese forty years was San Sebastian treasure ships coming through the completed. The town that grew under gateway with their tales of shipwreck the seventy-foot walls of the castle and hardship on the unfriendly coast. was like a fragment of old Portugal; Some of those treasure ships were low, tiled houses painted pink and never located. British treasure hunters yellow, green and white, low houses followed a legend of an old Portu- with grilles and flat roofs and guese wreck near Mozambique and found the sunken hull. Fragments and was a halo round the moon. Then the equipment brought to the surface low, swift clouds appeared. The whole provided evidence that she belonged to world of nature seemed to be on the the period when Portugal was growing move, the seabirds and even the fish. rich on gold and jewels. Eagerly the They closed their shutters in divers blasted their way through the Mozambique and barred their doors. ancient timbers and reached the cargo. Market women gathered up their It was stone, great blocks of dressed manioc and sugar cane and cashew stone for the walls of San Sebastian. nuts and departed. Ships put down their heaviest anchors. In the Mozambique Island lies in the path of governor’s palace, houses and hovels, those furious cyclones that arise in the the people cowered and waited for the Southern Indian Ocean and come blow. roaring up the channel towards the end of the year. Before the days of radio It came with a menacing roar. The the people of Mozambique said they noon sun was blotted out, seas crashed could feel a cyclone approaching long on the castle walls, the rain and wind before the whiplash struck them. The thundered on the old walls of sky might be blue, the sea calm; but Mozambique. Men caught outside had there was an uneasy atmosphere of to crawl to safety; they could not suspense in the town. It might be a breathe when they faced the screaming queer red sunset that warned them, or cyclone. There might be a deceptive a yellow haze; and sometimes there lull that lasted for hours, a dangerous sign. That meant the island was in the centre of the cyclone. When the wind returned from the opposite direction it blew harder than before. Then it would move away slowly over the mainland and allow the people of the island to survey the devastation and bury the dead. One cyclone eighty years ago destroyed all the shipping in the bay, damaged the lighthouse, flattened many houses. Only San Sebastian defied the violence. There it stands, the great stone castle built by the men who raised the veil of mystery that had rested over the whole of Southern Africa for so long. coming into Dar es Salaam by the hundred. My guide to the world of tusks was a most experienced ivory buyer, Mr. E. D. Moore, known on the coast as “Tusker” Moore because of his occupation. Moore took me into a ratproof godown, a store where the tusks were piled up ready for shipment. “Got to keep the rats out - they gnaw into soft tusks to get at the CHAPTER THIRTEEN oil,” said Moore. He pointed out the HAVEN OF PEACE large curved tusks of the bull WHEN I visited Dar es Salaam in the elephants; the shorter, round cow nineteen-twenties there was a great tusks, highly prized by makers of and regrettable slaughter of elephants billiard balls; the little “scrivelloes” going on in the hinterland. It was the used for bangles; hard translucent heyday of the hunter. Pianos still had ivory and soft opaque ivory; the brown ivory keys and no one dreamt of gendi tusks from beyond the Lakes; plastic substitutes. Tanganyika offered white ivory and tusks which had taken free licences so that farmers would not on the colour of blood from the smoke be troubled by elephants. Tusks were in native huts. “Africans never valued ivory until the respectable, apart from the killing of white man came,” Moore told me. all these enormous animals for the “They propped up their huts with tusks sake of their lovely teeth. and they fenced graves and cattle pens Moore said that a lot of the ivory with tusks. Stanley saw an ivory coming into Dar es Salaam consisted temple during his travels. They killed of old tusks found in swamps and elephants for the meat and often left rivers and the remote bush. Some was the tusks in the bush. So there was a cracked and perished, others were still time when tusks were two a penny and in fine condition. But the huge the only problem was sending them sweeping tusks handled by dealers last down to the coast. Slaves solved the century had become rare. Then, a tusk problem. Columns of slaves staggered weighing eighty pounds was common; along under the great weight of ivory.” the average had gone down to fifty or Stanley denounced the trade in these less. “And you have to make sure that famous words: “Every tusk in the the simple African has not poured possession of an Arab trader has been molten lead into the ivory to increase steeped and dyed in blood. Every the weight,” remarked Moore with a pound weight of ivory has cost the life smile. He loved ivory for its own sake of a man, woman or child. Huts have and had a grand collection of ivory been burned, villages destroyed, the necklaces, bracelets, armlets, horns rich heart of Africa has been laid and idols. Moore admired the grain, waste.” Now the trade had become the resilience, the exquisite feel, the true beauty of ivory. I cannot imagine and baked with curry powder. The him gazing with reverence on a knife local crawfish lacked the flavour of the with a plastic handle. Cape species from ice-cold seas but they made a pleasant dish when served I have another memory of Dar es as lobster cutlets. Prawns were fried Salaam long ago. At the market I saw and presented on anchovy toast. King- a rich array of tropical fish and other fish or wahoo, regarded as the aristo- foods which I tasted later; an crat of those waters, came to the table experience which always ranks in my in grilled steaks with egg sauce. There mind as an adventure. On the stalls were smoked sardines from Zanzibar there were oysters and huge clams and another cured fish that might from Oyster Bay, kingfish and red almost have masqueraded as a kipper. mullet, strange fruits and vegetables I Dolphins, the fish not the mammals, had never eaten before. If the oysters are known in Dar es Salaam as faloosi; lacked the flavour of Whitstables they they are diced and marinaded in fresh made up for it in size and the fact that limes and after further treatment with they grew on trees, the roots of the tomatoes, green peppers and mangrove trees in the swamps. I Worcestershire sauce they go into a enjoyed oysters in white sauce, memorable fish cocktail. browned under the grill with cheese and served on spinach. Clams Swahili cooks make clever use of a appeared in a chowder of pork, onions flavouring extract from freshly-grated and tomatoes. Crabs were chopped up coconut known as tui ya nazi. They also cook some fish dishes in milk of the dreaded channel with its sharp coconut with bay leaves and cloves. bends, reefs and currents known only Dar es Salaam is one of those places to the local pilots, But once you are where meat and poultry have to be inside the invisible harbour suddenly disguised as much as possible. Curries becomes a gorgeous circular land- are usually good. I liked the curried locked bay surrounded by coconut brinjals and also the thin slices of palms, mangroves, beaches with green brinjal baked in the oven, crisp and turf running down to the sand, cliffs brown. (Fried brinjal, they told me, and spires and avenues of crimson absorbs too much fat). Breadfruit was flamboyants. eaten boiled with sauce, like vegetable Arab dhows still come in from the marrow. Sweet potatoes were served Persian Gulf, India and Somaliland, as a sweet, boiled and sprinkled with bringing dates and dried fish, rugs and grated coconut. I also saw, for the first cloth. The cries of the dhow sailors, time in my life, a pawpaw tart. After their drums and the high-pitched notes such menus I was ready to admire the of their zomaris are among the beauty of Dar es Salaam bay. romantic sounds of the “haven of Dar es Salaam is one of the few peace”. Fishermen use double sheltered harbours along the East outrigger canoes, each hull shaped African coast. It would be perfect but from a single tree trunk. Small boats for the narrow entrance which has loaded with ebony elephants, brass- caused nightmares among shipmasters; ware and silks go out to meet the liners. Canoes with eyes in their prows Salaam site was a tiny fishing village move off to the reefs and islands. On called Mzizima in the middle of last the reefs at low tide men hunt the century. Mzizima means “the healthy green turban shells with their valuable town”. Sultan Majid of Zanzibar plan- mother-o’-pearl. Here, too, in caves ned a settlement there about a century and recesses are cowries, violet and ago. The Sultan was a slave trader and moon shells. Women in black kangas British naval seamen with guns and wade along the shores of the bay with cutlasses were interfering cruelly with close-meshed nets catching tiny fish his business; so he decided to build a like whitebait. I was told they were all quiet headquarters on the mainland. In widows. Only a Swahili widow has the a mood of wishful thinking he called privilege of harvesting these silvery the place Dar es Salaam, “haven of fish, the tasty little fish that makes peace” and sent thousands of slaves to excellent curries. start the great work. Dar es Salaam is one of East Africa’s A priest named Father Hoerner visited new towns. True, there are ancient Dar es Salaam at this period on board mosques and tombs in the neighbour- the sultan’s yacht. She was the former hood; the ships of King Solomon may Shenandoah, the Confederate raider, have entered the lovely harbour; junks renamed El Majidi, a fast ship of one from China anchored there and dhows thousand tons, with steam and sail. have sailed in from India, and Persia Father Hoerner was accompanied by a for centuries. Yet the present Dar es guard of honour. He saw the slaves building a palace and a few other first European building in the town. (A buildings which were still in use secret Hitler “altar” was discovered during World War I; the slaves were there during World War II). German also sinking the deep wells which officers fortified various ruins, for the served Dar es Salaam for half a town was attacked by Arab raiders. century. Herds of hippo swam round The first large garrison at Dar es El Majidi and hundreds of monkeys Salaam included Zulu warriors and gibbered in the trees. Sudanese mercenaries. German offi- cials built thick-walled government Then came the Germans, in the structures and pretty houses of coral eighteen-eighties. Sultan Majid was rock with red tiles or slate roofs. Steel dead and most of his buildings were in frames were brought from Germany ruins and infested with snakes and for the upper storeys of certain large bats. The palace became a German buildings. In spite of deep, shady prison with convicts lying on slabs of balconies and tropical shutters, the marble: Customs and police made use atmosphere of Dar es Salaam was of other Arab relics. On the northern heavily Teutonic. Before the century promontory German missionaries put ended the town had a Lutheran church up a double-storied building designed with a spire that is still prominent on for the steamy climate with jalousies the skyline. A fine German railway and a top floor open to the winds but station was followed by a Kaiserhof sheltered by a roof; a famous place Hotel, later the New Africa. The which was pointed out to me as the palace of the German governor on the tore through the streets with a zebra ocean front was more gorgeous than “four in hand” vehicle. Horses were the sultan’s crumbling palace. There rarely seen in the early years of the was an impressive Kommandanteur century. The town plan suited ox- building, a Casino or mess for army wagons, sent up from the Cape as an officers, an excellent hospital, and a experiment; or the long columns of beer garden on the seafront where the porters who set out into the hinterland drinkers could listen to the monsoon with their head-loads. rustling the casuarinas. Broad, paved I mentioned the beer garden which streets were lined with ornamental was the social hub of Dar es Salaam trees. A legacy of those days which early this century. Russian battleships, has puzzled many people, however, is part of an armada which had called the peculiar layout. Streets in the previously at Cape Town entered Dar downtown business area converge on es Salaam on the way to fight the traffic circles and there is great con- Japanese. The Russians bought up all gestion. Of course the Germans could the liquor in the German stores and not have foreseen the growth of motor left Dar es Salaam in a thirsty state transport. White people, including the until the next Deutsche Ost Afrika governor, used rickshaws. Zebras were liner arrived. Officials who had tamed for riding and driving; and a become used to Scotch whisky could German sergeant-major caused a panic not be consoled with pombe and other in leisurely Dar es Salaam when he native brews. Strange cargoes passed through the and a floating dock in the fairway. Dar es Salaam of German colonial Dynamite was placed in the bottom of days. Ivory and rhino horn were every- the Konig and the fuse was lighted; day commodities; but once there came but there was no explosion. The armies of carriers bearing thousands of officer in charge of the task was court- loads of fossil material. East Africa martialled but acquitted when he was the home of dinosaurs. A monster proved that the dynamite was fifteen fossil reptile was found deep in the years old and useless. So the channel interior and sent at enormous cost to a was never blocked. Dar es Salaam museum in Germany. surrendered easily when a British invading force appeared. General von Dar es Salaam would have seen a Lettow Vorbeck, the tough German colonial exhibition in 1914, but war military commander, was up-country intervened. The great steel frame at the time and was disgusted when he which would have housed the show heard the news. “For a soldier it was was turned into a native market hall. not very inspiring to find that here, The town lost its most imposing under the very eyes of a thousand building in 1914, for H.M.S. Goliath good troops, an agreement had been turned her twelve-inch guns on the reached which forbade us to take any governor’s palace and destroyed it. hostile action at Dar es Salaam,” wrote Soon afterwards the Germans attempt- Von Lettow. “There was no warlike ed to block the narrow harbour spirit. The people at Dar es Salaam entrance by sinking the steamer Konig had no stomach for fighting.” Scuttled find all over South West Africa to this vessels at Dar es Salaam gave the day. Nearly all the Germans were salvage men a great deal of work after deported from Tanganyika after World the war ended. War I. The language and the customs died out rapidly and only the strong Many elderly South Africans buildings stood as reminders of such remember Dar es Salaam as a huge characters as Karl Peters, Von Wiss- military base camp during the latter mann the explorer, Governor Schnee part of World War I. Thousands of and the formidable Von Lettow. Even South African horses and mules were the Teutonic buildings have been sur- landed there. At one time five rounded and overshadowed now and thousand white soldiers were living German names and dates on the under canvas. One of those soldiers gargantuan baobab trees in Dar es told me that lions roamed the streets of Salaam are becoming faint with age. Dar es Salaam in those days and for Von Wissmann’s statue no longer long afterwards. A bank clerk shot a stands in a seafront palm grove; now lion in the street some years after the there is a bronze monument in honour war. Hippos leave the creeks of the African soldiers who fell in the occasionally and invade the native wars. The last issue of the Deutsch quarter. Dar es Salaam is still close to Ost Afrikanische Zeatung was sold the jungle. more than half a century ago. With the Germany failed to leave on Dar es Germans went most of the uniforms – Salaam the deep impression that you and the lash as the remedy for every eager Asiatic salesmen told me sadly breach of discipline. Sir Horace Byatt, that the skins of leopards, black and first British governor, put up an white colobus monkeys, blue monkeys expensive and ornate government and other animals were now on the house of Moorish design on the protected list. Not that I wanted such foundations of Dr. Schnee’s shattered trophies or hippo teeth. I felt the heat palace. Under the sausage trees, along more, and someone informed me that Acacia Avenue’s blazing mass of government officials were granted colour, there grew up a new way of eight months’ leave after thirty months life. service. Then a whiff of copra reached me, and a breath from the mangrove I looked for the old Dar es Salaam swamps, and I remembered Moore and when I returned after many years. the ivory and the fans playing on Dwarf parrots, the so-called lovebirds, departed faces. And I walked slowly to were still making their domed nests in the hotel of my choice in search of a roofs and baobabs and screeching meal such as those that had lingered in happily. (One of the less romantic my memory through the decades. sounds of the town). Often I heard the Perhaps I was lucky that day, for there more interesting beat of the long were oysters on the menu with king- drums and the whistles of ngoma fish to follow. A coffee seller with parties. I was offered the same wooden brass pots sauntered past the open birds and Masai warrior statuettes in window sounding his little gong and I the shops of Acacia Avenue; but the was back in the Dar es Salaam of my youth. CHAPTER FOURTEEN torn up and sold. I liked Port Louis RUM HARBOUR as I first saw it, when I first savoured its fragrance from the open prome- BEFORE I leave these hot Indian nade deck of the old six-thousand ton Ocean harbours there is one more intermediate Gaika. The islanders port of call, an island of fond memo- looked on that late Victorian liner as ries. It is Mauritius, a mountainous a Mauretania or Queen Mary; as a volcanic mass about the size of the luxurious link with the outside Cape Peninsula; and when I was world. And indeed the world was far there in the middle nineteen-twenties away from drowsy Mauritius for it the sweltering capital Port Louis was a run of six days eastwards from seemed to belong to another century. Durban. Now the days have become Recent visitors have formed the same flying hours. I think the air is the impression. Great aircraft come in to wrong approach to this isle of Dutch land at La Plaisance on the southern ruins and French chateaux, of Paul et coast but the fine old mansions they Virginie, an isle which once pass over still belong to the reigns of possessed the strangest fauna on the Louis XV and Louis XVI. face of the earth. I shall never go back. Revolution has On board the Gailca there was a come to Mauritius, almost as French Mauritian named Bertrand, a menacing as the French Revolution. polished and pleasant young man The quaint railway I loved has been who was returning after studying history at Oxford and the Sorbonne. died. Doctors had only vague ideas of He was a patriotic and enthusiastic treating it and there was no quinine. Mauritian, anxious to attract visitors Imagine nearly twenty thousand deaths to his remote home; and he saw in round this harbour alone! So those me a means to this end. Probably he who could afford it cleared out up the overrated my influence. Nevertheless mountain to Vacoas and Curepipe. he showed me Port Louis and his Some of them took their houses with lovely island with an enthusiasm them, fine wooden mansions that which none of the British exiles there could be taken apart and set up else- displayed. where.” First of all Bertrand took me round Here and there in Port Louis old- Port Louis, a town which had known fashioned colonial timbered houses many dreadful episodes and which had have survived, eighteenth and nine- been abandoned by well-to-do teenth century homes of painted wood residents after a malaria epidemic last and wide verandahs. You find them century. “This island was a sanitorium behind the high walls of lush, tropical until the malaria came”, Bertrand gardens in Pope Hennessy and recalled. “It has seen many devastating Rempart streets. Some have decayed, cyclones, fires and smallpox, cholera others have been turned into offices and bubonic plague; but the malaria and warehouses; but they remind us of frightened the wits out of everyone. the long years before steam, before the One third of the people in Port Louis Suez Canal opening, when prosperous Port Louis looked out over a harbour too many Hindus. I wonder what will where two hundred sailing ships lay at happen to us?” anchor. When I went to the markets of Port Bertrand noticed that I was sniffing the Louis with Bertrand there seemed to air, trying to fix the aroma of Port be an abundance of island food. Louis. “It is sugar and molasses and Bananas were there in great variety, rum”, he declared. “These godowns from the tiny, tasty gingelis to red hold the greatest stocks of sugar in the plantains twelve inches long. Stalls world. Keep clear of the wasps and were covered with bread fruit like bees that come here for the sweetness. huge green sponges. I saw pawpaws Of course you can smell cloves and and limes, mangoes and the fresh red nutmeg and spices, too, and we also litchis the Chinese love. “Our best grow tea. But we have a one-crop fruit is the pineapple”, Bertrand economy, more’s the pity, and when remarked. “But over there you see a the sugar crop fails or the price slumps rare fruit, the mabolo, that some call then Mauritius goes phut. Here we the ‘celestial fruit’. It has a dreadful have Hindus, far too many Hindus, odour, like the durian, but the flavour Moslems and Creoles, Chinese and is delicious.” white people, all depending on sugar. I thought the dominant odour of the There is no room for other crops. We market was fried pork (for the bring in rice and flour, meat and even Chinese customers) with curry and fish. But we have too many people - rice (for the Indians) as a close rival. Bertrand led me through a crowd Mauritius, but now it has come to surrounding a curry stall and we mean a member of the dark mixed became spectators at a strange eating race that has grown up on the island. contest between a fat Chinese with Creole came into being when the chopsticks and a thin Indian coolie. early planters talked to their slaves in Each man had before him a mount of a sort of infantile French and the curry and rice, the portions having slaves responded with their own been weighed. They started together, accents. It is a hideous yet amusing chopsticks versus fingers, and the corruption and it works very well.” Chinese won amid great excitement. Bertrand gave me some examples. Le “The prize was one rupee but of chien (dog) becomes dicien in Creole, course both men had a free meal”, while un cheval (horse) is replaced by explained Bertrand. un seval. They always say moi (me) All round me I heard a language that instead of je (I). Some of the origins sounded like French, but with of Creole words have been lost; strange differences. “The island words like tiggin meaning “a little”. If patois”, said Bertrand with a smile. you want very little you say tiggin “Like pidgin English, this is a simp- tiggin. “Zed” sounds are common and lified French mixed with African and many words resembling sounds have Malagasy words. We call it Creole. found places in the patois. To tickle is By the way, there was a time when a fire guidiguidi. A lazy effeminate Creole was a white person born in person is gnangnan while éne catacata is a flirt. A tall, awkward man is saw my look of astonishment. Do you balalame. Creole has a strain of know this absurd fruit? It is sold more peculiar humour, such as the island as a curio than anything else nowa- name for a hearse, caléche granpapa days, but when the first of these (old man’s coach). Some of the cradle double-coconuts washed up on the songs and proverbs are witty. Creole coast of India centuries ago it was has such a strong appeal that Indians mysterious flotsam. Apart from the born in Mauritius soon drop the almost incredible shape (like the lower languages of their parents. French, parts of a woman) there was the riddle Chinese and Indians converse in of origin. Wise old men suggested that Creole but few Mauritians have the coconuts must have grown on the attempted to write the language. bed of the sea, for no one had seen a Creole is a spoken patois and it seems palm bearing this fruit on shore. So the likely to grow with the years within name coco-de-mer arose. When the the island of its birth. Reunion, the nut was opened an almost tasteless other French speaking island only a flesh and jelly were revealed. Here, hundred miles away, has its own said the wise men, was a cure for patois, entirely different from the many diseases. Indian princes heard of Creole of Mauritius. the discovery and shrewd physicians advised them that the nuts held In the Port Louis market I set eyes on restorative powers hitherto unknown the coco-de-mer for the first time in among aphrodisiacs. Beachcombers my life and Bertrand laughed as he roamed the Malabar coast and when oriental potentates ornamented received thousands of rupees for each coco-de-mer cups with gold and nut they found. Only when the French precious stones are over and the landed on the Seychelles in the middle beautiful legend has been exploded. of the eighteenth century and saw A memorable place, the Port Louis coco-de-mer palms growing on two market. You can smell French bread islands was the mystery solved. Of there and spices, coffee and the course the price slumped in spite of cigars they roll on the island. They the action of an ingenious French were selling birds in cages while I nobleman who sent a large cargo of was there, scarlet cardinals and love the nuts to India and then set fire to birds and yellow canaries at a rupee a the coconut groves. The coco-de-mer pair. Indians burn frankincense to was not exterminated though belief bring them luck and Chinese shop- in its magical properties has almost keepers let off firecrackers at a drop died out. The nuts are still sold to of a pigtail. One afternoon when the eager tourists. Island people saw the boats and long pirogues came in I nuts in two and use them as dishes walked with Bertrand round the fish and plates. Brooms and baskets are market. I saw live fish in tanks and made from the ribs of the leaves, dazzling fish on slabs like birds of mattresses and pillows are stuffed brilliant plumage. You could buy a with the down and hats are woven slice of man-eating shark or a dozen from the young leaves. But the days oysters; a crab, a catfish or an eel. Bertrand knew all the island fish; the Mauritius has trout called chite in the beaked parrot fish, the speckled mountain streams but the most cordonnier (shoemaker) that lives interesting freshwater fish is the among the rocks and is caught in gourami. This is a broad, dark grey basket traps. Here, too, was the fish bred in the lake at Pample- unicorn fish with its horn. I saw the mousses. The gourami is so tame that huge carangue, like tunny, and the it will come to the side and eat grey mullet that are netted in breadcrumbs almost out of your hand. thousands in the coral lagoons. They Cook it soon after capture and you had an enormous sunfish in the have a most delicate fish. French market that day; and Bertrand said families serve it with a creamy the tail would cut a man like a razor. béchamel sauce. “I like to eat the fins”, he .added. Bertrand informed me that the best “But the finest fish in the market is way to see Mauritius was by railway. the poule-d’eau, the fowl of the Of course there were motor-cars in water, a green fish shaped like a those days but Bertrand pointed out turbot and not at all common. that the brakes often failed on the Sometimes there is turtle flesh to be steep mountain roads. Moreover, the had on Fridays - the turtles are slow pace of the island railway would brought here alive from the outlying give me time to appreciate the scenery, islands, Cargados Carajos and the exquisite and romantic panoramas others.” of this island at the end of the world. “On each branch line it is different”, had not yet been designed, shorts declared Bertrand the enthusiast. “You would have been unthinkable; yet Port will see ravines and waterfalls, dark Louis had a suffocating climate and green canefields and forests with the the punkahs gave little relief. Each Javanese deer the Dutch brought here manager or senior official was met at before they settled at the Cape. Every the station by a peon, a uniformed mountain in Mauritius has its own messenger who carried such light personality, every beach has its blue impedimenta as brief cases and lagoon.” umbrellas. It was the custom. Mauritius was then a suburbia with So I went with Bertrand to the central nearly everyone travelling by train. A railway station close to the waterfront. man had his favourite and traditional It was soon after breakfast and train seat in a compartment where he met after train was bringing the workers the same people every day. But for the down from the mountains to their tropical clothes, the palms, the shops and offices. Artisans and clerks flamboyants and banyans - and the arrived first, many in black suits, and heat - they might have been travelling every man jack carrying his lunch from Richmond or Surbiton to their basket. Executives, high government destination in the City. officials, professional men came later; and they wore in those uncomfortable However, the rolling-stock on this and hidebound days white sun helmets government railway would have raised and suits of white duck. The bush shirt every eyebrow at Charing Cross or Waterloo. Many of the small, clearly this was the steel road to squarely-built coaches were double- romance. One morning I steamed out deckers; first-class passengers rode in of Port Louis bound for Mahebourg, cushioned comfort down below with the old and decayed port on the far heavily-shuttered windows; third (or side of the island. Stations were a possibly fourth) class travellers were mile, seldom more than two miles up on the roof in glorified hen-coops. apart. And the names! Bell Village Owing to the gradients the steam was followed by Pailles and Richelieu, locomotives were powerful and there Petite Riviere, Beau Bassin and were never more than ten coaches on a Cascade Road. I went on through Rose train. Engines and coaches bore the Hill and Quatre Bornes to Phoenix and proud coat-of-arms of Mauritius, “star Vacoas, Floreal and Curepipe. By this and key of the Indian Ocean”. The time I had covered sixteen miles and governor had his own special coach, of the journey had lasted a full hour. The course, an ornate teak lounge on heavy gradient of one in twenty-six wheels such as I would like to own and the many stops explained the myself. Some of the rolling-stock went schedule. The train had risen eighteen- right back to 1864, the year of the hundred feet to this residential suburb railway opening. with the curious name. Bertrand said that in the days when a diligence or I studied the time-tables and noted the stage-coach crossed the island the names. Mauritius had about one drivers always rested the horses hundred miles of railway lines and outside the inn at this spot in the virgin from a useful base. At that period forest and took out their pipes; so ebony and ambergris were the only curer la pipe became Curepipe. It is a exports. Hubert Hugo, a former pirate, suburb of clipped bamboo hedges ten was appointed commander of feet high, morning glory flowers, a Mauritius in 1671. Early in the eight- market and a mosque, tea plantations, eenth century, however, the Dutch and the Trou-aux-Cerfs, the perfect closed down the settlement and the volcanic crater. From the rim of the Zaaiman, Ramond and De Vries crater there is a panoramic view of the families were transferred to the Cape. mountains of northern Mauritius, Schooners owned by Cape Town firms including the peaks called Les Trois carried dried snoek to Mauritius for Mamelles. Yes, the names never disap- many years last century, returning with point you. The line goes on to Rose cargoes of sugar. Belle, Mare d’Albert and Mahebourg I visited the Dutch cemetery there and in the Grand Port where Simon van thought of the dodo, the ungainly der Stel was born. extinct bird that was once plentiful. Mauritius has many links with the You may still find a skeleton and that Cape. It became a dependency of the would have something more than a Cape under the Dutch East India Com- scientific value. pany in the seventeenth century, the Another railway run along the level Dutch having occupied the island with northern line carried me past Albion the idea of keeping other nations away Dock (how few English names there are) and Roche Bois to Terre Rouge walked to the private railway station and Pamplemousses. I could have on Le Reduit, residence of the gone on to Poudre d’Or to seek the governor. Bertrand described the scene gold dust buried there by a forgotten when there was a ball or some other pirate but I chose to linger in the large gathering at government house. botanical gardens of Pamplemousses. Train after train would come up Until the cyclone towards the end of through the cane fields and over the last century, botanists ranked these ravines to Le Reduit station. They gardens as third in the world. The would find the platform decorated cyclone rushed in at one hundred and with paper lanterns; then they would twenty miles an hour, revolving like take their seats in a cavalcade of an express train on a wicked curve. horse-drawn carriages and drive Rare and majestic trees planted by the between the stone gate-posts with French in the eighteenth century were crowns, along a tropical avenue, slammed flat. Mauritius lost about a under the huge camphor trees and quarter of a million trees in that through the gardens designed more disaster and more than a thousand than two centuries ago by the people were killed. Frenchman who laid out the grounds at Versailles. Few official residences Bertrand accompanied me by rail to in the world can compare with the Le Moka one day. French planters called Reduit site. It stands on a dramatic it Moka because they tried to grow promonotory between two ravines coffee there long ago. From there we overlooking the ocean, this old, Chinese quarter. It was a lovely old double storeyed French chateau. mansion, this secluded place among Verandahs paved with black and the ferns and royal palms and mango white marble run the full length of trees, guarded by ditches and gun the building with its two hundred and emplacements. The front doors forty doors and windows. Le Reduit opened straight into the ballroom and means “the redoubt” and it was first we saw ourselves in dozens of long built to serve as a stronghold during wall mirrors with gilt frames. I could a possible invasion. The first wooden easily imagine the lavish banquets building was destroyed by white ants given by the bygone governors of and so a new stone Le Reduit arose. Mauritius, with “God Save the This second residence was shattered Queen” long after midnight. during a cyclone a century ago, the “Of course the place is haunted”, roof was torn off the east wing and narrated Bertrand. “They say that Governor Sir Henry Barkly and his Labourdonnais, the admiral who wife had narrow escapes. A later became governor of Mauritius, rides governor notorious for his extrava- again. with his staff - only he and his gance rebuilt Le Reduit and added an men are skeletons in uniform and enormous ballroom. I walked round even the horses are skeletons. the place with Bertrand, for he was Formidable! However, some young accepted in every circle in Mauritius, British officers sat up on a night of from government house to the the full moon many years ago, . champagne on the table, swords As we travelled under the mountain beside them, waiting for the strange ranges Bertrand pointed out of the noise of the ghostly horsemen that is train window to one peak after another heard sometimes on such nights. and told me stories and legends. I Sure enough they heard hooves on remember the drama of Pieter Both, the gravel and the officers rose with the mountain over Port Louis that drawn swords and turned out the always seems to menace the town. guard. And there in the terraced Named after a Dutch admiral, this gardens among the roses they found a queer mountain rises to two thousand herd of wild deer from the mountains. six hundred feet above the harbour. It That is the way most ghost stories end. has on the summit a great pearshaped Not long ago there was a wailing at boulder. The summit can only be night - monkeys on the lawn! But I approached by a narrow ridge with a can tell you of something more sheer drop of one thousand feet into dangerous than a ghost at Le Reduit. the trees. For many years it seemed They found a boa constrictor here, that the overhanging boulder would fourteen feet long, strong enough to never be conquered by man. Accord- kill a stag. It had come from a wrecked ing to legend, said Bertrand, a party of ship and it lived in the woods for years French climbers reached the top until it visited Le Reduit. Here they during the eighteenth century; but they shot it.” could not get down and they left their bones on the boulder. However, an expedition organised by a Captain coats, blankets and finally a hot meal Lloyd and other British Army officers, prepared on the platform below. accompanied by sepoys and baggage They lit a fire and one of them coolies, tackled Pieter Both in the recorded: “The prospect beneath us eighteenthirties. They took scaling as we lay enjoying our brandy and ladders, ropes, crowbars, ample provi- cigars was magnificent. The sky was sions and camp equipment. When they clear and the moon shone brightly, came to a flat area just beneath the lighting up the scene. It was a scene obelisk Captain Lloyd tried to shoot an the romantic mind would dwell on arrow with a line attached over the with ecstasy.” One officer who was boulder. He failed but when he hurled known to walk in his sleep was a stone fastened to a line he succeeded. lashed to another member of the A rope was then hauled over the party. They were all cold and stiff boulder, a rope ladder followed and when dawn came and they were glad the climbers were able to defeat the to return. Pieter Both has often been overhang. They made a hole in the climbed since then. The great rock, raised a flagpole, hoisted the boulder is still poised on the summit, Union Jack and sent up a rocket. weighing several tons and resemb- Down in the harbour H.M.S. ling Queen Victoria in her robes. Undaunted fired a salute. The climbers They used to say that the British decided to spend the night on the would leave Mauritius when the boulder and their porters sent up great boulder fell. The British have left but the obelisk of naked rock still resists Ships are lifted into fields along the erosion and cyclones. coast. It is no weather for railway travel. Bertrand told me that they fired three guns to warn the people of Port So the memories flooded back when Louis when a cyclone was approach- I heard they were pulling up that ing. Ships put to sea when the first marvellous old railway in Mauritius. gun sounded. When the second gun It was no toy but a full four feet went those who lived outside Port eight-and-a-half inch British gauge Louis rushed to the railway station railway. It served the island for more and packed into special trains. than a century. From the antiquated Everywhere householders went out coaches I saw the mosques and with sledgehammers and iron bars temples of Port Louis; the farm carts and wedged the heavy hurricane drawn by longhorned oxen; the shutters. When the third gun was cross-legged shopkeepers on their fired the train service was suspended. mats waiting for customers; Indian During the 1894 cyclone a train women heavy with gold ornaments; passing over the St. Louis bridge the rolling fields of sugar estates near Pailles station was hurled into with unforgettable names: Solitude the river forty feet below. Strange to and Bean Sejour, Mon Tresor and relate no one was killed. But during a Trianon, Savannah and Maison severe cyclone the line is littered Blanche. I went southwards to with fallen trees and telegraph posts. Souillac and travelled along a narrow- gauge branch line to a tea estate with suppose they have taken down the the enchanting name of Bois Cheri. I many warning signs: “Beware of the peered into the Petite Riviere cave, trains”. The man in the blue uniform blocked (so they say) to hide a pirate’s who walked along the Port Louis treasure. I saw the landscape where the waterfront with a red flag, ringing a sad spirits of Paul and Virginie might handbell, has lost his job. No more have emerged at any moment from the cows will be saved from death by the greenery; an odd little world cut off by flared cowcatchers. Motorists who had the wide ocean from twentieth century to wait at level crossings will be ideas. However, the locomotives were pleased but I would not like to see burning twenty thousand tons of Mauritius without its old romantic imported coal a year and the planters railway. whose ancestors had demanded a I touched on the menus of Mauritius, railway were sending their sugar down you may recall, when I visited the Port to Port Louis by road. So the last trains Louis markets. Like all men of French came back from Savanne and Mon- descent my friend Bertrand was an tagne Blanche and Mapou and all epicure and he knew the Mauritian those other lovely places. The railway specialities from the bredies to works at Plaine Lauzon closed down. venison. Yes, they have bredies in Scrap merchants bought the rails and Mauritius, meat and vegetable stews passenger coaches became school with flavours rather different from the shelters and seaside bungalows. I Cape versions. The basic Mauritian cookery is a blend of French and banana groves and hide in the Indian traditions with the Chinese mountains. Creoles love roast monkey cuisine as a thing apart. and so the raiders are kept in check. “Monkeys ride on the backs of stags - “We have some of the finest cooks and they get on very well together”, household servants in the world on Bertrand went on. “There will be no this island”, Bertrand declared. “A shortage of venison for many years to poor chef is known as a rosbif cook, come, but I do not care for it very which is not exactly a compliment to much. It has not the flavour of the the English residents. Our customs are Scottish deer. Nevertheless the chasse entirely different. French Mauritians is very popular here and I know one have the typical French petit déjeuner old man who has shot a thousand of coffee, rolls and fruit, lunch at stags. Besides the monkeys there is eleven and an early dinner. The another Portuguese legacy, the pigs or English follow the English system and ‘Maroon hogs’ which have run wild. go to bed much later than we do.” They taste better than the venison. I Bertrand talked about the exotic dishes must also mention the bats, not of the island. The early Portuguese vampires but fruit bats. They are callers brought monkeys from Ceylon knocked down in daylight as they to Mauritius. The monkeys are as large hang from the trees and the flesh is as spaniels. They roam the forests in excellent. But of course you have to bands of sixty or seventy, plunder know how to cook them, with spices remote homes, eat birds’ eggs, ravage and condiments, as the skin and fur Mauritius drank the local rum because have a foxy odour. Properly done, a it was cheap but Bertrand preferred the fruit bat tastes like a cross between wines of France. “Our rum has a hare and chicken.” peculiar twang - or as they say in the trade a ‘hogo’”, remarked Bertrand. Bertrand said the stock dishes of the “They make fruit wine here, too, and a Mauritian cook were coconut soup, banana liqueur. But no, when it comes dressed crab, coconut curry and ba- to drink I am not patriotic. Give me a nana fritters. The bredies included one fine claret!” made from the young leaves of a plant of the arum species and another made “And the finest dish in Mauritius - from pumpkin shoots. Pimento and what is that?” I inquired. Bertrand saffron were favourite ingredients as took me to La Flore Mauricienne, the both were grown on the island. restaurant in Church Street, a century Bertrand spoke of the beche de mer, old at that time, and ordered camarons the sea slug that is such a great with palmiste salad. “It is a freshwater delicacy east of Suez, collected on the prawn, not too plentiful”, Bertrand reefs of Mauritius at low tide, dried in explained. “Poachers go to the rivers the sun, smoked and made into soup. at night and lure the camerons with He said that sea urchins were torches. You slip a noose round the wonderful eaten raw like oysters. tail and out come your camarons. It Shearwaters, fat little birds, were dried has a six-inch body and long claws. and sold at the market. Many people in But you will see.” I agreed with Bertrand that the camerons were better than any lobster, crawfish or shrimp. He pointed out that the palmiste salad was made from the tender fronds of the indigenous areca palm. The tree, which might be twenty years old, was killed by the cutting of the shoots. That was certainly a mayonnaise to remember. Before we left La Flore Mauricienne I was shown the jams and jellies, pickles and preserves made on the premises from island fruits and vegetables. Order an aperitif in the courtyard of La Flore Mauritienne if you visit Mauritius and then go upstairs for a meal. It will remind you in some ways of Paris. harbour cities I know better than any others in the world - Cape Town, London and Cairo - because I had the time to absorb them. One of my friends in Cairo told me so much about the city that I called her Sharazad. She claimed to be French, but the resemblance did not go much further than her excellent cuisine, the Beauvais tapestries and Louis XV furniture. She was a Cairene speaking CHAPTER FIFTEEN French and Arabic and English; a HARBOURS ON THE NILE quick-witted woman who had her fair CAIRO is a harbour, a great river share of the wisdom of the East. She harbour where the high-piled paddle had immense self-confidence and steamers go upstream and the never doubted that her will would swallow-winged feluccas sail down to triumph. I wandered through the the sea with the cargoes they have bazaars of Cairo with Sharazad until carried for thousands of years. It is a the city had indeed become one of my harbour that has known Greek triremes harbours of memory. and coastal patrol vessels flying the In the Street of the Gold Workers they White Ensign. It is one of the three knew Sharazad well and the jewellers valued her praise as she drank their At the entrance rested the long staff coffee in dark little dens among the decorated with shreds of cloth, wisps goblets and perfume burners and the of veil, scraps of leather, all dishes inlaid with gold and silver. She testimonials from the people he had chose her silks in the bazaar, showing cured. They tore off a portion of a rare taste. She listened to the rug- garment near the afflicted spot and makers singing as they toiled, studied gave it to the healer to be nailed to the all the trades in. the labyrinth of the staff. Thus, the wily Sheikh intimated, Mousky, and all the people. And I the affliction would become fixed to walked beside her, learning and the wood, a more satisfactory listening to her thousand tales. arrangement than having a pain in the flesh. The bearded Sheikh possessed I met the healer and easer of pain, one experienced seeing eye and a Sheikh Ibrahim. Often I had seen him sightless eye which gave him a weird roving the streets with his cry of appearance. In his profession this “Inshadat ad Hamalat ya could be regarded as an asset. He fixed Metwaldi”, invoking the Moslem Sharazad with a firm stare and soothed saint to remove the sorrows of illness. her in a well chosen stream of Arabic. One day Sharazad had a headache and “Your eyes are tired ... they are closing she paid the healer’s fee. I think it was ... you are at rest ... the ache is mainly curiosity that drew her to the vanishing ... it has gone ... it will not little hole-in-the-wall consulting-room return.” It cost her five piastres, and where the Sheikh treated his patients. she had purchased one of life’s secrets were typical of a woman who sought cheaply. variety every day of her life and kept the “Rubaiyat” at her bedside. Omar, Near the Al Azhar university there was she had decided, spoke the truth. Life a cafe for the wealthier Moslem was meant to be lived. students. Sometimes the aroma of stewed lamb, cooked in the Egyptian As a rule I met Sharazad on the way with peaches, drew us to a table terrace of the Continental-Savoy, an under the awning. Sharazad’s appetite hotel which is as much a part of was restrained by a high regard for her Cairo as the Pyramids. It has an weight and a fastidious sense of immense khaki-coloured façade, all quality. She demanded the best of shutters and balconies. You see each kind, the finest mangoes grown people everywhere from roof to by the Pashas, the sweetest white terrace. It is no ordinary caravan- grapes, the pressed dates from Siwa serai. oasis, the most luscious water- The Continental-Savoy has a melons. The proprietor always glamour that will only be perceived served Sharazad himself. He found if you stay there long enough. Under her full of appreciation for skilful that roof anything can happen and effort and brought her special dishes almost everything has happened. The of egg plant stuffed with rice and whole story of the Continental-Savoy minced-meat or grilled kebabs on will never be told. It has gone like skewers. These oriental banquets the flood-waters of the Nile, lost for ever, scattered up and down the the building, from terrace to back world in anecdote and narrative, garden, has been left by the people of confession and secret memory. But the hotel, a rich legacy paid in daily the great hotel, like the Arabian instalments. Nights, goes on endlessly. On the Cuisine at the hotel is only moderate. terrace imagination may succeed in Rooms are not luxurious. Many of the making life stand still long enough servants appear to be morons. But in for a flash of analysis. You may spite of these defects there is capture a fragment of the story, one something about the hotel; it has fragment out of the years that have background, it has character. On the passed like the waters flowing out steps day after day the dragomans beyond Rosetta and Damietta. The mount guard, more alert than any terrace is a stage deserted in the sentries, ready to open the wonders of sunny hours of the summer but Cairo. Show by a flicker that you need gaining life and colour and move- a dragoman and he is at your side. ment as the sun goes down. Heavy Enter the hotel and you might be in the ironwork provides an essential booking-hall of a railway station. Art barrier between the hotel guests and is represented by travel posters, air the imploring hawkers and beggars liners circling the Pyramids, scenes in the street. The hotel is not really from Switzerland. The hushing sound as old as it looks. The air of of huge fans comes as a reminder of experience hanging so heavily over the distance from the Alps. Wicker chairs and tables suggest an antidote to seemed to be having more fun than the climate. I preferred the bar at the any other member of the hotel staff. entrance to the dining-room, for this Being an albino, it was impossible to was one of the corners that gave guess his age, race or thoughts. He character to the hotel. The suave spent his days ringing up amounts and Russian barman had all the world’s handing the tickets proudly across the bottles at his disposal. Australian bar. The Russian barman and the Arab whisky glowed evilly beside Cape waiters corrected his mistakes with a sherry. Egg-nog fabricated in Palestine patience which was not shared by the stood next to the strong brandy of drinkers. At rush hours the albino also Cyprus and Dubonnet was on the shelf poured drinks. Often they were the with Amontillado, vodka and Dom. wrong drinks. The Russian smiled and The Russian, undismayed after years poured the drinks back into the bottles of refusal, still laboured under the or poured mixed drinks away. In spite false impression that customers of all mistakes the albino grinned and yearned for the drinks of their own life went on at the hotel. That albino countries. He could tell nationality at a puzzled me for years, but now I have glance but he could never diagnose decided that he was not such a fool as individual tastes. he looked. He was there for some deep purpose. Beside the obliging barman, hovering over the cash register, stood an Opposite the bar was the manager’s apparently half-witted albino who office. There were two managers in my day, Freddy the Swiss and Sammy assistants. Yet I sometimes found the Egyptian. Both knew a great deal myself missing the Russian and the about the hotel and talked freely albino and back I would stroll to the without ever saying an indiscreet unorthodox bar. word. A perfect combination, able to The dining-room was a white, simple deal with any situation which might room with pillars and huge windows arise. I always found one or other of on to the terrace. So many black them in the polished, luxurious office. jacketed maitres-d’hotel, so many Turn right past the hall porter and fezzed, white-robed Arab waiters there is the lounge. Ladies of the night stood among the tables that one (of the expensive class) were imagined the service would be permitted to meet or make friends instantaneous; but only when you there and arrange their assignations. slowed down to the tempo of Egypt There and in the recesses of the hall did you find life tolerable. Breakfast they were within bounds. At the end of was served in a smaller salle at the the lounge was the main bar of the back, with a glimpse of the garden. hotel; and if you saw any feminine You could read your “Egyptian Mail” creature in there she would be of the or “Le Journale d’Egypte”, front page same class as those outside; not a to pictures, before the tiny eggs guest at the hotel. This bar was a arrived. comfortable, leather-seated room with a quick barman and two efficient At the foot of the main staircase the atmosphere was religious, a trick produced by stained-glass windows with olive bottles and tins of sardines. and a notice-board bearing invitations Outside the kitchen there was always a to Christian churches. But this was a pile of the strange fuel of Egypt, the caravanserai, not a cathedral. The lifts yellow slabs compounded of cotton- start at this point. The lift attendants, seed and camel-dung. It burnt with a slim and stupid-looking Egyptians, typical acrid odour. Smell it after carried a heavy responsibility for they many years and you would see the past were also in charge of the morals of again, perhaps too vividly. the hotel. They had instructions from Every morning at six-fifteen a tall the management. Those who had fezzed Nubian wearing a black jacket booked rooms never ranked as sinners; entered my room at the hotel and but if one of the loose girls from the placed the tea tray beside my bed. He lounge stepped into the lift she was had an aquiline nose, a genuine smile recognised instantly and denounced in and dignity. I could see the trees in the Arabic. It was embarrassing for the Ezbekieh Gardens from my room, the escort, whose manner was already unspeakable pavements, the shoe- nervous. But that was the rule. shine boys and walking-stick hawkers, If you turned left after leaving the hall the men selling dark glasses and you could study the kitchens, savour unpostable postcards. In the summer I the soups of the day, watch the small had to rest after lunch. No city in the Aboukir soles being carried in, or poke world takes its siesta with more your nose into a pantry stacked high determination than Cairo. When I awoke at four the Nubian would be at my affection. The mob felt the same my bedside with more tea. But in the way and spared it on the day when early mornings, the hot summer Shepheard’s went up in flames. mornings, it was the first tram-car I remember Cairo’s houseboat har- grinding round the corner into the bour, that fascinating reach of the Opera Square that woke me. Then I Nile near the Gezira Club where the would stand on my balcony at dawn long array of houseboats and river and think of Omar: steamers cast their lights over the Wake! For the Sun, who water. It was cooler there than in the scatter’d into flight city. The boats and the far, palm- The Stars before him from the fringed river bank made a theatrical Field of Night backcloth. Sharazad took me to a party on board a luxurious two- I visited other Cairo hotels, including decker. The event of the evening, the old Shepheard’s. I drank at the planned by the host, was the danse Long Bar there when Joe the barman du ventre, a dance that never fails to mixed his celebrated pick-me-up of appeal to a male audience. Gipsy gin, bourbon, lime juice, bitters, mint girls have danced it in the east and dry ginger ale. I heard the story of through the centuries and a well- a contest between a Canadian doctor rounded gipsy girl danced it on board and a Turkish prince; they drank fifty- the house-boat that night. As it was a two whiskies each and called it a day. private party she wore only a skirt But it was the Continental that gained and the bangles that blend with the served in the dining-room. In the bar music. She stood before the they drank a devastating vodka. orchestra, which now gave out Some of the men wore embroidered oriental sounds, and entered into the blouses; others were clearly not strange rhythm. Some who were Russians at all, but merely shared a there must have regarded it as erotic; taste for alcohol with the genuine the movements were seductive. Like Russian members. They sat on high a snake, perhaps, a snake following stools with their drinks in front of its master’s flute. The gipsy held the them. Sometimes they sang. They audience with subtle body move- fraternised with strangers and they ments, not footwork, nothing but that told long Russian stories and sang sinuous rhythm, that remarkable again. And always they drank. control of the body muscles in tune I was often at the Groppi restaurants. with the quivering music. Big Groppi, down in Soliman Pasha, Often I took Sharazad to the Russian had an open-air dance floor. Little Club. There was no hammer and Groppi, also known as Old Groppi, sickle in that club. You were back in was a branch of the great Swiss the Russia of the Czars, with house of food and entertainment and bearded, departed monarchs staring it was close to the Continental. down wistfully upon exiles sighing Sharazad always bought her cakes for the glorious period before the there. In my old notebook I find that revolution. Excellent bortsch was I went there one afternoon for two paté au fromage, two chicken paté or bagpipes headed a bridal procession. anchois, one chocolate cake, a salade Sellers of fly-whisks, razor-blades Russe and some little rolls. As I came and socks pestered all who lingered out a horse-drawn coach, brilliantly and followed those who walked gilded, appeared on the far side of slowly. the Opera Square. It was an astonish- Sometimes I went to a small Syrian ing display. Gilded angels decorated restaurant in a sidestreet. You could the roof and there was gilded scroll- dine outside in a charming white- work on the sides. The coachman walled courtyard with a palm tree wore a red fez. It was a hearse, so growing in the middle. I ordered large and dazzling that for a moment stuffed vegetable marrow, roast lamb it seemed to fill the square. and a red wine from Damascus. Aged beggars with tragic faces Sharazad showed me how to cut a sprawled on the pavements at every mango neatly round the centre and corner reciting prayers. The streets pull out the stone. Pickled cucumbers were queer streams of life. Strings of and plates of beans were served as laden camels swung across intersec- side dishes and we ate the flat loaves tions while shining limousines rattled of Egypt. their klaxons. Men in starched That was blazing Cairo, the great pyjamas and women in black rags desert city with its dusty gardens. gazed into the plate glass windows of Cairo, where a spy gave her belly- modern stores. An Arab band playing dance at the Continental roof cabaret while soldiers were being killed a to the Mediterranean. Cairo, where the hundred miles away. Cairo, with the feluccas come in with the north wind ashes of secret documents rising in to the old Bulak harbour where the wind during the retreat to Napoleon’s soldiers disembarked. Alamein. Cairo, city of cool modern Cairo is indeed a great harbour of flats and mud-huts, camels and memories and there are times when I donkeys. Cairo, where the khamsin remember Cairo too well. wind blows a fine dust over Cairo is the greatest of the Nile everything and raises a thirst that harbours but the smaller river ports some quench with mango juice. have a fascination of their own. I Cairo, where I ate the huge Red Sea remember the vast empty desert of prawns at the restaurant called St. grey sand with the Nile as the only James, the same Victorian place of contrast. Now and again you see refreshment built for those old villages like forts behind walls of mud. British travellers who landed at Boat-builders are at work, following Alexandria and travelled overland to the designs of centuries ago. Here is a Suez on the way to India. Cairo, with field of sugar-cane with the red its old harbour on the east bank near splashes of poppies; there are ancient the Babylon of the Romans. Cairo, cities, tombs and temples. And always split by the brown Nile, the long river the thread runs through the vision, the that still carries fleets of small craft river with its narrow greenery. northwards when the current runs fast These river harbours quiver in the heat their own bottles or bought whisky and almost blind you. How can people from the Greek captain. The passen- live in such a furnace? It is a relief to gers were officials and traders. In this steam away southwards from Khar- company the traveller hears the gossip toum in a river steamer, south up the of the river harbours and the tales of White Nile towards the swamps. The the halfexplored, half-unknown land pulse-beat of the engines underfoot of a million square miles, the Sudan. gives promise of a mild breeze. The Sometimes the steamer pulls in to a steamer is a stern-wheeler. Barges are jetty with a line of grass huts and a lashed to each side, barges loaded with crowd of naked Shilluk warriors or tall cargo and black passengers. White Dinkas. The thermometer stands passengers live on the steamer’s resolutely at a steamy hundred and ten. upperdeck. Their saloon is in the open Cargo rolls on shore, the whistle air, tables are set round the funnel and sounds and the ship pushes on at night the funnel glows a dull red in upstream. the darkness. They sleep in a netted This is the Sudd region and the river is space further forward; the “bug hut” choked with papyrus grass of a they call it. The mosquito-proof gauze poisonous green colour. Ships pick shuts out the insects but admits the their way with care. This water-world odours of African cooking from the of the southern Sudan is like a lower-deck. Some ships have bars. I Sargasso Sea. Only the natives can be recall one in which passengers carried moderately sure of survival. Steamers have to battle with the sinister floating grass. Day after day the steamer plods along, following a drunken, zigzag course as the helmsman dodges sandbanks and shallows. You smell woodsmoke and sand. On the river bank there are small trees and scrub; and beyond stretches the immense flatness. Hippo, dug-out canoes, velvet-black bodies wading with nets or standing with shields and spears. Drums, the crackle of red fires in the darkness and the thumping of the steamer’s engines. Bamboo palisades, vultures on a tree, native girls pound- ing grain. A long panorama of barbaric Africa and then another inland harbour on the bank of Old Father Nile. CHAPTER SIXTEEN wandering minstrels and acrobats, SUEZ MAGIC jugglers, animal trainers and other more or less entertaining vagabonds. WHEN I travelled in a slow “round I think Egypt is their ancestral home. Africa” steamer more than forty Fakirs are buried alive and emerge years ago I called for the first time at from the ordeal like hibernating the ports of Egypt and watched bears. Little girls appear to ride the entertainments that were old before air. The nasal whine of the gourd recorded history. I saw Port Said, a flute is heard in every tourist resort fabricated place with more charm as bored cobras emerge from their than some people care to admit. I baskets. Sword swallowers learn at liked it at first sight and grew fond of an early age to find the straight line the sleepless town when I came to between mouth and pit of stomach. know it better two decades later. On You may see a man take a bowl of this first visit I went on shore gladly water in his teeth and turn a while the ship was invaded by dusky somersault without spilling a drop; MacGregors selling fly whisks and but you are more likely to encounter beads; by guides and fortune-tellers, a baboon riding a goat. Two by hundreds of sweating Arabs with thousand years before Christ an coal-baskets on their heads. I dined Egyptian princess declared that she well at the Eastern Exchange Hotel could never be killed by dagger or and went out into the garden to sword; and she proved it by lying in watch a conjurer. Egypt is full of a mummy-case into which knives The garden at the Eastern Exchange and swords were thrust; a trick that was not lit brilliantly for the electric still draws the crowd. Here are magi- globes were shaded and restful. cians who claim they can decapitate Nevertheless I could see the performer a goose, or a boy, and restore the clearly enough, a mild, light-skinned head as soon as the right amount of Egyptian of about thirty wearing a money is forthcoming. Steaming rice long European jacket over his comes out of a cauldron without galabyeh. Possibly he had been visible fire, Thanks to double earning his living as a conjurer for bottoms and cunning boxes the twenty years. He came forward with a onlookers see a bean transformed into long bamboo fishing-rod equipped a scorpion, and vice versa. Holy men with reel, float and hook. “Watch the lie on beds of spikes, as they do hook all the time - watch very further East, always making sure that carefully,” advised the conjurer. On the spikes are close together. They bite hearing this obvious piece of misdirec- iron bars and swallow fire. In my tion I tried to watch his hands as well schooldays I read text-books on such as the hook. He cast out into the open tricks and learnt some of the basic garden, rod sweeping widely, hook principles. But that night at Port Said I dancing. “Watch the hook now - watched a show that was not in any of watch!” urged the conjurer. And at my books. that moment a live fish appeared on the hook. The conjurer let it wriggle before the war, so they found me a there for a few moments; then he took suitable job,” he had remarked. it off and dropped it into a bowl of “Did you see the gulla-gulla who water. I was absolutely certain that he came to the camp today?” I asked. had not slipped it down the line with his hands, but the sudden vision of the “A poor type, I thought,” replied the fish baffled me completely. officer. “Cutting a turban and joining it, hauling yards of silk out of his Nearly two decades passed. I was in mouth, the salaaming duck - very old Suez on a mission I have described 2 stuff. I live in hopes of seeing elsewhere. Full moon that night and something really original but it seldom the transit camp was being heavily happens.” bombed. I found myself in a dugout with a handsome, middle-aged British I told him about the fishing-rod trick. officer I had met in the mess that He waited until the flashes and the evening. He had told me vaguely that “grummff” of high explosives had he had something to do with camou- passed for a time and then he flage. Many officers were vague about commented: “That’s a good trick. their duties; we all knew the penalties Depends on apparatus, of course, but it for careless talk. “I was on the stage always brings a loud round of applause.”

2 In my book “Where Men Still Dream,” “You know how it is done?” published by Timmins. “Oh yes. You see, I’m a magician in “Yes. Some are tricks but most would civil life. I can explain that one. The be better described as illusions. Those fish is hidden in the float, kept alive by miraculous tales you hear, the rope wet sponges. The main fishing line is trick and other forms of levitation, fitted with small rings, and a thin plants growing before the eyes of the secondary line runs to the float. When audience, people who vanish after the conjurer jerks the thin line the being set on fire; these are illusions, hinged float opens for a fraction of a but not all who claim to have seen second and the fish slips down and these things are liars. Such illusions appears to be wriggling on the hook. It come from the days when the East was is just a matter of opening and shutting civilised and Europe was not. Some- the float so quickly that no one notices where a long way back, probably in it. Many conjurers in Europe and Egypt, there arose a caste of magi- America have copied that trick but I cians, jugglers, snake-charmers and am convinced that it was invented in other weird performers. They may or Egypt long ago.” may not have been gypsies, but they were certainly wanderers. Probably So pleased was I with this revelation they acquired some of their knowledge that I was almost prepared to welcome during visits to India. They understood a continuation of the bombing. “Are the uses of alcohol and such drugs as there any tricks that baffle the Indian hemp; they were hypnotists and professional magician?” I inquired. mind-readers. You will find references to these people in many ancient works, finest performers who saw to it that the hieroglyphics of Egypt, the Upani- there were only a few Europeans in the shads of the Indus, and it is clear that audience. They could hypnotise four the writers were describing marvels or five people at a time. Though the which they believed they had Indians in the crowd realised what was witnessed. In recent years King going on they applauded their fellow- Haakon VII of Norway informed countryman and never gave him Rosita Forbes the explorer that the away.” rope trick had been performed in his My companion reminded me of the honour in Tunis. It appeared to be story that went round London years genuine but a member of his staff ago of a stone lion in Trafalgar Square. photographed the scene and all the The lion was said to have shaken its pictures showed the magician, his tail and thousands thought they had assistant and the rope on the ground. seen it. A few people in that mood Colonel Barnard, chief of police in would attend a performance of the Calcutta early this century described rope trick and after the magician had the rope trick, and Lord Frederick addressed each one in turn and created Hamilton recorded it. Carl Hertz the a receptive state of mind they would stage magician travelled to the East see what they expected to see. Western with all the lore of the white illusionist magicians had put on stage versions of at his finger-tips. He declared that the the rope trick with the aid of rope trick was put on only by the very apparatus. Carl Herz invented a method and J. N. Maskelyne had done “I have had to content myself up to it in his London theatre. Eastern now with the clever efforts of performers had given open-air shows politicians whose promises have had with the aid of a strong incense that no more substance than the rope deadened the perceptions. They chose trick.” a courtyard between two houses, I asked my companion for his views rigged a wire from roof to roof, and on the mango trick. This he had seen started work at dusk. Clouds of smoke on many occasions and he said the hid the wire. The rope had a hook performers varied widely in skill. which caught the wire and the boy Nearly always nowadays it was pure vanished by hauling himself across to conjuring. The trick went right back one of the houses. Another of the old to the Upanishads and a Sanskrit Eastern families of magicians had a comment two thousand years ago more realistic presentation. They remarked: “A young mango tree found a way of projecting a series of sprouts forth from seeds, which are pictures on a column of whitish smoke really only glamour. The tree is also so that a boy appeared to be climbing nothing more than glamour. So it is the rope into the sky. “Of course the with all things.” Jehangir, King of pure illusion depending on will- Delhi in the early seventeenth power and persuasion is rare and I century, employed magicians who would enjoy such an experience grew not only mangoes but fig trees, enormously,” declared the magician. apples, walnuts, almonds and mulberries; and birds of great beauty “Most performers prefer the mango appeared in the branches; melodious because the seed is large enough to songsters such as the world had hold a shoot,” explained the officer. never known before. “A palm, tea plant or banana would be more difficult. Mango leaves and The ordinary performer makes a little twigs are tough and can be folded hillock of earth, plants the seed, carefully without breaking. They can sprinkles the earth with water and be rolled into tight balls and hidden covers it with a turban cloth. When in the cloth until the time comes to he removes the cloth a green shoot assist the growth of the tree. It is just has appeared and a clever magician a matter of preparation and legerde- will pull the shoot from the earth and main. Robert Houdin the French show the roots sprouting. At each magician (not Houdini) produced a stage of this slow and sometimes Western version with an orange tree boring trick the tree grows, more and which blossomed and bore fruit. At the more leaves and branches appear, finale an orange at the top of the tree and finally the fruit is plucked and split open and revealed a handkerchief given to members of the audience to borrowed from a spectator.” taste. Some people assert that they saw the tree growing before their Robert Houdin, I gathered, was the eyes. They are often convinced that a pioneer of scientific conjuring. He was secret method of forcing the growth sent to Algeria by the French Govern- has been used. ment in the middle of last century to expose the marabouts who were his fist so that the contents rattled stirring up revolts. The authorities audibly. Other marabouts drank boil- hoped that Houdin’s brand of sorcery ing oil. The sensitive French magician would make the Algerian holy men was obviously puzzled by these antics look like childish impostors. Houdin but he suggested that the sorcerers had certainly impressed his audiences with used alum to protect themselves a box trick which depended on an against different forms of heat. electro-magnet; it became light or My friend the magician had turned to heavy on his orders and it defeated all other oriental tricks and illusions when the efforts of the bewildered Algerian the ack-ack fire died away as the sorcerers. However, the marabouts enemy bombers left the bleak Suez swallowed glass and devoured thorns scene. I decided that magic was a fine and thistles and Houdin did not care to remedy for the alarms and irritations follow their example. One marabout of war and I wanted to meet the struck his left arm with his right hand; magician again. “I shall be here for the the flesh appeared to open and blood next few days and I often go to the poured out; then the marabout passed Misr Hotel in Suez for dinner,” he told his hand over the wound and the blood me as we stumbled away to our tents disappeared. Houdin also watched a and stretchers. marabout swallowing an egg without breaking it; and this man also ate nails Next evening found me in the Misr bar and pebbles and hit his stomach with drinking with the magician and looking forward to a dinner menu that would come as a change from bully When the door is opened the man is beef and tinned potatoes. And indeed alive and the steak is cooked?” we fared well for the lentil soup was A feat of a different sort is followed by pigeon and there was a performed by an expert swordsman red Syrian wine and cheese. “You who puts a young girl flat on a table were telling me about oriental feats with a silken thread across her and illusions,” I reminded the breast. He swings the broad, heavy magician. sword half a dozen times to get the “Ali yes, the wonders which cannot feel, then brings it down with a be explained by the Maskelyne or terrifying sweep that cuts the thread Houdini methods. Oriental perform- but does not touch the skin. Danger ers are prepared to risk their lives is a good teacher. He then described and suffer torments such as no an illusion in which the magician Western magician would endure. In transforms his assistant into a log of that class you have the fakirs who wood, chops up the log, sets fire to it allow themselves to be buried alive. and burns it. Of course the assistant Their acts are genuine and I believe comes up unharmed from the ashes. they rely on stupefying drugs; but I “Someone who watched this perfor- could not go into detail. Then you mance told me that be looked away have the performer who enters a hot once or twice while the flames were oven and is shut in with a raw steak. blazing,” went on the magician. “When he looked up again there were no flames, but after a time the have killed my child.” However, a flames and smoke re-appeared. So it voice comes from the back of the was obviously hypnotism.” The crowd and the boy (a double, wear- basket trick, on the other hand, had a ing identical gaudy costume) steps natural explanation. If you saw the forward. Occasionally an oblong magician wearing a heavy leather basket is used with a double side at belt then you could be sure that the the back. The boy hides in this boy would seize the belt while compartment and the basket can then covered by a blanket, slip quickly be shown to be empty. A really between the magician’s legs and clever variation is the basket trick in escape with the aid of accomplices. which a large oblong basket has a Usually the boy circled inside the lid. The magician’s wife lies down in basket like an eel and kept out of the the basket and the lid is placed over way of the prearranged sword her. When the magician lifts the lid thrusts. There is more room in a the woman has vanished. She hooks flexible basket than you might think. her fingers and toes into the top of First-class performers use a bladder the basket and the success of the filled with human blood and offer the trick depends on the magician lifting blood to any medical person in the her without apparent effort. This audiences for analysis. The boy calls for superb acting and great shrieks at first but then the cries die strength. away and the magician laments: “I Egyptian conjurers have a modern mechanical effect depends on a trick in which a brass bowl is shown spring which is released when the with a lump of ice in the water. It is sugar holding it has melted. covered, and when the cloth is Sand is used in a famous Egyptian whipped off the water is hot. The trick. The magician drops the sand bowl has double sides and a double- into a pail of water and the audience bottom, of course, the side spaces sees it lying on the bottom. He brings being filled with boiling water while it out and blows it away as though it the bottom is empty. Remove a wax had never been in the water. Fine, pellet and the cold water runs out. A clean sand is washed in hot water, second pellet allows the hot water to dried in the sun and then cooked with run in and meet the ice. lard in a frying pan. Every particle of The salaaming duck is the simplest sand is covered with grease and so it trick of all, for there is a tiny hole in remains dry under water. the bottom of the bowl. A fine silk Blue, red and yellow sugar are the thread fastened to the toy duck (and ingredients in a trick which has the magician’s toe) ensures that the baffled many audiences in Egypt. duck will obey orders. In a more The magician swallows the various ingenious version the duck leaps out sugars, opens his mouth wide, and of the water, usually while the then asks the onlookers to name a magician is attending to something colour. Blue? He blows out blue else with his back turned. This sugar. Red? Yellow? So it goes on. He has indeed swallowed the sugar, consideration but it takes some time. but additional capsules have been The effect is produced by an irritant hidden in his mouth between the powder which he sprinkles unobtru- teeth and cheeks. All that remains is sively on the backs of as many hands to work the required capsule to the as possible. Even those who have not front, break it and blow out the been “treated” often share the sugar. In this category is the unpleasant sensation as a result of Egyptian scent trick, where the suggestion. performer focuses a burning glass on Levitation tricks, said my friend, a piece of cotton-wool and the depend on hidden steel rods, goose- perfume of any desired flower neck bars, iron posts and rings, steel (within reason) rises with the smoke. harness and wires; every sort of This is ordinary conjuring, of course, support that can be hidden from the a matter of opening the correct phial audience. It was a simple matter to at the right moment. make a woman float on air in a When the Egyptian conjurer senses a theatre; far more difficult in the open hostile audience he threatens them air. Years ago there was a woman in with a plague of invisible ants. Soon Egypt who was greatly admired for a the onlookers feel an irritation of the levitation performance which involv- hands, a hideous crawling sensation ed something more than apparatus. which cannot be brushed off. The The act was arranged behind a large conjurer will remove the spell for a shawl, but in full sunlight. When the shawl dropped she was seen to be carefully planned accident. The sitting two feet above the ground magician spends his life appealing to with her wrist on the hilt of a sword. his audience to look in the wrong The support was provided by a direction, away from what he must hidden loop of wire attached to the hide. One careless movement of the sword hilt. It was such a difficult feat eyes may give the secret away. A trick that she had to hold her breath and is a comedy or a drama, and the balance herself in the loop until the magician must be a polished actor and shawl was raised again. a psychologist.” “Always look for a natural explana- He described an Egyptian trick that tion,” advised the magician. “If you had earned his respect. The conjurer see a man sitting cross-legged in the handed him a round piece of earthen- air with his arm resting on a bamboo ware and a charcoal pencil and invited you may be sure there is an elaborate him to make the sign of the cross on system of supports linked with the the earthenware. After a short talk on bamboo. It’s a nerve-racking business. the cross and the crescent the conjurer You never step in front of an audience had asked him to shatter the earthen- without wondering whether something ware. “Now look at your hand,” said will go wrong. There is an element of the conjurer; and there was the mark chance. You dare not say what is of the cross on the palm, a replica of going to happen next in case it does the earthenware cross. Only by not happen. Some tricks depend on a thinking back and considering every detail did my friend realise that the cloth was stained with blood, Egyptian had, at one stage, taken the spectators reeled back in horror. The earthenware in his own hand. At that conjurer kicked the head away from moment he had taken the charcoal the body but it remained under the imprint, and had transferred it by cloth. Then he offered to restore the pretending to show how the piece of boy to life if enough piastres were earthenware should be held. The most dropped into his basket. As you might artistic part of the trick was the patter expect, the boy emerged from the about the cross and the crescent, cloth with his head on his shoulders. designed to obliterate the memory of “Easy,” chuckled the magician. “The the essential part of the trick. boy tucks his head under his arm and I had once been puzzled by a decapi- blows up a bladder to take its place. tation show. The boy who was to be Takes a bit of rehearsal, that’s all.” beheaded lay on the sands of Egypt I asked the magician to describe the and the conjurer drew a white cloth most dangerous stage performances he over him “to stop the blood from had ever seen and I mentioned spurting on the people.” I was invited Houdini’s “water torture” escape. to test the sharp blade of a great “Houdini never ran any risk of curved sword. After a careful arrange- drowning,” he replied. “But it was a ment of the cloth the boy’s neck magnificent trick. Houdini’s ankles appeared to be ready for the fatal were fastened and he was lowered stroke. Down came the sword, the head first into a glass cell filled with water. Sometimes a dairy supplied covered with lamp-black. The real milk instead of water. The cell was bullet was switched for the harmless sealed and bolted and the curtains one at the last moment, and the were drawn. Within a minute he was performer hid the lead bullet in his out, the cell still filled almost to the mouth and spat it out on to a plate brim, Houdini streaming with water. when the gun went off, as though he The trick called for extreme agility and had caught it in his mouth. Then a the ability to hold the breath under magician known as Chung Ling Soo, water. But as I said, it was not who was really an American, invented dangerous. Valves were fitted within a sensational variation. His assistant reach of his hands - which were not fired a live cartridge with a genuine tied - and he could let the water out bullet and Ching Ling Soo caught the fast if he failed to escape. He had bullet on a plate. His survival depend- plenty of room to double his body, and ed on reducing the charge of powder then he lifted the lid by one of his so that the bullet hit the plate with mechanical contrivances which he considerably less than the normal never revealed. No one has ever been force. Of course it was a very tough able to imitate that trick.” plate. One night the bullet glanced off the plate and entered the heart of “What about those shooting acts?” Chung Ling Soo. In spite of his death “Very hazardous,” admitted the there are still a few magicians using magician. “In the old days it was done that method.” with a bullet made of candle wax I remember the end of our conver- most realistic from the air and were sation that night in Suez. The magician designed to draw the enemy’s fire. I was not inclined to treat with contempt suspected my friend the magician of the oriental school of magic as so taking part in that game. Unfortunately many European stage illusionists had word of this trick reached the enemy done. “Nearly all our tricks come from and I was told that wooden bombs had the East,” he declared. “Their perform- been found among the dummy aircraft. ers had the linking rings centuries ago, I suppose there were magicians on they had speaking heads and mechani- both sides in the desert war. cal figurines that seemed to possess brains. I think they have always practised telepathy, and there is evidence of prophecies which rules out sheer chance. Here in Egypt west- wards to Morocco and eastwards to China, there is a great deal of strange and unfathomable knowledge. They do have secrets unknown to Europeans.” Some time after my meeting with the magician I heard that wooden aircraft were being set out in rows on fake aerodromes in the desert. They looked and red tabs observed the ceremonial traditions of the Rock, marching out past the sentries to patrol the approaches and give warning of surprise attack. “Pass, King George’s Keys!” Twice in my life I have passed through that old arched gateway and I would go back happily for a third time. Gibraltar arouses in me the same CHAPTER SEVENTEEN emotions as certain other tiny, historic GIBRALTAR British outposts. Gibraltar, Aden and St. Helena all reek with the strong “Halt! Who goes there?” odour of adventure so that you can “The Keys.” almost smell the gunpowder. They are “Whose Keys?” all full of personality, like no other “King George’s Keys.” towns on earth. I walked reverently in “Pass, King George’s Keys.” Gibraltar, and in the Trafalgar WAR brought the South African Air cemetery Nelson’s sailors surrounded Force to Gibraltar to sweep the oceans me. Cedarwood panels from the with their flying-boats. At the Land- Spanish ships captured at Trafalgar port Gate the men with eagle badges were made into doors and tables still used in the town. A great key was Mousterian shelter where primitive carved from the bowsprit of the man- man lived forty thousand years ago. o’-war San Juan; one of the keys of You may inspect casts of prehistoric the fortress that are drummed in and skulls in the Gibraltar museum. The placed before the governor every night Rock ranks with Taungs and Pekin, while he is at his dining-table. Olduvai and Java, as a source of raw material for the fantastic and probably Gibraltar goes back much further than erroneous guesswork of scientists its famous sieges and sea battles. seeking the origins of mankind. Neanderthal man probably entered Europe by way of the Rock sixty I found the modem Gibraltarians held thousand years ago when there was a my attention longer than the skulls in land bridge from Africa. Abbe Breuil, the museum. About twenty-four who searched the caves of South thousand members of this little race Africa, found paleolithic fossils in the live on the Rock. They have the Gibraltar limestone caves; elephant, unpleasant nickname of “rock scor- rhino, hyena and leopard bones, pions”, based not on the insect but on animals of African origin. Deep in the a scorpion-shaped plant that grows in Rock the delving priest unearthed Gibraltar. George Borrow, the gypsy human skulls and stone axes and author, described himself as a “rock weapons of flint, bronze and silver. lizard” born in Gibraltar of English One day the Abbe was out for a walk parents; but these and other nicknames and by sheer chance he came upon a give a false impression of the pleasant and intelligent people who have grown and Spanish is the home language of a up in Gibraltar since the British large section. Yet they are different occupation nearly three centuries ago. and those who know the Rock people All the Spanish inhabitants cleared out can tell the difference at a glance. when Admiral Rooke’s licentious Gibraltarians have Maltese blood; a marines stormed the town. A wise sprinkling of Levantines came in long retreat, for the women who remained ago; Moors added a small element to were raped and churches were sacked. the mixture; and, of course, there were Dutch troops serving under Rooke the time-expired soldiers and sailors joined in the fun, and only after the from the British Isles who remained in last of the captured wine had been Gibraltar with the girls they married drunk were the officers able to restore there. I must not forget the Jewish order. strain which has made the Gibraltarian a formidable business man. And let us Settlers entered the new colony of not overlook the Irish, who left Gibraltar at the invitation of the something more than such names as British authorities. Many of the early O’Reilly in this strange fusion. Indians arrivals were Genoese fishermen, and own dozens of shops in Main Street. to this day the dominant strain in the They are Gibraltarians, too, but they Gibraltarian blend is Italian. You form a separate colony. In sentiment might think it is Spanish, for these the Gibraltarians are more British than black-eyed people are Andalusian in. the British. Wealthy merchants send appearance, many have Spanish wives their sons to British universities, Azzopardi, Spiteri and Vella; and, of where they are regarded almost as course, the MacGillivrays and Hender- foreigners. And when Spain demands sons; a Davies or Evans who has never the return of Gibraltar these people seen Wales; the Browns and the write slogans on the pock-marked Baileys. But in Gibraltar a Ramirez is walls that have resisted all sieges. usually indistinguishable from a “British we are and British we stay.” Marshall or MacIntosh. Early last The spirit is exactly the same as that century there were only about three which inspired a British Governor thousand Gibraltarians, but prosperity more than two centuries ago when he multiplied the little race by eight. They replied to a Spanish ultimatum in these dress well and spend freely. Watch words: “Why sir, if you dare to give them in the fascinating market near the me any more of your damned Waterport and you will see that they nonsense I will kick you from Hell to have a high regard for the pleasures of Hackney!” the table. Moors in vivid robes sell fowls, eggs and basket work. Spanish In the telephone book the names of the stall holders offer pumpkins and Gibraltarians range from Aboab to eggplants, green and red pimentos, Zino. In between, the majority of the muscatel grapes and muskmelons, figs names are Spanish, but you also find and oranges. Red steaks are cut from descendants of the Genoese, the enormous tunny fish. You can buy Robbas, Stagnos and Dellipianis; a fresh sardines, octopus or stonebass. number of Maltese names such as Here are eels and bream and the red singing “God Save the Queen.” They scorpion fish they serve cold with love football and bullfights, cricket, vivid salads. You never know what to music, wine and gambling. They are expect in this town of contrasts. law-abiding citizens nowadays, and Gibraltarians like their cheap Scotch the words of a British politician whisky but they do not spurn the spoken early this century are no longer Spanish sangria, that delicious blend true: “For the two hundred years that of red wine and fruit. Shark appears on we have held this town we have made Gibraltarian tables more often than it a resort of smugglers, gypsies, kippers. I saw lamb from New Zealand vagabonds, African rogues and and veal from Galicia. Here are the Spanish rebels.” Today the Rock is a only people on earth, perhaps, who modern colony, remarkably clean for enjoy the British eggs and bacon for such an overcrowded place. If there is breakfast and a Spanish paella for any unpleasant behaviour the guilty lunch. Partly Spanish in outlook and ones are probably visitors. Certainly temperament, the Gibraltarian is more there are contrabandistas, but these vigorous and far more enterprising are usually the poor Spaniards who than the Spanish. These people who try to carry home those coveted use English as their second language articles which are so much cheaper are entirely British in sentiment. Here in Gibraltar; coffee and cigars, liquor the Ansaldos and Bagnasios, Botibols and cigarettes. La Linea, just over and Bencazars join fervently in the border, is a dirty town of beggars and pimps, smugglers and thieves. and then by a harsh Saharan wind. No wonder the comfortable Gibral- Their beloved little “Gibraltar tarian clings to the British Crown. Chronicle” is one of the oldest daily newspapers in the world. They call Gibraltarians speak a rather clipped, their policemen “bobbies”, and out- staccato English and mix it with wardly these helmeted men in blue slurred Spanish words, so that the are identical with the London police. newcomer may be as baffled as a person hearing the swift Afrikaans- Take a stroll along Main Street on a English transitions used in South lively morning when the passengers Africa. My taxi-driver said to me as are pouring on shore with their we turned back to the Rock after a money from a cruise ship. Watch the drive across the border: “We go to storekeepers supplying them happily Spain for pleasure, but I always feel with French perfumes, cheaper here a sort of relief when I return to the than in Paris, and Scotch whisky at a freedom of Gibraltar.” I could see fraction of the Glasgow price. Listen that he loved the Rock, for that was to the sounds. I remember a bereted his only true home though he spoke Spanish fishhawker with his cry of of Britain as “home”. Gibraltar, with “pescado !” From barracks and har- its own paper money, its own bour come bugle calls. Often there postage stamps, the weekly lottery, are military bands and more often the the low taxation, the mild and Spanish flamenco music drifts out of pleasant climate, disturbed only now the cafes. You may hear the rattle of castanets breaking through a choir Main Street has four different names practice in the cathedral. Hooves along its narrow length; Waterport, clatter in the roadway, for horse- Main, Church and Southport. You drawn carriages have not yet must be a good walker here, for disappeared. Donkeys pass with their much of the town can be reached side baskets and there are many only on foot. Old stone stairways handcarts filled with fruit among the lead off the main thoroughfare into a slow moving cars and cyclists. maze of passages. This intriguing Hindus emerge from their doorways place is full of resounding, English to offer rolls of silk. Officers of the names: Benjamin’s Alley and Devil’s British services form a contrast with Cap Road, Bell Lane, Black Hole the gaping tourists and Spanish where soldiers were once punished, workmen. Glance up and on roman- Cannon Lane, Cloister Ramp, Corn- tic wrought-iron balconies you will wall’s Parade, Portuguese Town and catch a glimpse of family life and Convent Place. When you are thirsty hear the cage-birds singing. This is there are the Bull and Bush, Cock indeed an exotic Mediterranean and Bottle, the Fox and Hounds, the seaport, full of sunlight and colour, Bell and Mitre. Some of the tea- but also displaying fresh paint, clean rooms and grocers might have been pavements, a British tidiness and transplanted from an English village. polish. Always there are the historic names: Casemates Square, King’s Bastion, South Barrack Road. Yet the Gibral- the narrow streets you become aware tarians still use some of the vanished of other aromas; the perfume of Spanish street names when they are tangerines and bananas; mimosa and talking among themselves. Centuries orange blossom, roses and jasmine slip away as they speak of the Calle and the purple bougainvillea. Festoon- de los Cordoneros, the Calle de Santa ing ancient pink walls. Often you Anna, the Calle Real. Long ago there return unexpectedly to the remote past. were just two parallel streets in In the governor’s garden there is a Gibraltar, linked by lanes; and these dragon tree more than one thousand became Main Street and Irish Town. years old, the oldest of its species in Irish Town is a street, not a town, the world, a great rarity yielding the and it gained the name because of the dark resin called dragon’s blood. characters who settled there. Some- Dragon trees flourished in Africa times you detect a touch of the Irish during the Ice Age, and then became brogue in the everyday speech of the extinct save on certain islands and a Gibraltarian. This is because he is few remote places. Gibraltar’s dragon usually a Roman Catholic and his tree seems to be among the many links schoolmasters were probably Irish between the Rock and Africa twenty priests. miles away. Over the many steps and stairs, When I first landed at Gibraltar there ramparts and chapels of Gibraltar, was a British racecourse on Spanish hangs the grey breath of old age. In soil. There, beyond the neutral zone, the people of Gibraltar had their golf and dark green olive trees growing links and polo grounds; and the Royal wild. Calpe Hunt pursued the fox in the This great symbol of impregnability woods and coverts of Spain. These holds a city within the massive rock. amenities have vanished. A rather Miles of mysterious tunnels and dangerous airstrip has been built on galleries run between the steep faces. British ground and limestone from the The cliffs are honeycombed with gun- Rock has been used to extend the ports built during the great sieges. I runway into the bay. was told that people sheltering in the Now for the Rock itself, that limestone city within the Rock would be safe mountain dominating the narrow from any explosive yet devised by Mediterranean entrance. It looks man, including the hydrogen bomb. tremendous from the sea; but the Not even Table Mountain has a more Gibraltar peninsula is only three miles dramatic profile. No other mountain long, one third of a mile wide and hides so many secrets. Huge reservoirs fourteen hundred feet high. Sometimes inside the Rock are fed by water catch- it resembles Lion’s Head, at others a ments on the rock face, and with a hump-backed whale. Victorians saw in rainfall of thirty-five inches there is it a profile of Gladstone. Really it is never a shortage. Workshops, stores just a silver grey limestone rock with and a hospital, barracks and a railway houses of the same grey stone and have been built within the limestone. slopes covered with cactus and pines Besides the man-made passages there fissure of a very sinister character are many natural caves and new where more than one unfortunate has caves are discovered from time to met with foul play, being enticed time. However, the exploration of the within the cave by some assassin and inner Rock is a hazardous affair. after being plundered has been Over the years, men have gone down pushed into a horrible gulf”. St. with their candles and balls of string Michael’s leads into other halls, and and have never returned to the as recently as 1942 military engi- surface. Now the “killer caves” have neers discovered a lovely grotto and been classified but those who would an underground lake. Electricity has enter them must first sign indemnity transformed this natural cathedral. forms. St. Michael’s Cave, one thou- Musicians love the acoustics and sand feet above sea level, is a place famous orchestras have performed of remarkable beauty and the greatest there. wonder of the Rock. A Roman Catalan Bay, a flattish alcove on the geographer described it in the days sheer eastern side of the Rock, is of Augustus Caesar. In the lofty hall another of Gibraltar’s odd spots. are stalactite pillars fifty feet high. Here the first Genoese fishermen Last century it was the duelling settled and some families have ground of the garrison officers. A remained pure Italian and have never manuscript I read in the Gibraltar moved away. They form a distinct museum called it “a gloomy yawning colony among the Gibraltarians, like the Sephardim Jews and the Indians. flowers flourish, and herbs such as A modern hotel has arisen over the sage and rosemary, thyme and hot little fishing village, and the marjoram. Sir Bartle Frere, son of the population (about three hundred old Cape governor, was a botanist; and between the wars) has grown in in Gibraltar early this century he recent years. Catalan Bay has known counted more than five hundred local disastrous falls of rock at long plants. intervals like Jamestown on St. Once the golden eagle nested on vast Helena and the people still talk of piles of sticks in remote crevices of the old tragedies and narrow escapes. Rock but I doubt whether you will find I am an incorrigible seeker after one today. Bearded vultures were also rarities and high up on the Rock my at home there and one or two pairs taxi-driver pointed out a truly unique may survive. A game bird found on plant. This was the local candytuft, the Rock and nowhere else in Europe Iberis Gibraltarica, throwing out is the Barbary partridge. It shares this masses of lilac-coloured flowers. distinction with the apes, the You may admire the wild flowers on inescapable apes. I shall soon be ready these heights, narcissus and asphodel, to go in search of the apes. growing over rusty cannon; but the Europa Point, at the southern end of candytuft grows wild nowhere in the Rock, has a famous lighthouse. Europe save on the Rock. On the pine- Often two hundred ships pass in a day. scented heights many other wild Here the nuns kept a light burning four centuries ago. Here is one of the telephone kiosks and pillar-boxes with world’s finest views; Algeciras bay royal insignia transplanted from and La Isle Verde to the north; the England. Gibraltar, where the descend- purple hills of Africa twenty miles to ants of Jews expelled from Spain the south. One resident loved the view nearly five centuries ago still speak the so much that he asked to be buried ancient and almost forgotten language under the floor of the Moorish ruins of Castile, their old home. Gibraltar near the lighthouse. His wish was with its resounding names, Bomb carried out, and the spot is known as House Lane and Europa Road; its Deadman’s Hole. lovely names, Rosia Bay and Buena Vista; and now and again a Any large city park would have room mysterious name such as Ragged and to spare for Gibraltar. The total Staff Wharf that no one can explain. area of this British colony is just over Gibraltar with its stately Alameda two square miles. Once there was Gardens, a blend of English and space for vineyards; now the wine Spanish; its date palms, eucalyptus comes from Spain and Gibraltar and palmetto avenues. Gibraltar with exports nothing but canned fish and its expected and unexpected relics, a fruit. Yet the armed services and the bust of Queen Victoria here, the tourists ensure prosperity. I found a jawbone of a whale there. Gibraltar, deep fascination in this bustling little where the two main walls of the colony and fell under its charm as battlemented Moorish castle form most visitors do. Gibraltar with its red part of the prison where the last man people drowned when an immigrant to be hanged was a Spanish saboteur ship collided with a man-o’-war. during World War II. Gibraltar, Here, just before the World War I almost an island, surrendered by armistice a British battleship was Spain to Britain “to be held and torpedoed and went down with one enjoyed absolutely with all manner thousand men. Shrapnel fell on the of right for ever without any roof of the Rock Hotel during the exception or impediment whatso- Spanish civil war. During a strange ever.” and tragic interlude of World War II the French bombed Gibraltar; and at Gibraltar, the walled town below the another period the Italians tried to crouching lion, has known many bomb Gibraltar but hit their Spanish changes and dramas. It saw the friends in La Linea by mistake. The transition from Moorish mosque to Spanish see in the silhouette of the Spanish cathedral; to the British flag Rock a human corpse laid out in a that made the Rock a thorn in the shroud, and call the place El CueYpo. heart of Spain. During one siege the Certainly there has been much British soldiers had to eke out their violence and sudden death in the scanty rations with dandelions and shadow of the Rock. wild onions, but they never surrendered. Half the population was Years ago the Spanish workmen had wiped out by yellow fever early last to leave Gibraltar when a sunset gun century. In the bay five hundred was fired. Spanish dance partners in the cabarets were given until one in any truth in the legend that no one the morning; then they, too, had to has ever found a dead ape? Do they hurry away like Cinderellas to La bury their dead or carry them into a Linea. The story is told of a secret passage beneath the Straits Frenchman who was shocked at linking Gibraltar with Africa? losing a charming feminine compan- Probably the apes came from ion in this way and remarked Morocco, for the identical species excitedly: “What a strange place is flourishes on the rocky heights of Gibraltar - they throw out the lovely Mount Meggu near Tetuan and girls and keep the monkeys!” elsewhere. Spanish soldiers used the They are neither apes nor true apes as targets during the Riffian monkeys but a tailless breed Macaca campaign of the nineteentwenties. Sylvana, popularly known as The troops noticed that the apes Barbary apes. People from South carried away their wounded, and this Africa have mistaken them for may be significant. Barbary apes are baboons, for they are alike in. many shaggy and powerful, with yellow- respects, especially in their ish-brown coats and a mere tubercle outrageous behaviour. The apes of instead of a tail. On the cheeks are Gibraltar are mysterious creatures. brushed back whiskers. A full-grown On the Rock and elsewhere I tried to male (four years old) is the size of an find answers to the old riddles. How Airdale terrier. These apes prefer the did the apes reach the Rock? Is there ground to the trees. They feed very much as baboons do and for Germany during the eighteenth centuries they were able to live on century but they were wiped out by the sweet roots of the dwarf palm, rabies. Zeuner the zoologist said that insects, roots and other wild growths the Spanish peninsula may have on the Rock. Now their foraging known the Barbary ape long ago, but areas have been reduced and they deforestation and farmers drove the might starve without their daily macaques to their last stronghold on rations. The apes have aroused great the Rock. Carleton S. Coon, the interest because they are the only American anthropologist, pointed out free primates in Europe. Before the that bears and Barbary apes could days of Queen Elizabeth all the hardly have swum the Straights of monkeys known to Europe were Gibraltar, but they might have walked Barbary apes, and so the zoologists round the coast from Palestine during of medieval times thought that all a suitable climatic period. monkeys were tailless. The beautiful It is clear that the apes go back a long tailed monkeys of West Africa came way. Ayala, the eighteenth century later. But there were apes of the Spanish historian, remarked: “But now Barbary species in Europe north of let us speak of other and living the Alps when prehistoric man lived productions which, in spite of the there. They died out and man asperity of the Rock, still maintain survived. Count Schlieffen bred a themselves in the mountains. These herd of sixty Gibraltar apes in are the monkeys, who may be called the true owners, with possession from writer of that period, declared: “The time immemorial, always tenacious of hill (of Gibraltar) is remarkable for the their dominion, living for the most part apes on the summit, not found in on the eastern side (marked on the Spain. They breed in inaccessible maps as the ‘Monkeys’ Alameda’) in places and appear in large droves with high and inaccessible caverns. Neither their young on their backs. It is the incursions of the Moors, the imagined that they were brought by Spaniards nor the English, nor the the Moors from Barbary.” Another old cannon nor the bombs of either, have writer named Montero appears to have been able to dislodge them. They are been the first to deal with the active, cunning and sly and jealous of mysteries of the apes. “Some of the their ancient dwelling. They defend apes are of extraordinary corpulence,” themselves against the ambitions of Montero noted. “Rarely have skeletons newcomers by frequently throwing or skins been found. Perhaps they are stones at their working parties.” thrown into the sea after death or hidden in caverns only accessible to I found an old paper in the British apes. Did they live here before the Museum library which mentioned the separation of the continents? Or were great number of apes on the Rock they introduced by the Arabs? The more than two centuries ago, and temperature and pasture of the Rock added: “A poll-tax has been imposed favour the species.” on apes, Jews, Moors and other aliens.” John Drinkwater, an English Fossilized bones of many animals the Moorish invaders should have have been found in the Gibraltar enjoyed the antics of the apes. caves, but modern scientists have not The subterranean tunnel theory is a identified the Barbary ape among wild guess, in my opinion. Such a them. Thus it is evident that the apes tunnel may exist, but I refuse to are comparative newcomers; they did believe that a band of apes could have not trek over the ancient land bridge found a way through the frightening with the elephants, rhinos, leopards darkness where human explorers have and other African species. So both perished. St. Michael’s Cave is Zeuner and Coon are against the regarded by the tunnel protagonists as theory that the apes were brought to the entrance to the long passage the Rock by the Arabs. Coon said the beneath the Strait. First of the victims theory had no historical basis and were a Colonel Mitchell and a friend Zeuner could see no reason why the named Brett, who tried early last Romans or the Moors should have century to find the way to Apes’ Hill transported the apes from Africa. I opposite Gibraltar, the Mount Abyla think Zeuner’s doubts are easily which formed the second Pillar of answered. Barbary apes are intelligent Hercules in ancient times. They were and amusing, with a sense of humour; never seen again. Captain Webber- they are indeed among the cleverest of Smith, an engineer officer, explored a all animals. Soldiers must have had number of passages out of St. pets long ago and it was natural that Michael’s Cave and found that all led to a precipitous descent from the upper climbing techniques with nylon ropes to a lower cave. “I am inclined to and pitons that a Barbary ape might believe that it was in these passages well envy. I cannot imagine an ape that Colonel Mitchell and his friend knowing a route from Gibraltar to lost themselves,” Webber-Smith Africa when man has failed. No, the reported. At one remote spot he found Moors must have brought the apes the initials “A.B.” cut into the rock. A between the years 711 to 1462 from later investigator found a rope the Atlas mountains. dangling over a terrifying drop. The The mystery of the missing Barbary rope appeared to have been cut. ape corpses is not so easily solved. Of Several expeditions have ventured course a few dead apes have been down the precipice in recent years and found from time to time. I saw the have reached the grottoes and pools skull of a young female, shot with a under St. Michael’s Cave. sporting gun some years ago, in the But the Rock has many other caves, Gibraltar museum. However, this is each one with its legends. Judge’s hardly a fair example. The museum Cave at Europa Point, a refuge during curator assured me that he had never the Great Siege, has been sealed up been able to secure a complete some way from the entrance because skeleton. He said that before World of its dangers. Genista, Leonora, Dead War I a ferocious ape annoyed an Marx’s and Fig Tree are other famous artillery officer who was drilling his caves. Human beings have perfected men. A gunner struck a blow which shattered the ape’s skull but the body secretive and they may well have their was not preserved. This was probably own secret graveyard unknown to the the last adult male in the small ape cave explorers. Many old Gibraltarians population of the period, so the will tell you that a remnant of the governor sent to North Africa for apes original ape colony survives to this to keep the colony going. A large ape day in a secluded “pleasure garden” was found dead in Europa Road about high up on the Rock; and that no fresh forty years ago, killed by eagles. blood has ever reached this hidden Unfortunately this body was thrown pack. They do not fraternise with away. So the search for skeletons goes newcomers. Few people have ever set on. A scientist at Bristol University eyes on them. It is a romantic idea and asked for a specimen some years ago it sounds fantastic; yet it has been and the official reply stated: “Careful supported by such an authority as Sir search has failed to trace the skeletons Claud Russell, K.C.M.G. of the Fauna of any deceased Rock apes. It seems Preservation Society. that they are buried by other apes deep In far off days when Gibraltar was in the Rock, and one day the sepulchre covered by thick forest the apes shared may be discovered.” the Rock with wolves and wild boars, Apes sometimes kill one another but porcupines and badgers. Food was the bodies vanish. At one time an old plentiful and the apes grew fat on their cannibal ape was suspected of preying diet of wild olives and prickly pears, on the young apes. But the apes are acorns and blackberries. They still turn over the stones in search of insects but guests were drinking their sherry in wild growths no longer cover the Rock the next room. Apes have even and the packs cannot support boarded men-o’-war in the dockyard themselves. When man invaded their in search of loot. old hunting grounds the apes lost their Again and again the apes of Gibraltar nuts and berries and so they were were sentenced to death. The legend forced to raid the gardens and the that Britain would lose the Rock when town. This was the opening of a long the last ape died was ignored. Yet no war and many an ape was shot. Food one ever succeeded in exterminating shortages caused fights among the the apes. They realised the danger and hungry packs and the apes killed one retreated to fastnesses unknown to another. But the boldest apes carried man. Gibraltar has always been in two out their sorties with such cunning that minds about the apes. When the packs they often returned to the heights with dwindled to vanishing point someone bulging stomachs. No house or home has always sent to North Africa for was sacred. The apes cleared the more apes. About a century ago there governor’s table one night before a were only three apes left; but fresh banquet, and they stole the humble blood soon restored the pack to the rations of soldiers from the barracks. point where it became a menace. Sometimes an officer giving a dinner party would find that the apes had Eighty years ago the senior naval plundered the dining-room while his officer complained that the apes were stealing fruit, tearing stones from the walls, breaking wooden railings and through the bars. I think the apes have roof gutters. A colonel of engineers always had friends among the declared that apes had attacked his Gibraltarians and there are people who children, eaten all his fruit, dug up his like to look upon the apes as fellow potatoes, stolen his trousers and slept citizens of the Rock. in his bed. I read the official record of Just before World War I a humane a young male that had been driven out official organised the first feeding of the pack by the old leader. The ill- scheme for the Gibraltar apes. An mannered young ape attacked a little officer of the Gibraltar Regiment was girl, snatched oft her hat and pulled later appointed “O/C Apes” and each her hair. The girl drove the ape off and ape received daily rations of Jerusalem later identified her assailant. Accord- artichokes and spring onions. When ing to the report, which appeared to they came “on the strength” the apes have been written in all seriousness, a were also given names; the sort of sergeant brought the guilty ape before names humorous soldiers would Sir Archibald Hunter, the governor. choose. Thus you will find Betty and The little girl was there to give Phyllis in the records, Jubilee and evidence and when the ape saw her it Titch, Nicky and Penny, Winston, hung its head and appeared to be Julian and Maureen. A celebrated pack ashamed. The sentence was ten days leader after World War II was Gunner, imprisonment in a cage and the record with his two-inch tusks. Gunner stated that other apes fed the prisoner disappeared at last and his name was result, the governor ordered all but ten crossed off the roll of apes. of the apes to be shot. The pack dwindled to three in 1924, ape-lovers Everyone who has lived in Gibraltar became alarmed, and a later governor for years has an ape story. An officer’s ordered the reinforcement of the apes. wife assured me that one evening Churchill’s famous order regarding the while she was brushing her hair she apes during World War II was the last became aware of an ape seated behind of a number of similar importations. her, watching intently. The apes have Nazi agents were suspected of killing pelted householders with figs and have the apes at that period but I was taken cover behind. chimneypots when informed that several apes had been hunted with stones and catapults. An smuggled away by American seamen. old fig tree in the garden of the Strange tales are told of the Gibraltar Moorish Castle is robbed every year apes, and the strangest tales are true. by the apes when the juicy buds appear. Sir Bartle Frere, chief justice Nowadays the apes of Gibraltar are as of the colony, was among the victims safe as the storks in Holland or the ibis of the apes. Not long after World War in Egypt. Births and deaths in the ape I his home was raided and furniture packs have been recorded by the wrecked. He suggested that the apes “Gibraltar Chronicle” for many years. should either be exterminated, deport- You can see Gibraltar apes in zoos as ed to Morocco, reduced to a small far away as London and Washington. pack of one sex or kept in cages. As a After centuries of persecution the apes remain the lords of the Rock, sun- its old streets and its strange popula- bathing unafraid on the ancient walls tion, but never ‘will you find me in the and gateways like the humans on the fearsome depths where Mitchell and beaches. Most of them are tame, but Brett climbed down to death. I prefer some become aggressive when the Gibraltar of the cool Rock Hotel annoyed. It is as well to allow an ape with its swimming pool and English pickpocket to operate undisturbed. A breakfast; the Gibraltar of duty-free friendly ape will settle on your shops; the streets where a Gibraltarian shoulder and start a rather difficult looks out of his cellar window into the conversation. Daily rations still attic of the next house on the hillside. include artichokes and onions, with It is a charming town, a happy town. the addition of nuts, radishes, bananas, “Halt! Who does there?” “The Keys.” cabbages and lettuce. My taxi-driver I felt that I had those keys for a few said that the apes were living better days. I would like to enter the Land- than some of the people in the town. port Gate once more. However, the feeding has ended the raids on the town and the apes are protected by law. Expeditions still enter the Rock in search of the skeletons of apes that have vanished. Men still hope to find the apes’ tunnel. I love Gibraltar with CHAPTER EIGHTEEN rice, broad beans and mushrooms, the COUS-COUS AND COBRAS soft cheese called queso gallego and a small carafe of red wine. Far too much I STEAMED out of Gibraltar harbour in for lunch, of course, but I eat more a ferry which aroused a faint when I am travelling and do not suffer reminiscent feeling. Surely Alec Guin- for it. I paid in Moroccan dirhams, ness should be on the bridge waving pronounced rather like the Afrikaans farewell to his fond wife, yet looking word derms. Then the Mons Calpe forward to meeting his vivacious girl entered the magnificent old harbour friend in Tangier? The little Bland round which Tangier rises in an Line Mons Calpe was crowded on that amphitheatre and rests on its hills. I brilliant golden morning with her nine knew at once that I would like this hundred passengers and eighty cars. white city of beaches and fragrant Well, it was a run of only two hours. gardens, coloured tiles, palms and Sometimes there are violent storms in eucalyptus trees, cypress and pine. the Strait of Gibraltar; strong currents and low fog may make the short Soon I was in my expensive bedroom crossing difficult for mariners of even at the five-star hotel called El Minzah, greater cunning than an Alec a famous place of great comfort but Guinness. However, I had a good without a lift. When I stepped out into Spanish lunch under the Red Ensign; the centre of the town to get my melon, chicken and bold sausages bearings I was reminded immediately decked out with tomatoes and saffron of the works of those eager authors who have described Tangier as a city “Night club girls no good,” declared of sin and mystery, headquarters of the Tangerine in tones of horror. “My international crooks and smugglers, girls family girls, sweet young girls, refugees and spies. My guide book thirteen, fourteen.” No doubt he was advised me that “Tangier is not doing a roaring trade without police prudish or gossipy.” I was accosted by interference. “Tangier is not prudish or an elderly Tangerine wearing the gossipy.” hooded djellabah robe which enabled In the dining-room at the El Minzah I him to speak with a conspiratorial air. was captivated by the skill of a type of The offer he made convinced me that craftsman I had never seen before. He all I had read of Tangier was true. stood at a large table in the middle of However, I am more interested in the room, a powerful Moroccan in streets and markets, restaurants, snake- golden turban and white raiment. His charmers, honest tricksters and enter- batterie de cuisine consisted of food tainers than in pimps and their willing mills, graters, knives plain and accomplices. I told the Tangerine it serrated, filleting knives, peelers and was too early for such unusual choppers. He was surrounded by as pleasures as he had promised and I left choice an array of raw and cooked him shaking his head in complete foods as I have ever set eyes upon; disagreement. The sort of girls he had lobsters and prawns and many in mind were so respectable that they Mediterranean fish; all the vegetables were not allowed out after dark. and fruits from globe artichokes to red and green peppers, avocadoes and the Morocco, but not so common as the long-leaved lettuces favoured by the other Moroccan favourite, the Arab races. Morocco likes raw skewered shish kebab. Cous-cous is a vegetables. When a salad was ordered wheaten semolina, very filling, and the this wizard of the dining-room went peasant eats this with a few scraps of into action like a man possessed. So meat or vegetables. At El Minzah it fast did he work that you saw a was a noble dish with mutton and transformation worthy of a conjurer. chicken, butter, almonds, saffron, Cucumbers were sliced in a trice, raisins and carrots, onions and tomatoes become jewels, radishes cabbage, and the mixture of herbs and blossomed like roses, beetroots were spices called lekama. swiftly diced, onions fell into fairy Lekama flavours so many dishes and rings as the razor-edged knife rose and is on sale by so many barrow boys that dropped. With a loud crack a huge it must be listed as one of Tangier’s lobster would fall apart and be most typical aromas. It is compounded presented on a dish garnished with of ginger, black pepper and saffron fresh gems from the wizard’s with cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg; so collection. Fruit became not just fruit a lekama blender cannot hide his salads but still-life masterpieces. I presence. Orange blossom is another watched him reverently but when the Tangier fragrance. It is made on the head waiter came to my table I ordered spot and many bakers mix it into their cous-cous, the national dish of bread. One cannot and would not wish to escape from the universal cooking birds and fountains, lemon trees and odour of shish kebab, the skewered pungent lilies, rose bushes and chunks of lamb, onions, tomatoes and bougainvillea. Here are arcaded court- green peppers which are roasted over yards tiled with delicate green charcoal in almost every Tangier mosaics, gorgeous hand-woven rugs, street. Tons of mint are cut every divans, soft Moorish leather cushions morning for millions of glasses of the tooled in brilliant gold and red. If you hot, sweet, milkless mint tea of the can leave Morocco without a gay people; so this, too, creates a pleasant leather folder or a pair of the slippers atmosphere. You are unlikely to sniff called babouches you are strong roast pork in Tangier but you will not indeed. In the souks, the narrow streets escape the rank-smelling white smin which are often trellised against the butter made from camel’s milk. Fire sun and covered with raffia, you find and steam are the favourite Moroccan the soul of Tangier. Here are Old cooking methods. Everywhere there Testament characters selling dried are gridiron and woodsmoke odours; lizard skins and the medicines of a everything is there from hot liver to thousand years ago. Potters and roasting chestnuts. weavers, dyers and brass-workers ply their trades and offer their wares. I saw You smell camels rather too often in olive oil coming from stone presses. Tangier but as a happy contrast there People carried flat loaves, the bread I are the flower stalls in the markets and had last tasted in Egypt two decades the secret gardens with their singing before. Shopkeepers beseeched me to other dramatic landfalls and turning buy swords and scimitars, live points on the sea lanes of the globe. chickens, carpets, barbaric jewellery. Cape Spartel has the most beautiful lighthouse I have ever seen, set among In these souks some magician seemed gardens with streams and date palms. to have brought the Arabian Nights Serfati said the ocean currents met into the twentieth century. I passed there (as they do at Cape Point) the Indian curio shops and saw a man “east and west water”. Wild boars trying to dispose of a live gazelle. I were encountered there not so long could easily imagine Tangier as a ago, went on the guide, but now there Phoenician settlement and a Roman were only the wild flowers and purple outpost; but there was never a sign of heather. Then he led me to the caves the abandoned British colony of three of Hercules and the Roman ruins. I centuries ago. Within living memory walked for a while on a long beach rebels hung in cages from the walls of and wished that I could walk the Tangier and they were released only to whole distance southwards to Table be flung to the lions. Bay; a walk that would be filled with Cape Spartel, the north-west point of adventure; but an impossible walk for Africa, one of the great capes of the me, too far and too hot. world, is only eight miles out of Tangier. I drove there with my guide Serfati took me through streets of Serfati and found myself thinking of geraniums and prickly pear to the Agulhas five thousand miles away and heights where the Kasbah stands on a quiet old square. He pointed out the Serfati swore they were irresistible. Bastinado Gate where criminals were They had a love philtre which would beaten on the soles of the feet. This enslave any man, so that he would was once the seat of government; the spend all his money on a certain girl. sultan’s palace, the treasury, the (Clearly the honest Serfati was not prison, the mosque. I saw many races trying to sell something, like the man I mingling there: Jews, Moors and had met earlier.) Yes, the Ouled Nail Berbers. Serfati taught me to identify women were clever dancers, but it was them. Many of the Jews wore black the love philtre which made them skull-caps. Moors were tall and good- wealthy. What was in the philtre? looking; they wore long gowns and Serfati said it tasted like mint tea but they liked to ride. Berbers were whiter that obviously something was added. I than the others, with high cheek- told him we would not be visiting the bones; some were very fair and hazel- Ouled Nails for our afternoon tea and eyed. They came into Tangier with he agreed. long donkey caravans bringing the I can recall the sounds of Tangier as food they had grown. They are the easily as the aromas. Moroccan original Moroccans and it is probable musicians play the flute and drum and that the mysterious extinct Guanche the crude gimbri violin. Voices come people of the Canary Islands were from a schoolroom, little girls Berbers. I also gazed with interest on a chanting their lessons. Water-carriers group of Ouled Nail women, for with fat, brasstapped goatskins clank brass goblets to remind customers of Kasbah I watched an American tourist their thirst. Balek! You move aside as attempting to photograph his wife with a laden donkey taps over the cobbles. two cobras round her neck. She kept Old men with flowing beards sit over moving nervously with such an their coffee in tiny cafes; and here the expression of horror that the portrait clinking dominoes break the silence. must have caused some discussion From the Zocco de Fuera, the open-air later, if indeed it was successful. The market, comes the evil chuckling of snakecharmer kept a firm grip on both parakeets. You will surely hear the the heads of the cobras but this did not muezzins announcing the hours of appear to satisfy the lady. “I don’t like prayer from the minarets. It is impossi- the feel of them next to my skin,” she ble to predict the scene and the sounds complained. Her husband went on round the next corner; there may be a focussing and clicking. soft, invisible orchestra or the pound- Of course it is the natural horror of ing of tom-toms. When you hear the snakes that draws the crowd round the gourd flute and the “monkey drum” snakecharmer. Serfati took me to the there must be a snakecharmer giving Grande Zocco market, saying we his performance. would find the best snakecharmers Snakecharmers are prominent in there. Sure enough there was a Tangier, though they give their strange member of the Aissawa brotherhood, a entertainment right across the northern religious sect with long oily hair. The shores of Africa to Suez. At the man allowed a cobra to sink its fangs into his tongue and hand there, a most scorpion carefully as I passed him the repulsive feat. “If you like to pay for a money. live fowl the cobra will kill it in a Serfati wanted to show me a fight moment with its poison,” Serfati between a lizard and a horned viper suggested. I turned down this particu- but these traditional enemies were not lar treat. Serfati informed me that the to be found in the Grande Zocco that Aissawa members were immune not day. I gathered that the lizard was only to snake venom but to pain. They nearly always the victor as it had no stabbed themselves in the head with blood circulation to carry the deadly daggers, slit their mouths from ear to poison round its system. Vipers, I ear. This, too, could be arranged. gathered, are handled only by the most However, I moved on to watch an experienced snakecharmers. They are Arab who appeared to be putting a much faster than the gentle and docile large scorpion to sleep. At first the cobra, for vipers strike unexpectedly scorpion menaced him with the sting like a whiplash. In spite of many in its tail; then it lay still as the Arab explanations the relationship between stroked it. A trusting spectator stretch- the snake and its master is still very ed out his hand and the Arab placed largely a mystery. Snakes are said to the scorpion on the palm. It lay there be deaf but Serfati was firm in his motionless. Finally the Arab took the belief that they could be called out of fearsome insect back and revived it. I their holes by the droning, plaintive gave him a coin, watching the lively music of the charmer’s gourd flute. This is a primitive affair, something At times the snakecharmer moves like that started thousands of years ago. a dancer, holding the cobra’s head The music has a deep, mesmeric close to his face, whispering to it quality. Only those who have been while the quivering tongue threatens reared close to Nature in the deserts of his eyes and mouth. Then he teases the India and North Africa can hope to snake deliberately so that even the lure and train a snake. It is a tamest cobra strikes out again and fascinating affair. As I stared at the again. Some of these men will allow a cobras in the Grande Zocco I remem- snake to cling to eyelids and lips. They bered a summing-up by John Lock- will bite off a snake’s head and then wood Kipling and decided to find and take lumps of red-hot charcoal as quote it. Here are the very words of though to cauterise their mouths. This Rudyard Kipling’s father: “He is the is indeed a dark art. The snakecharmer necklace of the gods, he can give gems is one of those nomads who comes in to the poor, he is the guardian of with the dawn and goes out with the priceless treasures, he can change sunset and no man can describe his himself into manifold forms, he casts origin or the true source of his weird his skin annually and thus has the gift knowledge. There are times when the of youth. He is of high caste, in the snakecharmer takes the onlooker so far confidence of gods and demons. When back into the past that he may almost the great world was made he was believe in oriental magic. already there.” Among the snakecharmers and fakirs, the expressive face and gestures of an beggars and musicians of the Grande actor. Dressed in snowy white, he held Zocco were those intriguing enter- a small tambourine and tapped it at tainers, the professional story tellers. dramatic moments. What was this old Moroccans love to hear the bygone story? All eyes were fixed on Achmed glories of their land related by true Ali’s face as he approached the climax artists and I am glad to say that a for the thousandth time. “This man gifted storyteller is regarded as one of appeals only to Arabs,” remarked the stars of the market place. As he Serfati. “No white man could possibly goes on his rounds of the country understand such a story.” people look forward to his arrival. A Marabouts tell fortunes in the Grand small arena is set apart for these great Zocco, tracing designs in sand as they narrators in the Grande Zocco, the peer into the future. You may see an square which is said to offer all the African version of the William Tell sights and sounds and odours of the legend, an orange shot neatly off a Arab world. Word reaches the souks boy’s head by a marksman with a that Achmed Ali has returned, a man medieval cross-bow. Buffoons raise a who puts such feeling into a tale that laugh as they make faces at perform- every man, woman and child is held ing monkeys. Tumblers dressed in spellbound. The arena is packed at blue turn somersaults in a ring of every session. Achmed Ali turned out spectators while other acrobats to be a man in the prime of life with perform circus tricks with ladders and hoops. A boy contortionist ties himself will beat their drums in such a way as into knots and a fire-eater blows out to cast out devils.” Now I felt that I flames. Everyone admires the swords- had ventured far enough into the man who engages two opponents at unknown and I watched a band of the same time and sends their swords conjurers. Most of the tricks were spinning out of their hands. Falconers variations of the civilised rabbit and dispatch swift Barbary falcons from tophat type of entertainment. Flowers, wrist to sky. Dervishes, more repulsive vegetables and a dormouse were than the snake-eaters, force out their discovered in the sleeves of people in eyes on skewers and burn their hands the crowd. But there was one original with hot irons. It came almost as a trick. A conjurer threw a small relief when they thrust sharp needles wooden object of peculiar shape high through their cheeks and gobbled up above his head and caught it. He threw prickly pear leaves. “It is done with it again into the sun and this time it the aid of a drug like incense,” Serfati disappeared. (I think it was a sort of remarked. “These men are descendants Moroccan boomerang which set off on of a tribe of holy men who perished in an unexpected course if you knew how the desert long ago. Only those who to handle it.) Then the conjurer could eat anything survived the ordeal. pointed to a man in the audience and People call them Pyslii. They can eat shouted: “He has it.” Yes, the man had and nourish themselves on beetles and the queerly-shaped wooden missile in dry leaves. Pay them a fee and they his hood. Or a replica. Harbours should be approached from Fez put me in a better mood. I had the sea, but when I left Tangier for my booked at the Hotel Palais Jamai, just next harbour Oran I embarked on a outside the main gateway to the huge peculiar overland journey. First there walled city. To my surprise I found it was the run to Sidi Kacem in the was indeed a palace. Here the brothers stream-lined, air-conditioned Casa- Jamai, aristrocats of Fez, lived in the blanca train with its large windows; a eighteenth century and gave their luxurious Diesel run with lunch at a oriental entertainments. The old part buffet counter. They gave me a has been carefully preserved; gilded Moroccan meat and raisin pastry and a ceilings of carved cedar, walls covered glass of wine and I was satisfied. But with Arab verses, lanterns and chande- when I changed at Sidi Kacem a slow liers and trellises of beautiful wrought old wooden train awaited me and I iron. Halls are filled with carpets and thought wistfully of the Casablanca divans. From the upper terrace you rapide. Night fell and my morale was look out over the whole of Fez, that not raised by the moaning of an splendid oasis of olives and palms, American school marm in my domes and minarets, crenellated walls compartment. She had been given and turreted gateways. A river passes short change on the Casablanca train through Fez, under the houses and and did not realise that nothing could streets; so that only here and there are be done about it. There was no bar and you aware of it turning water-wheels no escape until I alighted at Fez. and feeding the many fountains. One red wine of Fez and found it very of Morocco’s famous poets declared much to my taste. That night I went to that the loveliest flowers, the finest sleep to the sound of water running in fruit in the world, grew in Fez. a garden furrow. When I hear that Perhaps that is why I remember the lullaby, or the sea, I cannot stay awake terraced Palais Jamai gardens. Apri- long. cots and roses were there, African I saw Fez, and bought a leather book lotus, Seville oranges, geraniums and cover of gorgeous red and gold, and daturas. The scents came into my then set out unwisely in a native bus bathroom. I put on a luxurious white for Oujda on the Algerian frontier. I towelling-gown provided by the hotel will pass over the eight hours in the and knew that I would be sorry to bus, my burning thirst, the dreadful leave this palace. wayside cafes. At one halt I had to Dinner that night confirmed the happy order a revolting bottled banana drink feeling. They gave me the celebrated that made me thirstier than before. Herrira soup with dates, a complicated Oujda is a massive place a thousand mutton and chicken giblet soup years old on the old caravan route to blended with a great variety of Fez. I was glad to join the train there vegetables and eggs. There was a ham for Oran. It was an Algerian train. omelette in the French tradition; then Soon after it pulled out of Oujda I lamb and peas, grapes and pears. entered for the first time in my life Following my custom I drank the dry (and probably the last) the “one man dining-car.” Accustomed as I was to d’oeuvre before me and the meal had teams of chefs and stewards it came begun. almost as a shock. Nevertheless this Other passengers sauntered in and one man, Jacques, proved to me that were served with coffee at the one dedicated craftsman can do as counter or a savoury mutton stew at much as a corps of careless servants. the tables. Jacques also sold bars of The buffet car had six tables, a counter chocolate and baskets of fruit. Those and a kitchen. I noticed a refrigerator, who ordered beer or aperitifs were oven grill and hotplates and a boiler supplied without delay. Through the and sink unit in the kitchen. There window I saw Tlemcen appearing on were store cupboards and a wine and its flat hill; an old trading station bottle cabinet and litter bins. On the with blossoming orchards between counter I noted a coffee machine and the Sahara and the sea; a place of glass showcase displaying Algerian enormous olive and pistachio trees. cakes and pies. I asked Jacques to By now I had finished my olives and suggest a lunch dish and he pointed to tunny fish, anchovies and saucisson. a tariff board with a set menu. Wine? Jacques looked out of the corner of He brought out a half litre of his eye, put a steak on the griller, Mascara, which I had thought of handed a mother a bottle of milk, foolishly as an eyeshade, not an poured three cordials and a dry Algerian red wine. Jacques opened it Vermouth, and set the steak, potatoes placed a luscious tray of hors and a delicious green salad before me. He never had a second to spare fruit plate and a cool pear full of but he always smiled and one knew flavour. I had been reading an old he would make no mistakes. I loved Baedecker on this country. “Few his dining car. As a child I liked the travellers venture inland as they must idea of meals on railway wheels and carry tents, drinking water and insect found unusual enjoyment in going powder,” Baedecker reported. Those right through an unexpectedly long days are over. Jacques will look after menu while the panorama of you. He made fresh coffee for me countryside passed the window. This and I gave him a tip worthy of his magic has never faded. I looked out supreme skill. upon the Atlas mountains, the white That afternoon I set eyes on a place domes marking the tombs of saints, of youthful dreams, Sidi-Bel-Abbes. vine-clad valleys, gorges with water- Not that I ever hankered after a life in falls. Jacques brought me a superb the French Foreign Legion; but I had camembert, whipped back into the longed to visit the cradle of the galley, beat up eggs and made Legion, this town built by the Legion omelettes for the two critical French and held by these desperate men girls, and played with steam and hot against the Arab fanatics. Now here water taps, ice and ice-cream with was Sidi-Bel-Abbes among its fig expert hands. I saw towns on old trees and aloe hedges, the hot after- Roman sites, orange gardens and noon redolent with jasmine and the lemon groves. Jacques put down a African earth. And these thousands of men, German and negro, unfrocked from Bergen to Buenos Aires. The priest and pickpocket, these ruthless lights were on in a small dining-car. soldiers with their secrets? They had Peering through the window I observ- gone a year before, the last detach- ed the untiring Jacques stocking his ment. They had burned their sacred cupboards for another journey. Yes, flag and marched out with their the “one man dining-car” had not gone memories along the great boulevards to his welldeserved rest. He was pass- for the last time. Well, I had met them ing out empty bottles, taking in in the Western Desert in wartime and baskets of fruit and vegetables, filling in peaceful Marseilles. But to have his larder for the run to Oujda next seen the exiles on their parade ground day. I remembered my grilled steak in Sidi-Be1Abbes; that would have and Mascara gratefully and saluted been a moment. Jacclues in the darkness. What more is there to tell? The train Oran is not one of my harbours of passed out of Algeria’s granary into a romance. The setting is impressive, a wide plain with a salt lake. In the crescent bay with hills rising to fifteen evening I came to Oran and my hotel. hundred feet; a modern city of glass It was the Hotel Terminus, on the and balconies with something Ameri- railway platform. That night after can about the well-planned traffic dinner I sauntered out and inspected routes, with France in the shops and the station; another of my customs restaurants and with the Arabs which I have observed without fail triumphant. A city of Saharan siroccos and winter snows. On the wharves you I had travelled under the tricolour may see everything from almonds to before, so that I was not surprised to the green marrows called zucchinis. find the bar open at seven in the Also enormous containers of drink- morning serving black coffee and able carafe wines. beer. Down on the foredeck young sergeant-pilots were eating their long The dogs kept me awake every night ham rolls while a party of Moslems in Oran and so I was not sorry to opened a water-melon. In the board a little Compagnie Generale smoking room the gambling never Transatlantique paquebot called Ville ceased. I recall the officers with row d’Alger for Marseilles. It looked as upon row of ribbons; children with though most of the French troops dark faces and red hair; a man with a were leaving with me. Fine young pet chameleon that climbed over his men, most of them, wearing the cheeks. At lunch that day there was ribbon of a lost campaign. Among an entree called ramequins au the soldiers and the other passengers fromage that blended perfectly with were faces typical of almost every the vin rouge superieur. When shall I part of France’s former colonies; the taste such ramequins again? I had a little Tonkinese, the hulking negroes cabin with red silk walls decorated of Martinique, all the Africans, and with girls from the French West the unhappy pied noirs, white refug- Indies, a Josephine Baker theme. ees from Algeria, facing an uncertain And so I came to Marseilles next day future in France. with happier expectations than many of my fellow passengers on board the crowded Ville d’Alger. pipes of kilted regiments with “Zuid Afrika” on their shoulder-straps; it has echoed to the drums of the Foreign Legion. Loud and clear down the years comes the anthem that was born here, the victorious Marseillaise, the battle hymn of France. La Canebière smells mainly of the sea, for it leads into the legendary Vieux Port, the old harbour. But there is usually a touch of saffron and the CHAPTER NINETEEN aroma of crushed garlic in the air as GATEWAY TO AFRICA scores of chefs prepare the local THIS IS La Canebière, main street of bouillabaise, that artful symphony of Marseilles, the oldest street in France. the kitchen; the great Zangouste, crabs La Canebière, one of the great streets and oysters, fanged rascasse, fat red of the world and one that has known mullet, eels and mussels; all these and great personalities before and after other luscious morsels simmering Napoleon. When the exiled President with onions and bay leaves in a rich Kruger drove up from the harbour this gravy of herbs and oil. Marius, the street resounded with cries of “Mort typical humorous citizen of Marseil- aux Anglais!” It has heard the bag- les, knows how to live. Paris is perfumed and feminine. Marseilles is hemp and made the rope. Yes, it is a man’s city, redolent with baked short, but the street runs out through snails and roasted chestnuts, the Vieux Port to Africa and the brioches fresh from the bakers, all world. shot through with the rich and Marius does not dominate La satisfying tang of a thousand wine Canebière. He shares it with blanket- casks. In the Canebière the hot ed Arabs and their veiled women, breath of Africa comes up to meet Moroccan Jews, yellow Annamites the softer odours of pines and olive in dark blue, Chinese, Tonkinese, groves and the blossoms of the Malgaches; singing Italians with. terraced Riviera fields. La Canebière Accordions and brown children, is short, barely two-thirds of a mile, gypsy women in bright garments, but wide and handsome; lined with Malayans and Greeks, negroes from tall nineteenth century buildings, Africa and the Americas, other black modem shops, a huge bourse and the men from Martinique, bereted white cafe awnings with glorious Catalans, boisterous English seamen names in blue or flaming red. This on shore for a spree, Corsicans and fine lane was once a rope walk where Levantines, a human kaleidoscope. the hemp merchants bad their shops; The sing-song Provencal patois rises and the craftsmen who rigged the old above an unpredictable murmur of Mediterranean sailing ships gave La many tongues. Some of the Canebière its name. They grew the foreigners are at home in Marseilles for there are colonies of Italians and of Europe’s accursed winds. Like the Greeks, Turks and White Russians south-easter it comes out of a clear sky and even Swiss. La Canebière also and it can knock you down on the provides a horde of international pavement. It blows for half the year, quacks and fortune tellers with a mainly in winter and spring. The name living. You can find faith-healers and is really magistral, the masterly wind phrenologists, the sort of blatant that strikes Marseilles like the breath swindlers Barnum loved. All. this of an iceberg and churns up the sea to flood of humanity gives La white and dark blue. Van Gogh waited Canebière unusual animation and a for the mistral and painted a seascape seat on the terrasse of a cafe that was a masterpiece. No doubt it provides a lot for the price of your filled his teeth and eyes with dust as it café-filtre or Dubonnet. whistled round his canvas but he saw the beauty just as the lover of Cape In the Canebière you may be scorched Town understands the majesty of the by the sun at one moment and then roaring black south-easter. People frozen suddenly by the cold blast of blame the mistral for all sorts of queer the mistral, that notorious wind sweep- behaviour. It was probably the mistral ing down the Rhone valley with the that acted as the trigger factor when force of a hurricane. The mistral is the Van Gogh cut off his ear and entered a south-easter of Marseilles and Marius lunatic asylum. One man shot a taxi- pretends to be fond of it in his whim- driver who had kept him waiting and sical way. Make no mistake, it is one pleaded that the mistral had made him from Massalia to chart the coasts of nervous. Clearly the Cape southeaster Britain and West Africa. Greek coins is not such a bad wind after all. Yet of the early days are still found in the they say in Marseilles: “The sunshine city. Roman relics have also come to and the mistral set everything in light for the slum overlooking the old order.” Evidently it is their “Cape harbour was Massalia, and here a Doctor”. temple of Diana and Ephesus was revealed, Greek statuettes and a Marseilles has been called by a poet a Greek amphitheatre. triumphant blast of music, light and colour, queen of the Mediterranean, Caeser besieged Marseilles. Goths gateway to Africa and the world. and Saracens and Normans attacked Undoubtedly it is rabelaisian and the harbour. When the plague from bawdy and it has been denounced as Barbary struck the town in a swelter- the great whore of Europe, a sailor’s ing June early in the eighteenth honky-tonk harbour, a city of century thousands fled, one hundred souteneurs and harlots, the toughest thousand died; and the survivors had city west of Suez. It began as a only herbs to burn as disinfectants. Phoenician trading station because of Marseilles knew the guillotine. It has the natural harbour; and this sixty-acre always been a city of violence, one creek served the town well for twenty murder a day at some periods; and centuries. Roman colonists called the the murderers seem to prefer broad place Massalia. Explorers sailed away daylight. No one was greatly sur- prised when King Alexander of atmosphere that even the judge had Jugo-Slavia was assassinated there. to laugh. Newsreel cameramen were ready for Near the Vieux Port, behind the old it, judging by results. All France town hall, lay the worst slum in the chuckled when a gangster shot a world. It was blown up by the Nazis rival at a fireworks display; it was so in 1943, not because of the red-light delicious, such a typical Marseilles district there, but owing to the resist- crime. Italians and Corsican bandits ance movement making good use of are among the worst criminals. Some the underground passages and of the gangsters who emigrated to hiding-places of the hideous maze. Chicago and flourished there were The people were given twenty-four from the Marseilles university of hours to leave and the sudden crime. Once the organised gangs of decision caused great suffering thugs succeeded in raiding the among the innocent poor. About a central police station and destroying thousand daughters of joy moved the finger-prints and criminal over to the opera area and remained records; they wiped the slate clean in business. Twentyfour thousand and embarked on fresh careers. Here, other inhabitants went to the concen- too, a gang held up the wife of the tration camps. Marseilles was multi-millionaire Aga Khan with a heavily shelled by the Germans, but wooden pistol, another episode so . with the end of World War II came much in keeping with the Marseilles happier days. Protection racketeers have been defeated at last and rival there. “Our city shines resplendent in gangsters no longer fight it out in the its great affairs,” runs the civic motto. shuddering alleyways of the Vieux Marseilles still has its drug traffickers, Port labyrinth. The rest of France still its scandals; but the wickedness is regards Marius as a dubious character only an inevitable part of the pulsating supporting backward municipal rulers. seaport. A strange, raffish vitality rises (The drains are not beyond reproach.) above the long record of villainy, At best, Marius is looked upon as a devastating fires and other disasters. blageur, a voluble clown with an unprintable record of eccentricity. He After viewing the Marseilles kaleido- goes about his affairs with lazy scope of life you may find it restful to nonchalance, frivolous and disreput- visit the Musee des Beaux Arts in the able. Palais Longchamp. The guide books which are inclined to sneer at Marius does not care. If the climate Marseilles should pay more attention had been hotter, Marseilles might have to this gallery, one of the richest in become a lazy Naples. As things are France. Here are tapestries and Marius saunters out and does good furniture, paintings by Corot and business. Marseilles is handsome and Millet and enormous murals by Pierre prosperous. Twenty thousand ships are Puget, greatest of the Provencal artists. loaded and unloaded every year in the In the natural history museum next way shipowners admire, and two door I set eyes on the last wolf shot in million passengers land or embark the Pyrenees, a valuable addition to Olive, beyond the city limits. Away to my mental collection of rarities. the east runs the Corniche road that has carried the beat of history. Cutting Every thoroughfare in Marseilles into La Canebière is the Cours seems to make for the harbour. You Belsunce, with its plane trees like realise this to the full when you drive umbrellas, a true street of the Midi; up the steep hill to that great landmark and the Prado, that beautiful avenue for seamen, Notre Dame de la Garde. leading to the seafront and the bathing This none too lovely cathedral stands cabins. You may pick out the Rue poised over the city with its huge Saint-Ferreol, a street of luxurious gilded statue of the Virgin on the tall shops and the more expensive pastry- belfry. The city at your feet is a cooks; from here, too, you will see the jumble, a haphazard network, but it remnant of the Vieux Port slum which has a purpose - the descent from the escaped destruction, the cobbled, hills to the life-blood of the sea. From squalid passageways between the dark here you will see the soft cream and and ancient houses. grey houses rising in terraces from the old harbour; the packed streets and Marseilles is a city of strange names. flights of steps; the villas and gardens Translate the street names and you of the rich on pine-clad Roncas Blane taste the flavour of Marseilles; the hill; avenues lined with sycamores; the Boulevard of the Black Sausage vegetable gardens of the ordinary Maker, Street of the Rolling Stone, Marius and his wife (or girl friend) Octopus Lane, Champagne Avenue, Street of the Green Carpet, King of copra from the Pacific isles. France Spades Street, Question Mark Avenue. cannot slake her great thirst for wine There is also a Rue Paradis where they from her own vineyards, so here are point out the former Gestapo casks of drinkable Algerian vin headquarters. ordinaire. Wheat and rice, fats, tallow and zinc, the spices of the Orient, Observe the motor-launches called swing up from the holds of the vedettes loaded with trippers and freighters of many nations. Guide making for the white limestone islands books tell you with great candour that outside the harbour. “Départs Accéle- there are no sights in Marseilles. If rés! Retours Assurés.” That is just as you travel only in search of antiquities well, for who would desire to remain and architecture, if you follow only in on the Chateau d’If, that fort and the footsteps of the great, then the prison with its legends of the Count of guide books are almost right. Mery, Monte Cristo and the “man in the iron the Marseilles poet, declared: “There mask.” Far away to the west lies the are only two monuments here, but they Camargue, the glistening salt flats are magnificent; the sea and the sky.” alive with flamingoes. Closer in the Marseilles is my favourite harbour in west are the eight great modern basins Europe. For me, a great part of its of the Marseilles docks where the raw charm lies along the waterfront; but I materials of commerce drop on to the have also found great satisfaction in long wharves; palm oil from West the little, unexpected squares with Africa, phosphates from Morocco, their markets and plane trees and old- loved to paint. I was entranced by the fashioned tradesmen at work. London market square called Place de Lenche has been described as a collection of above the quarter destroyed during the villages. Marseilles is also a group of war. Old women are selling cherries little towns, full of contrasts. Women and flowers. “Volailles !” cry the come to the fountain and fill their market women. “Gibiers!” They offer pitchers. Washerwomen toil over the small plucked thrushes wrapped in old stone troughs while a basketmaker vine leaves; bewitching charcuterie follows the trade of his grandfather. and pates, terrines and the irresistible Each little corner has its own church, pissaladeira, that dish of onions its own herd of goats, worn flights of stewed in oil and spread on baked steps and cul-de-sacs, restaurants with bread with anchovies and black olives glimpses of turning spits and burnish- to enliven the meal. If these sights ed copper pans, kitchens sending out make you hungry, look for a “hole in the promise of a Greek pilaff or a leg the wall” bistro with marble-topped of lamb over a charcoal fire. tables and a zinc bar. The longer you Marseilles is cosmopolitan but in some hold out the more demanding becomes of these little squares you step into a the appetite. Where else do the purple true village of Provence. You find aubergines look so enthralling? How Picasso in these places; the mimosa, marvellous the fresh and tender mush- the tiles, the glazed pottery, the rooms appear on their beds of oak plastered walls, the very scenes he leaves. You can imagine dipping those purple-tinted stalks of asparagus into tomatoes and yellow lemons all lie melted butter or pouring the cream blazing under the sun. The time has over the wild strawberries. Notice the come to taste some of the special musky scent of that melon, the sweet flavours of Marseilles. promise of the peaches, the heady, Marius would probably select the juicy aromas of massed grapes. Here local pastis as an appetiser, a fairly are vivid mountains of scrubbed strong drink of the absinthe family vegetables and cheeses that the tasting of licorice. Among his favou- expert could identify blindfolded. rite wines is the greenish-white that The solid walls of meat and poultry comes from Cassis and goes so well are not so appetising; they await the with a bouillabaise lunch. At night magic of the chef, the rich brown he may choose the Marseilles “pick- transformation scene. But the hams me-up” of champagne, curacao, and sausages are worth studying. bitters and cognac. He may start with Artichokes form a tasteful monument grilled loup flavoured with fennel in green and bronze. Just think of and ablaze with brandy. His meat slicing into those russet pears, ready course may be anything from an to yield the very essence of the Algerian cous-cous to a superb beef orchard. This is more inspiring than stew Maconnaise that will set his a jeweller’s window for you can heart soaring. Of course there are afford these gems of the French few tastes which cannot be satisfied countryside. Golden plums, scarlet in Marseilles. I do not say that the Rosbif is a Simpson’s; but the Buffet sardines and hare were better than the Gastronomique will give you some bifteck pommes frites and the côte de of the finest ratatouille served on pore. Of course I went to Basso’s for this coast, that masterpiece of stewed evening drinks; to miss Basso’s would egg plant; the Taverne Charley puts be like cutting out the Cafe de la Paix on a local fish dish, Morne à la in Paris. Sit on the balcony at Basso’s Marsellaise, cod with tomatoes, and the life of Marseilles passes like a olives, onions and mushrooms; and river of colour and sound. Here is all all the North African dishes are on the unfading romance of the great the menu at the Minaret. human parade. If you care to spend the money, order something extravagant, Restaurants in Marseilles are not all caviar or smoked salmon canapes or temples of gastronomy but thanks to oysters and a halfbottle of Cordon the jolly women at the reception desk Rouge. Then the golden age of the in my Canebière hotel I never made a Cote d’Azur will return, stretching out mistake. I had the basil-flavoured all the way from Marseilles to Menton soup called pistou and the celebrated with its brilliant panorama of memo- fillet of beef at Guido, a splendid ries. two-star restaurant close to the old harbour; and I lunched often at the Basso’s provides an exquisite vista of inexpensive Monumental in the the Vieux Port, the life of the quays, Boulevard Dugommier, a place the small craft in the teeming basin. where the snails and omelettes, grilled Up to the middle of last century this landlocked harbour was the very heart odours are fried fish and tar. I watched of Marseilles and ships of all types a boisterous crew of bare-footed steered in between the stone forts of sailormen scraping the weed from an St. Jean and St. Nicolas to moor at old schooner that must have known a these quays. Cotton-laden schooners disreputable past. In the grounds of the from Dixie would land their cargoes seamen’s mission I was enthralled by alongside rum casks from the West a collection of tropical plants brought Indies, mahogany and rubber, dates there by French seamen from many a and pineapples, cork and sulphur and sweltering coast and glamorous isle. sandalwood. Now it is a safe anchor- When I first went to Marseilles the old age for yachts, fishing-boats and small harbour was spanned and overshadow- vessels. ed by the steel towers of a high bridge Ocean liners, the packet boats from and ugly transporteur. Now all that Algiers and Oran, the tankers and has gone, and it is Le Corbusier’s large freighters go to the Bassin de la block of flats that people talk about, Grande Joliette and the other docks all balconies and windows. Long ago I stretching along the coast for many saw the feluccas coming in with miles. Yet the Vieux Port has lost cargoes of Spanish oranges, but the none of its old fascination. All lateen sails of those old traders have harbours are picturesque but the Vieux given way to modern spars, brown and Port still has its fair share of rowdy white canvas against the calm blue life and dazzling colour. Here the water. If you wish to see and savour the fruits de mer at their best then this and the French were fighting their waterfront is the place, the Quai des Saharan campaigns with the aid of Belges. Eels squirm hopelessly in these brutal mercenaries, these thieves buckets of sea water. Gurnets open and vagabonds interested only in war, their supplicating mouths and weird wine and women. Fort St. Jean was the fish are set out in formidable array; depot and the recruits I saw there, everything edible from prickly sea- shabby and hungry, were certainly not urchins to lampreys, with sea horses soldiers. No doubt the Legion trans- and pipe-fish thrown in. This is the formed them, robbed them of their short, city end of the old harbour, and own wretched personalities and made it holds enough of the raw bouilla- them members of a front line army; baise material for the whole fish- made them or broke them. Two loving city. You will not fail to decades later, as I have said, I met the observe the happy, uninhibited and Legion in the Western Desert; another often attractive girls who meet the two decades passed, and I saw their boats and sell the fish. And the old headquarters at Sidi-Bel-Abbes in seagulls riding the mistral. Algeria. I thought the Legion had been disbanded; but no, at Fort St. Jean I Fort St. Jean, guarding the old har- came upon them again. Some of the bour, was filled with the drama of the old glory had departed but the Legion Foreign Legion when I first entered still marched to fife and drum and the that sombre building. Five years had song “Anne-Marie.” passed since the end of World War I Frederick Mistral, the poet of Provencal accent; this master Provence, drew much inspiration from mariner who became a master of the Marseilles. Charles Dickens found the English language. opening of his “Little Dorrit” here: Last time I left Marseilles it was by a “Marseilles lay burning in the sun.” train called Violet. Summer was Here, in the eighteen-seventies came a ending in Europe and though the city young seaman from Poland, young was no longer burning under the sun Joseph Conrad, speaking French but I felt that it was better here in the not English. Along the roaring south than in the chill and rain of waterfront of the old harbour this Paris and London. That morning I strange genius met some of those had taken my coffee and croissant in characters who appear in his books. La Canebière as usual and watched Nostromo was a Corsican seafarer the bright-eyed flower women Conrad knew. From the old harbour arranging their roses and carnations Conrad sailed to the West Indies in the kiosks. It was a moment of before the mast; at one of the Vieux sadness for I was sorry to be leaving. Port quays he helped to fit out a In the sparkling air the waiters were sailing vessel for gun-running to setting out wicker chairs and Spain. Here he met Paula, the exiled polishing cups and glasses. Unhur- Hungarian girl seeking a new home. ried men were reading the When he left Marseilles for England Meridional or Provencal while the he was still speaking French with a poor blind people wandered along with their sheets of Loterie of the Mediterranean coast, the grey Nationale tickets. At the far end of and white mountains, gay little villas the street I glimpsed the sea-glitter, with pink-tiled roofs, the suburbs of the crowded masts and spars of a Marseilles. Then I knew that I had hundred white yachts and brightly done the right thing. The arrival was painted fishing cutters. even finer than the anticipation. How much better it would be, I And now I was bound northwards thought, to be arriving at Marseilles again, leaving by the back door, now after a night in a sleeping-car leaving the riffraff of the harbour, the from Paris. I remembered hauling apache cafes, the oriental vision of out from under the glass roof of the Marseilles, the perfume and song, the Gare de Lyons at night and listening giant langoustes in their baskets of to the clicking of the rails, the seaweed, the shorn poodles and naked rumble of the tunnels, as I lay snugly sand terriers from Algeria. I was between sheets in the darkness. Once leaving this strong and redolent I raised the blind and saw a town bouillabaise city, leaving the happy winking in the darkness, the fields Mediterranean for another year. Ah under the moon, the endless rows of well, perhaps I could manage another poplar trees. In the morning there visit another year. The last I saw of were the white homesteads of the Marseilles before the train called Rhone valley and a burst of colour, Violet left St. Charles Station was the Avignon; and then the wild country gleam of Notre Dame de la Garde flashing in the sun. I could almost smell the maquis, the fragrant bush that grows on the slope where the cathedral watches over strident Marseilles and the quiet sea. CHAPTER TWENTY through the green Hampshire fields LONDON’S DOCKLAND and finally enter a frightening panorama of chimney-pots and dark- ALL the aromas and odours and ened masonry. Or there is the Straits flavours, all the cargoes you have of Dover entrance, smoked salmon known in all your harbours of memory sandwiches and gin and tonic on the can be recaptured in London’s Golden Arrow; the hops and oast- Dockland. Here on the wharves and in houses of Kent on the way to Victoria the warehouses beside the largest station. Or there is Tilbury, twenty sheets of dock water in the world you miles down the Thames from the may discover reminders of every port Tower of London; that odd, frustrating on the face of the globe. This is not point of entry when your liner often London, this is the earth. I walked has to wait for hours until the landing there often during a difficult period of stage is clear. Tilbury has been my life; a time when I learnt that the described as “England’s backdoor” claustrophobia of my lodgings could and nobody likes disembarking there. be cured by a glimpse of wider It is the sea outpost of the Port of horizons. Most of you approach London Authority, a flat and desolate London nowadays in aircraft flying spot in the marshes of the Thames high above the Thames so that you see estuary. Tilbury is all that many the enormous docks as tiny oblong travellers see of London’s Dockland. ponds. Or you may come up South- ampton Water and reach London Long ago the little Donald Currie strange and captivating names and ships took their South African memorable landmarks. Start the cruise passengers right up the river and into round dockland as many do at Tower London Docks. They were tiny, Pier in the shadow of the Tower of beautiful liners of twelve .hundred London. Here is the Pool of London. tons: the first Stirling Castle, the first Touch first at Billingsgate Market, Warwick Castle, the first Roslin where the battered fishcarriers from Castle. Shipping men called this the Dogger Bank, sloops from service the London Line to distinguish Friesland, oyster-boats, eel schuits and it from the Union Line sailing from bawleys discharge their varied Southampton. But that was a century cargoes. Strong odours here, fresh ago. Of course the Union-Castle enough at six in the morning. The intermediates were sailing out of same odours that Londoners have London in fairly recent years. Back in known at this very spot for many the nineteen-twenties, when a six- centuries. Odours of crab and shellfish thousand ton ship was large and one mingle with turbot, soles and twice that size was an ocean monarch, flounders. Hundreds of fish-porters the intermediates were among the carry trays on their strong hats of largest vessels to enter the Blackwall wood and leather. Steam comes from Basin in the Isle of Dogs. the room where lobsters are boiled. “Handsome cod! Best on the market.” Do you know the Isle of Dogs? You will never be bored at London’s waterfronts are full of Billingsgate but keep clear of the the orchid that grows in Mauritius, the fluent and uninhibited porters. In that only orchid with a commercial value, enormous warehouse you may see for it provides the flavour of vanilla. anything from a herring to a turtle. Go Such lovely oriental items as Persian early though, for it is all over at nine coffee-pots have been stored in Cutler or ten in the morning. “Had-had-had- Street since the days of the English had-haddock!” East India Company, for this was their great warehouse. Vintage wines are Most interesting of all the Port of kept here in bins. On some days ten London Authority warehouses, I thousand bottles are filled with sherry should say, is the enormous Cutler from the casks. Street store in the heart of the City. If you enjoy gazing upon luxuries this is St. Katharine’s is the first of London’s the place. Persian carpets, made to last docks; the greatest docks in the world, for centuries, are guarded under this stretching from the Pool along the roof; Satsuma porcelain from Japan Thames reaches to Tilbury. British and Chinese blue and white; Havana coasters and small continental and Jamaica cigars by the million; steamers come to rest in the cosy St. tragacanth and gums for pharmacists; Katharine’s basins. In the warehouses the resin called dragon’s blood, you will find rare and romantic cochineal and ambergris. Cutler Street merchandise from much further afield. can show you figures in carved ivory There I saw mammoth tusks from and lacquer cabinets. Here is vanilloes, Siberia, brittle tusks dug up after thousands of years in the frozen soil of cockroaches love champagne corks; Siberia; the enormous curved tusks hence the heavy protective foil. known in the trade as fossil ivory. “Cockroaches will tackle a sailor’s They formed a strong contrast with the feet as he lies in his bunk”, added my scrivelloes from Dar-es-Salaam on the informant. “Only when he’s drunk, of same floor. Then I walked up to the course.” You can see pools of spice floor, redolent with cinnamon quicksilver at St. Katharine’s, coffee and nutmegs, cloves and cassia. Here and cocoa, wool and rubber and were expensive perfumes, too, extracts tortoiseshell. Bags of ginger from of flowers mixed with fat. But the Calcutta arrive here; star aniseed and heady aromas that filled me with a musk. Bales and cases bear the strange blend of nostalgia and bewildering weights and measures of satisfaction came to me in the old wine foreign countries: Turkish pikes, and brandy vaults. Among the Swedish kappars, Danish toenders and puncheons and rotund hogsheads I Spanish varras. With the choking drew in the breath of distant vineyards London fog outside you may dwell for and imagined myself in Constantia a space among the riches of the tropics again. They told me the water I saw in and the trade goods from Arctic lands. low troughs was for the rats. “They Cross the river to Surrey Commercial must have a daily water ration or Docks and you smell at once the fir, they’ll gnaw into the casks”, said one spruce and pine from Canada (and of my guides. I also heard that possibly that country’s cheese and bacon); softwoods from the Baltic When I first knew Limehouse there floating in acres of timber ponds. This were opium dens, too, and the is the oldest of London’s docks and jibbooms of sailing ships rose over the the only group to the south of the dockyard walls and pointed into the river. Lady Dock was well filled with windows opposite; but that Limehouse windjammers when I first roamed has vanished and so have the lime- there. Among the taverns was one kilns. In the West India Docks of that called “Cape of Good Hope”. neighbourhood you are in a world of hardwoods from African forests, teak Return to the north bank and follow from the East; grain and nitrates; the great bend where the Thames drums of figs and dates in mat baskets; flows round the crowded peninsula I a vivid world where rum comes on have mentioned, the Isle of Dogs. shore at Rum Quay. (Some say the royal kennels were once placed there but no one really knows.) When I returned to London year after Limehouse Reach, Greenwich Reach year with seldom a break I return to a and Blackwall Reach are the starting point. There it is possible to waterways that lap the “isle”. Lime- revive one’s youth. I can see horse- house retains some of its old-fashioned buses and vanished fleets. In the docks houses with bow-windows, flower- I stare at the ships of today and find boxes on overhanging balconies, the ships and cargoes of yesterday gabled buildings, alleys that once were moving back across the screen of lined with sail-lofts and rigging-lofts. memory. Those dockland scenes and aromas recall almost every harbour I and the shriek of wheeled traffic. Look have entered during my wandering into a piece of Murano glass and you years; a disorderly kaleidoscope of may glimpse again the glories of those impressions from attics of the brain low, enchanted islands. And you may which seemed to have been locked for hear again the calls of the gondoliers: ever. “De longo ! Premi ! Scia !” It was a case of glassware bearing the Now here is a mahogany log with an name of Murano that brought Venice iron ring driven into one end. “Heave before my eyes again. That is not a up there!” I can see the coast of West city one forgets, of course, for it is Africa as twelve tons of timber move different from any other harbour just into mid-air. West Africa from the as its gondolas are different from any lagoons of Grand Bassam to the other harbour craft. Venice, the serene thirteen thousand feet peak of Mount beauty of the lagoon, the old city Cameroon. French exiles designed gradually sinking into the water; these buildings that might have been trans- are as memorable as the cries of the planted from Normandy. On the slopes gondoliers. “Oleo! Hey! Hey!” But it of Cameroon the Germans built a is a quiet city. You can hear the water Gouverneurshaus like a schloss, an licking the houses and some say they African castle of stone with the year do not like the smell of the canals. I 1899 on the massive iron gateway. But am ready to overlook that slight aroma my favourite castles are those because of the absence of car hooters strongholds built along the Gold Coast by white adventurers long ago; those desert. The aroma of turmeric was lost white castles with ramparts and black now in the less pleasing odour of dried cannon, so full of ghosts. fish from a bullock cart. Dinner that night was better than I had expected. I am on the wharf beside a Bullard Over charcoal fires the Goanese King steamer and there comes on the cooks had done boiled fish, kebabs, wind a whiff of turmeric. This is the chicken patties, roast mutton, stuffed borrie of Cape kitchens but for some tomatoes and a cheese souffle. The elusive reason it reminds me of the hotel manager told me that I could red-hot radiator called Aden; a night in have a bath in condensed sea-water; a spice shop down an alley in the the rainfall at Aden was one-fifth of harbour town known as Steamer Point. an inch a year. A queer settlement, The old town, the real Aden, is miles this Steamer Point; the statue of away inside the volcanic crater. They Queen Victoria and all the Victorian told me the torture would be more buildings in the Crescent were built severe when the south-west monsoon at the same time when this rocky, died down. White people lived above undesirable harbour suddenly their stores and offices at Steamer became an important coaling station. Point and had their meals on wide After dinner the hotel porter invited balconies in those days before air- me to visit the mermaids and assured conditioning. I sat on a verandah under me they were genuine. Well, they the punkah and watched the dusty were genuine dugongs, those ugly camel caravans arriving from the sea creatures with mammalian where the shipowners and merchant breasts. Aden sends dugongs to the princes of Hamburg lived, the men museums of the world. Visitors tired who traded with the world. I found long ago of stuffed dugongs present- that the bürgerlich comfort of other ed as mermaids so the ingenious days had been restored. In the Arabs now display live girls with restaurants of the glittering Jungfern- mermaid tails; good swimmers with steig they were serving the tradi- slim figures. I shall not return to tional eel soup blended with pears Aden for that performance. The and red wine, peas and bay leaves brilliant yellow powder called and dumplings. The old Alster still turmeric has given me all of Aden gleamed like an enormous diamond that I wish to see. in the heart of the city. Hamburg’s network of canals and basins were In the Pool of London, flying the flag still there. And along the Reeper- of Western Germany, there is a bahn, of course, the licentious caba- coaster from a port as old as London. rets were in full swing and the She is a Hamburg ship with beer and seamen of all nations were frolicking cigars in her holds. Hamburg, that with the wilde tauben, the girls of the ancient harbour which I saw between quarter. the wars and also after the war that shattered so much of the city. Many Oranges are coming out of a small old buildings round the Binnen French steamer, oranges for London’s Alster had escaped, gabled houses barrow-boys, oranges with Beirut markings. Somewhere I found Beirut fires of camel-dung, past barleyfields, described as a voluptuous courtesan, up towards the cool crests of the standing beside the Mediterranean Lebanon while the cruisers in Beirut with a toss of her curls and a flounce bay dwindled. Then I gazed upon a of her skirts, a Carmen among the different Beirut, the low-roofed, red- cities. I was at Beirut in wartime and tiled houses, the banana groves, the the tiny aerodrome interested me far multi-coloured blossoms, the forts more than the harbour. Would my built by the Arabs against the pilot land successfully? The aero- Crusaders, the curves of the bay. drome sloped towards the sea and I Beirut may be a courtesan but I thought my chances of escaping from remember the oranges. the observer’s seat in the nose would Once I watched an Italian freighter be very poor indeed if he crashed in from Naples discharging her cargo of the water. Under such conditions one wine and olives, cotton and hemp in cannot bother about courtesans. St. Katharine’s Dock. I reached Naples However, there were days when I was by the new Autostrada del Sol from able to look down on Beirut from Rome, the highway that follows the another angle. I drove up the mountain ancient Via Casilina through the road that leads to Damascus, the plains. I was saddened in Naples by breathless road to the heights. Up past the Scugnizzi, the thousands of market gardens, past groves of homeless boys and girls, orphans or oranges, past Bedouin shepherds and illegitimate children. They sleep in caves and exist like abandoned ers of vastly different temperaments animals, stealing food in the markets have settled on Capri and found it and fields. Thousands of them, proba- the most satisfying isle on earth. bly more than forty thousand. And So now you will understand why I dirty, poverty-stricken Naples has always go back to the East End of never solved the problem. Capri came London and the docks. The land- as a relief. I saw passengers carried on scape altered during the war but shore from the aerofoil at Marina famous landmarks remain. I know Grande; seasick passengers laid out on the stairs and the piers. Cherry the stone wharf to recover. This was a Garden Pier, Golden Anchor Stairs, side of the Capri picture I had not Wapping Old Stairs and the sinister imagined. I must also warn you that Execution Dock. I smell whale oil the Blue Grotto may become an ordeal and Stockholm tar. Near the Ratcliff in rough weather. You go in through a Highway I saunter unmolested along short tunnel, lying flat and cramped Tiger Bay, feared by old-time in your boat. I would not like to be sailormen because of the human trapped in that sea-cave with the tigers lurking there. In the docks waves beating against the tiny called “the Royals”, those enormous entrance. But you can forget such docks at Woolwich named after hardships when you walk through the Victoria. Albert and George V, I high lanes of Capri and smell the renew acquaintance with ocean liners flowers. No wonder so many foreign- I have seen before in many far have crossed the Atlantic under sail. harbours. Two barges sailed unescorted from Britain to Table Bay before World One great spectacle I never tired of War I, loaded with Swedish bricks watching long ago was the fleet of used in building the present port Thames barges, the sailing barges. office. Seagoing barges left the Pool No longer are their huge red-brown building London for the North Sea mainsails seen in Bugsby’s Reach and Channel ports and rode out and Gallions Reach though the fiery storms with decks awash. I admired language used by their skippers has the way their skippers handled them not become a forgotten tongue. Old in the thronged Thames reaches. You prints, some made in the eighteenth- might not think a barge was a handy century, reveal barges almost identi- craft with her towering mast, hull cal in design with those I used to length of eighty feet, flat bottom and watch in the nineteen-twenties and leeboards. Yet each barge was handled long afterwards. One that was by one man and a boy, often the pointed out to me, the Favorite, skipper and his son. Fore-and-aft rig owned by a cement firm, had been was a help. The mainmast was stepped launched in the very early years of well for’ard and a long diagonal spar last century; she was still trading called the sprit ran up to the peak of along the coast of England as far as the boomless mainsail. This design Newcastle-on-Tyne. Thames barges allowed the mainsail to be brailed up were not fair weather craft. Barges in a trice, a great advantage when Walk out of the West India Dock and tacking in and out of the shipping. there at the gates is a public house Skippers knew the river intimately, of known to generations of seafaring course, the tide in midstream, the slack men. This is not one of London’s water inshore; they showed tremen- historic waterfront inns like the dous skill in taking in sail and losing Prospect of Whitby or the Grapes. It is way at the right moment. They carried a late nineteenth-century pub with enormous loads and often the helms- atmosphere, the famous Charlie man might be seen perched on a bale Brown’s. Officially it is the Railway of hay with the rudder far below him. Tavern but although Charlie Brown Leeboards steadied a barge. Some died nearly forty years ago the pub is carried two hundred tons of cargo. In a still known by the name of this strong race a Thames barge reached a top and memorable personality. speed of fourteen knots. Early this Charlie Brown took over the pub early century there were two thousand this century after an unhappy spell at barges trading on the Thames; when sea. Many seamen will assure you that World War II opened there were still it is better to be guv’nor of a pub than six hundred; now there are just a few master of a ship. Charlie Brown liked good specimens preserved as museum seafarers but not seafaring, and pieces or owned by yachtsmen who seafarers liked him. It became the know their fine points and how to custom to bring something home for handle them. Charlie Brown’s pub; anything from a whangee walking stick from Japan to a pub fare in his dining-room upstairs. stuffed sunfish. As the years passed This room has a curved wooden roof Charlie Brown’s pub became a designed to fit the arch of the railway museum; the sort of museum that bridge overhead. Some customers made scientists wince. Not only were stuck to the familiar “cut off the there genuine snakes and other joint, cab, pots.” Others would order animals in bottles; the uncritical, such deep sea delicacies as slum- triumphant seamen also carried to gullion or “cheesy-hammy-eggy- Charlie Brown all manner of topside”. In the bar Charlie Brown monstrosities and fakes. Mermaids was equally versatile and he claimed arrived to adorn walls already that he could produce any sort of festooned with opium pipes and drink from a “Bombay oyster” to Chinese gods. The drums of Africa “Nelson’s blood”. A short and hung beside Red Indian tomahawks. powerful man was Charlie Brown. Here, too, was the gay heraldry of He was generous and so trustworthy the sea; all the house flags from Blue that seamen who suspected that Funnel to Clan, the national flags of tigers were stalking them gave him Swenskers and Greeks, the ensign of their pay to put in his safe. Charlie the “curry and rice navy” and the Brown rode round Poplar on a white Cunard “monkey and the nut”. horse in the days before life became difficult for East End horsemen. He Charlie Brown served many exotic was a man of good taste, preferring items besides the ordinary English Ming vases, Dresden china, ivory guv’nor and his tough assistants did and bronze to the phantasmagoria in not have to leap over the bar to deal the bar. However, he did not wish to with knives or fists. But the seafarers offend his customers and so he still greatly outnumbered the other accepted each new bottled horror visitors. Marine engineers still with exclamations of delight. He demanded their “wee drappies”. The kept his own collection in a private conversation ranged from the judies of sitting-room. San Francisco to the rats of Rangoon. Men were still coming in from the sea In the days of Charlie Brown the rich with their memories to find tavern was known as “the friendliest inspiration in brown ale. pub in London”. You might have met film stars there; Douglas Fairbanks Beyond the lights and music of and Mary Pickford were both won Charlie Brown’s lie the exciting over by the atmosphere. But always suburbs of Limehouse and Poplar. there were the seamen and their Many seamen never get further than lively Cockney girl friends. They Charlie Brown’s; but on a memorable danced to an automatic piano but Saturday night about forty years ago I when I put in there not long ago a left that seductive pub in company juke-box had been provided and with the three mates of the S.S. there was a sprinkling of sightseers Roumelian and rolled up into Poplar from the West End. It was a little more High Street. Seven beers were about sedate, perhaps, in the sense that the my limit in those days and at Charlie’s I had taken all seven. Here I should market. “Eiderdowns!” he shouted. “If explain that I had joined the ye don’t buy one may yeer bed fall in Roumelian expecting to sail that day and may ye drown in the po under it.” for South Africa. However, the little Cheerful, vulgar songs drifted out of Roumelian had been delayed and here the pubs, cut through sometimes by I was with this one last rapturous night harsh police whistles and the sound of to spend in London’s Dockland. heavy boots. I saw the muffin man and heard his bell. I could have bought a Poplar had lost its poplar trees but it blackbird or a linnet in a cage. In a had a blue-clad Chinese colony near Limehouse street a monkey dressed as Charlie Brown’s and in those days the a sailor was dancing to the merry men wore pigtails. It was a fine night. jangle of a barrel-organ. No top hats or Women stood drinking on the pave- evening-dress here. This was the land ments and sometimes they tore at each of corduroy trousers, fringed shawls other’s hair. The streets were noisy of the coster women, Arabs, negroes, rivers of humanity lined with food Finns and lascars. Baskets of flowers stalls and the flaring braziers of were to be seen but the aroma of fish chestnut sellers. Pig-trotters and and chips was more noticeable and whelks might be more in evidence the strong reek of horseflesh was still here than the elegant refreshments abroad in the land. Oh, it was untidy, offered in the West End; but after there were dark courtyards that made seven beers this was life. I remember a me shudder and besides the scents of man selling eiderdowns at a street oranges there were warm bodies and drains. Yet these streets tingled, this was life and tomorrow I would be at sea. At sea, bound for those harbours that have now become my harbours of memory. THE END INDEX

The index below is as it was in the original paper book but in this e-book the page numbers have all changed and have therefore been removed. Otherwise the original index is left unchanged to display the author’s choice and readers should use their program’s search facility to locate the item. Aloes Frank Brownlee Amstel River Buffalo River Arab dhows Buitengracht Dr. E. Axelson Buitenkant

H.M.S. Badger Cairo Dr. S. Bailey Cambrian Hotel Band Square Canton (whaler) Barbary apes (Gibraltar) Cape Hermes Cape St. Blaize Barges (Thames) Cape Spartel Beira Cargoes Billy Biddlecombe Caves (Gibraltar) Bree Street Charlie Brown's pub Brewers Clan Line Brighton (Ketch) Clock Tower Cock, William Executions (naval) Cock's Castle Congo steamers Fez Col. F. H. P. Creswell Fireman's Arms Sir Walter Currie G. K. Forbes Fort Knokke Dar es Salaam Rev. T. E. Fuller George De Lacy Diana (sloop) Gallows Hill E. P. Dimbleby General Botha (trainingship) Dock Rd. (Cape Town) R. O. Gericke Dragon's Blood Gibraltar Prof. M. R. Drennan Adm. Golovnin Durban Great Eastern bar H.M.S. Dwarf Sampson Dyer Haaibaai Dyer's Island Hamburg Hotel Hansa Hotel East London Hansom-cabs Siven Erasmus Jacob Hartensz Europa Point W. H. Hinton Execution Rock Horses Mrs. M. Hurter London docks Lourenco Marques Inland waterways Innisfallen (cutter) Magicians Isle of Dogs Malays (Simonstown) Ivory Bakaar Manuel Marseilles Jaggery Cdr. Z. Marsh Lt.-Col. H. L. Jones Mauritius Josephine (whaler) "Mauritius fever" R.M.S. Kinfauns Castle Mazeppa Bay Kleinberg farm Mechau St. Kowie River Mincio (barque) Thomas Morgan La Canèbiere Mossel Bay Dr. Landsberg Mozambique Island Dr. R. Lawson Martin Leendertz A. L. Napper Leopards New Somerset Hospital Le Réduit Nile steamers Liesbeek River Limerick pub Oran Orange River Capt. F. B. Renouf Oysters Rentzkie's Farm Robben Island Paarden Eiland Rogge Bay Palace Barracks Royal Navy Hotel Pandora (yacht) Rua Major Araujo Papendorp Parrots Salt River E. G. Pells San Sebastian fort Kate Pigot Santos Beach Point Rd. (Durban) Sardine run Pondoland Dolfie Scharfscheer Pool of London Seal Island (Mossel Bay) Port Alfred Sharks (Simon's Bay) Port Elizabeth Mick Sheehan Port Louis Ship Hotel Port St. John's Siciliaa bar Post Office Tree (Mossel Bay) Signal Hill Protea Bar Simonstown Skeletons H.M.S. Raleigh Smallpox Redhill J. O. Smith Star Hotel Whaling (False Bay) Bob Stephens Wharf Square Wheelwrights Tamarinds Wild Coast Tangier Josephus Winter John Thorburn Woodstock Maj. R. Thornton Wreck relics Trixie (barmaid) Tunnels (Castle) Ysterplaat Yves de Kerguelen (barquentine) S.S. Umgeni Umzimvubu Zambesi steamers

Vaal River Ziekestraat

Walvis Bay S.S. Waratah David Wasserfall Waterkant St. Jacob Watermeyer Edward Wearin Whaling (Algoa Bay) LONDON "TIMES": "Affection for his out-of-the-way places is the secret of Mr. Green's success.... To each he brings much personal knowledge and the happiest knack of gathering information." "ILLUSTRATED LONDON NEWS": "Mr. Green is a good observer. He tells his readers he is lazy. He is not, but he fills them with a lovely sense of the hot, timeless laziness to be enjoyed among his Islands." "THE TIMES LITERARY SUPPLE- LAWRENCE GREEN continues to build MENT": "That tireless traveller of up an international reputation. Many unfrequented sea-lanes has strung of the finest British and American together a necklace of islands which magazines have published his stories, will lend enchantment to many a his books have appeared in London northern escapologist's winter and New York, and his work has been discontent ... And yet this is not translated into many languages. Here merely a surface and sentimental are some recent overseas opinions of portrait of the world's least trampled his books: parts. It is rather reminiscent of one of those quiet provincial museums where the noise of traffic dies suddenly away, and one finds oneself face to face with the longer vista of man's development, his adaptability and, stretching farther back, with the dilem- mas of evolution."