THE NATAL SOCIETY OFFICE BEARERS 1997

President
Vice-Presidents
Trustees
Treasurers
Auditors
Director
Assistant Director and
Secretary to the Council
M.le. Daly
Dr F.C. Friedlander
TB. Frost
S.N. Roberts
M.le. Daly
A.B. Burnett
S. N. Roberts
KPMG
Messrs Thomton-Dibb,
Van der Leeuw and Partners
Mrs S.S. Wallis
le. Morrison
COUNCIL
Elected Members MJ.C. Daly (Chairman)
S.N. Roberts (Vice Chairman)
Professor A.M. Barrett
A.B. Bumett
lH. Conyngham
1.M. Deane
T.B. Frost
Professor W.R. Guest
Professor A. Kaniki
H.Mbambo
Mrs S. Msomi
Mr::; TE. Radebe
Mrs J. Rosenberg
A.L. Singh
Ms P.A. Stabbins
Transitional Local Council Professor e.O. Gardner
Representatives N.S. Madlala
E. O. Msimang
EDITORIAL COMMITTEE OF NATALIA
Co-editors 1.M. Deane and TB. Frost
Dr W.H. Bizley
M.H. Comrie
Professor W.R. Guest
Dr D. Herbert
F.E. Prins
Mrs S.P.M. Spencer
Dr S. Vietzen
Secretary DJ. Buckley
Natalia 27 (1997) Copyright Natal Society Foundation 2010
Natalia
Journal ofthe Natal Society
No.27 December 1997
Published by Natal Society Library
P.o.Box 415, Piet.ermaritzburg 3200, South Africa
SA ISSN 0085-3674
Cover Picture
Vasco da Gama and Adamastor (Illustration from an
1880 edition ofCamoens's The Lusiads)
H] am that mighty hidden cape, called by you Portuguese the Cape of
Storms ... This promontory of mine, jutting out towards the South Pole,
marks the southern extremity of Africa. Until now it has remained
unknown: your daring offends it deeply. Adamastor is my name ... "
Canto 5 (W.e. Atkinson's 1952 translation)
Typeset by M.J. Marwick
Printed by The Natal Witness Printing andPublishing Company (Pty) Lld
Contents
Page
EDITORIAL ................................................ 5
UNPUBLISHED PIECE
Catherine Portsmouth's letter
Shelagh Spencer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . 6
ARTICLES
Vasco da Gama and the naming of Natal
Brian Stuckenberg .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
What Da Gama missed on his way to Sofala
illobane: a new perspective
Scratching out one's days
Gavin Whitelaw . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
Huw Jones . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
Adrian Koopman ........................................ 69
OBITUARIES
Dennis Gower Fannin .. . . . . .. . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. .. . . . . .. .. . 92
Philip Rudolf Theodorus Nel ............................. 93
Gerhardus Adriaan ('Horace') RaIl ....................... 94
Nicholas Arthur Steele ... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
Auret van Heerden . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
NOTES AND QUERIES 101
BOOK REVIEWS ..... . 117
SELECT LIST OF RECENT
KWAZULU-NAT AL PUBLICATIONS 128
NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130
16th Century navigators using the nautical astrolabe and cross-staff.
(Illustration in the Warhaftig Historia, Magdeburg, 1557)
Editorial
It would be unthinkable for a journal named Natalia, with the remit that it has, not
to note the special significance of this issue's publication date. December 1997
marks the 500th anniversary of Vasco da Gama' s voyage up the south east Mrican
coast on his way to India. His naming of Terra de Natal on Christmas Day 1497 is
taken as the beginning of European contact with this part of the continent.
For years there has been doubt as to whether Natal is in fact the 'Christmas
Land' seen by Da Gama. Professor Eric A'{elson's researches led him to believe that
on Christmas Day 1497 Da Gama's three ships - the San Gabriel, the San Raphael
and the Berrio - were probably much further south, off the coast ofPondoland.
In this issue we publish the results of Dr Brian Stuckenberg's reconsideration of
the evidence, his conclusion being that the Portuguese flotilla was indeed in 'Natal
waters' when the historic naming took place. There is also an article by Gavin
Whitelaw discussing the people, social organisation and occupations Da Gama
would have encountered if he had landed and explored the country he had named.
The Anglo-Zulu War of 1879 continues to attract the attention of scholars, and
Huw Jones has provided an article which casts fresh ligllt on the Battle of Hlobane,
where Wood's forces suffered a serious reverse on 28 March 1879, prior to the
victory at Khambula. Anticipating the approaching Anglo-Boer War centenary, we
carry a previously unpublished letter by a very ordinary Englishwoman, Catherine
Portsmouth, who had the misfortune to be living near Van Reenen's Pass when
hostilities broke out in 1899. She and her family found themselves virtually at the
point of contact between the British and Boer forces.
After the old Burger Street Prison in Pietermaritzburg was decommissioned, and
before the buildings were repainted for their new use, two students in the
university's Department of Zulu studied the graffiti left by prisoners on cell walls.
Adrian Koopman has turned these observations and notes into an interesting account of
the attitudes and experiences of prisoners in recent years in that grim old place.
Notes and Queries continues to provide items of interest. Readers of Natalia are
invited to contribute short pieces appropriate to this section, or respond to items that
appear in it. The usual obituaries, book reviews and select list of recent KwaZulu
Natal publications complete the contents of this edition.
Together with the order form for Natalia 28, readers will find infomlation about
back numbers of the journal that are still available - some at really give-away
prices. This is an opportunity for subscribers of more recent date to acquire an
almost complete set of Natalia, going back to its first issue in 1971.
lM. DEANE
Catherine Portsmouth sletter
to herfamily in England, about her experiences during the
first 6 Inonths of'the Second Anglo-Boer War
Background
Catherine Portsmouth (1846-1933), bom Matthews, was the widow of Job Portsmouth
(1845-1895), who was bom in Basingstoke, Hampshire, while Catherine's birthplace was
nearby Rotherwick. Portsmouth arrived in Natal in 1874. He established a store and
forwarding agency at Good Hope, one mile south of what came to be lyford, and also a
stable for post-cart horses. Later he purchased 103 acres of the fanu Wagtenbeetjes Kop. This
was named Wyford, after the farm Wyeford, near the village of Sherbome St John, north of
Basingstoke, where Catherine had lived.
Catherine landed in Durban in December 1878 and the two were married in January 1879
after an eleven-year courtship. At first they lived in two wood-and-iron rooms behind the
store and stable, with an outdoor kitchen. In 1882 the substantial store and residence were
completed.
Four children were bom to the couple, viz. William (1881-1958), Elizabeth (1883
1887), Henry (bom 1885) and Catherine Dorothy (the 'Kittywee' of the letter, who was bom
in 1888).
Astride the road from Ladysmith to the Free State, as it was, the UnderberglGood
HopelWyford area almost constituted a village. (This Underberg should not be confused with
the present village of that name in the Southem Drakensberg.) Post-carts passed each way
daily, and for eight months of the year numerous wagons lumbered through, averaging 3 000
a month. Besides the Portsmouths' store and post-cart stage, there was the Good Hope Hotel,
a boarding-house, two blacksmith shops, a police station (with a staff of 10 to 15), a customs
house and a sheep-dipping officer. All this changed with the opening of the railway line to
the Free State border in 1891. The boarding-house and the smithies closed, the police station
was moved half-way up the pass, while the customs house was relocated at the village of Van
Reenen, seven miles away.
When the Second Anglo-Boer War broke out, the Portsmouth household consisted of
Catherine and her ten-year-old daughter, Richard Kermode (Dick) Sansbury (1869-1958),
the store manager, his two sisters Essie and Lilian, a guest, Jack and Mr Smith who
worked in the store. The Portsmouth sons, William and Henry, were in Durban, William
working, and Henry at school.
Once the of Ladysmith was lifted Mrs Portsmouth went to Durban to see her sons.
All the Portsmouths retumed to Wyford in June 1900. Their existence in a 'no man's
land' between the Boers and the British ended in August, when the latter occupied the
village of Van Reenen. Despite Mrs Portsmouth's efforts to remain on her property, the
tamily was evacuated in July 1901, orders having been given for the removal of all residing
within twenty miles of the border.
Natalia 27 (1997), S. Spencer pp. 6-18
7 Catherine Portsmouth's letter
A tew months later, in October, tUrther troubles a111icted the tamily. Henry Portsmouth,
Dick Sansbury and two others were arrested for high treason, accused of having provided the
Boer forces with supplies. Fortunately they were acquitted in April 1902, there being no
evidence to support the charge.
In June 1902 the family retumed to Wvford, where, in Henry's words, they had to 'start
a1resh trom rock-bottom to build it up as a prosperous fann and store and to rc-establish the
home' The British had been using the property as a remount depot and veterinary hospital.
Both Job and Catherine Portsmouth arc buried at Wyford.
Much of the above Portsmouth intormation is taken from a record \\Titten atler 1960 by
Henry Portsmouth, before the farm passed out ofthe family.
The copy of the letter used for publication is a typewritten precis of Mrs Portsmouth's
diary. The latter was written in an exercise book, and was in existence up to the begitming of
the Second World War, when it was lent to friends and never returned. There are anomalies
in the spelling of Dutch names. Mrs Portsmouth could have been responsible for some, e.g.
Pretorias for Pretorius and Coetze for Coetzee, but van Roya/van Royer instead of van
Rooyen, and Bylor for Byloo, vander Lure/van der Leeman for van der Leeuw, and Rinsloo
instead of Prinsloo might have occurred in the original transcription.
The editor would like to thank Mr Alan Povall of Hillcrest, Natal, for lending the copy of
the letter and Henry Portsmouth's notes, and to Mr and Mrs Hubert EltIers of St Albans,
Hertfordshire, for giving pennission for publication. Mrs Shirley Elffers is the daughter of
Henry Portsmouth.
Mrs Portsmouth's grammar and punctuation have been len unchanged.
Underberg, Natal
South Africa.
Nov. 19th, 1899.
To my beloved friends in the old country; who will be interested to read the
experiences of the little party in the Underberg home, during the terrible war
between the Dutch and English, and of our share in all that was so painful, from
October 11th till March 23rd 1900.
My letter expressed some of the fears which filled our hearts, but I purposely
refrained from stating that there was a possibility of our being in danger here, being
so near to the Free State border. In all the up country districts every home (with few
exceptions) was left; the inmates going down nearer the coast. I was advised to do
so. for weeks this was a matter of special prayer to be guided rightly and I believe
and still believe. I was led to stay here, and as my story is told I think my dear
friends will think so too.
My last letters to the dear ones at Rose Hill and to Hursted were written on the
11th and 12th of October - just as the Boers were massed at Van Reenen. We sent
a Kafir boy, at some risk, through to Ladysmith with letters. He broUgllt back a few,
and we were told that all letters for the upper districts were to be held at the GPO,
Maritzburg (what a pile must be there for us). Cousin Mary's of Sept. 22nd I
received on Oct. 19th. The two letters from my boys which I looked for did not
come, neither did Lillie get any from Mr Chapman I.
On the 12th and 13th of Oct. the Boers could be seen at the very top of the
mountains round the Berg and with a field glass we could see them facing their big
guns.
8 Catherine Portsmouth's letter
Saturday 14th, a day, the close of which will ever stand out as the most terrible
of all to us. In the morning Mrs W Scott
2
came over begging us to find some way for
her to get into Ladysmith, she was in a great state of fear and excitement. Dick and I
talked it over and decided to let her have the waggon, and start that afternoon, it
was a risk we knew. All was bustle and confusion, and in the midst of it all, a
gentleman drove into the yard with a lady n u r s e ~ the lady nurse had been attending
a case in Harrismith, and was wanting to get through to Natal (Durban really)
before hostilities commenced. The gentleman had been kind enough to offer to get
her down as far as Underberg. She went on in the waggon with Mrs Scott. The
gentleman was Mr Meiring
3
, the head of the Free State Customs, he was well
known to the Sansburys in Harrismith, and to Mr Fraser. In Bloemfontien they met
as friends. After the waggon had started Mr Meiring said to me, 'Mrs Portsmouth
my horses have come all the way from Harrismith and are pretty well knocked up,
will you hire me a pair to go up the Berg?' I said at once, 'Is it safe?' and he replied
with great dignity, 'perfectly safe. I will see your horses safely returned with
whoever takes mine up.' Then I appealed to Dick, who also said, 'It is alright (sic)
with Mr Meiring.' Mr Fraser offered to take the horses up. My two horses were put
into the spider, and then it was found that Mr Meiring's were not riding horses and
so could not be ridden up the Berg. At last Dick took them in hand and drove them
up before him. Mr Fraser was with him. I was in the kitchen preparing food for
some refugees who had come through from Harrismith. Some time after Mr Fraser
returned saying, 'Dick insisted on going himself as the horses were such a trouble.'
Seven o'clock and no Dick, eight o'clock and then we began to fear. Another
hour told us plainly something was wrong. Oh! what a night that was and the next
day (Sunday) it was terrible. We slept that night from pure exhaustion of body and
spirit, then the awakening Monday morning [October 16th] to the agony of it all, to
what it meant to poor Dick and ourselves. I think in my heart I said, 'God has
forsaken me.' I thank him the darkness did not last long. The morning hours passed
away, about twelve 0' clock we saw on one of the distant hills a commando of Boers
moving along, and an hour and a half later they passed our home. We saw them
coming, and thought it best to shew ourselves. Mr Fraser and Mr Smith
4
went on to
the verandah in front of the store, Essie, Lillie and I, with Kittywee clinging to me,
stood by the open dining room window. The Boers, a rough low looking lot of men,
all armed, about 50 in number, halted outside the gates. We waited scarcely
wondering, hardly feeling. Then Mr Fraser walked boldly down to them, asked if
they wished to come in, they said no, and began to move on at once. When they had
all passed and we knew we were safe for that time, the reaction from the strain
came. Poor Kittywee burst into tears, and the girls and I were very shaky. Mr Byloo5
came back from his dinner, just as the last were passing, and he hurried to enquire
for 'Mr Sansbury,' one answered, 'Oh yes, we have him a prisoner, and he is being
sent to Harrismith.' The poor Kaffirs all ran into the bushes near to hide, and stayed
till the Boers were at a safe distnce. A little later a message came from our
neighbours the Pretoriuses
6
to tell me the Field Cornet was coming to see me. In a
few minutes he was here. I went into the dining room to him, he rose and said, 'Mrs
Portsmouth I believe, I am Field Comet van Rooyen and I have called to tell you
that you will be perfectly safe here, so long as you stay quietly in your home and
9 Catherine Port.smouth's letter
remain perfectly neutral. You will not be interfered with. our men will receive
orders not to touch you or destroy your property or anything belonging to you.' Then
we enquired about Dick, and I told him exactly how he had come to be up the Berg,
he listened. and said he was sorry for us, but we might rest assured that he was quite
safe. We pleaded for his release. this he gave no hope of till the war was over, but
that would not be long he said. He was very angry with Mr Meiring and said he had
no authority to take an Englishman into the Laager
7
and he too had been arrested.
He gave me permission to write to Dick an open letter, and he took it and promised
it should be delivered, which it was, but Dick was not allowed to write to us. They
tried to suspect him of being a spy. WelL we were thankful for so much mercy
vouchsafed to us that day, some of the burden was lifted from our hearts, and to me
there was a sweet thought that my staying here had saved this dear home from being
ruined. Perhaps my boys will value it all the more ,,,hen they understand at what a
cost it was saved. How good for us that we can only see a step before us.
INovember] 23rd. Before I go on with the history of the days succeeding those of
which I have written. I must tell of the great joy which came to us yesterday, 22nd.
Dick came back to us safe and well, his return was a direct answer to prayer. Oh
what a day it was to us, I shall be able to write quite differently now, because my
heart is brimming over with thankfulness.
Our friends the Bloys8 left their home on - of Oct.
9
, they are just on the border,
it seemed wiser to do so, more so, because Mr Bloy is a very strong politician, and
was well knmvn and intensely hated by his Dutch neigllbours. How sad they were
over leaving their home and all the work of years, not knowing how or when they
migllt return. It was well for them they left that day. Mrs Bloy and her daugllters
went by train Monday morning. Mr Bloy drove down the next morning to his farm
at Colenso. Now the Boers have reached Colenso. and we wonder and long to know
if these friends are safe.
After Mr van Rooyen had told us we were quite safe here, he talked of Mr Bloy.
They had been to his house that morning
lO
, broken it open, looted all they could
found his diary or letter book in which he said there was enough to condemn him.
He was a rebel, a traitor, and he would shoot him if he saw him and told his men to
do the same: he would not trouble to bring him to trial. Strange unreasonable talk,
seeing Mr Bloy was not under Dutch rule, but under British. Then he went on to
say: that Natal was their country, indeed the whole of South Africa was, the English
had no business with it. He said, 'We have taken Mafeking (not true), we are taking
Dundee today (not true), then we shall take Ladysmith and very soon be in Durban,
and plant our flag 12 miles on the other side of Durban.' This greatly amused us,
this was the man from whom we thOUgllt we were accepting a kindness, we had to
sit and listen. Afterwards we heard that orders had been given to the men not touch
any property where the owner had remained. These men were carrying the Free
State flag, and this part of Natal is now spoken of as the Free State. No one in the
neighbourhood of Underberg has been interfered with, our friends are all safe, their
property also. It may seem like boasting, but indeed it is not, I am humbled while
uplifted to think how God has let my influence work for good, my deciding to stay
here decided our few neighbours to do the same. I have more at stake than anyone
10 Catherine Portsmouth's letter
else here, if 1 could risk my life by staying, they could too, so they reasoned, and the
result has been that not one home has been touched not a head of cattle taken.
Tuesday [October1 17th. The very air seemed full of unrest and excitement,
numbers of Boers going to Ladysmith came in during the day. We were feeling so
keenly about Dick that I think rumours failed to touch us, as they otherwise would
have done; I had to keep quiet and calm, for Kitty's sake, she was ill for a few days
with fear and excitement and the trouble about Dick. I was most anxious about her. 1
thank God that she has recovered and has been well and braver ever since. That
night I could not get to sleep for long, it must have been about three o'clock when I
did so, and was awakened five o'clock by a slight noise of doors opening and
shutting. At once I guessed the Boers were passing down, and that Lillie and Mr
Fraser were about. I would not move for fear of rousing Kittywee. In a little while
Lillie stole quietly into my room to tell me that it was so. Mr Fraser was first to hear
the noise and was up quickly and tapped at Lillie' s window as before arranged, she
went on to the verandah and they watched them for two and a half hours. They were
not going in army order, in twos and threes, and at times quite an interval, then
came a great many guns and waggons. Aftenvards we were told the first passed
about one o'clock and the last at five o'clock. It was a little starlight, the
figures could just be seen.
The talk was that Ladysmith was to be attacked in a few days, and they were
certain of succeeding, that is six weeks ago, and Ladysmith is still occupied by the
English.
The next days, [October] 18th! 19th120th were full of excitement, the ambulance
waggons and staff passed down; outspanned not far away, the men came in to buy
and we were very busy in the store, rain was falling and they all seemed very
miserable. The ambulance staff largely consisted of Englishmen, \vho had
volunteered for this work. rather than be commandeered to fight. Reports were
brought in of a few skirmishes - of course we could only hear the Dutch side, and
they invariably report one killed on their side and two/three wounded. So this week
passed on: our hearts were heavy for Dick, the girls and I drew very closely together
in this trouble and sorrow, and we were wonderfully strengthened: precious words of
comfort were brought home to our hearts. On Saturday 21 st a company of 80 armed
Boers passed down, followed by six waggons, containing food and ammunition,
nearly all came to the store and bought. I had no other thought then, but that they
would demand what they wanted, and go off with it, but they paid for everything
and were quite civil.
11 Catherine Portsmouth's letter
Thursday 24th. The thought of Dick in prison was much in our hearts, and the
thought of an appeal to the General had been in my thoughts some days: at last I
spoke of it and the others thought ,ve might try, though the hope of success was
small. I wrote out an appeal that morning, explaining how Dick was taken to their
Laager, and pleaded that in justice he might be released. My letter was approved of
by alL and 1 had not finished it ten minutes when an opportunity of sending it
offered it did seem providential. We waited five days then came a reply in Dutch,
how excited we were, while it was being translated. It was to say: The General could
not grant my request as to releasing Mr Sansbury, but he assured me of his safety,
also that he had given orders for my horses to be sent back. We ,vere sadly
disappointed and it was a fresh trial to our faith. In a day or two our spirits revived
and the girls and I clung to God's promises of help and deliverance, so the days
passed. We were very busy in our store. Boers were continually up and down and
came in to buy.
Sunday lOctoberJ 29th was a quiet day. In the afternoon some of our neighbours
came and 'the war' was the one topic of conversation. A report came that Mr Bloy
and one son were shot but as it \vas said they 'were shot in the fight at Elandslaagte.
,ve would not believe it. They would not be in the fight not anywhere near it we
have neither heard it confirmed or contradicted since. The Boers ,vould like it to be
true! How' little we ever thought our beautiful little colony of Natal would be the
scene of such horrors as are now being enacted in it. The homes made with such
toiL costing many years of hard work. almost ruined not much besides the walls
standing, doors and windows broken and the wood used for fire,vood furniture
smashed to pieces. organs, pianos. many expensive instruments deliberately
chopped to pieces. beds and mattresses cut open. and strewn round the houses. In
several instances the people had got up from a meal. the things being left on the
table. all their wearing apparel left. this was torn to pieces and scattered about.
On Nov. 2nd my horses were returned to me, also my keys. Dick had the keys of
the safe in his pocket and we had not been able to get at the books or cash box. Both
horses and keys were sent by a responsible man. and I was asked to sign a paper
saying I had received them. I did feel very thankful and somehow. the horses
com.ing back increased our faith that in good time Dick \vould be restored to us.
The fight at Dundee had taken place by now. Reports came to us very often just
then, and from them we could gather that the Dutch were not so successful as they
expected to be, but they boasted much of the number killed on the English side. and
the few on their own. From a Free State paper we heard that our soldiers did well. It
was talked of by a few leaning towards the English as a victory, but we knew that
they retired to Ladysmith. Whether this was necessary, or part of the plan we knew
not. We grieved to learn that General Pen (sic) Symons
ll
,vas killed in this figllt.
Now every day the Boers coming into the store would remark that they were going
to take Ladysm.ith tomorrow, later on they said 'next week.'
Nov. 3rd. We could hear the big guns quite distinctly. In the afternoon a number
of Boers came down from the Laager, also more waggons, and outspanned just
12 Catherine Portsmouth '."; letter
above us. to the left Cousin Harry Smith will know the spot I refer to. They came
and as usual were going to take Ladysmith. We are told what would be laughable
tales. if it did not touch what is so real and terrible. One day it would be that the
soldiers could not possibly hold out much longer, they were starving, and that they
were tired of it all, then that they were trying to make terms with 10ubert for peace,
anything to get out of Ladysmith. I wonder, did they really think we believed all
this?
9th. I am sitting at our evening meal when footsteps were heard round the
verandah, and a gentleman looked in at the open window asking, 'Is Mrs
Portsmouth here?' It was Dr Wilson
12
of Harrismith. 'We are an ambulance party,
may we put our waggonettes inside your yard for the night?' It was quite pleasant to
hear an English voice. He had two others with him. We invited them to dine with
us, this they gladly accepted. They had been having a very rough time, and enjoyed
the comforts of a spread table once more. The Boers were suspicious of Dr Wilson
and would not have him to attend to them, so he had orders to return to Harrismith,
and his helpers with him. One of these was a young fellow from Parker, Wood &
CO.
13
, Harrismith. In conversation I found they were allowed business
communication with their Vrede firm. so I asked him if he could manage to let my
sister know we were safe here, and he willingly undertook to do so. It was not safe
for him to take a letter from me to forward he migllt be searched, and such a letter
would lead to suspicion. I do hope the message reached Lizzie, but of course there
has been no means of hearing from her, thougll I have since heard. We had been
hoping very much that Dick would be allowed some liberty, but from these friends we
found he was not. This was an increased sorrow to us, our faith has indeed been tried.
10th. For the first time a Dutchman who was in the store expressed a doubt as to
their being able to take Ladysmith. Also at this time we heard good reports of the
work our troops were doing. During these days a great many troops of horses, cattle
and goats and sheep passed. these the Boers had looted, and they continue to do this.
finding Ladysmith more difficult than they expected. Some of the men were ordered
to go dmvn towards Colenso, the numbers has (sic) varied from 2 000 up to 5 000,
they have gone even beyond Colenso. Before this the capture of the Gloucester
Regiment was reported and this was all too true. We cannot hear full particulars,
but we know there must have been some gross blunder for a whole regiment to be
captured the Boers \vere greatly elated at tIns. After much thought I decided, with
the approval of all in the home, to try a second appeal to the General on Dick's
behalf. I wrote it out and to make it more sure of the General reading it himself, got
Mr van der Leeuw to translate it into Dutch. I copied it, we decided it was best the
appeal should go direct from me, not througll any medium. We waited an
opportunity of sending it, not one occurred for a few days, then a more respectable
Dutchman than many was in the stores, and Mr Fraser gave him the letter to hand
over to the General then in charge at Van Reenen, with a request that he would
forward it to General Prinsloo14
On Friday the 17th [November] the Boers moved from Van Reenen to near
Ladysmith, I should rather say the Laager, there were not many men left up there,
about 60 went down and 95 waggons. They all outspanned in the same place I have
before mentioned. What a lot it looked, and all was hurry and excitement, we did a
13 Catherine Portsmouth's letter
lot of business that day, mostly in clothes, for we had already sold out of much in
the grocery way. Dick had kept the stock up to about its usual amount, we had not
felt it wise to go in for anything extra, for no one knew if it would be taken from us
or not. We could have done double the business, had we had the goods, but I do not
regret this. I feel sure our reasons then were right though now we have scarcely
anything left to sell. We sent word to our neighbours that they must get a supply of
necessities at once if they wished to for if the goods were in the store, we should
not dare to refuse to sell to the Boers when they came in to buy. So for a while yet,
we in this neighbourhood have necessaries, but I will now finish this day. Mr Byloo,
Fraser and Smith were kept busy as possible the whole day, the young Boers walked
round the verandah into the garden [and] helped themselves to fruit. Fortunately it
was nearly all green just then, we had just cleared a tree of the most beautiful plums.
They were all carrying guns, but they were quite civil. expressed some surprise that
we had not gone away, and wondered what kind of people we were not to have done so.
On this Saturday the 18th 65 more waggons came down, they went on beyond
the Pretorius' to outspan. Sunday 19th was a quiet day, Mr Fraser. Lillie and Katie
went for a walk in the morning. Essie and Mr Smith were up in the garden amongst
the pines. and I was in the house alone, when an armed Boer, as I thought, came
round the verandah, I confessed to a little fear, being all alone. I went to the door
and spoke to him and he answered in English. He said he did not want anything,
only he was so surprised to find the house occupied, that he called to see who lived
here. He said all the houses lower down are empty, and the Boers have destroyed
everything, what could not be taken away they have broken to pieces, it is sad to see,
he added. Then he told me he was an Englishman, had lived in Heilbron 14 years
and so was commandeered. He had leave of absence for 14 days and was going
home - fighting against his own countrymen - I listened to his conversation but
said very little, it would have been unwise, thOUgll I believe his sympathies were
with the English. He stayed and rested quite a long time, I got him some tea and the
others all came back before he left.
Monday passed as usual. we were told that Lizzie' s husband was commandeered,
and was with the Vrede commando near Ladysmith. I felt troubled, yet hoped it was
not correct.
22nd. A red letter day indeed. Just after dinner. about two 0' clock. Mr Fraser
came to me saying, 'there is a man from Vrede who knows Mr Povall in the store,
will you not come and speak to himT I went and found 1\\"0 there, a Dutchman, an
old gentleman whom I had met at Lizzie' s, and an Englishman. They had both seen
Herbert and Lizzie a few days previously, and they were all well. Herbert had not
been sent to the front, how thankful I was. These gentlemen were only going to the
front to have a look, and offered on their return to take a letter for me to 111y sister.
14 Catherine Portsmouth's letter
They returned in ten days' time and I sent a few lines by them. I think they would
take it safely.
A little later I was resting in my room when I heard Mr Fraser open the passage
door very knock loudly at the girls' door and call, 'come quickly here is
someone coming you will like to see.' I heard Lillie' s voice at once, . Dick, Dick.'
You may be sure we were all together pretty quickly, Dick was off his horse and in
the house before Essie and I had time to run out and meet him. Oh what a meeting it
was! I must leave you to picture our delight and the thankfulness. How much there
was to tell as soon as Dick's escort, three armed Boers, had gone. We gathered in
the dining room to hear and to tell, Dick did not know at all why he had been
released, a telegram from the General to the Landdrost came on Sunday to say,
'Sansbury was to be released, and a safe escort given him to Underberg.' It was too
late to leave Harrismith that day, the train had gone (the Dutch are running the train
they took on October the 11th from the Natal Government, as far down as they can),
so he went to see the friends who had been so good to him all those five weeks, and
left on Wednesday for home, when he arrrived about three o'clock. He was looking
so well. we had not dared to hope this. Three lady friends, after much trouble and
perseverance, obtained permission to send him in food three times a day, and they
just fed him up, also they got in many little comforts which helped him wonderfully.
When we told about the appeal sent to General Prinsloo, Dick was sure it was that
that had been the means of his release. we are all very thankful.
Dec. 20th. I have not written anything of late, there is not much to write, unless I
put down the tales the Boers bring of their success, but these have not been much of
late. they have pretty well given up the idea of taking Ladysmith, but on Sunday the
17th we had a terrible report. Of course we only hear the Dutch version, and
knowing how they exaggerate, how little truth there ever is in the nWllber they give.
we try to hope it is not so bad.
On Friday the Boers entrapped the troops at Colenso, they say the English had
been firing with their cannon for three days and the Boers did not reply, so the
troops thOUgllt they had gone from the hill. and prepared to pass through the drift.
But the Boers had been working nights and had dug trenches and were in hiding, so
were already (sic) to fire upon the troops. They report that over 2 000 of our men
were killed, 150 prisoners with ammunition. They never tell of the killed and
wounded on their own side, though the man who told this story did say there were
60 Dutch killed and a great number wounded. We have felt so sad and yet we hope
the number killed is incorrect, we never doubt the ultimate result, but Oh! it does
seem as though it would be a long time yet, and the loss of life is terrible, and the
desolate homes and hearts.
Only four days to Xmas Day, is there any hope of the usual happy meeting with
our dear ones (note the numbers killed were greatly exaggerated, we are told not
more that 168). We must be patient and wait till all is over to hear the truth.
Jan. 14th 1900. You see dear friends it is some time since I have added to my
journal. I had not the heart to write through Xmas time and New Year. There was
15 Catherine Portsmouth's letter
no happy meeting and my dear boys are still far away, and I can get no news of
them, but I hope they had news of us about that time, and they would be cheered.
Through a friend we got a letter sent to Mrs Loze at Delagoa Bay and she sent it to
all our dear ones in Durban and Maritzburg telling them we were safe. We received
a post card from her on New Year's day, also a letter from Lizzie. It seemed a good
omen for the Ne,,,, Year, they were the first letters for three months.
The Boers attacked Ladysmith in the early morning of Saturday 6th [but] were
repelled with heavy losses, many whom we knew personally were killed, we hear
too, that the British troops are making preparations to cross the Tugela, it scarcely
seems worth writing these things. You will hear in England all about it, and we, so
much nearer, are shut off from all reliable information, but we have so many
mercies left to us, our comfortable home and the daily routine of duties keeping us
busy and occupied, and each trying to help one another, the burden of care and
anxiety is lightened for each one. We are all separated from some dear ones and
have sympathy one for another.
Jan. 28th [1900]. The weeks pass, still we are shut off from the means of
communication, I think of you all often and often. You will be troubled at the long
weeks of silence, and we too are troubled and find the long waiting a heavy strain
upon us, at times I have felt discouraged and an.xious, our provisions are getting
low, we have fruit and vegetables in abundance, and for a while yet we have flour,
sugar. tea and other small necessaries. Paraffin, candles and matches we have to use
with care, our neigllbours are not quite so well off. The Macfarlanes begged for a
little sugar as they were quite out; Mrs van der Leeuw for a little tea, Mrs Pretorius
for candles, which I had to refuse, and just as I sat down to my writing a kaffir, an
old kitchen boy of mine, came begging for a little paraffin, he has a sick child, and
had to sit up at nigllt with him. I gave it, how could I refuse, when I had it, but we
may be without ourselves ere long. Yet with all this, let me not forget God's mercies
which are so many, and great. Our daily needs have been supplied with all the quiet
and comfort this dear home can give. Most of us are brave and hopeful, and
deliverance is surely not far off.
On the 17th our troops came across the Tugela and we hear of heavy fighting
and heavy losses on both sides, for a week the cannons were going the whole day
from early morning till dark, they are fighting in two places, and from both we can
hear the guns. We have so hoped they would get throUgll to Ladysmith this past
week but fear it is not so. for two days no news has reached us, the cannons are quiet,
they may be fighting the small guns, if so of course, that means they are close together.
March 2nd. You see how long it is since I have written anything in my journal. I
had no heart to do so, and then to hear no news of my boys took much of my
courage away. I was afraid too. that I might write in a way that would pain you as
you read. And now what we have been waiting for so long has come. Yesterday
16 Catherine Port.'TllOuth ',,' letter
morning very early the glad news of the release of Ladysmith was brought to us. Oh!
with what thankful hearts we received it. 1 am going to look up my diary, and go on
from where I left off.
Jan. 28th. After the week of heavy fighting we heard our troops had retired, and
with this we had to be content all was quiet, no guns going and we did not know
\vhat to think, yet did not lose our faith in our brave soldiers. but oh, it was a time of
waiting.
On the 17th [February I we heard the good news that the troops had released
Kimberley, we rejoiced then. For a few days we had various reports of the troops at
Colenso, that they were advancing, that the Boers had been driven out of some of
their good positions. then we heard that they (our troops) intended being in
Ladysmith on the 28th. we waited in hope and fear. Then early Wednesday morning
the 1st March, the news was brought to us that Ladysmith was relieved. some of the
troops had got in the previous afternoon. Can you imagine how we felt the intense
relief, the deep thankfulness, the joy. Oh! it was a glad time.
You will have read much of it all. long ere this. it must have been a terrible time
for our poor soldiers, and for the Boers. They had to fly and at once orders were
given for the Free State laagers to move back to Van Reenen, they got away in a
great hurry believing the soldiers were following them. We have had no news of the
ambulance men, many of whom are English. They said those in command had kept
the defeat of the Transvaal Boers quiet, that many of the Free State Boers did not
know of it did not know why the orders \vere given for the retreat and it was
even circulated amongst them that it was for 'change of air', as there were so many
fever patients.
Some men on horseback reached here by six o'clock, having ridden all night
such an exciting day we had, many off-saddled near by. and then a little later
waggons came along, and through the whole day this went on. Waggons, carts.
traps, cattle and horsemen. some passing on up the Berg, some outspanning for a
while. a great many came to the store and were quiet and civil, seemed to be rather
rejoicing in going back: than depressed because defeated. Many of the Dutch
fanners of NataL I should say the few who were left, also trekked out yesterday.
afraid of the soldiers. Mr and Mrs Pretorius also went out. We were sorry they did. it
is not at all likely they would have been interfered with, but they believe everything
bad of the English soldiers: and so were frightened. Today has been a repetition of
yesterday, only that the waggons had finished passing earlier than the previous day.
We do not know at all what is coming now: if the Boers intend making a stand on
the Berg or not, if troops are coming up here, or not. We hope and pray there will be
no fighting near us and that we will be able safely to get into Ladysmith in a day or
two to post letters and send telegrams, and hear of at least some of our dear ones, so
we are all busy writing.
17th..... Last Sunday evening we had an exciting and anxious time for a while.
Two of the Macfarlanes came in to tell us they had notice from the military to leave,
as they would be in range of the firing from both sides. Mr Macfarlane and his son
17 Catherine Portsmouth's letter
went to Ladysmith on the Friday, and George was sent home to tell the others and
get their goods packed. A waggon was to be sent for them the next night. We were
very troubled and expected a notice that we too must move. We had quite a sad
hOUL and came such a relief it ,vas like a message from God. Mr Fraser was also in
Ladysmith to get out letters, saw Mr Macfarlane in the street who told him that he
had been advised to move. Mr Fraser went at once to the authorities and inquired if
it was really necessary. told them how we were situated, and of our two invalids
l5
who could not be moved without great danger. They asked many questions as to why
I did not leave as others had done. Mr Fraser told them we had made the place
ourselves, that I loved it and knew that the only chance of saving it from being
ruined by the Boers was to stay in it, and the Boers had respected our trust in them,
and had not molested us in any way. Then Lord Dundonald
16
ordered a special
permit to be written out giving us permission to stay in our home through the
present crisis. It is not stated in the permit. but Mr Fraser was told the risk was our
own, but we had nothing to fear unless there was fighting on the Berg and any of
the Boer cannon struck the house. So once again ,ve are cast entirely upon God who
has done such great things for us in the past. Mr Fraser brought letters from our
friends and from my dearest boys, they are well and have had many kind friends,
who have given them pleasure, and thought of and cared for them.
Since this is Sunday [March 18th J we have had [ a] quiet and uneventful day
'''ithout any news, this evening we hope the boy17 will return from Ladysnrith ,,,ith letters.
23rd [March] Durban. You will wonder at the above address. I am here (at last)
with my own dearest boys; Kittywee and I arrived last night. It took me a long time
to decide that it was the right thing to do. the girls and Dick were quite urgent for
me to come a\\"ay and see my boys. I do trust this has been of God's guidance. they
all tried to make it easy for me. and were so sure that there was no cause to fear
an)11ring going wrong.
We left my loved home at half-past five in the morning, and reached Ladysmith
at half-past eleven. We met British patrol parties twelve miles down the road, and
then a large camp about 15 miles. The Ladysmith friends were delighted to see me
and Kittywee. The town is very desolate and dirty as yet, dry and barren [but] the
buildings are not greatly damaged. We left at ten the next morning. reaching
Durban at half-past nine. Willie looks well and so tall, he went up to Harry early
this morning and brought him down and he has stayed the whole day with us, he too
is well and has grown very much.
I cannot write of our meeting, but our hearts are full of thankfulness to God who
has given us the great joy of being together again. I have at times some fear for our
dear home at Underberg, but I do know something of the quiet rest God can give,
after such months of daily experience of his power to sustain and protect through
such dangers. Now dear ones alL this long story must close. With warm true love to
each dear one.
Ever yours lovingly and affectionately.
Katie Portsmouth.
18
Catherine Portsmouth ','I' letter
BIBLlOGR\I)HY
f)1L'tlOnarr of,\'Ollfh ,1fncan biography: Yol. 1 \Iatthinus Prinsloo: Vot 4 Douglas :VI B H Codlran.::,
WilIiam Pcrln Symons
Hawkins, Eliza Blandl';: The stot)' otHarnsflllth, 18-19-1920. (LadysmitJl, 1 n2)
lIolmd-::tl's map of Natal and Zululalld. (Joharull..'sburg,. 1(27)
},;mal 1 R95, I R99 (Pictennaritzburg,. 1894, I Rn)
Portsmouth. llcrlry: IIistoricalnotcs of H)fonL known originally as l'nderberg,. (Typeseript n,d,)
South Ajhcan who's who 1910 p.530
Spcnc,-,'c S 0'13: Bntlsh set/lers in Natal. 182-1 185-, volume 2, pp.I06 8. (Pietermaritzburg, 1(83)
FA j)le geskledems van f farrwmth. (Bloemti)nkin, 1(32)
TI/nes o(Xatal2 Dec. 1897 (obituary ofMrs Ilcnrictta Stranack)

I Ch_'orge Chapman whom Lilian was to marry after the war. In 1913 tJle widowed Chapman married
CatJ1crine Portsmouili.
2 PrL'Sumably the wife of William Scott, fanner and blacksmiili, whose address in ilie 1899 Natal
,.j lmanac app.;ars as 'Scols{on, Yan Scolston or Scottslown was onc ofilie bOf(k'f fanns.
3. J IJ :"Ieiring and J C Rosa were ili.; otlicials at customs in Harrismiili customs
union bL"I.WL'CI1 'atal and ilic OFS \\as in force, 1890-94,
4. Smith, a suff(''fer tt'om tuberculosis. later died at Il):ford.
5. Pn.. 'SlImably G. Byloo who appt.'ars in ilie IR99 Natal ,41manac as a ti.lffi1cr of '{ lndcrbL'fg. Van
'. I Iowever, from tJ1C text it he was working in tJ1e Portsmouilis' store.
6. Presumably Gemardus Philipplls Pretorius, of Good Hop.;, whose name in boili
t11'; I (:95 and 1899 Almanacs, 'lbL'fc was also a G P Pretorius '(A's son)' who is Jistcxl as a fanner of
Alant:: Dnll. a 1;lrn1 adjoining Wagtenheetres J.:op.
7. 'Ibis mll!>1 havt.' bedl ilie BOL'fS' ht?4ldquart.;rs inside tJ1e OFS border.
&. Francis Ridlard Dloy (l (:36 1(06) had a border The Reproach. Bloy was a man of irascible
temperamcrlL The vcry nami..'S ofhis fanns iliis besides The Reproach, he had
so ilirollgh iliat was not granted as much land as iliought himself entitled.
\\bd1 his died in 1905 h-.: attributed hi..'f d.;aili to tJ1e 'cold-blooded ,-,welty' and 'negli.X.'t' of ilie
Natal GowmmcrlL whidl only in 1903 comp-::tlsated tJlem for loss.;:.;, and in his opinion. vcry
inadUIuately. quok'S trom a Id-lcr he wrote to tJ1e Re:;ident Magistrate when rUIuired to fill
in hL'f deatJl notice.
9. '[be tnms,.:ript does not rL'Cord ilie day in Ol..tohcr !\1rs B10y left on !\10nday (9 Ol..tobt.'f) and Bloy ilie
tollO\ving day.
10. '01is giv.;:.; impression tJut B1oys' home \vas on 16 October. Bloy himself maintained
it was 13 Octob",'f, whim coincid",'S wiili Mrs PorL<;moutJ1's entry lInd-.:r ilie date 22 November. where
sht.' iliat Sansbury. Whdl arrL'Sl.;d hy tJle Boers on 14 OI..'tobL'f. was at fiTh1 mi!>1akcrl t()r
Bloys' son, whom iliey had shot at 'a days
11. Major-GL'11cral Sir \\'i11iam PL't1l1 SYl110ns 1&99). ilie command",'f of ilie British forct.'S at
Dundee.
12. Dr Edward Fitzgcrald Bannat!n..: Wilson (born I g59. Jjmcrick. Ireland). who had come to Souili
,\1rica in 18R3. After tJle war h.; was Harrisl11itJl'S district surgL'on.
I]. Parkcr. Wood & Co. was a Durban tintl WitJ1 branmt!S in \lawl and beyond ilie Bcrg.
14. lbe OFS Chief Commandant, r-.lallhinus Prinsloo (1838-1903), He was mosru as sum once ilie
conmlandos of Harrismiili, Vre<.k Ikthkht?l11, Heilbron. Kroonstad and Winburg (a total of more ilian
6000 burghers) had mustered n.;ar Harrismit11. PrL'SlIInably iliis was at ilic 'I..aager' mentioned in ilie

15. One was r-.1r Smiili, 'The oilier could have Ik'l:.'1l Sansbury. It would seem iliat she died young.
16. Douglas M B H CodmlI1e, 12ili Earl of Dundonald (1852 1935). As commander of seL'Ond
Cavalry Brigade. he spear-headed tJ1C tinal drive towards Ladysmiili.
17. i.e. her Aific.'1n servant.
SHELAGH SPENCER
Vasco da Gama and the
naming ofNatal
Introduction
Five hundred years ago probably on 8 July 1497- four ships set sail from Lisbon
on a voyage that would prove to be of profound importance. The fleet was under the
command of Vasco da Gama, and the objective set for him by the King, D. Manuel
L was to complete a long saga of exploration along the Mrican coast undertaken by
Portuguese mariners in search of a sea route to India. Bartolomeu Dias had arrived
at the southern end of Mrica and ascertained its latitude during his voyage of 1487
1488. He also had seen that the coastline beyond Algoa Bay extended away to the
north-east. The long-sought entl)' into the Indian Ocean had at last been discovered
a spectacular feat by the small nation of Portugal.
By the time of Vasco da Gama's voyage, Portuguese investigations had greatly
improved knowledge of the wind and current systems in the Atlantic, and he was
able to take a route not previously tried
l
. He sailed to the western side of the South
Atlantic, tllereby avoiding difficulties always faced by ships trying to go against the
south-east trade winds along the West Mrican coast. Cautiously seeking the Cape of
Good Hope from the west. the fleet finally sighted land on 4 November, and
anchored three days later in what is today called St He1ena Bay.
There a meeting of contrasting cultures occurred. The local community appeared
and barter was attempted by the Portuguese, but spices and gold were unknown to
those hunter-gatherers. On 16 November, the fleet departed and rounded the Cape
Peninsula on the 22nd, only after several attempts frustrated by contrary winds.
They reached the bay of Silo Bras (Mossel Bay) on the 25th, and anchored there for
13 days. Bartolomeu Dias had been there before them, and it was a known source of
fresh water. The local people had cattle and sheep, and Vasco da Gama's men
succeeded in bartering for an ox. Unfortunately, both visits to Mossel Bay ended
badly, marred each time by misunderstandings and mutual hostility between
Mricans and Europeans. The ships left on 8 December, heading eastwards towards
Algoa Bay and the furthest point reached by Dias.
It is the next part of the voyage, during the remainder of December, that is the
topic of this study. The celebration of Christmas Day in 1497 by Vasco da Gama
and his crews as they sailed up the south-eastern coast led to the land known today
as Natal acquiring that name in commemoration of the Nativity. This is a very
familiar story, now part of folklore. It has been told in numerous popular histories,
Natalia 27, (1997), B. Stuckenbergpp. 1929
20 f,asco da Gama and the naming ofXatal
repeated in formal academic works, and even been an inspiration to poets::!. But no
less distinguished an authority on the history of Portuguese exploration in Southern
Mrica than Professor Eric Axelson has stated in several of his major writings. that
this attribution of the name was a mistake. He declared that the fleet was much
further south on 25 December. actually near Port St lohns. How did he arrive at this
conclusion. and was he correct?
The voyage during December 1497
Only one first-hand account exists today of the voyage of Vasco da Gama during
1497-1499. Although anonymous. its author has been identified as Alvaro Velho,
who was aboard the Sao Rafael.
3
The first English translation of this was by E. G.
Ravenstein in 1898.
4
Another translation was published by Axelson in 1954. in his
book South African Explorers. He republished it with extensive conunentary in
Dias and his successors.6 a book issued in 1988 to commemorate the voyage of
Bartolomeu Dias.
The following record of progress by the fleet during December. and quotations
from Velho' s account are taken from Axelson' s translation.
25 November (Saturday): arrived in Mossel Bay.
7 December (Thursday): attempted departure from Mossel Bay thwarted by lack
of\vind.
8 December (Friday): departed from Mossel Bay.
15 December (Friday): passed Ilheus Chaos (Bird Islands) in Algoa Bay.
16 December (Saturday): passed Kwaaihoek where Bartolomeu Dias had erected
his last padrao, reached Rio de Infante (Keiskamma River) and lay to during the
nigllt.
17 December (Sunday): continued along the coast wind astern, until evening.
when the wind changed to the east and the fleet had to tack out to sea.
18 December (Monday): at sea in unfavourable conditions.
19 December (Tuesday): near sunset the wind changed to the west: the fleet lay
to overnight so that the land could be reconnoitred the next day to establish their
whereabouts.
20 December (Wednesday): went landwards, and found themselves off llheu da
Cruz (St Croix Islands) in Algoa Bay: the ships resunled their original course' ...
with a very strong stern wind which lasted three or four days ... From that day
onwards it pleased God in his mercy for us to make progress and not retrogress.'
25 December (Monday): 'On Christmas Day ... we had discovered 70 leagues of
coast.'
The point at issue concerns the distance of 70 leagues attained by Christmas
Day. In determining where they might have been, two questions of critical
importance need to be answered: what distance was represented by the measurement
of 70 leagues, and from what starting point had it been measured? Concerning the
second question, Axelson
7
was surely correct in interpreting the phrase '... we had
discovered' to mean that the fleet had passed a length of coast new to Portuguese
exploration, i.e. beyond the furthest point reached by Bartolomeu Dias, namely the
Keiskamma River.

21
Vasca da Gama and the naming afNatal
..:.j
I
Cape St LUCira
. I
o 100 200 300
....;. ....)
1 I . ',' ()
km (approx.) :: /J
...; 1
h
-;l
Durban::.::',:'
... :.. (
':::/
:-.:' / /

Port
. / '" I
..... )/: .... //,( 14 .
.. "
... /
.
.. : ....... /')(
East . ... /i /
:.: / ,
/
;
/

,.r
.....

Fig. 1. The average course of the Agulhas Current. shown by the heavy line. wIth bars denotmg
standard deviations at eight sites listed in Table 1. (Atter Grundlingh. J983.)
22 vasco da Gama and the naming ofNatal
The distance of '70 leagues'
Axelson first took up the question of the distance sailed during 20-25 December in
his book South-East Ajrica 1488-1530.
8
He made the following statement:
Assuming Dias' s farthest to have been the Keiskanuna, da Gama had on
December 25 reached the Umtwalumi River. Seventy leagues from the Kowie,
however. \vould have taken him to the Umtamvuna. Seventy leagues from the
site of the last padrdo of Dias would have taken him to a few miles north of
Port GrosvenoL Apart from the consideration that 70 is a round figure, it is
impossible to resist the conclusion that it was an exaggeration. The daily run
from Mossel Bay to the Infante averaged only 32 or 33 miles a day. whilst if the
four or five days wasted in the vicinity of Bird Islands be included, the run
drops to the region of 23. It is unreasonable to suppose that the 240 miles from
the Infante northwards, along a coast where the Agulhas current runs if
an)1hing more strongly, could be covered at an average of 55 miles a day:
except with the assistance of a stronger wind lasting longer than was described
in the Roteiro.
In 1973, he returned to this topic in Portuguese in South-//ast Ajrica 1488
1600.
9
\vith these words: 'On Christmas Day the pilots calculated that the
expedition had discovered 70 leagues, so a section of the Transkei coast received the
name Natal. Three days later the mariners caught fish off what was probably the
Durban bluff.' To this statement he attached the following footnote: I I) '70 leagues,
168 miles, from the Keiskamma river would have taken the squadron to the vicinity
of Waterfall Bluff. 18 miles north of Port St Johus.' For this calculation, a league
was taken to be 6.66 km. There seems to be an error of arithmetic here, or perhaps a
lapsus calami: 70 leagues would in fact be about 466 km (289 miles, or 252 nautical
miles): the distance from the Keiskamma River to Port St lohns is much less
about 280 km (174 miles). If about 466 km had been 'discovered', the fleet would
have been somewhere between present-day Scottburgh and Umkomaas.
In Dias and hi.)" successors,]] Axelson recalculated 70 leagues at 5.92 km per
league,12 and he stated that the ships would have got to 20 miles beyond Port St
lohns if indeed they had covered 70 leagues. He wrote: .... it is difficult to believe
that in five days. even with a strong stern wind the ships could have made good 266
miles against the Agulhas current. and it is probable that they were in the vicinity of
Brazen Head fI8 km south of Port St lohns} on Christmas Day.' Here there appears
to be another inconsistency: 70 leagues at 5.92 km per league equals 414 km (257
miles. 223 nautical miles), a distance that would have placed the ships far beyond
Port St 10hns - in fact, north of the Mtam\una River (which is about 360 km from
the Keiskamma) and off the Natal South Coast
In these discussions of the progress of the fleet, an important point must not be
overlooked. There is no information on when the Keiskamma River was passed for
the s.econd time. so we cannot be sure of the time \vhen the distance of 70 leagues
would have been commenced. All we are told is that the ships left the St Croix
Islands on 20 December and had an uninterrupted jounley up the coast. An
assumption has to be made at this point as a basis for further discussion, and it is
this: that the fleet left the St Croix Islands at midday, and that the 70 leagues
23 Vasco da Gama and the naming a/Natal
'discovered' had been attained by midday on Christmas Day (it could be relevant
that latitude would have been determined by readings taken at midday). The
distance between the St Croix Islands and the Keiskamma River (c. 175 km) must
therefore be added to the 414 km represented by 70 leagues (total 589 km) in all
calculations.
Axelson's arguments thus revolve around two issues: first, he considers that the
ships would not have been able to maintain a rate of progress adequate to cover such
a distance in five days; and, second, that their progress would have been greatly
impeded by the Agulhas Current. Concerning the question of the speed of the ships,
an assessment depends considerably on whether the fleet sailed throughout that
period without interruption. Axelson 13 asserted that after passing the furthest point
reached by Dias and entering unexplored territory, ' ... it became customary when
possible to lie to during the nights.' But there is no clear evidence for this; Velho
records only that the fleet lay to on two occasions: on the night of 16 December
when they reached the Keiskamma River, and 19 December, after two days of
easterly wind when the ships had to tack out to sea and lost sight of land.
If sailing continued day and night without interruption, during five 24-hour
periods from midday on 20 December to midday on 25 December, then the fleet
would have covered 589 km in 120 hours; thus they would have sailed at 4.9 kph or
2.65 knots. That would have been an extremely slow average speed, within
the capacity of caravels, and unlikely in view of ' ... the very strong stem wind which
lasted for three or four days.' Such slowness would require an explanation. If,
however, the ships lay to at night, they would have still had at least 14 hours of light
daily in which to sail, and thus a hypothetical total of 56 hours over the five days.
Average speed would then have been 8.4 kph or 4.5 knots, probably within the
capacity of caravels.
14
Assistance from counter-currents going up the coast could
also have been in their favour, which is discussed below. Perhaps sailing continued
at night when there was a moon or enough light to make it safe.
Axelson15 compared the run beyond Algoa Bay to the journey from Mossel Bay
to the Keiskamma River, for which he estimated a daily average of 32 or 33 miles. If
sailing continued throughout the night, the fleet would have averaged 2.21 kph or
1.19 knots. Certainly that would have been extraordinarily slow, but there was ' ... a
great tempest' on 12 December, and the ships had to run with the wind astern under
' ... greatly lowered foresail' in an unspecified direction. Velho does not tell us how
long the gale lasted. Their progress may also have been slowed by westward
meanders from the Agulhas Current moving across the Agulhas Bank. The
comparison thus has dubious validity.
Another matter needs to be considered: how was the distance of 70 leagues
measured? During the eastward voyage from the Cape of Good Hope, only dead
reckoning by the use of compass, log-line and sand-glass was possible. Once the
fleet was past Algoa Bay and proceeding north-eastwards, measurements of latitude
by the cross-staff or the mariner's astrolabe
l6
would also have been possible. Velho
records no latitudes, but they must have been measured as the journey progressed.
Velho did, however, give estimates of distances of various legs of the journey.
Axelson
l7
compared these with his own measurements, as follows:
24 Vasco da Gama and the naming o/Natal
Velho ~ ~ ~ (footnote)
St Croix Bird Islands 5 leagues 7.8 leagues (no. 27)
Mossel Bay St Croix 60 leagues 68 leagues (no. 28)
Cape Good Hope - Mossel Bay 60 leagues 67 leagues (no. 29)
Bird Islands K waaihoek 5 leagues 5.7 leagues (no. 30)
K waaihoek Keiskamma River 15 leagues 15 leagues (no. 3 1 )
In no case was there an overestimation by the Portuguese: all distances except the
last are underestimates, possibly due to technical imperfections in their method of
dead reckoning. The last estimate was almost correct according to Axelson (he
found it to be only 2 miles short of the Keiskamma River); it was the only one that
could have been made through readings of latitude. Axelson' s opinion that 70
leagues ' ... was an exaggeration' thus seems unjustified. There is, however, a
questionable tendency to record distances in round figures or in multiples of five.
We can conclude only that the distance of 70 leagues was measured in some way,
and that it may have been an underestimate.
The Agulhas Current
There is no evidence that the average speed of Da Gama' s ships was such that a
voyage of 70 leagues (say 223 nautical miles) could not have been accomplished in
five days, even if the distance from the St Croix Islands is added. The discussion
shifts therefore to the question of whether the Agulhas Current would so have
impeded the ships that such a distance could not have been achieved. Axelson cited
this as a conclusive factor in each of his discussions of the topic.
A brief description of the Agulhas Current was given by Axelson.18 In the
following account, I have taken information and quote freely from excellent
publications by Dr Marten Griindlingh19 and Dr E. H. Schumann.
20
In the southern hemisphere, currents are intense on the western side of the ocean
basins as a result of anticlockwise gyres driven by the m ~ o r wind belts, which are
reinforced by the Coriolis Force created by the rotation of the earth. In the South
Indian Ocean, these forces combine to produce the Agulhas Current (Fig. I) along
the east coast of South Africa, ' ... one of the strongest currents of the world's
oceans. ,21 It forms off northern KwaZulu-Natal, through the confluence of waters
from the western side of the Mo<;ambique Channel and from the South Equatorial
Current going westwards around the southern end of Madagascar. The current takes
the form of a well-defined, intense central core or jet. For most of the time it flows
offshore of the 200m isobath, following the continental slope all the way in a
smooth, quasi -linear fashion, with a sideways meandering displacement of 10-15
km on either side.
22
The core has a width of some tens of kilometres, and with
current velocities on either side being considerable in parallel to the core, the overall
width can be up to 100 km (off Durban. for instance).
Fig. 1, modified from a map by Dr Griindlingh,23 shows clearly the average
course of the core, together with bars expressing standard deviations of averages at
eight sites. Data relating to this map are given in Table 1 (from Griindlingh24).
25 Vasco da Gama and the naming ofNatal
Table 1
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Latitude 2815' 29"'15' 3020' 31"03' 3130' 3230' 3315' 3345'
Core distance
offshore (km) 29 58 43 30 43 35 50 69
Standard deviation 14 9 19 6 16 15 9 6
Bottom depth at
intersection (m) 1100 500 2400 2300 2200 1300 2200 1900
The map and table show that the core, and hence the full strength of the current,
during 77% of the time would be found offshore of the 200m isobath, with current
force diminishing landwards as the seabed rises. The map also makes it clear that
the largest standard deviation (where the current wanders most) is in the vicinity of
Durban. The smallest standard deviations occur off Port Edward and off Port
Elizabeth where the rise of the Agulhas Bank deflects the current offshore. In
coastal waters the current normally has little or no effect. It would have been
possible for the fleet to avoid its effects by sailing along the 25m isobath all the way
from Algoa Bay to Durban, a course \vith no obstacles in the way.25
Coastal or shelf currents occur in the inshore waters, and may constitute
northward flows referred to as counter-currents. They are often apparent in the
summer when discoloured water entering the sea from rivers is visibly moved
northwards along the coast. When westerly winds blow, the Agulhas Current moves
further offshore, and the counter-currents then increase and speed up.
The only encounter with a current recorded by Velho along the south-eastern
coast started on 17 December, after the ships had passed the Keiskamma River. The
wind changed to the east, and the fleet tacked out to sea to avoid the dangers of a lee
shore, until close to sunset on the 19th, when the wind turned again to the west.
They lay to that night, adrift, and the next day went landwards to find out where
they were: ' ... to their amazemenC
26
they found themselves back in Algoa Bay near
the St Croix Islands. A strong westerly wind then ' ... enabled us to overcome the
currents.' In tacking out to sea, Da Gama' s ships probably encountered the inshore
flank of the Agulhas Current in the region where the core normally lies about 50 km
offshore (Locality 7 in Fig. 1). A strong easterly wind of the sort they experienced
often moves the current shorewards. This encounter clearly created a great
impression. Camoens conveyed it well:
F or many days our gallant vessels ride
Through calm and stormy waves alternately,
With t1uctuating hope our only guide
We opened up new paths across the sea.
And then, it seemed all progress was denied.
The ocean, changing mood inconstantly,
Despatched a current of such weight and force
We made no headway in our northern course.
26 Vasco da Gama and the naming ofNatal
From this same retardation you may guess
How powerful that current, how extreme.
The force of wind which favoured us was less
Than the head-on opposition of that stream.
Then Nolus, the old south-wester, in distress
At this deep challenge Neptune flung at him
Unleashed a furious rage that blew us free
In airy triumph 0' er the stubborn sea. 27
The Agulhas Current certainly had the potential to be a serious impediment, but
Axelson's view that Da Gama' s fleet tried to sail against it all the way along the
south-eastern coast is surely improbable. Having experienced the current so
dramatically, the mariners would have been alerted to its existence. The Portuguese
pilots in the Age of Discoveries attached great importance to 'nature's signs,28 as
aids to navigation. The roteiros they compiled contain information on what should
be looked for at various stages in the carreira da india. Clues such as the colour of
the sea, direction of the waves, the species of birds and direction of their flight, 29
presence of drifting seaweeds and of debris from large rivers, were important,
especially as no means existed then of measuring longitude. Experienced pilots
would quickly detect changes in the maritime environment.
It is pertinent to appreciate that the Agulhas Current is a very visible
phenomenon, presenting many signs of its presence. Its core water is a superb,
intense ink-blue colour, remarkably pellucid and quite unmistakable. In summer,
the core has a temperature of up to 28C., and so is perceptibly warmer than coastal
waters. For this reason the current shows conspicuously in images assembled by
heat receptors on the NOAA satellite (Fig. 2). Carried in the water are many
different organisms that proclaim its tropical origin: spectacular jellyfish pulsate on
their way; siphonophores, such as the violet-blue 'Portuguese man-o' -war'
(Physalia) buoyed by its float and Vel/ela with its vertical 'sail', populate the
surface; flying-fish scatter over the waves, and oceanic birds are about. The current
is also often marked by a line of towering clouds which can be seen from afar, for
example off Algoa Bay even though the current is well off shore there (Fig. 1 and
Table l)?O
With so much evidence of a powerful current, the fleet would prudently have
kept inshore. This would also have enabled them to monitor their progress better.
That they were at times close enough to see the land in considerable detail is proven
by the following passage by Velho,31 referring to their journey north of the
Keiskamma River:
As we coasted along two men began to run along the beach opposite us. This
land is very attractive and well situated; and we saw many cattle wandering
about on the land here; and the further we advanced the better did the land
become and the higher the groves oftrees.
27 Vasco da Gama and the naming ofNatal
Fig. 2. An image ofSouthern Africa recorded by the NOAA Satellite on the night of 10 October 199:,
It was compiled through measurements ofsurface temperatures. The warm sea ofJMozambique
can be seen extending into the Agulhas Current whose course is clearly apparent along the
south-eastern coast of South Africa. Recorded by RSMAS. University o.(Miami. and publicly
available on the 1nternet,
Conclusions
An indeterminate uncertainty surrounds all the calculations made above, and
assumptions had to be made. The validity of the results depends particularly on the
accuracy of Velho's record of 70 leagues: its correctness will never be known. but it
is inconceivable that incompetent or inexperienced pilots and captains would have
been chosen for such an important voyage. For the ships to have been south of the
Mtamvuna River at midday on Christmas Day, an unlikely overestimate - about
11 % of the distance sailed - would be required, or a misreading of latitude of at
least ~ o . It is more probable that the fleet was north of the Mtamvuna, even by 60
km or more, and thus off or past present -day Hibberdene.
In their History of Natal,32 Brookes and Webb take a light-hearted view of the
possibility that Vasco da Gama gave the name Natal to a part of the Pondoland
coast. They wrote: 'Since no one in Pondoland desires to be thought a Natalian, and
since after all the present Port Natal was discovered "within the Octave,,33 there
would seem to be no great harm in accepting Vasco da Gama's name as applying to
the present Province. It is doubtful how far Julius Caesar was right in using the
name "Britannia", but correct or incorrect Britain and Natal are alike accepted
28 l'a,,'co da Gama and the naming ofNatal
terms of History and Geography, time having consecrated the errors made long
ago.
Fortunately, no evidence exists of any error in attributing the name Natal to our
Province. There are, instead, good reasons to accept that this was indeed the land
along which Vasco da Gama and his companions coasted on Christmas Day 1497,
far from their Lusitanian homeland and en route to their first encounter with the
fabulous Indies.
NOTES
1. Sce, however, .\nnando COltesao, The m),stel:), or I asco do Gamo. Agrupamento de de
Cartogratica Antiga 12. Junta de InventigayOes do Itramar Lisbon. Coimbra. 1973. He presents
evidence that Vasco da Gama may have made a sccrd. voyage in the years inmlediatel}' t{)lIowing the
return of Bartholomcu Dias in December 1488.
2, For example: J. Forsyth Ingram, ''lllC Discovery of Natal' in Poems of a Pioneer, 1 S93. and GLlY
Butler. 'NataL 1491' in Songs and Ballads, David Phillips. 1978.
3. Peres, Damiao (cd.), f)uiro da viagenl de /'asco da (Jama !i:ICsllnile do codice onglnal, 1.
Opmto, 1838.
4. Ravenstein, E. G., A jOllrnal of the first voyage of Vasco da Gama 14971499. HaklllYt. Society,
London. 1898.
5. A'\c1son, E., South Af!-ican Etplorers. Oxford Cniversity Press Onc World's Classics 53S), 1954. pp.
910.
6. Awlson, E .. 'Vasco da Gama in South African waters 1491' in Dws and hiS successors. ed. E.
Axelson. Saayman & Weber, Cape Town, 1988, pp.
7. Ibid.. p. 9, footnote 34.
8. Axelson. E .. Sou.th-F.ast /Ijhca Longmans. Green &. Co.. 1940, p. 37. footnote I.
9. A..xelson, E., Porttlguese in South-East Afhca 1488-1600. Strnik. 1973. p. 23.
10. Ibid.. p. 23. 36.
11. Dias and his Sllccessors, p. 9, footnotes 33. 34.
12. 'nlis Idlgth of a league is confimloo by A.. M. Espateiro. DlctlOnm}, of Naval Terms. ng/ish
Portuguese. Ediyao do Ccrltros de de Marinha, Lisbon, 1 974.
n. South-East AfTlca 1488-f5_!;iO. p. 37.
14. An experienced Durban yachtsman, !vIr W. C. Vandevt!ITe, informs me that in good conditions an
ordinary cruising yacht can cover 120 nautical miles in 24 hours 5 knots). and can complete tJle
voyage trom Algoa Bay to Durban in under three days. J am grateful to him for infoffilation about
sailing along tJle soutJ1-t!<lst
IS. South-East Afi-ica f-l88 p. 37, footnote L
16. Astrolabes became available l{)r shipboard use around 1470. Sec Colin !'vlartin. 'POItuguese marine
cartography in tJle fifteentJl to seventeenth cdltllries' in Dws and hiS successors. p. 87.
17. Dws and his sllccessors. p.9.
18. fOld.. p. 9, footnote 33.
19. Glundlingh, L 'On tJle course Agulhas CUlTdlt '. South Afncan Geographical Journal
65 (I), pp. 1983.
20. Sdmmann. E. 11.. 'TIle oceanic environment around SOUtJH.. AfHca' In South 111 .. l(ncan Sa/ltng
DirectIOns. Vo!. I. Chapter 3, pp. The Hydrographer, SA :'-Javy. 1994.
21. Ibid.. p. 34.
22. Grlindlingh. op. clL pp. 53.55.
23. Ibld., p. 54. fig. 3.
24. Ibld.. p. 54. table I
25. On tJle Natal SOUtJl Coast. residents are to tJle sight of ships of size passing en
route to Durban so close to the shore that on calm nights the sound of their engines can be heard. A
way offixing the position of a ship, llsed by the captains of coastal steamers in the 1930s. was to ketiJ
inshore enough to read names of the railway stations on the South Coast Line through a
telescope.
26. ..\.xelson. Portuguese In South-East Ajhca, p. 23: not a conmK'.nt by Vdho. but doubtless tJley were
much surprised.
29 da Gama and the naming afNatal
27. Luis de Camocns, "I11C Lusiads', Canto 5, tTanslated by Guy Butler, ]987, in M. van Wyk Smith.
'Shades ofAdamas tor '. pp. Institute for the Study of English in Africa, Rhodes University,
Grahamstown: and National English Liknry Grahamstown, 1988. Verses 66 and 67 are
quoted with permission from the publishers.
28. .. pilots relied on a combination of latitude-sailing, dead reckoning, and, above all. how to interpret
nature's signs.' C. R. Boxer, The Tragic ifistory ofthe Sea. 15891622. Narratives ofthe shipwrecks
or the Portuguese East 1ndiamen Sao Thome (1589). Santo Alherto (1593). ,)'aO Joao Baptista
(1622) and the Journeys of the survivors in South East Africa, Hakluyt Society, 2nd &,-"1'., vol. exii,
Cambridge, 1959, pp. vi vii.
29. 'lbe importance ofsightings of birds as indicators of proximity to the hazardous reefs and islands ofthe
Channel was often mentioned in roteiros. See B. R. Stuckenberg. The location and
Identity o(the Baixos da Judice an issue in the Portur,uese and British histOrical cartor,raphy ofthe
Mo::amhique Channel. Aeademia da Marinha. Lisbon (in press).
30. A line of clouds over the current can sometimes be seen clearly on satellite images broadcast in the
weather on South African television. In the first week of July 1997, clouds covered the entire
length ofthe current core from northern Zululand to Algoa Bay on three conseeutive days,
31. Dias and his successors. p. 8.
32. Brookes. Edgar H. & Webb. Colill de R.. A History ojNatal. {lniversity ofNata\ Press. 1965. p.3.
33. Here 'Octave' means the seventh day after a festival.
BRlAN R STUCKENBERG
What Da Gama missed
on his way to So/ala
Vasco da Gama rounded the Cape of Good Hope on 22 November 1497. His three
vessels entered the Bay of Sao Bras (Mossel Bay) on 25 November where they
anchored for the next 13 days. After a fracas with the local Khoi community, they
sailed on east, then northeast. By Christmas Day 1497 they had passed by 70
leagues the most easterly point that Bartolomeu Dias had reached, and Vasco da
Gama named the land he saw Natal. Three days later, Da Gama's ship 'stopped off
the coasC
1
, apparently off Natal Bay. The record makes no mention of anyone on
shore, and they sailed onwards after some successful fishing. Da Gama first made
contact with Bantu-speaking agriculturists north of what is today Delagoa Bay,
probably at the mouth of the Inharrime river in present-day Mozambique
2
.
What might Da Gama have found, and whom might he have met, had he landed
in his Natal? Archaeological evidence available for the period around 1500 is
limited, and restricted entirely to hunter-gatherers, though we know a great deal
more about the periods before 1400 and after 1700. There is some written historical
evidence. In the century that followed Da Gama' s voyage, contact with much of the
KwaZulu-Natal coast was forced upon the Portuguese by foul weather and leaky
vessels: the Slio Jolio was wTecked near the present Port Edward
3
in 1552 and the
Slio Bento at Msikaba
4
in 1554. Accounts of the experiences of these castaways
provide only limited information about the local communities, though reports from
crew members of the Slio Thome (wrecked on the Zululand coast in 1589) and the
Santo Alberto (wTecked on the Transkei coast in 1593) are more informative. In this
paper, I draw on these sixteenth century records. I couple them with archaeological
information from before and after Da Gama's voyage to provide a broader context
for Portuguese comments, and in this way try to develop a picture of the people
whom Da Gama would have met had he landed. However, I first establish that the
land the Portuguese called Natal corresponds to at least part of present-day
K waZulu-Natal.
Interpretations of early Portuguese geography
Most commentators believe that Da Gama's Natal was what is today called
Pondo1and. This is, in part, based upon an interpretation of Joao de Lisboa's not
very-useful 1514 description of the southern African coasts. Stuckenberg's well
argued article elsewhere in this issue of Natalia, however, indicates that Da Gama
Natalia 27 (1997). G. VJhitelaw, pp. 30-41
31 What Da Gama missed on his way to Sofala
was probably off the KwaZulu-Natal South Coast on Christmas Day 1497, in the
vicinity of present-day Hibberdene. Furthermore, Manuel de Mesquita Perestrello, in
his 1575-76 survey of the southern African coastline, described the Land of Natal as
extending from latitude 32 to 30, thus encompassing the Pondoland and southern
KwaZulu-Natal coast from Coffee Bay to Isipingo Beach, a little south of Durban
6
.
Bell-Cross' ignored the latitudes given, because elsewhere Perestrello had
commented as follows:
The Points of the Pillar are four leagues east of the islets Chaos, in latitude
thirty-three degrees. The first part of the Land of Natal lies northeast at a
distance of twenty-five leagues.
8
The islets Chaos (Bird Islands in Algoa Bay) and the Points of the Pillar
(Kwaaihoek, west of the Bushmans river mouth) are in fact separated by a straight
line distance of 5.9 leagues
9
, not far off Perestrello' s measurement. Where
Perestrello erred, however, was in placing Kwaaihoek at latitude 33, rather than
33 43'. It was presumably this error that led Bell-Cross to reject the latitude in
favour of the established location of K waaihoek when he placed the Land of Natal
between the Buffalo river and a point north of the Mzimvubu
lO

It is conceivable, though, that Perestrello measured the 25 leagues to the Land of
Natal from latitude 33, rather than Kwaaihoek. Natal itself ex1ended a further 45
leagues from its southernmost point. These measurements, taken from latitude 33,
place the Land of Natal precisely between latitudes 32 and 30, which is consistent
with Perestrello' s description. Support for this position is provided by the latitudes
Perestrello gave for landmarks north of the Land of Natal. Point Pescaria lay 12
leagues north of Natal at latitude 29 20'. Point St Lucia (Cape St Lucia), for which
Perestrello gave an accurate latitude of 28 30', lay 15 leagues north of Point
Pescaria. The identity of Point Pescaria is unkno\\tn, though it is often linked to the
Durban Bluff 1. Measurements from Cape St Lucia southwards and from the 'last
point' of Natal (latitude 30) northwards place Point Pescaria tightly between 29
20' and 29 10', north of the Bluff. This matches Perestrello's reading. It would
seem that the most likely identity of Point Pescaria is the Mvoti river mouth at 29
24'. With its small rocky point and a hill that rises inland of it to a height of 108 rn,
it appears to match Perestrello's description much better than does the Bluff:
[It] is a point not very high, with small rocky ledges, and in the interior there is
another larger one behind that on the coast, with many white patches. 12
The internal coherence of coastal landmarks with Perestrello' s latitude and
distance measurements demonstrate beyond reasonable doubt that the land the
Portuguese called Natal encompassed the entire KwaZulu-Natal coast south of
Durban.
32
What Da Gama missed on his to Sofala
---==
o 100 200 kIll
,$ Inilarrime River.
Mvoti R.

S'
_ ''i
n
-.
,$
a
Delagoa Bay
f

Cape SI Lucia
(Point Sl Lucia)
Richards Bay
(MhlutU7C Lagoonl- 29
, Y ./
/c": Durhan -, Mvotl R. Cl:"


Q

San Joao 1552
'lCl:"
,eo,

Mzikaha

rS
Sao Benlo 1554

'_,

Kci R?,vcrSanlO Alberro

1593
East London ----- - - D"
Kwaaihoek (POllllS of the Pillar)
o 50 100 km
___-=====:::::l
Places on the south-east coast of Africa mentioned in the text.
(Illustration by Val Ward)
33 What Da Gama missed on his w ~ y to Sofala
The archaeological evidence
Sixteenth century reports indicate that Portuguese castaways on what is today the
KwaZulu-Natal coast came into contact with people who were "herdsmen and
cultivators of the ground, by which means they subsist' 13. Archaeological evidence
shows that Bantu-speaking agriculturists first settled in southern Africa around AD 300.
Bantu-speakers originated in the vicinity of modem Cameroon from where they
began to move eastwards and southwards, some time after 400 BC, skirting around
the equatorial forest. An extremely rapid spread throughout much of sub-equatorial
Africa followed: dating shows that the earliest communities in Tanzania and South
Africa are separated in time by only 200 years, despite the 3 000 km distance
between the two regions. It seems likely that the speed of the spread was a
consequence of agriculturists deliberately seeking iron ore sources and particular
combinations of soil and climate suitable for the cultivation of their crops14.
The earliest agricultural sites in KwaZulu-Natal date to between AD 400 and
550. All are situated close to sources of iron ore, and within 15 km of the coast.
Current evidence suggests it may have been too dry further inland at this time for
successful cultivation. From 650 onwards, however, climatic conditions improved
and agriculturists expanded into the valleys of KwaZulu-Natal, where they settled
close to rivers in savanna or bushveld environments. There is a considerable body of
information available about these early agriculturists
15
. .
Seed remains show that they cultivated finger millet, bulrush millet, sorghum
and probably the African melon. It seems likely that they also planted African
groundnuts and cowpeas, though direct evidence for these plants is lacking from the
earlier periods. Faunal remains indicate that they kept sheep, cattle, goats, chickens
and dogs, with cattle and sheep providing most of the meat. Men hunted, perhaps
with dogs, but hunted animals made only a limited contribution to the diet in our
region. Metal production was a key activity. since it provided the tools of cultivation
and hunting. The evidence indicates that people who worked metal lived in almost
every village, even those that were considerable distances from ore sources.
KwaZulu-Natallacks rich copper ore sources. Consequently, the focus was on the
production of iron items. However, small copper artefacts recovered from two
KwaZulu-Natal sites suggest the possibility of trade networks with copper-rich areas
north of the Phongolo river16.
Large-scale excavations in recent years have provided data indicating that
first-millennium agriculturist society was patrilineal and that men used cattle as
bridewealth in exchange for wives. On a political level, society was organised into
chiefdoms that, in our region, may have had up to three hierarchical levels. The
villages of chiefs tended to be larger than others, with several livestock enclosures,
and some were occupied continuously for lengthy periods. Social forces of the time
resulted in the concentration of unusual items on these sites. These include artefacts
that originated from great distances, ivory items (which as early as AD 700 appear
to have been a symbol of chiefiainship), and initiation paraphernalia
17
.
This particular way of life came to an end around AD 1000, for reasons that we
do not yet fully understand. There was a radical change in the decorative style of
agriculturist ceramics at this time, while the preferred village locations of the last
34 What Da Gama missed on his to So/ala
four centuries were abandoned in favour of sites along the coastal littoral. In
general, sites dating to between 1050 and 1250 are smaller than most earlier
agriculturist settlements. It is tempting to see in this change the origin of the Nguni
settlement pattern. Indeed, some archaeologists have suggested that the changes
were a result of the movement into the region of people who were directly ancestral
to the Nguni-speakers of today. Others prefer to see the change as the product of
social and cultural restructuring within resident agriculturist communities
18
.
Whatever the case, it seems likely that this new pattern of settlement was in
some way infuenced by a changing climate, for there is evidence of increasing
aridity from about AD 900. Furthermore, tree-ring data from a nearly 600-year-old
yellowwood from KwaZulu-Natal suggest that the region may have been arid in the
fourteenth century. Average annual rainfall increased in the 1400s, though the
1480s appear to have been dry. In contrast, the tree-ring data suggest that Da Gama
sailed along the east coast of southern Africa in conditions wetter than those of the
previous 200 years
1
9.
Two sites dating to the period 1050-1250 have been excavated. The excavator of
one suggested that the settlement originally contained 15 to 20 huts of about 5.5 m
in diameter. These appear to have been of beehive construction, with one or more
central posts. The agricultural technology appears to have remained essentially
unchanged: people continued to plant crops, practise metallurgy and keep domestic
animals. Men still hunted, while on the coast people fished and gathered shellfish as
had been done for the previous 400 years20.
From at least AD 1250, agriculturists moved for the first time into the grasslands
of KwaZulu-Natal. Here they constructed settlements on hilltops, with low stone
walls forming hut terraces and livestock enclosures. These structures are frequently
enclosed within walling positioned, apparently, to augment the natural defenses of
the hills, though the limited height of the walls would seem to negate this
possibility. Several sites of this period are kno\\tn, though only one has been
excavated
21
.
The nature of the dwellings on these sites is uncertain, though they had
well-prepared rammed-rubble foors, smeared probably with a mix of mud and dung.
One floor preserved the impressions of a woven grass mat Other evidence shows
that communities in the grasslands cultivated sorghum and kept cattle, and it seems
probable that they had other traditional African crops and animals. They used iron
tools, though there is no evidence of the production of iron
22
. This is not surprising
because there is very little wood in the grass lands that could be used to fire a
furnace. Clearly, grassland communities must have received their tools from
iron-producing people elsewhere. This new pattern of economic inter-dependence is
substantially different from that of earlier centuries, and is one that continued into
the colonial period nearly 500 years
No archaeological information on agriculturists in KwaZulu-Natal is available
for the period between the early 1400s and the 1700s. Archaeological research of the
later period has focused upon settlements built with stone, situated in the grasslands
of KwaZulu-Natal. The visibility of these stone-built settlements makes them a
convenient subject for research. Typically, each settlement has a livestock enclosure,
35 What Da Gama missed an his way ta Safala
or several enclosures, at its centre. These are surrounded by dwellings and other
structures such as grain-store foundations. Discrete settlements are frequently
clustered, each situated within metres of its nearest neighbour. This pattern is
interpreted as reflecting 'agnatic clustering', in which several men related through a
common ancestor built settlements in close proximity to one another. There is only
limited evidence of hierarchies, which suggests that chiefdoms of the time in these
areas were relatively small in scale. Interestingly, various styles of settlement layout
occur. These appear to have been culturally specific and governed by male cultural,
but not political, affinities
24
.
People of this time would have planted a range of crops. Evidence exists of both
sorghum and cowpeas, but the cool, moist climate of the grasslands is less suited to
African cereals than are conditions in lower-lying areas, and maize was widely
cultivated
25
. The introduction of this crop from the Americas by the Portuguese may
have had far-reaching social implications. Maize has a higher carbohydrate yield
per unit of labour and land than African cereals, and it is less susceptible to damage
by birds. Furthermore, the adoption of maize as a staple crop allowed a significant
expansion of people into areas that previously had little occupation by
agriculturists
26
.
The archaeological and associated oral-historical evidence for this time indicates
that livestock particularly cattle, was both a social and a more strictly economic
resource. The animals provided food and leather, and were used by men as
bridewealth for wives. Consequently, people within each chiefdom appear to have
used the varying resources available to them to maximise herd growth
27
.
The Portuguese records
Perestrello described the Land of Natal as high, with patches of sand along the sea
and a rocky shore. Inland, it was fertile, well-peopled and with 'a great variety of
animals tame and wild'28. North of its northern boundary was Point Pescaria, for
which Perestrello gives a latitude of 29 20', a little north of Natal Bay, although the
term Pescaria was elsewhere used for the Mhlathuze lagoon (present-day Richards
Bay). Point Saint Lucia (Cape St Lucia) lay to the northeast at a latitude of 28 30'.
Perestrello described Lake St Lucia as being of 'good size, and with some swamps
which continue for several leagues' . North of the lake lay the Land of Fumos, which
extended to Delagoa Bai
9
.
With the exception of hunter-gatherers, most people living in this territory spoke
an Nguni language
3o
. This seems clear from a number of words that the Portuguese
recorded during the 1500s. In particular, the terms inkasi for king or chief, isinkwa
(sincoa) for bread, halala (alala) and a derivation of nana (nanhata) used for a
greeting, suggest an Nguni language. So too does the name uBaba, given for a man
who met the survivors of the Santa Alberta in 1593. Indeed, the Santa Alberta
report confidently asserts that the language of nearly all people of Kaffraria is the
same, differences only existing at a dialect level between one area and another. This
may well have been the case for the area through which the Santa Alberta survivors
travelled, but Hair has rightly questioned such a sweeping statement, drawing
attention to inconsistencies in the meaning of the term Kaffraria and in the words
36 What Da Gama missed on his way to So/ala
recorded
31
The Santo Alberto report was compiled in 1597 by Joao Baptista
Lavanha from the journal kept by the pilot who survived the wreck and subsequent
journey to Delagoa Bay. Lavanha appears to have merged accounts of Khoi and
Bantu-speakers in his brief ethnography of the people of Natal. It is possibly this
conflation of data sources that is responsible for his recording the word pombe for
beer, currently a Swahili word, in a primarily Nguni area.
Survivors of the four sixteenth-century wrecks along the KwaZulu-Natal coast
followed one of two strategies in their efforts to return to Portugal. The crews and
passengers of the Sao Joao, Sao Bento and Sao Thome all travelled northwards
along the coast, while the Santo Alberto survivors, aware of the hardships that
earlier castaways had experienced on the coast, chose to journey inland. All were
dependent upon food and drink they could gather or obtain through trade from local
communities. The accounts describe a variety of crops. These include at least two
cereals, one with a grain the size of a peppercorn, the other with grain like canary
seed. These are probably sorghum and one of the millets. People ground the grain in
wooden mortars or between two stones and used the flour to make a paste (possibly
porridge), beer and a form of bread. African melons, groundnuts, beans
32
and
'ameixoeira', described in different accounts as a grain and a pulse
33
, were also
cultivated. This range of plants is consistent with the archaeological evidence and
with traditional practices documented in the recent past.
Livestock was abundant, particularly inland where survivors of the Santo
Alberto travelled. This account contains descriptions of herds of 100 or more head
of cattle, along with a note that these typically include more cows than bulls, and
flocks of 200 sheep34. These may be exaggerations, but it is worth noting that a
young man from Bengal, wrecked with the Sao Joao, informed the Sao Bento party
that 'the country was thickly populated and provided with cattle,35, although this
was apparently not evident from the near-coastal zone in which the Sao Bento
survivors travelled. The animals provided meat, milk and 'butter', by which the
Portuguese presumably meant amasi (sour milk). Interestingly, whereas castaways
travelling along the coast mention goats, sheep were apparently the dominant small
stock encountered by the Santo Alberto party. It seems unlikely that this was a case
of mistaken identity, and limited archaeological support for the Santo Alberto
account is provided by an eighteenth-century stone-walled site near present-day
Bergville which yielded the remains of one sheep, 22 sheep or goats, but no certain
36
goats . It is tempting to wonder whether this difference between inland and coastal
livestock herds was culturally significant, or simply related to the differing
environments. Agriculturists of sixteenth-century Natal probably considered
chickens to be of limited importance, though they often offered them to the
Portuguese in trade.
The Portuguese noted that local diets were not limited to the products of
domesticated plants and animals, but that agriculturists also exploited a wide range
of wild ones. Fishing appears to have been an important activity along the northern
KwaZulu-Natal coast, and the Sao Bento survivors bought fish at the Mhlathuze
lagoon. Perestrello, who was with the Sao Bento party, described a man fishing with
traps in Delagoa Bay, while the Sao Thome account mentions people fishing from
37 f,f'lwt Da Gama mi,<"'5.ed on hi.)' lvay to ,""o[ala
small craft in the general vicinity of the bay37. Neither Perestrello' s report nor that
of the Sao ./OGO ordeaL mentions fishing further south. Yet oral-historical and
written information shows that people used fish traps in Natal Bay between about
1750 and 1824
38
. This may have been a later development for AIvaro Velho.
chronicler ofDa Gama's voyage, made no mention of any fishing in the bay. if this
was indeed where Da Gama's fleet stopped on 28 December 1497
39
.
The principal item of value that the Portuguese could offer in exchange for food,
drink and guides was metal. The Nguni communities of the Land of Natal and
further north clearly valued metal items, both for their novelty value and for their
usefulness when reworked as tools or weapons. The ,s'anto Alberto document urged
the survivors of shipwrecks to bum the remains of their vessels, to extract the nails
for trade, or toss them into the sea. thus increasing the value of the goods held by
castaways411. Archaeological and geological evidence from KwaZulu-Natal indicates
that there is an uneven distribution of metal ores in the province
41
. This is reflected
in the Portuguese accounts. At Msikaba and in the Land of Fumos to the north. for
example, people carried fire-hardened wooden spears, Elsewhere, near the Thukela
river, the Santo Alberto party noted that:
for the same amount of copper of which they wear bracelets for which the
[people met earlier in the journey Jgave three cows they would only give one, it
not being so valuable among them, and they also accept calico, which the others
would not accept. It is therefore proper to trade with copper and iron for the
purchase of provisions until reaching this place, and to keep calico for this
place and the country beyond for this is what they demanded in exchange for
42
COWS .
This contrast illustrates the differing access that people had to iron; the Thukela
basin, unlike southern K waZulu-Natal, Transkei and the plains north of Mhlathuze
lagoon, has rich bodies of iron ore.
Two points of interest arise from the documentation of this exchange. First, the
production of metal among Bantu-speaking people was not a simple technological
event, but richly imbued with symbolism, prohibitions and ritual
43
. Metal
production was not a widely-practised skill, in the sense that it was done by
specialists, and the industry was governed by chiefly authority. It is difficult to know
what effect the availability of Portuguese metal might have had, for it seems
unlikely that all people who received the metal items were smiths. Secondly, copper
was probably being worked into ornaments such as bracelets in the Thuke1a basin at
the end of the 1500s. The S'anto Alberto account indicates that the value of the metal
was lower in the Thukela basin than further south. Yet, only low-grade copper ore
bodies occur in the province, and the available evidence indicates that the metal was
imported into the region. The reduced value of the Portuguese copper suggests that
the volume of imports was significant, even at this early date. Alternatively, local
environmental conditions may have restricted the growth of cattle herds, increasing
the value of each beast.
Detailed descriptions of the homesteads of the people of Natal are limited in the
Portuguese documents, and sometimes ambiguous. Perestrello described a
homestead as consisting of about 20 huts 'like a baker's oven,44 built of poles and
38 H1wt Da Gama missed on his wa:v to So/ala
thatched. These, he wrote, were moved from place to place with the changing
seasons. This is clearly incorrect though the actual description of the huts
corresponds with a beehive hut. Lavanha described what seems to be a Khoi
settlement in his ethnography at the beginning of the Santo Alberto account, but
later wrote:
they came to a village consisting of a few houses around a kraal. in which there
were alxmt a hundred cows and a hundred and twenty very large sheep of the
Ormuz breed. Here lived an old man with his sons and grandsons ... ,15.
I have already mentioned that I regard Lavanha' s ethnography with some
scepticism. The second description probably comes more directly from the pilot's
journal and is consistent with settlement layouts of the 1700s, except that it suggests
that cattle and sheep were kraaled together. Inhaca' scapital at Delagoa Bay
impressed Perestrello with its order and size, courtyards and paths. It was
surrounded by . a kind of prickly pine trees which grmv in that country, thickly set
with three or four entrances ... '. The party rested in a courtyard 'before the king's
rustic mountain palace' ,16. Perestrello's description could be interpreted in many
ways, but it is at least not inconsistent with ethnographicaUy- and
archaeologically-known settlements. In particular, the image suggested by the
courtyard before the king's rustic mountain palace finds a parallel in the practice of
placing a court or meeting place near the ruler's dwelling.
The information on settlements provides data on the structure of society: the
Portuguese frequently describe clusters of homesteads, in the near-coastal zone and
further inland. It is tempting to interpret these as reflecting the agnatic clustering
noted among eighteenth-century settlements in the grass lands of KwaZulu-Natal.
Indeed. this seems the most likely explanation. especially considering the
description above of the relationship between the men of the homestead visited by
the Santo Alberto party. Furthermore, the settlement pattern at which the
Portuguese documents hint (a cattle pen surrounded by dwellings) exists among
Bantu-speaking people who are patrilineal and exchange cattle for wives
47
. Since
Nguni society at this time 'vas polygamous
48
, we can reasonably assume that this
was the case in the lands of Natal and Fumos. This conclusion is supported by
missionary Andre Fernandes' 1562 report from lnhambane that marrying men there
paid bridewealth in the form of cattle49.
Today, Nguni-speakers practise exogamy, marrying outside their kin group.
Though I found no comment on this in the sixteenth-century accounts of the lands
of Natal and Fumos, Fernandes recorded exogamy near Inhambane
5o
. Marriage, as
in all societies, was a rite of passage. It is therefore not surprising that dress styles
changed upon marriage. The Santo Alberto report records that young nobles wore
reed mats prior to having 'female associates, which was generally at the age of
twenty-two and upwards ,51. Circumcision, another rite of passage, was evidently
practised among the Tsonga and south of latitude 2952.
The distribution of settlement in what is today KwaZulu-Natal was not uniform
in the 1500s. All the shipwrecked parties travelled through terrain with limited or
no habitation. The ex-periences of the Santo Alberto party are particularly
interesting. Travelling inland, they crossed at least two areas they referred to as
39 {fhat Da Gama 1IIi:..',,'ed on his l'vay to Sofala
desert because of the absence of habitation and edible foodstuffs, These were almost
certainly zones of sourveld with unpalatable grasses unsuitable for cattle farming
53
,
The Portuguese developed a basic understanding of political systems in south
east Africa early in their exploration, On Da Gama's 1497 voyage, a chief at the
Inharrime river indicated to Da Gama's 'interpreter' the existence of a 'great
lord,5.1, implying a hierarchical political structure, Further south in territory
occupied by Nguni-speakers, the Silo Joiio survivors met an old man who, as head
of two homesteads, may have been a petty chief. The Siio Thorn/; survivors provided
some detail on the political situation along the coast The report names several
'kings' from Delagoa Bay southwards to some distance inside the Land of Natal.
South of this last kingdom, 'there are no other kings, but all is in the possession of
chiefs called Inkosis, who are heads and governers of three, four, or five \;llages,55,
The hierarchical structure of governance seems to have been reasonably well
understood, Perestrello observed that the king Inhaca delegated authority to
individuals within each village,
During the course of the sixteenth century some of the northern chiefdoms
experienced substantial growth. This was clearly at the expense of other political
entities and Portuguese shipwreck survivors were at times drawn into the political
intrigue. It is difficult to establish to what extent the trade through Delagoa Bay was
responsible for this confict. The rapidly-established ivory trade (Lourenc;o Marques
began annual or biennial visits to the bay for trading purposes in 1542) and the
wealth this generated must have increased tension between communities, Hmvever,
archaeological evidence suggests that political strife between chieftains occurred on
varying levels throughout the long history of agriculturists in southern Africa,
Moreover, Swahili traders had been operating along the east coast of Africa for
several centuries,
Conclusion
The Portuguese observers were writing, as Auret and Maggs put ie before the time
of detached, scientific observation that was a feature of the eighteenth century's Age
of Reason
56
The accounts of the experiences of the survivors are nevertheless
extraordinarily interesting documents that provide hints of agriculturist life in
sixteenth-century KwaZulu-NataL In this paper. I hope that by providing a broader
archaeological context to the accounts, I have been able to sketch a picture of
agriculturist life around AD 1500,
NOTES
1, Axelson, E. (00.) 1988. Dias and hiS successors. Cape TO\vn: Saayman & Weber (Pty) Ud, p. 9.
2. Axelson, E. 1940. South-East Afrtca 14881530. London: Longmans, Green and Co.: Axelson, E. 1973.
Portuguese in south-east AfTica 1488-J600. Johatmesburg: C. Stmik (Pty) Ltd; Axeison, Dias.
3. MaW, T. 1984. 'lbe Great Galleon Silo Joilo: remains from a mid-sixteenth centUry wreck on the Natal
South Coast. Annals ofthe Natal Afuseum 26( 1): pp. 173-186.
4. Auret, C. & MaW, T. 1982. The Great Ship Silo Bento: remains from a mid-sixteenth century
Portuguese wreck on the Pondolatld coast. Annals ofthe ]Vatal Mu.seum 25( 1): pp. 1-39.
5. Bell-Cross, G. & Axelson, E. (eds) 1988. Joao de Lisboa's description of the coast of South Africa, c.
1514. In: Axelson, Dws, pp. 14-27.
6. Theal, G. M. 1898 (1964). Records ofSouth-eastern Africa (Volume JJ. Facsinlile reprint. Cape Town:
C. Stmik (Pty) Ltd, p.328.
40
Tf7wt Da Gama missed on his wav to Sofala
7. Bell-Cross, G. (ed.) 1988. Mesquita 's survey of the south and south-east coast of Africa,
1575 1576. In: Axelson, DIGs, pp.
8. Theal. Records (Vol IJ. p. 321.
9. A league is 5.92 km.
10. Bell-Cross, Mesquita Pere.1.rello's survey, p. 37.
11. Axelson, Dias, p. 9. The survivors of the Sao Bento wreck gave the name Pescaria to the lVfillathuze
lagoon: Maggs, T. 1989. The Iron Age farming communities. In: Duminy, A & Guest., B. (eels) Natal
and Zululandfrom earliest times to 1910. Pietermaritzburg: 'University of Natal Press.
12. Theal, Records (Vol J), p. 324.
13. Theal, G. M. 1898 (1964). Records of south-eastern Africa (Vo!. IJ). Facsimile reprint. Cape Town: C.
Struik (Pty) Ltd. p. 293.
14. Sec A::ama 29-30 (Special volume: The growth of farming conununities in Africa from the Equator
southwards) tor papers that provide an overview ofthis period.
15. Maggs, T. 199495. The Early Iron Age in the extreme south: some pattems and problems. A::::ania 29
30: pp. \\lhitelaw, G. & Moon, M. 1996. Ibe and distribution of pioneer
agriculturists in KwaZulu-Natal. Natal Museum Journal ofHumanities 8: pp. 79.
16. Maggs, The Early Iron Age in the extr(.'tlle south.
17. \Vhitelaw, G. 1994-95. Towards an Early Iron Ageworldview: some ideas from KwaZulu-Natal. Azania
29-30: pp. 37 -50.
18. Maggs, The Iron Age farming commlmities. An altemate hypothesis for the origin of agriculturist
cotlllmmities ofthe early second millenium AD is provided by Huffman, T. 1989 ...
19. HalL M. 1976. Dendroclimatology, rainfall and human adaptation in the Late Iron Age of Natal and
Zululand. Annals ofthe Natal Museum 22(3): pp. Prins, F. E. 1994-95. Climate, vegetation
and early agriculturist conmmnites in Transkei and KwaZulu-Natal. Azania 29-30: pp. 179186.
20. Davies, O. 1971. Excavations at Blackbum. South African Archeological Bulletin 26: pp.
Robey, T. :\fpambanyoni: a Late Iron Age site on the Natal south coast. Annals of the Natal Museum
24(1): pp. 147164.
21. Davies, 0. 1974. Excavations at the walled Early Iron Age site in Moor Park near Estcourt., Katal.
Annals ofthe Natal.Museum 22( 1): pp.
22. Davies. Excavations at Moor Park.
23. Maggs, Iron Age farming conummities.
24. Maggs, T., Oswald, D., Hall, M. & Ri.i.ther, H. 1986. Spatial parameters of Late Iron Age settlements in
the upper Thukela Valley. Annals ofthe Natal Museum 27(2): pp.
25. Hall, M. & Maggs, T. 1979. Nqabeni, a Late Iron Age site in Zululand The South African
Archaeological Society Goodwin Series 3: pp. 159-176; Maggs, T. 1982. Mgoduyanuka: terminal Iron
Age settlement in the Natal grasslands. Annals ofThe Natal Museum 25(1): pp. 83 113.
26. Maggs, Iron Age fanning conununities.
27. Hall, M. & Mack, K 1983. 'I11e outline of an eigbtea1th-ealtury economic system in south-east Africa.
Annals ofthe South Afncan Aluseum 91(2): pp. 194.
28. TheaL Records (Vol. D p. 323.
29. Bell-Cross, Mesquita Perestrello's survey.
30. Hair, P. E. H. 1980. Portuguese contacts with the Bantu languages of the Transkei, Natal and southem
Mozambique African Studies 39(1): pp. 3-46.
31. Hair, Portuguese contacts; 'Ibeal, Records (Vo!. Il).
32. 'Beans' were described by the missionary Andre Femandes: 'Each pod contains about sixteen beans more
or less ... ' (Theal, Records (Vo1. m p. 73). He may have been referring to <..'Owpeas which have pods
resembling that desmbed.
33. Theal, Records (Vol. Il).
34. Theal, Records (Vol. If).
35. Theal, Records (rol. n. p. 235. This happened north of latitude 30.
36. Plug, L & Brown, A 1982. Mgoduyanuka: faunal remains. Annals of the Natal Museum 25(1): pp.

37. Theal, Records (Vols I &
38. Webb. C. de B. & Wrigbt 1. B. 1979. The James Stuart archive ofrecorded oral evidence relating to
the history ofthe Zulu and neighbouring peoples, vol. 2. Pietermaritzburg: University of Natal Press.
39. It is possible that Da Gama was a considerable distance north of Natal Bay on 28 December, given the
speed at which Stuckenberg suggests his flotilla was sailing, even allowing for the running repairs to the
mast (see Axelson, Dias, p. 9).
40. Theat, Records (VoL Il),
41 What Da Gama missed on his way to Sofala
41. \Vhitelaw, G. 1991. Precolonial iron production around Durban and in southem Natal. 1v'atal Museum
Journal ofHu.mamtles 3: pp. 29-39.
42. Theal, Records (1'01. lI), p. 326
43. Maggs, T. 1992. 'My father's hammer never ceased its song day and night' the Zulu ferrous
mdalworking industry. Natal Mu.seum Jou.rnal ojHumanities 4: pp. 65-87
44. Theal, Records (VO/. /), p. 230.
45. Theal, Records (Vol.lI), p. 300.
46. Theal, Records (Vol. 1), p. 270.
47. Kuper, A. } 980. Symbolic dimensions ofthe southern Bantu homestead. Africa 50: pp. 8-23.
48. Theat, Records (Vol. m.
49. Theat, Records (Vol. m.
50. Theat, Records (Vo!. 11), p. 143.
51. lbeal, Records (Vol. 11), p. 317.
52. Theat, Records (rol. IIJ, pp. 66 & 294.
53. Probably Acocks' Highland sourveld and Dolme sourveld.
54. Hair, Portuguese contacts, p. 8.
55. 'Ibeat, Records (Vol. 11), p. } 99
56. Aura & Maggs, S{ioBento.
GAVIN WHITELA W
Hlobane: A new perspective
On 28 March 1879, the British were roundly defeated as they tried to take cattle
belonging to the Qulusi from the plateau of IDobane. On the following day, the
main Zulu impi attacked the British laager at Khambula and was decisively
repulsed, a victory which overshadowed the earlier debacle. This paper sets the
action at IDobane in its geographical and historical context using a previously
unnoticed source to clarify the movements of the British and Zulu forces, illuminate
the relationship between colonial units and imperial officers and illustrate the
intrigues initiated by the latter to cover their mistakes.
The rugged country where the Mfolozi Mhlope (White Mfolozi), Mfolozi
Mnyama (Black Mfolozi) and Mkhuze Rivers have their headwaters has for long
been the cockpit of south-eastern Africa. In the late eighteenth century when it was
occupied by the N gwane of Masumpha Zondo and a less cohesive grouping of
Zwane and Mazibuko peoples known as the Ngwe, the Ndwandwe and Mtetwa vied
for control. The Ngwane under Matiwane kaMasumpha were forced out and in
consequence caused the IDubi polity centred on the rolling landscape between the
Ncome and Mzinyathi Rivers temporarily to disintegrate. As the Ndwandwe
defensive zone roughly drawn along the middle reaches of the Mfolozi Mhlope
crumbled under the probing of the Mtetwa, a small group of Khumalo under
Mzilikazi Khumalo was prompted to plunder its smaller neighbours to the west
under Nyoka Zwane before coming into further conflict with the groups locked into
the kloofs of a massive spur of the Khahlamba dominated on its southern side by
Ngcaka Mountain overlooking the upper Phongolo River. Here the Nyawo,
Shabalala and Kubheka peoples, who looked for stability towards the related
Ngwane Dlamini polity north of the river, were plundered and quietened. Not many
years later, Ndwandwe refugees followed the same route on to the upper highveld,
ejected by forces now controlled by Shaka kaSenzengakhona Zulu. Attempting a
return in 1826, they were met at Ndololwane on the western edge of the area and
dispersed. As the larger refugee groups rolled through, the original small groupings
largely survived, the craggy landscape providing shelter from the military and
political attentions of the increasingly dominant Zulu polity to the south.
For many years the area remained relatively isolated, the western end of a border
zone between the Zulu and Ngwane Dlamini now becoming better known as the
Swazi. Refugees who sought sanctuary with the Zulu were placed on the edge of this
cordon sanitaire; rebel Swazi princes were settled at Bhadzeni near the Dumbe
Mountain in 1847 by Mpande kaSenzengakhona Zulu. Mpande had viewed with
apprehension the return of the Hlubi under Langalibalele kaMthimkulu and the
Natalia 27 (1997), H. Jones, pp. 42-68
43 Hlobane: A new perspective
need to keep them as well as others, such as the Mazibuko and the people of
Nyamayenja waSobhuza Dlamini, aware of the potential of Zulu power even though
he acknowledged they were not his subjects. Continuing requests for land from
trekboers arriving west of the Mzinyathi River were also cause for disquiet. Mpande
responded by placing important groups and reliable izinduna in localities of
strategic importance, strengthening the north-western border area by moving the
Ntombela under Lukwazi kaMazwana into the eastern foothills of the Zungwini
Range south of the Bivane River and the Mdlalose under Sekethwayo kaNhlaka into
the lands along the upper Mfolozi Mhlope. Immediately to their rear, in the deep
kloofs of the linking series of plateaux running north-westwards from Ntendeka in
the west through Hlobane and Ityenteka to Mashongololo, Mpande moved the
QuJusi homestead, Baqulusini, which had become his responsibility on the death of
Mnkabayi kaJama Zulu. This was the focus for a group of refugees of royal origin
who came under Zulu protection, but retained their privileged status and to this
homestead the Swazi were attached.
Tensions lead to war
As polities consolidated and border zones shrank to boundaries more precisely
defined, potential for conflict increased. This is not the place to rehearse the causes
of the Anglo-Zulu War of 1879, save to note that, for several years previously, the
area had been marked by tensions which became more obvious as the British upset
the balance of political power by annexing the South African Republic (ZAR) in
1877, taking control of the upper Phongolo area from its burghers. On the other side
of the boundary, the situation also changed with the arrival in 1866 of another
Swazi refugee, Mbilini waMswati Dlamini, the first-born son of Ngwenyama
Mswati. He settled in the hills north of the confluence of the Ntombe and Phongolo
Rivers immediately establishing a close personal relationship with Mpande's heir,
Cetshwayo Zulu, who had assumed a dominant position in Zulu politics. After
spending three years at Ulundi, in 1878 Mbilini established another homestead,
Ndlabeyitubula, on the south-eastern slopes of Mashongololo. From here he raided
the south-western borders of the Swazi country as well as the districts of Utrecht and
Wakkerstroom.
Even as the British appeared magisterially to resolve border problems, their
relations with the Zulu deteriorated to the point when, in late 1878, it became
obvious to Cetshwayo that war was inevitable. Mbilini was still the dominant
personality in the area and Cetshwayo was content to allow him to assume military
control. Through his spies and mounted scouts who regularly patrolled as far north
as the Mkhondvo River, Mbilini was aware of British troop movements. Most
obvious were the continuous wagon trains from Newcastle through Utrecht carrying
supplies for a forward commissary at Balte' s Spruit. The arrival of the administrator
of the Transvaal, Sir Theophilus Shepstone, in Utrecht at Christmas 1878 would not
have gone unnoticed. Africans living on farms in Utrecht and Wakkerstroom
districts were pressed into service and drafted to Utrecht to be kitted out with arms.
Since his surrender was one of the conditions of the British ultimatum to the Zulu,
Mbilini left his homestead above the Ntombe and moved to Ndlabeyitubula. On 1
January 1879 the wagon route to Balte's Spruit was choked with troops. Clearly
44 Hlohane: A new perspective
: Luneburg

Swazi land Schermbrucker's route 27th March
Wood' s Irregulars' route 27th March
Both columns to bivouac
Russell 's advance
Buller' s advance
Weatherley's advance
.. :"
Wood' s advance and return
_ _ Lines of retreat
<; Qulusi attacks
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The Action at Hlobane
27/28th March 1879
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27/28 March
(c; Huw M Jones
45 Hlobane: A new perspective
visible from the Zungwini Range, was the British camp at Conference Hill, not far
from the banks of the as were attempts by the troops to ford what was
assumed by their commanders to be the Zulu they were finally successful
on 6 January, five days before the ultimatum was due to expire. Mbilini did nothing
to impede the progress of this force, NoA Column under Brevet Col H.E.
90th (Perthshire Volunteers) Light Infantry, attempting only, albeit unsuccessfully,
to deter waverers such as Tinta Mdlalose and the border induna Mbemba from
defecting with their people, cattle and weapons. Instead he took control of the
Qulusi and of the Ntombela, now led by Mabamba kaLukwazi and his principal
induna Ndabankulu Ntombela, as well as the Kubheka under Manyonyoba
kaMagonondo who lived in the Ntombe valley north of the Phongolo. Mbilini's
defensive strategy was that in which he had been sedulously trained in the Swazi
polity: given the obvious military superiority of the enemy, offer as little resistance
as possible and withdraw to prepared positions in the mountains. By early March,
homesteads had been cleared of people and cattle; men were trained and drilled in
the use of captured weapons. For his central defensive position, Mbilini selected the
series of plateaux stretching from Ntendeka to Mashongololo above Baqulusini.
Here on the flat plateau of Hlobane, the Qulusi ranged their cattle from temporary
homesteads built on the terraces around its precipitous sides.
When circumstances were opportune, Mbilini struck with ferocity in the sudden
dawn raids that were a feature of Swazi offensive tactics. A British convoy from the
hamlet of Derby bound for Liineburg became bogged down during the heavy rains of
early March and several wagons were looted. The remaining wagons were collected
at the drift across the Ntombe, but the convoy was inadequately guarded and Mbilini
attacked at dawn on 12 March, killing 79 soldiers and civilians and seizing arms
and ammunition. By the time reinforcements arrived from Liineburg, the Qulusi had
disappeared. Stung by the defeat at Ntombe Drift and lured by reports of thousands
of cattle grazing on Hlobane, Wood was pressured into an assault on this plateau
which he incorrectly believed to be the main locus of Qulusi opposition. Poorly
crafted plans, based on inadequate intelligence and compounded by inept soldiering,
marked the British defeat in the action at Hlobane on 27128 March 1879.
Wood's accounts
Accounts of the action have relied heavily on Wood's autobiography published in
1906
1
He used his official despatch written on 30 March 1879 of which there are,
in fact, two versions
2
. That published officially contains two important sections
omitted from the abbreviated version which received wide publicity in the
newspapers of southern Africa and Britain. One gave Wood's reasons for
proceeding against the Qulusi, setting out why he thought a Zulu impi from Ulundi
would not reach him before the action took place, and a second covered his order to
Local Lt-Col lC. Russell, 12th (Prince of Wales' Royal) Lancers, and his assertion
that Russell went to the wrong location; a footnote commending the courage of
Major W.K Leet, 13th (Somerset) Light Infantry, was also omitted. In addition to
being released to the press, the abbreviated version was used by Norris-Newman in
his account of the Anglo-Zulu War compiled in Pietermaritzburg in 1880
3
and by
Williams in his biography of Wood published in 1892
4
. Certain aspects of the action
46 Hlobane: A new per.spective
were described by Wood and published as articles in Pearson 's lvlagazine in 1895
5
.
In British Battles on Land and Sea, edited by Wood for publication in 1915, his
autobiography was the principal source of a description of Hlobane with changes
introduced to counter some of the criticisms of his command expressed, albeit sotto
voce, since shortly after the action was fought
6
.
Wood's despatch is essentially a description of his own movements with
commendation for certain individuals, not an overall report based on those of the
unit commanders. It is incomplete because Wood adopted the role of interested
spectator, taking no part in either the main assault on Hlobane plateau commanded
by Brevet Lt-Col R.H. Buller, 60th Rifles, and the repulse from there or in Russell's
advance on to and retirement from the lower plateau of Ntendeka. In a brief
memorandum reporting his actions, Wood elided the events at Hlobane and
Khambula so as to mask the severity of defeat and elaborate the decisiveness of
victory and both versions of the despatch are internally inconsistent and vague in
certain important aspects. Subsequent commentators have accepted Wood's
accounts without demur, but as Maj-Gen M.W.E. Gossett pointed out in 1906: 'By a
fluke he [Wood] rec'd information of the enemy's advance on Kambula (sic) & he
dovetailed the two actions in his report, so as to show himself to the best
advantage,
7
.
Releasing the news
By 7pm on 29 March, immediately after the Zulu had been driven from Khambula,
Wood wrote a short memorandum on the events of the previous two days8 as well as
a somewhat incoherent letter to the high commissioner, Sir Bartle Frere, fortuitously
then in nearby Newcastle:
Your two kind letters were put into my hands as 20,000 were attacking us. We
have lost about 7 officers and 70 men killed and wounded, but entirely defeated
the enemy who suffered severely. This makes up for yesterday when we
successfully assaulted the Inhlobane army but being caught up by the Ulundi
army suffered considerable loss. Please spread the news of our fight today. To
our griefPiet Uys was killed yesterday. I will write further particulars later. My
horse was killed yesterday falling on me. Poor Ronald Campbell, Lord
Cawdor's son, [?killed] when behaving most gallantly, The Zulus came on from
1.30 pm to 4.30 pm
9
.
On the following day he completed his despatches on Hlobane, accompanied by
the reports of the unit commanders and other statements relating to Russell's
conduct, and on Khambula. Utrecht had no telegraph at this time and the line of
communication was through Newcastle. Frere, despondent at the news of 'reverses
suffered by Buller's Patrol to the Hlobane Mtn', was writing to Wood when the
latter's note arrived. 'Most heartily', responded Frere, 'do I thank God &
congratulate you, on what from your brief account seems to have been so very
brilliant & decisive a victory'lO. He was also quick t 0 respond to Wood's plea 'to
spread the news'; on 31 March he sent a letter to Col. W.O. Lanyon, now
Administrator of the Transvaal, forwarding 'extracts from despatches received from
Colonel Wood VC, CB reporting the result of an attack on his camp at Kambula, by
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48 Hlobane: A new perspective
a force of Zulus, estimated at 20,000 men, comprising regiments which were the
elite of [the] Zulu army'; as Frere congratulated Chelmsford on 'this decisive
victory', there was no mention of Hlobane, only a condolence on the death of P.L.
Uys, leader of the Burgher Force. Lanyon had Frere's letter and its enclosures
published in Pretoria in a Government Gazette Extraordinary on 3 April in English
and Dutch. The memorandum and despatch were published in full, duly attested as
true copies by T.S. Hutchinson, landdrost of Wakkerstroom, and Capt RA. Knox,
4th (The King's Own) Regiment, commanding the troops at Newcastle. The
Hlobane despatch appeared in the abbreviated version with Knox attesting only that
it was a 'correct copy, but not verified'; the postscript referring to Leet somehow
became attached to the English copy of the Khambula despatch, although it was
correctly paced at the end of the Dutch translation 11.
Rumours that Wood had suffered a very serious reverse began to circulate in
Pietermaritzburg on the evening of Monday 31 March, Government House
admitting only that Wood had seen a force of some 20,000 Zulu whilst on patrol. So
serious were they that the correspondent of The Cape Mercury cabled his office that
he 'dare not wire, except officially confirmed' 12. Wood's memorandum had been
telegraphed by the resident magistrate in Ladysmith to the colonial secretary in
Pietermaritzburg at 9.30 am on 1 April and the news began to circulate there
immediately. In Durban, The Natal Mercury announced at its office at 2 pm that day
that 'the Zlobane (sic) mountain was attacked on the 28th, and taken, but 20,000
Zulus surrounded it and recaptured the eattle, after great loss on our side.' followed
by a report that Khambula had been attacked and the Zulu driven off. This appeared
in the issue of that paper on 2 April with a statement released earlier that day by the
DAG, Col W. Bellairs, Army headquarters being then in Durban. In
Pietermaritzburg, The Times ofNatal also carried Wood's memorandum on 2 April
with a postscript from a letter transmitted through Ladysmith that Captain Ronald
Campbell, Llewellyn Lloyd and Piet Uys had been killed. On the same day, Bellairs
also released Wood's official Khambula despatch and it was printed in The Natal
Mercury on the next day, 3 ApriL
To those in Natal waiting for news, the situation was confused; on 5 April, the
'special commissioner' for The Cape Times reported from Durban that he had no
details of the Hlobane action, but there was no doubt that Buller's force 'was
surrounded and that those who saved their lives did so by cutting through the ranks
of the enemy,13. Not until a one page 'Extra' to The Natal Mercury appeared about
6 April with a report from the correspondent of The Times of Natal by-lined
'Kambula Hill, March 29, 1879 and March 30, 1879', as well as a list of those
killed issued by Bellairs on 5 April, was there any firm information of what had
happened at Hlobane. In Pietermaritzburg, The Times of Natal provided news from
'the authorities' on 4 April quoting a reliable source at Khambula giving some
details of the attack on the laager, followed by even fewer about Hlobane; it also
published Wood's despatch on Khambula. Only on 11 April did The Times ofNatal
publish Wood's Hlobane despatch, copied from De Volksstem of 4 April and
prefaced by the note:
49 Hlobane: A new perspective
It appears by some accident not to have been transmitted with Brigadier
General Wood's report of the attack on the camp, which it seems it
accompanied.
In Cape Town, the despatch covering the action at Khambula was published in
The Cape Argus and The Cape Times on 2 and 3 April and speculation about what
had happened at Hlobane was rife. On 3 April a leading article in The Cape Times
considered that the Zulu army's strength had been underestimated and that it was
possible that the 20,000 who had surrounded Wood were Swazi commanded by
Mbilini. Further consideration on the next day led to the thought that Hlobane had
been a repeat of the Uys 'experimental patrol' carried out in February and that
Wood had possibly 'remained in defence of the camp'. A telegram from Cape Town
dated 15 April reported that 'no details are yet at hand concerning the disaster at
Zlobane (.')ic) Mountain,14. Not until 17 April was Wood's Hlobane despatch
published in The Cape Times, to be followed the next day by preans of praise for
Wood and the astounding conclusion that:
The attack upon the Inhlobane Mountain, so modestly described by Colonel
Wood, was one of the most daring feats in the annals of modern warfare. It was
daring, we fear, unto rashness, but the feature on which we would lay the most
stress is that the "fighting column" has made up in personal bravery for paucity
in numbers .... The siege of the Inthlobane (sic) Mountain and the attack upon
the Khambula camp may almost be regarded as one engagement; and whilst we
have to mourn over the loss of so many brave men we have also to rejoice over
an undoubted victory15.
The Cape Times followed this with more adulatory references to Wood and by
early May contended with its rival paper in Cape Town that no blame had been or
could be attached to anyone for the Hlobane defeat.
It is clear, however, that Wood's Hlobane despatch and attachments were with
Bellairs in Durban at least by 5 April. That day he telegraphed the news of Hlobane
and Khambula to the secretary of state for war quoting from Wood's despatches and
adding telegrams from Chelmsford about the action at Gingindlovu
l6
. In
Chelmsford's absence with the column he had taken to relieve Eshowe, Bellairs
decided to send the despatches to London immediately. On 5 April, he formally
forwarded them to the War Office, having made arrangements on his own initiative
to arrange for the mail steamer to leave Cape Town a day earlier than advertised
and for it to call at S. Vicente in the Cape Verde Islands instead of Madeira so that
the telegram could reach London earlier. The Dublin Castle, scheduled to sail from
Cape Town on 8 April, was ordered to leave with despatches at 9.20 pm the
previous evening. At 11.20 pm on 22 April, the ship reached S. Vicente from where
the news was telegraphed to Britain
17
. The Times carried the news on the following
day that Wood had successfully attacked the enemy position on Hlobane mountain:
Unfortunately in bringing off the large number of cattle captured, he was
delayed owing to the extreme difficulty of the ground, and assailed in his turn
by a large body of the enemy estimated at 20,000 strong, who endeavoured to
cut off his retreat. That the safety of Colonel Wood's detachment was imperilled
50 Hlobane: A new perspective
is evident, and they cut their way through with heavy loss, losing Captains the
Hon R.E. Campbell and RJ. Barton of the Coldstream Guards, both special
service officers, besides a long roll of colonial officers and men whom we can ill
spare.
There followed the description of the success at Khambula, thus following a
scenario which could only mislead and confuse. Wood's Khambula despatch was
published in The Times on Friday 2 May and the abbreviated Hlobane despatch
followed a day later. A staff writer on The Times reflecting on the Hlobane despatch
over the weekend commented on the following Monday that it 'lacks clearness'.
'We are left in ignorance' he wrote 'of the reasons which led to the attack on the
Zlobani (sic) mountain. According to one account, it was for the purpose of
directing attention from Lord Chelmsford's advance on Ekowe (.'}ic); but there is
good reason to believe it was with a view to clearing Luneburg district, which for
months past has been infested by Umbelini's men ... ,18 On 17 May The Times
published an account of 'The Battle of Zlobane' by its own correspondent who had
taken part; significantly it was written after the action at Khambula on 30 March
and prefaced by the statement that 'After two days' severe fighting, Colonel Wood
has gained a complete victory ... ,19 By this time, Bellairs' memorandum of 5 April
with Wood's compete despatches and attachments had been published on 7 May in a
supplement to The London Gazette, that relating to Hlobane firseo.
Managing the news
The staff writer of The Times was not the only one to puzzle over the abbreviated
Hlobane despatch. Strangely, Lord Chelmsford himself, having returned to Durban
on 9 ApriL commented to the secretary of state for war that he had 'not observed in
Colonel Wood's despatch any reference to the reason why he considered it desirable
to attack on the 28th,21. Yet in the full version of his despatch Wood wrote that 'I
considered that the great importance of creating a diversion of the Ekowe (sic)
Relief Column justified me in making a reconnaissance in force, and moreover ... it
was improbable that Cetewayo's army could leave Undi (sic) till the 27th inst.'
Could the commander-in-chief have been reading the abbreviated version and why
and by whom had this been prepared?
According to Lanyon, the omissions in the Hlobane despatch as published in the
Transvaal Government Gazette were made on the instructions of Frere through
whom the accounts had been received in Pretoria. On receiving his copy of the
gazette in Khambula, Wood had immediately protested to C.E. Steele, acting
colonial secretary of the Transvaal, that a paragraph had been omitted without
anj1hing to show that it had been left out. 'By this omission', wrote Wood, 'not only
is undue prominence given to my personal action, on the 28th, but an injustice is
done to the arrangements I made, for conducting the retreat in an orderly manner'.
In response Lanyon had a letter sent to the Transvaal press emphasising 'that what
was published was only an extract from Wood's official despatch' and he published
a notice, No. 48 of 1879, to this effect in a subsequent gazette
22
. This was the only
omission to which Wood objected and, as far as is known, he made no further
protests. The paragraph omitted contained his instruction to Russell to withdraw to
51 Hlobane: A new per.5.pective
Zungwini Nek and Wood's pointed contention that in moving to the wrong place
Russell failed to cover Buller's withdrawal and was responsible for the deaths of
some 80 of Hamu's people. Laying the blame on Russell was one of Wood's
manoeuvres to shift responsibility for the disaster at Hlobane from himself to o t h e r s ~
this first move failed, but he was soon to have Russell disgraced.
In camp at Khambula, little was said about Hlobane. On 15 April a general
parade was held to read a letter from Lord Chelmsford at which Wood thanked
everyone for their part in the action on 29 March. As one correspondent noted,
however, 'In allusion to the Hlobane matter very little was said. He [Wood] spoke of
it feelingly enough and in deploring our heavy loss of 28th instant (sic) stated that
no fault could be attributed to anyone but himself, if anyone was to blame for the
untoward occurrence. ,23 'Manliness' was one description of Wood's reticence in
speaking of the reverse at Hlobane
24
.
It could be said that despatches written close to the events they describe are
inevitably uneven. And in the circumstances of Hlobane, the loss of Campbell was
not only a severe emotional shock for Wood, but that of a staff officer competent in
preparing reports. Maj-Gen Sir Archibald Alison, head of army intelligence,
described the despatches at the time as gibberish, Lt-Col J.N. Crealock, military
secretary to Chelmsford, attributing this to the loss of Campbelf
s
. In the light of
subse quent events and detailed analysis, however, it is difficult to attribute Wood's
ambiguous memorandum and despatch solely to his mental state or written
competence which was not, in fact, inconsiderable.
It could also be said that, given the hitherto lamentable sequence of campaign
disasters, affecting Wood's column no less than others, the desire to laud the rout of
the Zulu at Khambula is fully understandable. But there are certain aspects of the
content of his despatch which lead one to suspect that Wood's motives were not that
simple, that he knew of matters best left unsaid.
Another account
The task of unravelling the consequences of the action at Hlobane, let alone its
course, is by no means complete. Some of the inconsistencies in Wood's accounts
have been noted in a recent article
26
. But the information in a source which has
never, as far as I am aware, been consulted with reference to the Anglo-Zulu War
provides a different perspective on three assertions made in Wood's version of
events that Wood knew of the presence of the Zulu impi only on his return
westwards at 10.30 am on 28 March, that the Border Horse was marching away
from the action when encountered by Wood, and that it displayed cowardice in the
face of the enemy. The memoir of e.G. Dennison who took part in the action at
Hlobane as second-in-command of the Border Horse and the only officer in that unit
to survive, throws new light on these assertions
27
. Written shortly after the end of
the second Anglo-Boer War. it comprises 170 pages of typed text covering
Dennison's career to the end of the first Anglo-Boer War. This period is barely
summarized in Dennison's book, A Fight to a Finish, published in London in 1904,
which deals with his experiences during the second Anglo-Boer War28. His
experiences at Hlobane are totally omitted, probably because, however much
Dennison suggested otherwise, it implicitly blamed Wood for the fiasco and Wood
52 lllobane: A new perspective
was by then Field Marshal Sir Evelyn Wood, YC, GCB, GCMG commanding 2nd
Army COrpS29. The memoir provides answers to several questions (imagination and
supposition having hitherto sufficed), brings to light the major mistake which Wood
made and demonstrates how he manipulated the record of events.
Dennison was born at Cradock in the Cape Colony and brought up in
Grahamstown before moving to the Orange Free State with his family whilst still a
small boy. Both his father and a brother were killed in action during the Frontier
Wars
30
In 1865 he served under Capt E.S. Hanger as a trooper with the
Bloemfontein Mounted Rangers, a voluntary burgher corps, taking part in the
Second Basuto War (1865-1866/
1
. About 1869, he moved with his wife and family
to Rustenburg in the western ZAR and on its formation in 1871 joined the
Rustenburg Schutzen Corps; by 1877 he was a lieutenant, one of the only two
officers, the other being the commandane
2
. When a commando against the Pedi was
raised in May 1876, Dennison commanded the President's Bodyguard and Lt-Col
F.A. Weatherley and his family came over from Eersteling to join President T.F.
Burgers and watch the proceedings. It was probably on this occasion that Dennison
first met Weatherley who asked him in 1878 to be second-in-command of a
volunteer force he expected to lead, and later that year Weatherley raised a unit
generally known as the Border Horse. Towards the end of January 1879, 55 men
comprising A troop were ready to march to Eersteling in the Zoutpansberg under
Dennison's command, but the day before he was due to leave, Dennison heard that
his wife was seriously ill in Rustenburg and he left Pretoria to look after her: the
troop marched without him
33
. Towards the end of January 1879, Weatherley
received a letter from Col. H. Rowlands YC, commanding both imperial and local
forces in the Transvaal and then at Derby near the Swazi border, asking him to
march as soon as he could with as many men as possible for Makati' s KOp34 in the
direction of Liineburg
35
. On 30 January Weatherley issued orders to B troop to
parade that morning 'in full marching order for active service and ... proceed to
Luneberg G';;ic) to join the Transvaal Column'. Alerted the previous day, Dennison
hastened back to Pretoria and left with the troop as second-in-command to
Weatherley. Before following B troop of the Border Horse to Hlobane, it is necessary
to have a closer look at its commanding officer, now Cmdt Weatherley, whom Wood
described as a 'rebel' - 'or said to have been' 36.
Weatherley's career
Commenting immediately after its printing of Wood's Hlobane despatch, The Cape
Times noted that:
It seems to us as a singular omission that in Colonel Wood's despatch the death
of Colonel Weatherley finds no place. We are perfectly sure that it was an
omission and nothing more and that the brave soldier's memory will have
justice done to it. 37
But this was a deliberate omission designed by Wood to preserve his reputation;
in Dennison's forgotten memoir, Wood's negligence in the field, followed by a
deliberate cover-up and the vilification of a dead officer with no next-of-kin able to
support his memory, can now be clearly identified. Weatherley was the perfect
53 Hlobane: A new perspective
candidate for the role of not only was he dead, but his life had been
recently marked by scandal and intemperate behaviour. Born in Newcastle-upon
Tyne in 1830, he was the son of Ilderton Weatherley, a ship owner. Educated for
four years at the military academy in Dresden
38
, family influence secured for him a
commission as a lieutenant in the 4th Austrian Imperial Tuscan Dragoons quartered
in Itall
9
. Here he was engaged in clearing the Apennines of brigands and
40
disbanded soldiery from the 1848 war . Returning to Britain, Weatherley
commanded a troop as a captain in the Tower Hamlets Militia and made personal
representations for a cornetcy in the Light Dragoon regiment then serving in the
Crimea, the war there having broken out in September 1854. At the age of 24, he
was somewhat old for a commission of this nature, but the nomination of the Earl of
Cardigan was sufficient to secure a cornetcy without purchase in the 4th (The
Queen's Own) regiment of Light Dragoons on 30 March 1855
41
. Very shortly
afterwards, Weatherley obtained his lieutenancy in the regiment by purchase on 26
June 1855
42
. Arriving in the Crimea with his regiment on 13 August 1855, he was
present at the battle of Tchernaya and the siege and fall of Sevastopol. In dramatic
circumstances, Weatherley ran away with a rich heiress, Maria Louisa Martyn,
daughter of Lt-Col Francis Mount joy Martyn, 2nd Life Guards, and on 5 January
1857 they were married in Windsor43. Four months later, the Sepoy Mutiny erupted
in India and Weatherley, possibly because of the circumstances of his marriage,
exchanged on 5 June 1857 into the 6th regiment of Dragoon Guards (Carabiniers)
then stationed in Meerut
44
. In India he was involved in operations in the Rohilkhand
and Awadh. By late 1861, prospects for promotion in the Carabiniers were limited
and on his behalf Lord Raglan asked the commander-in-chief 'to be good enough to
favor (sic) his views if it lies in your power?' It did, and at a cost of 1 100, H.R.H.
Prince George sanctioned the purchase of a troop by Weatherley with a captaincy in
the 6th (Inniskilling) regiment of Dragoons on 28 January 1862 and he served for a
further six years before retiring in April 1868 by the sale of his commission
45
.
Retiring to Brighton, he was appointed on 31 March 1875 to command a corps of
the Sussex Artillery Volunteers with the rank of lieutenant-colonel; he was
subsequently promoted to command the brigade of four corps of artillery46.
Weatherley and southern Africa
In mid-1871, Edward Button, a Durban butcher, discovered gold on the farm
Eersteling in the Zoutpansberg initiating the first gold rush in the ZAR. He formed
The Transvaal Gold Mining Company Limited in Britain in August 1872 with a
nominal capital of 50 000 'to purchase the estate called Eersteling' and among the
seven initial subscribers who took ten 10 shares each was Weatherley who became
a director
47
. On the death of his father-in-law in January 1874, Weatherley was left
42 000 which he invested unwisely. Much went to finance a 12-stamp battery and
an engineer sent from Britain, but the Eersteling mine did not flourish and the
prospectors and miners soon left for the fields near Lydenburg. In mid-1875, one of
the directors, A.R. Roche, went out to inspect the property, but he became ill and
although he reached Eersteling, was forced to return and shortly died
48
. These
adverse circumstances, and a need to economise because of his poor investments,
54 Hlobane: A new perspective
were the reason for Weatherley's departure early in 1876 to become managing
director at Eersteling at a monthly salary of 45
49
.
Relationships between the ZAR and the neighbouring Pedi polity under
Sekhukhune woaSekwati had deteriorated to the point when in May 1876 President
T.F. Burgers led a commando against him into the mountainous country south of
the Olifants River. The Republic was in such parlous financial straits that Burgers
asked the management of the Eersteling company for their spare arms and
ammunition which were duly provided. Weatherley offered his services and joined
Burgers' commando. The campaign was a failure. but in payment for the arms and
ammunition, Weatherley obtained a concession from the president granting the
company mineral rights over most of the government land in the Zoutpansberg. The
fortunes of the ZAR declined further when Sir Theophilus Shepstone crossed its
border on 4 January 1877 intending to annex it to the British Crown. Taking up
residence in Pretoria. Shepstone sounded public opinion and among those most
active in furthering annexation was Weatherley. Labour and transport difficulties
had contributed to the failure of the Natalia Mine at Eersteling and Weatherley,
disenchanted with the prospect of living in the remote and unsettled Zoutpansberg,
had established himself in Pretoria. Prominent in public life. he became
commandant of the Pretoria Mutual Protection Association formed on 7 April from
British residents anxious lest annexation should be forcibly opposed
so
. He was there
to greet the arrival of the 13th (Somerset) Light Infantry on 4 May, calling for three
cheers in its honourS! and was a steward at the first race meeting held in the
Republic
s2
.
The establishment of a British administration in April, however, was not the
fillip to his fortunes that Weatherley anticipated. Due to be ratified by the Volksraad
at its sitting in February 1877. the threat of annexation took precedence in the
debates and ratification of his concession was held over for the next session
which never took place. Repeated representations to Shepstone, now British
administrator. to confirm the concession went unheeded and in Weatherley's
difficult financial position this was a bitter disappointment. If Weatherley had a
fault, it was the gullibility of the vain. On 1 August 1877 heading the signatures to a
memorial to Shepstone praising the efforts of Weatherley 'in saving the town from
any serious consequence' was the adjutant of the Pretoria Mutual Protection
Association, one Gunn of Gunn, later to play a significant role in Weatherley's
downfall
s3
. Weatherley believed that his considerable military experience was to be
made use of by the new British administration. Lt-Col E. Brooke RE of Shepstone's
staff and Weatherley became close colleagues on the military commission
considering defence. Raising an African police corps. often referred to as the 'Zulu
Battalion', in the Transvaal (as the Republic was now known) was discussed and
Weatherley confidently expected to become its first commandant. He had prepared
all the details for Brooke and understood from both Brooke and Captain Sir
Morrison Barlow, special commissioner in the Waterberg and Zoutpansberg based
at Eersteling, that Shepstone had approved the appointment. So confident was he
that he resigned his commission in the Sussex Artillery Volunteers, losing
significant benefits
S4
. When Weatherley called on Shepstone to thank him for the
appointment, to his amazement Shepstone denied asking Brooke to let Weatherley
55 Hlobane: A new perspective
know that the appointment had been made. A bitter correspondence followed,
Weatherley asserting that his honour had been seriously compromised. Barlow
described it as a 'monstrous misunderstanding' and, although he denied that Brooke
had ever told Weatherley that he did have the command, said that he had thought it
a fai t accompli since there had been much discussion in Pretoria to this effect
55
. A
public meeting called on 4 December to consider the question of a volunteer force
resolved to serve under Weatherley and no-one else
56
. Frere, W.e. Sargeaunt (a
senior civil servant in the Crown Agents sent from London to ascertain the financial
probity of the Transvaal and who had been colonial secretary in Natal from 1853 to
1857), the commanding officer and officers of the 13th (Somerset) Light Infantry
and eventually the secretary of state for the colonies all became involved
57
. Piqued
by Shepstone' s refusal to ratify his concession or to appoint him to command a
volunteer force, Weatherley offered his services and those of 500 men from the
Transvaal in January 1878 to help the Cape government in its wars on the frontier;
his offer was sarcastically declined
58
.
Weatherley's animosity against Shepstone now became used by the
administrator's political opponents, typified by IF. Celliers, editor of De Volksstem,
and others with more personal motives such as the charlatan Charles Stewart,
commonly known as the Gunn of Gunn
59
As Shepstone himself wrote 'Weatherley
was thrown into the arms of and made champion of the Disaffected party' 60. Two
petitions to replace Shepstone as administrator with Weatherley were prepared and
presented to the government; they carried 3 883 signatures, of which only 16 were
proved to be genuine with a further five in doubt
61
Weatherley flatly denied
involvement and he was supported by the testimony of lW. Glynn who protested
during Stewart' s trial on charges of fraud, conspiracy and forgery, at the attempt by
the prosecution to connect Weatherley personally with the petitions. Glynn
emphatically denied Weatherley's 'having been connected with this matter in any
way,62, the latter having seen the first petition only after it was circulated and the
second possibly not at all, since he had left for Cape Town before it was printed.
Fulminating against 'the apathy and neglect displayed by the present situation',
Weatherley visited Cape Town in mid-May 1878 to see Frere, not about the
petitions, but the apparent slight on his honour by Shepstone's actions. It was now,
however, that the real reason for his problems surfaced. His marriage, never a happy
one, had been dominated by the temper of his wife. He determined to leave southern
Africa and asked his wife to sell their house in Pretoria and join him in Cape Town
with the children. She replied that, as Stewart was now in prison on charges
connected with the forged petitions, it would be quite wrong to abandon him. How
plucky, thought Weatherley, and returned to Pretoria, only to find from his sons,
Poulett aged 18 and Rupert aged 13, that their mother's support for Stewart had
clearly gone beyond the bounds of propriety. For some time Weatherley continued to
believe in his wife's honour, even though he now had serious doubts about Stewart's
assumed identity; he was a man who had always sought the peaceful option in his
troubled marriage. The liaison, however, continued to flourish and became even
more flagrant to the point that Weatherley left the marital home and brought an
action for divorce against Mrs. Weatherley; in addition to pleas referring to
property, additional pleas were filed of connivance: that Weatherley had allowed
56 Hlobane: A new perspective
the liaison to flourish; of condonation: that a confession of guilt had been secured
using undue influence; and collusion: that Weatherley and his lawyer had made
arrangements with Mrs. Weatherley for a divorce. And so in November 1878, the
case came to court, Maria Louisa Weatherley accused of adultery on various
occasions between June and October 1878 with Charles Grant Murray Somerset
Seymour Stuart Gunn. Weatherley realised by now that he had been duped and on
26 October 1878 wrote a fulsome letter of apology to Shepstone saying that 'he had
been led into all sorts of errors by designing people, of which I am now heartily
ashamed'. In a subsequent letter explaining his situation, Weatherley thought that
Shepstone would accuse him of weakness 'but I don't think' he wrote 'you can
imagine without having tried it, the sort of life I have led, and how a man will do
anything for peace,63.
The Border Horse
With Shepstone's acceptance of his apology, Weatherley once again considered
leading a volunteer force. British forces were being withdrawn from the Pedi
country and the Zoutpansberg became exposed to the possibility of hostile raids.
With the concurrence of Col H. Rowlands VC, commanding both imperial and local
forces in the Transvaal, it was decided to station a volunteer force at Weatherley's
company property at Eersteling, Barlow' s headquarters
64
. As Weatherley was
dragged into the divorce court, he asked Lord Chelmsford for employment and was
immediately appointed commandant of a volunteer unit, Shepstone sanctioning the
recruitment of 150 volunteers for Weatherley's Border Lances
65
for service in the
Zoutpansberg or elsewhere for six months from 18 November 1878
66
Each
volunteer with a horse would be paid 8/-, each volunteer provided with a
government horse 51-, both receiving free rations and forage; until they reached the
front, pay was to be 3/- per day in lieu of rations. Their uniform was a blue
'jumper', cord breeches, red sash, riding boots and a white hat; they carried
Martini-Henri rifles
67
. Weatherley's knowledge of continental armies and fluency in
their languages attracted many French and German volunteers to what became
generally known as the Border Horse. As we have seen, A troop of the Border Horse
left for Eersteling in mid January 1879 and B troop left Pretoria for Liineburg on 30
January.
Soon after the troop arrived in Liineburg a combined patrol was made on 25
February to the caves of the Kubheka in the Ntombe valley with the Swazi Police
under Lt W.F. Fairlie. Rowlands' Transvaal Column having been amalgamated with
Wood's NO.4 Column, the Border Horse was ordered to move to Wood's camp at
Khambula where it arrived on 2 March. The first two weeks of March were marked
by heavy rains which severely curtailed the raiding and patrolling activities of the
column. Not until 14 March was the Border Horse involved in any offensive activity
when it formed part of the column commanded by Buller which left Khambula for
Nblangwine to bring in followers of Hamu kaNzibe Zulu who had just defected to
the British. Out for two nights, this patrol met with no opposition. The troop did not
take part in the three days' patrol to the Ntombe valley from 24 to 26 March.
57 Hlobane: A new perspective
Losing the way to Hlobane
On 26 March, however, regimental orders were issued by Lt V.H. Lys W
8
for a
'reconnaissance' to Hlobane; all available men were to parade at 8 am the following
day with 70 rounds of ammunition, a blanket and rations for two days. The troop
was the last unit to leave Khambula in Buller's column which was to carry out the
main assault on Hlobane from the east. There was thick mist that morning, but the
men were cheerful and looking forward to their first action against the enemy.
Buller arrived at the designated bivouac under the southern face of Zungwini
Mountain at noon followed by the Border Horse half an hour later. He told
Weatherley where he should unsaddle and added that he would give him the order
when to move on. Having breakfasted, the men snoozed and relaxed. About 4 pm a
bugle sounded and Dennison asked Weatherley whether they should respond to the
call 'boot and saddle', but the latter said that it was not necessary as Buller had said
that he would send the order when to move. As the column moved off, Dennison
again questioned whether the troop should move, but Weatherley still refused to
move without a direct order from Buller, emphasising that it was Buller who was in
command. As time went by, the men became increasingly restive until Weatherley
was roused to order them to upsaddle. Dennison places the blame squarely on
Weatherley for this misunderstanding, noting that Buller had originally spoken only
with kind intent and had not sent an order since the troop was resting only a few
hundred yards from the main column. Dennison' s memoir agrees with his report
written after the action noting that the circumstances why the Border Horse were not
with the column 'arose through our Col. not having received orders to march from
our first camping ground,69. Buller himself wrote that he could not understand why
'he [Weatherley] waited for individual orders and did not saddle up when he heard
the trumpet sound "Horses in" ,70. It should be remembered that Weatherley was a
former cavalry officer with considerable campaign experience and eight years older
than Buller; it is entirely likely that he viewed Buller's actions as the deference due
to one of his age and experience and was waiting for another kind gesture in
recognition.
The Zulu impi
In his Hlobane despatch, Wood relates how he met Weatherley on the morning of 28
March 'coming westward, having lost his way the previous night' and directed him
to turn about and join Buller's column which could be seen near the summit. As
Dennison tells the story, the sun was setting as the troop set off from the Zungwini
Nek bivouac on the previous evening in the tracks of the main column, but soon a
misty rain began to fall and only the fires of Buller's second bivouac guided their
march. On cresting a ridge, however, the lights disappeared and the troop rode on in
drizzling rain for a further two hours. Suddenly, cresting yet another ridge,
Weatherley saw what appeared to be stars and thought that the weather was
breaking. Dennison identified the lights as camp fires, probably those of a Zulu
imp;. Taking L/Cpl E. Bernhardt and Trooper L. Barth, both Germans from British
Kaffraria, Dennison went forward on foot and ascertained that it was indeed a Zulu
impi and bound for Khambula. Returning to Weatherley, Dennison reported his
58 Hlobane: A new perspective
findings and suggested that, as the troop was quite lost, it should remain where it
was until the direction in which Hlobane lay could be ascertained. Before daybreak,
flashes presumed to be those of firearms were seen to the north and the troop
mounted quietly and moved off. As dawn broke Hlobane loomed to the front and
loud and continual firing was heard. Just under the foot of the mountain the troop
caught up with a group of men galloping across their front - Wood with his
personal staff and escort. Weatherley reported the position of the impi to Wood,
Dennison adding that he judged that it was a strong force. But Wood retorted that
the report was nonsense as he had sent out a patrol the day before and there was
no impi about, Weatherley and Dennison were mistaken.
Here we not only have a glimpse of Wood's arrogance, but evidence to refute the
deliberately misleading assertion in his despatch and autobiography that he met
Weatherley and the Border Horse moving westwards away from Hlobane. The troop
was coming from the south and not, as Wood wanted others to infer, from the east
and away from the action which was by this time evident. His innuendo that the
Border Horse was running away from the action has successfully persisted. Selby,
for example, asserted that 'The unit was made up for the most part of English
settlers in the Transvaal, who were no great warriors, and they still showed
reluctance to join the fight, so Wood rode on ahead with his escort to show them the
way,71.
Wood laid the blame for his reverse at Hlobane on the sudden and unexpected
arrival of the main Zulu impi from Ulundi. In his memorandum after the action, he
claimed that 'We assaulted the Inhlobane successfully yesterday, and took some
thousands of cattle, but while on top, about 20,000 Zulus, coming from Ulundi,
attacked us, and we suffered considerable losses, the enemy retaking the captured
cattle. ,72 In his despatch, however, Wood noted that it was Mtonga kaMpande Zulu
who first saw the impi advancing in the 'normal attack formation', but in
contradiction of his memorandum 'exhausted by its rapid march, did not close on
Colonel Buller, who descended after Uhamu's people the western point of the
mountain'. By 1915, Wood made it clear that it was he who had sent Mtonga 'as a
matter of precaution ... up the height to the south' 73. Although it is clear that the
Zulu impi played no significant role in the action, according to Wood its arrival
encouraged the QuIusi who 'emerged from their caves and harassed the retreat', 'the
main Zulu Army being exhausted by their (sic) march, halted near where Vryheid
now stands' 74. As The Times writer observed, the despatch lacked clarity, one of the
ambiguous claims being that the Zulu impi, having surrounded the retiring British
troops, did not attack because it was tired and hungry from its forced march from
Ulundi. The evidence of Troopers C. Hewitt and G. Mossop, both of the Frontier
Light Horse (FLH) , that Zulu were found dead at Khambula taking mealie meal
from the camp pots and the information obtained later that the impi had had no food
for three days has been used to support Wood's contention that its energy was nearly
spent by the time it arrived at Khambula laager
75
As Laband has sugges ted,
however, the impi was without food only on the morning of 29 March
76
Supporting
this position, Dennison' s evidence suggests that it rested and had food on the night
of 27/28 March probably between Ntabankhulu and the range running westwards
from Mnyathi mountain of which Sikala sikaNgonyama (Lion's Nek or Leeuwnek)
59 Hlobane: A new perspective
is the principal feature. There is also evidence that during the march it fed
reasonably well since Mnyamana Buthelezi, who was in command. took 100 head of
cattle from Hamu kaNzibe Zulu's herds for this impi 77.
Cowardice
Wood states that the Border Horse 'got off the track' and implies that they were
moving so slowly that he and his escort had to go ahead. Nearing the screes and
krantzes marking the edge of the plateau, they came under heavy fire. Wood's
political assistant, L.H. Lloyd. was fatally wounded by his side and Wood's horse
which he was leading, quite irrationally when the others had been left behind
because of the difficult ground was killed. Wood then directed Campbell to order
Weatherley "to dislodge one or two Zulus who were causing us most of the loss,78.
Since the Border Horse did not advance as rapidly as Campbell wanted. he and
others of Wood's personal escort jumped from cover and dashed into the rocks
where Campbell was immediately shot dead. Wood wasted little time in relaying
this story since P.L. Uys, Junior, (Vaal Piet) having been heavily involved in the
desperate fighting at what became known as 'Devil's Pass' and having left
Khambula laager at 5 pm on 28 March, was able to tell H.C. Shepstone on the
following day in Utrecht that Wood had ordered a couple of men to dislodge some
Zulus who had killed four horses and that they had refused; there followed in his
statement an account of the death of Campbell and Lloyd
79
. Thus Wood prepared
the scene for his demolition of Weatherley's reputation in order to draw attention
away from his own mismanagement of the situation. The staff writer of The Times
took up Wood's innuendo and although noting "Colonel Weatherley, a colonist of
distinction' who 'fell gallantly fighting to the last, cutting down Zulus with his right
hand while grasping his son, a young lad, with the other', wrote that his "men
showed some disinclination to face the enemy,80.
Two years later, after revisiting the site, Wood wrote another account with the
intention of recommending two of his personal staff and escort, Lt H. Lysons and
Pte E. Fowler (both 90th Light Infantry, Wood's own regiment), for the Victoria
Cross and the accompanying letter noted that in his original despatch the incident in
which Campbell had been killed had been written 'in language calculated to spare
the reputation of another dead man'. Although even now he did not mention
Weatherley by name, he directly accused him of cowardice in the face of the enemy:
I observed to Captain CampbeU that all the fatal shots came from one rock, and
directed him to order an officer to take some men and turn the Zulus out. He
received the order three times, but would not leave the cover where he was
sheltering close to where my second pony was the one I rode had been shot
- and about ten feet below me and on my left. Captain Campbell called out
'Damn him! he's a coward. r 11 turn them out', and ran forward. Mr. Lysons
called out 'May I goT I shouted 'Yes! Forward the Personal Escort', and of the
eight which composed it, all who were disengaged. some four in number, went
on. His Royal Highness will, I hope, understand my reluctance to tell all this.
The man whose heart failed had been unfortunate, which kept me silent, and.
60 Hlobane: A new perspective
moreover, I was averse to write about myself, which I could not fail to do if I
explained all the circumstances.
81
For Wood this was a traumatic experience; he had become 'greatly attached' to
Campbell since he had joined his staff at Utrecht shortly before Christmas 1878
82
.
In a letter to Crealock written in February, Wood said that he had been ill, but
'Campbell nursed me tenderly,83 and in the letter quoted above Wood wrote that if
Campbell had lived he would have been the first to be recommended for the award
of the Victoria Cross. Wood never mentioned Weatherley by name in his article in
Pearson's A1agazine eulogising Campbell, always referring to 'the Irregulars' and
the 'officer in command,84. At this stage of Wood's retelling of the events,
Weatherley was said to have told Campbell that 'it was impossible to force the
passage through the rocks'. This opinion, Wood said, he rejected as several
wounded men were exposed to Zulu fire and he then repeated the order only to be
met with renewed objections whereupon Campbell, 'determined to secure the safe
removal of the wounded', ran up to the entrance of the cave formed by the boulders
and was killed. After Lloyd and Campbell had been buried lower down the
mountain, Weatherley, according to Wood, sought and received permission to
follow Buller's track. having lost, in Wood's words, 'only six men killed and seven
wounded, in the half hour that it was under fire ,85.
According to Dennison, however, after Wood had dismissed their report about
the Zulu impi, Weatherley and Dennison then discussed the best way to ascend the
mountain - place piquets on a nearby hill commanding the ascent and advance on
foot until the order could be given to bring the horses. This was countermanded by
Wood who insisted that as the rest of the column had taken their horses the Border
Horse should do the same. The Border Horse with Dennison in the lead then
followed the direct route to the path which Buller had taken earlier and which was
'shewing red on the summit'. Wood, however, directed the unit to the left towards a
horseshoe krantz of great height with huge boulders at its foot in which there were
clearly a large number of the enemy. They headed towards a stone isibaya with a
large number of cattle, Dennison remarking with some point 'whether they gave rise
to the order or not I cannot say,86. Here, from the concentrated fire which came
from the rocks at the base of the horseshoe, Bernhardt and Barth were killed and
several others wounded including Sgt-Maj 1.S. Fisher and Dennison's batman,
Trooper 1. Cameron. As the Border Horse worked forward from rock to rock,
Dennison was called back to Weatherley standing with his son Rupert a little way
from Wood who was attending to the dead body of Lloyd. He was told that Wood
had ordered a charge and although amazed at such a senseless order in a place
where the only way to progress was 'baboon fashion' went forward to relay the order
to the troop. As he did so Campbell rushed forward calling 'Forward Boys!' and
immediately had the top of his skull blown off. His body was recovered by men of
the Border Horse assisted by Lysons and Fowler who were later awarded the VC on
Wood's recommendation. In his own dramatic account, Wood makes out that he
and his escort were in front and that the Border Horse were '200 yards behind us'
and 'taking cover under rocks below us', a situation which makes little sense in a
military context unless one is intent on drawing attention to 'Campbell's difficulty
61 Hlobane: A new perspective
in inducing the men to advance,87. Not unnaturally, Dennison resented Wood's slur
that the Border Horse hesitated to move forward. The Cape Argus correspondent's
report supports Dennison's narrative, relating how 'Colonel Wood gave the order to
Colonel Weatherley to send men and clear the rocks. The call for volunteers was
promptly met and Lieutenants Poole (sic) and H. Parminter, of Weatherley's corps,
along with Captain Campbell, rushed forward leading the men on. ,88 Ashe and
Wyatt-EdgeIrs account also supports the fact that the Border Horse were
performing well and attributes any delay in responding to Campbell' s order to the
fact that its troopers 'were engaged with several Zulus at close quarters,89.
Cutoff
Dennison's memoir also provides detail, hitherto missing, on the fate of the Border
Horse and a troop of the FLH which became cut off. On Campbell's death, Wood
retired with his personal escort and a wounded trooper of the Border Horse, Andrew
Hammond, leaving, according to Dennison, no orders for the volunteers who found
their own way on to Hlobane plateau. Here they halted whilst Weatherley went to
look for Buller and receive orders. Shortly after he left, a hatless trooper of the FLH
rode up looking for him and gave Dennison the message that, as they were
surrounded by a large Zulu impi, the Border Horse were to return to camp. This, it
should be noted, was not the main Zulu impi, but the Qulusi who had sprung the
trap by emerging from the edges of the plateau and had also brought substantial
reinforcements from the Ityenteka plateau to the east. On Weatherley's return, the
unit fought its way down without casualties and at the foot of the mountain halted to
make a stretcher for Fisher. Here they were overtaken by Barton and a troop of FLH
with the message not to delay as 'the mountain is surrounded'. As they began to
move, the FLH were now about one kilometre ahead. Rounding the shoulder of the
mountain, Dennison's description confirms that they were riding along the foot of
the mountain with the right flank of the main Zulu impi by this time along the ridge
north of Nyembe Hill with only the valley of the stream between them. Ahead,
Barton and the FLH rode directly between two stone homesteads where Zulu hidden
in ambush fired into them at point blank range. Here, in the vicinity of modem
Boomlaer, many of the FLH were killed in the confusion and the survivors turned
round to retreat eastwards. Again the Cape Argus correspondent supports
Dennison's account, recording that Weatherley was ordered down the mountain to
cover the return by that route and that Barton and his troop of FLH went down to
join Weatherl
ey
90.
As they reached the Border Horse, Barton brought his men under control and
both units retired together in good order firing controlled volleys although their
horses were now blown and very weak. Weatherley, Dennison, Lt W. Pool and
supemumary Lt H.W. Parminter rode behind their men cutting their blanket straps
to lighten their loads. Several men were unable to continue and were caught and
killed by the pursuing Zulu. Trumpeter W. Reilly dismounted from his 'knocked up
horse', fired on the enemy close by and then shot himself. By now, few men had any
ammunition left and so it was not possible to turn and make a stand, although
Barton suggested doing so as Ityenteka Nek was reached and they saw Qulusi lining
the heights on either side of the nek. As the men reached the nek they scattered and
62 Hlobane: A new perspective
immediately Dennison saw the reason - the descent on the other side was
precipitously steep and panic set in. Some men disappeared whilst about 20 obeyed
the order to keep together. On the right of the nek forward progress was blocked and
Dennison led by jumping his horse down. It was here that Parminter was killed. The
others led their horses down. Barton and four men close by with Weatherley not far
behind leading his horse with the bridle rein linked in his arm. one hand helping his
son and the other holding his drawn sword. As they reached the foot of the
mountain, Dennison turned with two men to help Weatherley and his son, but they
were too late. The pursuing Zulu had caught up with the survivors and, as
Weatherley's sword flashed, Rupert with a piercing wail fell dead on his father.
Wielding his carbine as a club to good effect, Dennison managed to mount with
Barton close at hand. Firing his carbine with its smashed stock from the hand,
Dennison broke the Zulu cordon to his front and caught up with some 27 men,
mostly FLH with RSM B. Winterfelt strongly urging them on. As they rode north
westwards towards Potter's Store on the Mpemvana River. Trooper P. Martin
panicked and was killed. Here Sgt C. Brown and Cpl 1. Archer of the Border Horse
saved one of the unhorsed troopers of the FLH as he was about to be overtaken and
killed. Eventually the survivors were pursued by only three Zulu who were waylaid
and shot. Just before sundown, a drenching rain set in, but the lights of the camp
fires at Khambula gave them the direction. Delayed by the outer piquets, the
survivors eventually reached camp where Dennison got out of his wet clothes and
between the blankets to be brought a hot drink and food by the Indian mess cook.
Dennison's account conforms with his original report, providing further
circumstantial evidence that the two columns retired from Hlobane around the south
side of Zungwini Mountain and not through the re-entrant west of the present
Zungwini station. From the north side of Ityenteka Nek even in the desperate
confusion, British troops moving along the eastern edge of the Zungwini range
would have been visible and a clear objective in the desperate ride to get away from
the Zulu and Qulusi. But Dennison and the others thought that their best chance of
reaching Khambula was by way of Potter's Store and the Jagd Pad (Hunting Road).
Buller's patrol to bring in stragglers that night did not include Dennison and the
survivors of the Border Horse and certainly not Weatherley's elder son, Lt C.P.M.
Weatherley, who took no part in the action
91
.
After a restless night, Dennison was unable to face the breakfast table, where the
cook had laid just one place, and he ordered breakfast in his tent. Afterwards, he
went with one of the surviving NCOs to Weatherley's tent to make out the casualty
return and as he did so Buller came in, shaking his hand and congratulating him on
his escape. Buller asked how he had fared and told him not to bother with the return
as Cetshwayo's impi was expected at Khambula about noon. When Buller
commented that it was a pity they had not known about it in time the previous day,
Dennison replied that they had, and told Buller what had been seen and reported to
Wood. Buller responded saying 'I believe you, Dennison. What a sad mistake, but
say nothing for the present, lie low' and they walked together to Wood's tent where
Buller left and Dennison then reported what had happened after they parted the
previous day. When Wood asked why Weatherley had not returned to camp when
ordered by him to do so, Dennison replied that he had not heard such an order and
63 Hlobane: A new perspective
did not think that Weatherley had heard it either. Dennison suggests that Wood was
so upset by Campbell' s death that he may have intended to give the order, but had
forgotten to do so. Wood was uneasy and did not respond to Dennison's reference to
having seen the Zulu impi. That morning, on Buller's instructions, Dennison
prepared a report for him. Noting only that the Border Horse had missed the main
column during the night and been ordered by Wood to join the main point of the
attack on Hlobane Mountain, the report makes the point that Weatherley received an
order to return the way he had come, and describes the chaos of the retreat. A final
sentence, clearly added on instructions, gave the reason why the Border Horse were
not with the main column. Dennison' s report was appended as Annexure A to
Buller's report with the retort that:
I never knew where Col. Weatherley was on the 28
th
and never sent him any
27
th
order whatever. His orders on the were to conform to the General
Movements of the leading troop in the Column but to march independently. He
was fully aware of what we were going to do and I cannot understand why he
waited for individual orders & did not saddle up when he heard the trumpet
sound "Horses in". 92
Shortly after the attack on Khambula, Dennison was ordered to Pretoria to report
to Rowlands. On arrival, he was given command of the Border Horse and saw
immediate service in the ongoing campaign against the Pedi.
Dennison's veracity
It is pertinent to ask whether Dennison's recollections of Hlobane are at all accurate
or whether he simply interpreted the situation from the point of view of a colonial
officer piqued by the distrust and condescension shown by an imperial officer.
Certainly Dennison suggests that Wood gave no credence to his report on the
immediate presence of the Zulu impi because Dennison was a colonial officer and
that officers such as Wood had a 'false idea of their superiority over men of no
Sandhurst training but of a lifelong practical experience. ,93 In the introduction to
his book, Dennison notes that 'it is written by "only a Colonial" ' ~ my story is plain
history of facts that defies contradiction'. He was clearly irked by the superiority
assumed by imperial officers regardless of their military experience, but made no
effort to expose Wood. This one can only attribute to the mores of the day, to the
realisation that 'influence not service counts most' as he wrote in his book94.
Dennison goes so far as to say 'I do not consider that Colonel Wood was to blame
but acted as no doubt half the generals in the British army would have done under
the same circumstances.'; in fact, he blames Buller, Uys and others for pushing
Wood into action after the disastrous losses at the Ntombe drift on 12 March
engineered by Mbilini waMswati, their adversary at Hlobane
95
. There is a clear
correlation between the detail provided by Dennison and that of other sources.
Dennison was not, of course, alone in either his compliant attitude to authority
or his assertion that serious mistakes had been made at Hlobane. The staff writer of
The Times went only so far as to say 'For once Colonel Wood's brilliant good luck
appears to have deserted him'. RO.G. Lys, the nephew of the adjutant of the Border
Horse killed at Hlobane, was serving with NO.4 Column as an intelligence officer
64 Hlobane: A new perspective
and 'soon came to the conclusion', however, 'that this British officer [Wood]
possessed too nervous a temperament ever to make a successful leader of m e n ~ and
lacked that calm and resolute judgement which is so essential in a country like
South Africa where one is constantly surprised by unforeseen circumstances' 96.
Whilst Wood went on to have honours and rewards heaped upon him, Weatherley's
only surviving son, Cecil Poulett Mount joy Weatherley, attested as a private in the
Middlesex Regiment on 19 January 1883
97
.
Envoy
Only the Zulu impi assaulted Khambula laager98. That day, although suffering from
a superficial flesh wound in the chest, Mbilini carried on with his previously
prepared plans and led the Qulusi forces up the Bivane valley, raiding homesteads
and farms in the upper Phongolo valley and collecting huge herds of cattle
numbering some 3 000 head on the way99. On the night of 4 April two companies
of the 2nd battalion of the 4th (The King's Own) Regiment, on their way from
Utrecht to relieve the garrison at Liineburg, laagered for the night at 1. Alcock's
farm fearing attack by the Qulusi impi. Mbilini judged the detachment too strong to
assault and continued rustling cattle and horses. Alerted to the plight of the
incoming detachment, a patrol of six mounted men was sent from Liineburg under
Capt 1.E.H. Prior, 80th (South Staffordshire) Regiment, on 5 April. Coming upon a
group of six men driving some 20 horses eastwards along the right bank of the
Phongolo River, Prior recaptured the horses and pursued the men. Two got away,
but after a furious chase one was unhorsed and killed, whilst a second, although
seriously wounded by an African auxiliary called Sinakwe, managed to escape. The
latter was Mbilini who managed to ride back to his homestead above the Ntombe
River and was then carried to Ndlabeyitubula, but died before reaching there
lOo
.
Effectively, co-ordination and drive drained from the resistance he had generated
and organised, particularly after the death of Mabamba Ntombela that winter. The
Kubheka put up sporadic defiance from their homesteads above the Ntombe, but
many of the Qulusi, including Memezi waMswati, Mbilini' s brother, withdrew to
the Ngwagwa Hills
10l
north of the Phongolo which had been for some years the
home of Ndida kaMlokotvva, a Qulusi induna. Although a hard core of resistance
held out on the Ityenteka plateau under Mcwayo Zwane, Seketwayo Mdlalose
surrendered on 25 August at Fort Cambridge, near the cont1uence of the Mfolozi
Mhlope and Nsengeni
102
Rivers. The Qulusi izinduna Msebe kaMadaka and
Mahubulwane Mdlalose surrendered at Ntseka Hill to Lt-Col B.C. RusselL 13th
Hussars, on 1 September. Not until 22 September was Manyonyoba Kubheka finally
forced into submission and, with some of his people, exiled to the Batshe valley.
Whilst surveying the boundaries of the new political units into which the Zulu
country was to be divided, Lt-Col the Hon G. Villiers climbed Hlobane on 25
September, finding most of the homesteads in the area deserted
103
. Having had his
authority and territory extensively enlarged by the British, Hamu Zulu began a
systematic campaign against the Qulusi and those who had fought under Mbilini's
overall command. The action at Hlobane was to be the last defiant gesture of the
inhabitants of this mountainous upland before they were brushed aside by a new
65 HJobane:A new perspective
dispensation and most traces of their occupation obliterated as the face of the
country assumed new patterns of settlement.
NOTES
N. B. Since these notes were writtm, the name ofthe Natal Archives has been changed to the Pietermaritzburg
Archive Repository. In some of the following refermces the older spelling of 'Kambula' has bem retained.
The article itself uses' Khambula' throughout.
1. Wood, Evelyn, From Midshipman to Field Marshal, London, 1906, vol.2, chapter xxx, pp.48-56.
2. Public Record Office (PRO) London WO 3217726, From Col Evelyn Wood Comg. No.4 Colunm, To
the Deputy Adjutant Gmeral, Camp Kambula, Zululand, 30
th
March 1879. This despatch was printed
in the Supplemmt to The London Gazette of Tuesday 6th May 1879, 24719, published on 7 May
1879. There are also three copies in the National Army Museum (NA\1), London, the Chelmsford
Papers, 6807-386-14-13, two ofwhich carry the notation' A correct copy but not verified E. W.'
3. Norris-Newman, Charles L., In Zululand With The British Throughout The War of 1879, London,
1880, pp.156-159.
4. WilIiams, Charles, The Life of Lieut.-Gmeral Sir Hmry Evelyn Wood, London, 1892, pp.87-93.
5. NAM 8412-46-1 and 2, Dr. P.H. Butterlield, 'The Minor W r i t i n ~ of Sir Evelyn Wood', a typescript of
two articles by Wood published in Pearson's Magazine, 1896.
6. Wood, Sir Evelyn (ed.), British Battles on Land and Sea, London, 1915, pp.754-761. I am grateful to
M.J. Everett, archivist of The South Wales Borders and Monmouthshire Regimmtal Museum of the
Royal Regiment of Wales, Brecon, for bringing this work to my attmtion.
7. NA\A 6807-386-14, the Chelmsford Papers, an editorial annotation; Gossett served on Lord
Chelmsford's staffin 1878-1879.
8. NAM 6807-386-14-10, mernonlIldum dated 29 March 1879, 7 pm, to Lord Chelmsfurd and others;
NAM 6807-386-14-23, Lord Chelmsford to the secretary of state for war, Durban, 14 April 1879.
9. NAM 6807-386-14-20, Wood to Frere, Kambula Hill, Zululand, 29 March 1879.
10. Natal Archives, Pietermaritzburg, Evelyn Wood Papers, III2!4, Frere to Wood, Newcastle, 30 March
1879.
11. Transvaal Archives, Pretoria: Transvaal Governmmt Gazette Extraordinary, Vol. III No. 111, Pretoria,
Transvaal, Thursday, April 3, 1879; Governmmt Notice No. 38, 1879. The letter and the abbreviated
Hlobane despatch were published in The Cape Times on Thursday, 17 April 1879.
12. The Cape Mercury, King William's Town, Wednesday 2 April 1879.
13. The Cape Times, Cape Town, 10 April 1879.
14. The Daily Chronicle, Newcastle--upon-Tyne, 3 May 1879.
15. The Cape Times, Friday 18 April 1879.
16. PRO WO 3217724, telegram via St. Vincent [So Vicente] from Col W. Bellairs to the secretary of state
for war, Durban, 5 April 1879.
17. The Times, Tuesday 22 April 1879.
18. The Times, Monday 5 May 1879.
19. The correspondmt was Lt AJ. Bigge, RA, who commanded a mounted rocket detachment in Russell's
colunm at Hlobane. Clarke, Sonia (ed.), Invasion of Zululand 1879, p.109; letter from Brevet Lt-Col
A Harness to his sister Caroline, Helpmekaar, 9 April 1879.
20. Supplement to The London Gazette of Tuesday 6th of May, No. 24719, published Wednesday 7 May
1879. The text is complete with the exception of one sentmce in Buller's report on Hlobane dated 29
March 1879. In the copy in the PRO, W03217726, the order 'Omit this from Gazette' is side--lined
against the sentence 'By right I meant the north side of the mountain but Capt. Barton must have
understood me to mean the south side and to my careless expression must I fear be attributed the greater
part of our heavy loss that day'.
21. NAM 6807-386-14-23, Lord Chelmsford to the secretary of state for war, Durban, 14 April 1879.
22. Transvaal Archives, Pretoria: ATC, Al!45 Despatches Administrator Transvaal to High
Coommissioner, January 1878-Febmary 1879; SS1278179 Wood to acting Colonial Secretary
Transvaal, Kambula Hill, 12 April 1879 and Lanyon's minute to Secretary to Governmmt of 17 April.
23. The Transvaal Argus and Commercial Gazette, supplement, April 1879; report from Camp Kambula
dated 17 April; the correspondmt was probably an officer in the 13th Light Infantry.
24. The Times of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 28 April 1879.
25. Clarke, Sonia (ed.), Zululand At War, 1879, Houghton, 1984, p.205; letter from Lt-Col J.N. Crealock
to Gm Sir Archibald Alison, Camp Upoko River, 10 June 1879.
66 Hlobane: A new perspective
26. Jones, Huw M., 'Blood on the Painted Mountain; Zulu Victory and Defeat Hlobane and Kambula,
1879: A Review Article', Soldiers ofthe Queen, No.84, p p . 2 0 ~ 2 9 , March 1996.
27. Transvaal i\rchives, Pretoria, manus{,npt A1889, chapter 5; hereafter Dennison MSS. I am grateful to
Lionel Wulfsohn of Rustenburg for first drawing my attention to this manuseript and to the archives
staff for their help in loeating and eopying the chapkr on Hlobane. There is no information as to when
it was written, but it was probably eompleted in 1903.
28. Dennison, Major e.G., DSO, A Figpt to a Finish, London, 1904.
29. There are, unfortunately, no reeords in the Longrnans eollection in the University of Reading library
which shed any ligpt on how Dennison's manuseript was handled for publieation. I am grateful to
Frances Miller for her assistance.
30. The Independent, South Afriean Diamond Fields, Thursday 17 April 1879, and Dennison MSS.
31. Dennison, A Figptto a Finish; Dictionary of South Afriean Biography, Pretoria, 1987, voL V, p.324.
32. Wulfsohn, Lionel, Rustenburg At War, Rustenburg, seeond revised edition, 1992, p.9; Fred Jeppe,
Transvaal Book Almanac and Directory, Pietermaritzburg, 1877, p.62.
33. Dennison MSS, p.67.
34. Or Makateeskop, Eloya or Ronde Kop. It probably takes its name from Makhatha Shabalala, a Hlubi
induna ofthc iziYendane regiment posted in this area.
35. PRO CO 29112, enclosure No.5 in Transvaal No.3 to the higp eommissioner, Pietermaritzburg; M.
Osborn, secretary to government, Pretoria, to Shepstone, 29 January 1879.
36. NAM 6807-386-9-112, Wood to Crealock, Kambula Hill, 18 March 1879.
37. The Cape Times, Cape Town, 17 April 1879.
38. PRO WO 311lO77 F.A Weatherley to Maj-Gen Sir Charles Yorke, military secretary, Horse Guards,
s.d., but received 12 March 1855; The Graphic, 24 May 1879, p.502 was ineorrect.
39. Weatherley's uncle, Captain ID. Weatherley, 60th Rifles, was a Peninsular veteran, whilst another
relative of that generation, H.0. Weatherley, had been private secretary to Prince Esterhazy, the
Austrian ambassador in London; Richard Welford, Men of Mark Twixt Tyne and Tweed, vol.lII,
pp.589-595. I am grateful for this reference to Barbara Heatheote, loeal studies librarian ofthe central
library, Neweastle-upon-Tyne.
40. The Transvaal i\rgus and Commercial Gazette, Pretoria, 8 December 1877.
41. PRO W03111 077, Commander-in Chiefs Memoranda.
42. PRO WO 3111087 Commander-in Chiefs Memoranda.
43. The Transvaal i\rgus and Commercial Gazette, Pretoria, Wednesday 27 November 1878. I am grateful
to the State Library, Pretoria, for providing a eopy ofthis edition.
44. PRO WO 31/1142, Commander-in Chiefs Memoranda.
45. PRO WO 3111087, Commander-in Chiefs Memoranda; Lord Raglan to H.R.H. the General,
Commander-in-Chief, from Madresfield Court, Great Malvern, 22 and 23 October 1861; Hart's Army
List 1868.
46. PRO CO 29111, FA Weatherley to Sir Theophilus Shepstone, Pretoria, 29 October 1878; i\nny List
1875.
47. Baines, Thomas, The Gold Regions of South Eastern Afriea, London, 1877, p.96.
48. Roche, Harriet A, On Trek in the Transvaal, London, 1878. AR. Roche, her husband, was also one of
the initial subs{,Tibers to the Eersteling project; Baines op. cit., p.96.
49. The Transvaal i\rgus and Commercial Gazette, Pretoria, Wednesday 27 November 1878.
50. S.P. Engelbrecht, Thomas Fran90is Burgers: A Biography, Pretoria and Cape Town, 1946, p.274.
51. McToy, E.D., A Brief History of the 13th Regiment (P.AL.L) in South Afriea during the Transvaal
and Zulu Difficuhies, Devonport, 1880, p. 5.
52. Newnham-Davis, N., The TransvaallInder The Queen, London, 1900, p.30.
53. PRO CO 29111, Sir Theophilus Shepstone to Lord Carnarvon, Government House Pretoria, No.38
dated 1 August 1877 enclosing a eopy of a memorial from the officers and men ofthe Pretoria Mutual
Protection Association.
54. PRO CO 29211 FA Weatherley to Sir Theophilus Shepstone, Pretoria, 30 October 1878 enclosing
District Order, Dover, 1 August 1877 announcing Weatherley's resignation beeause he 'has a military
eommand in South Afriea'.
55. PRO CO 29111, Barlowto Brookefrom Eersteling, 8 December 1877.
56. The Transvaal Argus and Commercial Gazette, Pretoria, 8 December 1877.
57. PRO CO 291/1, Sir Theophilus Shepstoneto the secretary of state for the eolonies, Government House,
Pretoria, No.50 dated 15 May 1878.
58. De Volksstem, Pretoria, Tuesday 29 January 1878.
59. Ahhougp Weatherley has been ridiculed for being taken in by Stewart, Stewart was a plausible rogue.
During his trial, The Cape Times wrote of him that 'Most persons who know Gunn, have a kindly
67 Hlobane: A new perspective
feeling for him, and the essential hannlessness of his character appears in the signature "Gunn of
Gunn" to his letter addressed to the Governor ofthe colony'; The Cape Times, Monday:29 July 1878.
60. PRO CO :29111, Sir Theophilus Shepstone to the secretary ofstate for the colonies, Govenunent House,
Praoria, NO.50 dated 15 1878.
61. Transvaal Archives, Praoria, A1!45, General Letter Book H.M. Special COnmllssioner to Transvaal;
:2111 1876-911:2 1878, p.472, Shepstone to Frere, No. 49, Govenunent House, Praoria, :20 August
1878.
6:2. The Cape Time<>, Aloaday 5 Au:grost 1878.
63. PRO CO :29l!1, F,A... Weatherley to Sir ThOOQhilus Shepstorte, Praoria, 26 and 29 October t878.
64. Smith, Kennah Wyndham, 'The Campaigns against the Bapedi ofSekhukhune, 1877-1879', Archives
Year Book for South African History, 1967, Vol. II p.36.
65. And not 'Lancers, as used, for example, in Weatherley's obituary in The Graphic, :24 May 1879,
p.50:2, and perpauated by others, most recently Ron Lock, Blood on the Painted Mountain, Zulu
Victory and Defeat: Hlobane and Kambula, 1879, London, 1995, p.116.
66. NA1v1 6807-386-18-9 and 11, FA Weatherley to Lord Chelmsford, Praoria, :2 and 15 November
1878.
67. PRO CO :29112 Annual Raum of Armed Land Forces - Transvaal: year ending 31 December 1878.
68. Lys, the brother of J.R. Lys, a well known Praoria merchant and member of the Volksraad, had
seniority as second master ofH.M.S. Rifleman from 27 August 1862 and raired in 1871 as navigating
lieutenant on H.M.S. Seringapatam, a hulk used as a receiving ship at the Cape of Good Hope; various
Navy Lists. He was an accomplished surveyor; The Independent, South African Diamond Fields, 17
April 1879.
69. PRO WO 3217726, Capt C.G. Dennison to Colonel Buller, Kambula, :29 March 1879, written on
Buller's orders on 'the disaster at Thlabana (sic)'.
70. PRO WO 3:217726, Buller's report, Camp Kambula,:29 March 1879.
71. Selby, John, Shaka's Heirs, London, 1971, p.106; it has been further elaborated in the latest description
of H10bane by Lock, op. cit., p.134 where the Border Horse is described as 'not prepared to risk their
lives in a frontal attack on a strongly held natural fortress'.
72. Williams, op. cit., p.92.
73. Wood, Sir Evelyn, British Battles on Land and Sea, p.757.
74. Wood, Sir Evelyn, From Midshipman to Field Marshal, Vol. n, pp.52 and 53.
75. Killie Campbell Africana Library, Durban, document KCM 65234, letter from Charles Hewitt to his
sister Annie dated 3 January 1920, pp.:21 and 22 (I am grateful to 1.M. Simpson, librarian, for
drawing my attention to this manuscripL); George Mossop, Running The Gauntla, London, 1937,
p.74.
76. Laband, John, 'The Battle of Khambula, 29 March 1879; A Re-examination from the Zulu
Perspective' in There Will be An Awful Row At Home About This, Victorian Military Sociay,
Shoreham-by-sea, 1987, p.21.
77. British Parliamentary Paper Cmd 3182, 1882, Correspondence re Affairs of Natal and Zululand, p. 49.
78. Wood's Hlobane despatch dated 30 March 1879, er Note 2 above.
79. Natal Archives, Piaermaritzburg, Shepstone Papers, Volume 39, addendum to statement made by Pia
Uys, Junior, to H.C. Shepstone, at Utrecht, 29 March 1879.
80. The Times, Monday 5 May 1879. The account by The Times own correspondent written on 30 March
and published on 17 May follows Wood's account, but notes only that before daybreak he ma
Weatherley who was ordered to follow Wood.
81. PRO WO 3217834 Maj-Gen Sir Evelyn Wood to the military secretary, Horse Guards, from
Govenunent House, Piaermaritzburg, 15 October 1881; also published in Frank Emery, The Red
Soldier, London 1977, p.I77.
8:2. Pearson's Magazine, February 1896 VoU, No.9, p.129.
83. NAM, 6307-386-9-103, Wood to Crealock, Kambula Hill, Sunday 16 February 1879.
84. Butterlield, op. cit. (Note 5 above).
85. Wood, Sir Evelyn, British Battles on Land and Sea, p.756.
86. In a previous paper, I have suggested that the primary reason for the assauh on H10bane was to collect
cattle. In addition to the evidence presented there, and Dennison' s comment, it is interesting to note that
the correspondent of The Cape Argus wrote that 'Colonel Wood had already desOO1ded with his escort
and raumed to camp, thinking, no doubt, all was well, and that an immense take of cattle would be the
day's resuh. '; Jones, op. cit., and D.C.F. Moodie, Moodie's Zulu War, Constantia, 1988, p.122.
87. Wood, Sir Evelyn, From Midshipman to Field-Marshal, op. cit., Vo!. H, pp.48 and 50.
88. Moodie, op. (:it., p.122.
68 Hlobane: A new perspective
89. Ashe. Major, and Captain E. V. Wyatt-EdgeIl, The Story of the Zulu Campaign, reprint, Constantia,
1989, p.124.
90. Moodie, op. cit., pp. ]22 and 123.
91. Lock, op. (,-it., p.179. Poulet Weatherley arrived at Khambula after the action at H10bane and returned
to Pretoria on Tuesday 7 April; De Volksstem, Friday II April 1879.
92. PRO WO 3217726,U- Col RH. Buller's report, Camp Kambula, 29 March 1879.
93. Dennison MSS, p.88.
94. Dennison, A Figilt to a Finish, p.8.
95. Dennison MSS, p.94.
96. Macdonald, William, Romance ofthe Golden Rand, London, 1933, p.230.
97. It should be added that he was later commissioned as a lieutenant in the 80th (South Staffordshire)
Regiment and saw service in the Sudan and Upper Nile campaigns; PRO WO 76/97. f.77 and WO
76/99 f.20.
98. The Cape Times, Cape Town, 5 May 1879.
99. NAM 6302-48, W.F. Fairlie's diary.
100. Among other sources, BPP Cmd 23 18, p.160, Wood to military secrdary, 22 April 1879; the entry for
17 April 1879 in Captain E.RP. Woodgate's diary (I am grateful to Dr. G. Kemble Woodgate for sigilt
ofthe diaries covering this period); and "foe Cape Times, Cape Town, 5 May 1879.
10 1. Or Ngogo or Pypklipberg.
102. Or Sandspruit.
103. NAM 741 1-8, The Diary ofthe Zululand Boundary Commission.
HUWM.JONES
Scratching out one sdays
Graffiti in the old Pietermaritzburg Prison
The Tower of London contains one of the most gris(v collections
ofgraffiti in all of Europe. These inscriptions were produced by
kings, queens, saints and scholars, many of them awaiting their
deaths for political indiscretions or religious scruples. lifost(y
expressions of political or of religious ideals, these graffiti were
written with nails or other hard object available at the moment. '
lAbel and Buckley, p.6]
Introduction
At the end of 1992 or the beginning of 1993, the Department of Correctional
Services, having closed down the old Pietermaritzburg Prison at the south-west end
of Prince Alfred Street, gave over the premises to Project Gateway, a group of
church organisations serving the community.
Early in 1993, Ms. Michelle Wilter, one of the persons involved in the
organisation of Project Gateway, enquired whether anyone from the Department of
Zulu was prepared to investigate various graffiti in the old prison cells, especially
those of condemned prisoners, before this valuable social comment was plastered
over in the process of renovation. Ms. Wilter was under the impression that most of
the graffiti were in Zulu
l
. At the time I was making suggestions to third-year
students regarding topics for their major-year research, and two of these students,
Messrs Mthandeni Mthembu and Alex Dladla, undertook to do a socio-linguistic
research project on the condemned-cells graffiti.
Some background to the Pietermaritzburg Prison's becoming Project Gateway is
given in the introduction to Mthandeni Mthembu's research paper:
About three years ago, after the cessation of this institution as a prison, a group
of Christians appealed for the conversion of '" the institution into community
project units. The government agreed provided that the group would meet the
costs estimated [at] a million rand. Failure to meet this sum would result in the
[building's] being left unoccupied. Mr. Zephaniah, an ex-prisoner from whom
we got some of the information about the history of the prison, told us that this
concerned group of Christians, failing to [raise] the amount required, came
several times to march round the institution, just like the march led by Joshua
around the walls of Jericho, while they prayed. In the case of Joshua, the walls
Natalia 27 (1997), A Koopman, pp. 69-91
70
Scratching out one's days
Figure 1
Figure 3 is a mixture of written and
drawn graffiti: PHANSI UN .. .
NOTHELEWENI (Down with .. .
and Inkatha), a dagger, a heart, a
cross, a discreetly covered belly
and hips, and two 28s.
PHAN51
L J ~ ~
No THELW:rti
.,,-v.
18
t
Figure 3
71 Scratching out one's days
fell, but in the case of this group of Christians ... the result was the ... handing
over of the institution by the government ... free of charge. [Mthembu, pp. 3-4]
Mthembu goes on to point out the intentions of Project Gateway towards community
self-help: the development of job skills, creches, basic and computer literacy classes,
sewing classes, and using some of the cell-blocks for accommodating homeless
people. Mthembu sees the project as ' ... what was once hell, with hell gates, ... now
becoming a what was once a wilderness, ... now a place where streams of
bright future flow. '
When I first visited it in 1993, after it had ceased to be a prison, but well before
the renovators had moved in, the place still had an air of gloom and despondency.
This feeling has been brilliantly captured by Stephen Coan in an article in The Natal
Wi tness of 21 May 1993. The following extract gives some idea, not only of how
powerful Coan found the atmosphere of the empty prison, but also of how much the
graffiti contributed to his perceptions of the erstwhile presence of the prisoners:
Walking up though the gate at the back of the prison, the horizon shrinks and
comes uncomfortably close. Now the hills have vanished. You are surrounded
by high white walls ... Sight thus frustrated, eyes are forced to look up, to the
sky ... In a landscape shrunk and confined by walls the sky becomes an
omnipresent force. In one of the cells a graffito proclaims: 'Lord is Jesus God
Him all sky moon' [Fig, 1] The [doors of the] cells on the ground floor are of
solid thick steel. Each with a spyhole in a depression at eye level each covered
with thick glass to prevent any observer or warder getting his eye poked out. The
cell walls are covered with graffiti and scratched prison calendars
like domino scores - columns of four with a stroke across. Obscenities and
pornographic drawings are few, and those few more like final gestures of
defiance.
The phenomenon of graffiti
The Italian noun graffiti is the plural form of graffito ('a scratching' from graffire
'to etch, make a scratch'). The word 'graffiti' is used in English to refer to 'wall
writing' in public places, for reasons often regarded as anti-social. They may be
found on the walls of culverts, the outside walls of public buildings, inside bus
shelters, and in various other such public places. A sub-genre of graffiti is common
on the interior walls of public toilets
2
. Graffiti are usually anonymous, unless the
purpose of the inscription is deliberately to express the identity of the writer:
'Charles George Smith was here 25/9/85'. They may be executed in any medium
which will stick to the surface of a painted, plastered or tiled wall, so pen and pencil
frequently give way to more modern media such as felt-tipped pens and aerosol
spray-paint.
The content of graffiti varies from one venue to another political outside public
buildings such as law courts, police stations, and political campaign offices; obscene
in public toilets, love-messages on the trunks of trees in parks, and so on.
Graffiti, in common with other forms of written communication, need three
things in order to be executed: firstly, an alphabet (whether something as widely
known and used as a standard alphabet, or something as rare and esoteric as the
72 Scratching out one's days
FigUR6
73 Scratching out one's days
secret writing of a single small group of urban youths); secondly, a surface (which
could vary from a cave wall to a computer screen!); and thirdly, an implement or
other means of making the inscription.
Prison graffiti
The prison graffiti studied use, as one might expect, the Roman alphabet, almost
invariably restricted to block letters, i.e. unjoined capitals. These very often have a
runic appearance, angular and unrounded, and the reason obviously relates to
surface and implement. [Fig. 2] The writing surface consisted entirely of the
plastered and painted walls of the cells, the paint usually being a hard, glossy type,
probably chosen to be graffiti resistant. Ordinary pens and pencils were of no avail
here.
The graffiti were almost invariably engraved into the surface of the plaster with
some hard, sharpened implement. Without any detailed information from ex
inmates or prison authorities, I would imagine that the commonest implement
would be of metal - a large nail being most likely which could be easily hidden,
as well as easily kept sharp, and perhaps useful as a weapon as well as a writing
implemene.
Writing conditions
One notices on a visit to the old prison that even on a bright sunny day, the light in
the cells is muted. Without any artificial lights, illumination most of the time must
have been of a low level which is not conducive to writing. One would assume that
graffiti-writing was strictly forbidden, and I imagine that the writer had to work
under the strain of possible discovery. Perhaps he had to write in an uncomfortable
hunched-up position, using his body to shield his activities from the little spyhole in
each door, and remembering always to sweep up the fine dust from the engraving,
and perhaps to wipe it into the inscription to disguise its newness. The free and easy
joy of the New York subway graffiti artist, flourishing spray-can as he rides the
coaches through the night, has little in common with the cautious pecking away in
the monotonous grey cube of the prison cell that is the studio of the prison artist.
It is these very conditions, however, that make the prison statements true graffiti.
'Little scratchings' is a much more accurate description of prison cell inscriptions
than of those found on troilet and subway walls the world over.
Emotional conditions
These perhaps more than anything else lead to the uniqueness of the graffiti which I
have recorded in this article. Prison life generally is designed to be depressing. It is,
after all, a punishment, and the life is so ordered that no normal person would wish
to return to it. Bare accommodation, drab clothing, monotonous food, boredom and
continual debasement these are not features to encourage a visitor to come back
again if he can help it. And yet there is always the long-distant but ever-closer date
of release, not just a hope, but a definite date when the doors will open, and the
prisoner will become a human being again.
Not so for the prisoners in the condemned cells. For them there is perhaps the
slender hope that they will get a reprieve, and have their death sentence commuted
74
Scratching out one's days
Let Africans Get Equal Rights, CAS T L E, L ION
L A G E R AFT 0 0 U E N W 0
N R I L U R TON T
I L E S 0 I H
C L R Y P A I
Figure 7
A A E N N
N T A S G
S E N
S
75 Scratching out one's days
to a term of years. But otherwise, the only way they will leave the prison is when
they are released from life itself. And not for them the certainty of the date of
release. It might be in a few years; it might be in a few days. For the prisoners in the
condemned cells, contemplating the start of a comprehensive work of art or
literature on the wall of their cell, there is always the cruel paradox that of all
people, they have all the time in the world to work on the walls of their cell, but they
have no way of knowing exactly when that time is going to run out.
The language of the condemned cells graffiti constitutes a very narrow genre of
socio-linguistic phenomenon. The writers of the graffiti are confined in a sense that
no other writer can be confined, in space as well as in time. The conditions under
which the work is completed could not be much more oppressive. The language
used is heavily coloured with prison jargon and slang. It is perhaps not surprising
that the main themes appear again and again from cell to cell: an obsession with
time, and approaching doom; prayers to G o d ~ recounting the anguish of arrest; and
wry comments on prison life, especially the gang system.
And yet, within these predictable and conformist themes, there are rare flashes
of individuality, such as the reggae fan of cell three, and the architect/designer of
the dream house in the cell opposite.
Analysing the prison graffiti
When I looked at the original graffiti with my students Mthembu and Dladla, we
agreed that the major sub-division should be the written and the drawn forms.
Although the written graffiti constitute formal language, the drawings could not
possibly be ignored in the context of the emotions expressed by the prisoners in the
condemned cells, and drawings and writings should be integrated in the analysis. In
the case of numbers such as 26 and 28, it is difficult to know whether these should
be regarded as written or non-written. As they are symbols for prison gangs, it is
perhaps best to deal with them as non-written graffiti. Each of these two primary
sub-divisions could be further sub-divided into six areas of content: prison
experience, religious messages, statements of identity, political statements,
obscenities, and enigmatic statements.
Prison experience
These graffiti relate to arrests, judgments, sentences, opinions regarding policemen
and informers, prison conditions, and the short time left to the prisoners in the
condemned cells. Examples include 'So-and-so is an informer', 'It's hell in here',
'Condemned for murder', 'Only six days left', and so on. The graphic equivalent of
this would be the number of calendars drawn on the walls, most with dates marked
off. There are also a remarkable number of drawings of unmistakable police vans,
complete with grilles, radio aerials and the like.
Dladla includes: 'Ukubopha umuntu nihaya ngaye' ('to arrest a person with
whom you break the law') and 'I never thought I still I hungle', which Dladla
interprets, correctly in my opinion, as 'I always thought you got sufficient and free
food in prison'. There is a definite threat in: 'Nina maphoyisa, musani ukuhlala
ngathilae jele nizothola lento enifunayo' ('You policemen, don't sit on us here in
jail [or] you will get what's coming to you.') [Fig. 4]
76
Scratching out one's days
WHEN
CL IN T t c;i\Y'/ci6 D
FO (Z po AR.S
f'J\ 0 R
THG LI\ S NT BL Pr D
Figure 10
M
Figtn l1(a)
Figure 11(b)
D
Scratching out one's days 77
Religious messages
My original notes include: 'Only six days left, but God's gonna save me', 'Put your
trust in Jesus', and 'Remember this prayer [followed by a prayer]' The pictorial
equivalents are a number of crosses drawn on the walls. To these Dladla adds: 'I
trust Jesus only', 'I lay my body down to sleep, I pray to God. My soul to keep, and
if I die before I wake I pray to God to take my soul.' The latter is obviously an
attempt to reproduce the very old bedtime prayer 'Now I lay me down to sleep/ I
pray the Lord my soul to keep/ And if I die before I wake/ I pray the Lord my soul to
take.' Mthembu also gives 'I trust the Lord to set me free', 'God is love, do not
forget wherever you are' and 'Chamane Skhosiphi [not clear] Ngicela eyenkosi
yikhanye kokwami nawe nayo maihlala njalo. Amen' (,Chamane [surname]
Skhosiphi [personal name] I ask God that He should shine on me and you, and may
it be so always. Amen'.) [Fig. 5] This last is possibly an echo from the Anglican
Book of Common Prayer in Zulu (,The Lord make his face to shine upon thee ...
and give thee peace, now and evermore. ')
Statements of identity
Prison life reduces the inmates to numbers, rather than names. Herman Charles
Bosman, in his classic work on prison life Cold Stone Jug, makes a number of
pertinent comments about loss of identity:
'Well I dunno, Gair,' the head-screw would say, and Jimmy Gair would look
more perked than ever, because the head-screw had twice called him by his
name and not by his number, which was easy enough for the head-screw to read
on Jimmy Gair's suit. It's always flattering for a convict to find himself
addressed by his name, by a warder, instead ofby his number. [Bosman, p.I06]
'Slangvel bonked his head on the wheel-barrow when he fell over his feet,'
another convict volunteered.
, You musnlt call a convict by his name,' the warder announced pontifically.
'Don't you know your regulations? You must calls him by his number. '
[Bosman, p.124]
Nevertheless, there was one honour that, in my heart's secret recesses, I
treasured as a possibility ... and that was that one day a warder, in addressing me
... would call me by my name and not my number .... To have a warder address
you by your name instead of your number, was an honour that a convict never
forgot: even if it happened to him only once, during a long period of
imprisonment ... [Bosman, p.157]
Only when Bosman is released from prison, does this wonderful thing happen to
him:
And I was free. The guard at the gate shook hands with me. And he called me
by my name instead of by my number. [Bosman, p.219]
There can be little doubt that the same feelings prevailed in the Pietermaritzburg
Prison.
78 Scratching out one's days
Scratching out one's days 79
To retain a sense of personal identity, the prisoner records either his name [Fig.
2], or name with additions, such as 'Bhi Mchunu was here' or 'Bhi Mchunu was
here for 30 days, convicted of murder'. Graphic eqivalents include portraits, and in
one unusual version, a detailed depiction of a very specific house, repeated twice.
Mthembu's examples include: 'Velaphi Khanyile [ANC] endi (and) Boy
Gumede 28 (anti-women)'4. 'Mbhekeni Mavundla was makes 30 days,
1989/10101' , 'Mho Mdluli was here in 1988, on 28110 with the case of hunger
strike', and 'Biggs Ronald Biggs was here for rape. '
The last-mentioned meant nothing to my students. To me this name - of
Britain's most famous 'Great Train Robber' of the 1960s who escaped to spend the
remainder of his life in self-imposed exile in Brazil is an enigma. I can only
assume that this inscription dates from the time of the greatest fame of Ronald
Biggs, and the inmate of the Pietermaritzburg cell is getting some gratuitous
feelings of fame and renown by identifying himself with 'Biggs Ronald Biggs'. On
the other hand, the combination of names would not be uncommon, and it may well
have been a real identity.
Dladla adds the simple 'Snothi Mbelu' recorded on one wall of a cell, with the
following enlargement on the opposite wall: 'Sinothi Mbelu was here in 1983', and
'S'khevi was here for politics from November to December in 1987'. Dladla's
comment on this category of graffiti is worth noting: 'The condemned prisoners
knew very well that they were going to be executed and they wanted to be
remembered not by their numbers but by their proper names ... Writing on the wall
is the form of recognising oneself as self.' [Dladla, p.6]
Political statements
I am not sure whether the Pietermaritzburg prison was specifically for, or
specifically not for, political prisoners. However, it is inevitable that some prisoners
would hold political opinions and express them on the walls of their cells.
References to 'ANC', 'UDF', 'Theleweni' [Inkatha], and political figures such
as 'Nelsin [sic] Mandela' can be found on most of the walls. One of the most
fascinating is 'USAFENDIS W ABULALA UFELEFUTHI ... [illegible] ...
UFOSITHA' ('Tsafendas killed Verwoerd ... (illegible) ... Vorster. ') [Fig. 6] There
seem to be no graphic versions of these statements.
Mthembu includes: 'Viva Azapo', 'Archie uyimpimpi uyinja' (,Archie is an
informer and a spy. ') 'Phansi notheleweni' ('Down with Inkatha,6) 'Let black
people be free again', 'Nkosi ngisize - Mandela' (,Lord help me Mandela')
'Skhevi was here for politics', 'We are suffering in our land' and 'Give people what
they want'.
In one cell there was an ingenious acrostic inscription [Fig. 7] based on the
words LAGER, CASTLE, LION7, which gives the messages: 'Let Africans Get
Equal Rights', 'Can Africans Still Tolerate Lousy Europeans' and 'Let Indians Own
Nothing'.
Obscenities
Abel and Buckley state [p.73] that
80
Scratching out one's days
Figw-e 12(8) D
Figw-e 12(b)
M
FigUl"e 12(c)
K
Fiswe 12(e) M
FiB'" lZ(d) D
Scratching out one's days SI
Graffiti are saturated with taboo words, and one might expect that those who
use them probably derive a great emotional release from merely writing them.
But in addition to this they allow the graffitist to deface a wall and hence add to
his aggressive discharge. The combination of antisocial thought, antisocial
language to express it, and antisocial disfigurement of someone else's property
enables the graffitist to discharge in one 'emotional orgasm', any of the deep
seated emotions he may be harbouring and thus help him to regain his
composure.
These ideas make a great deal of sense. They do not explain, however, why there are
so few taboo words and obscenities generally on the walls of the condemned cells.
We recorded no more than two or three mildly obscene statements, as against scores
or more political comments, statements of identity, and so on.
At least two reasons occur to me why there are not as many obscenities as Abel
and Buckley imply in their work to be the norm in occurrences of graffiti. Firstly,
their work is restricted to examples found in public toilets (what they call 'private
graffiti', having rejected Dundes' delightful term 'latrinalia'), and as they point out
[p.17], 'the two themes common to private graffiti [are] sex and excretion'. While
prison cells are certainly 'private' (apart from the warder's peephole), they are not
privies. I understand (though I cannot confirm this) that the condemned block had
separate toilets, and one would need to investigate the proportion of obscenities on
those walls to see if there was any significant increase. Secondly, the linking of
obscenity to 'antisocial thought' and 'aggressive discharge' seems somehow out of
place in a prison where everything is related to antisocial thoughts, acts of
aggression, antisocial language, and so on. The thought of a condemned convict
needing to unburden himself of aggression in the quiet of his cell seems rather
strange.
These are possible reasons why so few obscene graffiti were found, but there is
another reason why so few have been given as examples in this article. That is the
reluctance of my two research students actually to record obscenities, to discuss
them with me later, and then to enter them in their research reports. The latter
particularly is relevant: neither student wanted later readers to find a piece of
research containing obscene statements which had their names on the cover. Some
obscene graffiti which I vaguely remembered from my first two visits to the prison
had been plastered over by the time of my last visit, without being recorded by the
students.
A few examples of obscenities were, however, included. Mthembu lists the
following under his heading of obscenities: 'Awe! Thandi ngafa!' (,Oh! Thandi I
am dying') - expressing the wish to have his lover, Thandi, for sexual intercourse
- followed by the drawn sexual organs. 'Hayi! yise kaVukani kubi' ('No! Vukani's
father, it is bad') - followed by [a drawing ofJ people in sexual intercourser
[Mthembu, p.S]
If these seem rather mild obscenities, compare them to his first example: 'No
sex, kiss only', 'Tshela uNontobeko Mthethwa aphone etilongweni' ('Tell
Nontobeko Mthethwa to phone the prison'). This statement is accompanied by a
82
Scratching out one's days
C L - - - - - - - ~
A COLLECTION OF KNIVES AND
GUNS FROM MTHEMBU & DLADLA
Figure 13
J TOOLS OF HARD LABOUR
Fisun 14
83 Scratching out one's days
drawing of a couple kissing each other. For sure he is missing his loved one.
[Mthembu, p.7]
Dladla includes the latter message under the heading 'Highly Individual
Statements', rather than 'Obscenities'. Under his heading for obscenities, he
includes 'Hayi! yise kaVukani kubi', which he translates as 'Ub! Vukani's father,
it's painful'. It is not clear whether the word 'Msunu'( a vulgar word for a part of
the female genitals) was written next to the 'Vukani's father' graffito, or whether it
occurs separately. Dladla adds: 'Hawu! Thanitha uyisifebe' , which translates to
'Hey! Thanitha, you are a bitch'. Next to these written graffiti [is a drawing of] ..
two people making love. [Dladla, p.5]
Fig. 8 suggests that a particular inmate is tired of homosexual sex.
Enigmatic statements
Some graffiti pose interesting conundrums. At first glance Fig. 9 seems a
straightforward identity graffito 'Thabe (?) was here'. But then the questions start:
Was he here for assault? Assault on a member of the South Mrican Police (SAP)?
Or was he assaulted by a member of the SAP? Was he identified as a member of the
SAP in prison, and subsequently assaulted? Surely he didn't get 26 years for
assault? Surely '26' refers to his gang? In that case what is the word 'years' doing
there? Do the crosses on either side of 'Thabe was here' have any significance?
In Figure 10, with some effort we can identify the word(s) after the large
'WHEN' as 'GLINTESTWVOOD' or 'CLINT EASTWOOD'. The letters which
follow are quite legible (,FOR OOARS MOR THE LA SNT BLAD'), but to
interpret or understand them is difficult Did Clint Eastwood perhaps make a film
called 'Four Doors More'? 'A Few Dollars More'? If so, we are halfway, but with a
long way to go!
Drawn graffiti
The more pictorial graffiti include graphics of time measurement, of prison
experience, the symbolic numbers 26 and 28, self-portraits, religious symbols,
obscenities and highly individual drawings. The drawings and sketches referred to
in this section are accompanied by the letters M, D, and K to indicate the respective
sources Mthembu, Dladla, and Koopman.
Graphics of time
Most cells exhibited drawings which helped the prisoner to measure time. Some are
of the simple 'groups of strokes' t y p e ~ some are proper grids simulating the
appearance of a calendar, some even with letters to indicate the days of the week It
is significant of the death cell graffiti that no calendar shows more than one month.
[Figures II (a), (b) & (c)]
Prison experience
Part of the process of being imprisoned is the arrest, and this has been depicted very
dramatically with policemen and police vans. [Figures 12(a), (b) & (c)] Another part
of the prison experience is the role played by guns and knives, symbolic here of
prison violence, and picks and shovels, symbols of hard labour. A selection of these
84
Scratching out one's days
Figure 1.5
D
Figure 16(&)
K
Figtre 16(c) 0
18
A "28" IDENTIFYING HIMSELF
WITH THE ASSASSINATION OF
VERWOERD?
t
FiJtre 16(b) K
Figure 16(d) K
85 Scratching out one's days
is shown in Figures 13 and 14. The role played by the prison gangs, symbolised by
the numerals 26 and 28, is discussed in a separate section below.
26 and 28, and other numerals
When I first visited the prison, I did not even notice the way in which the numerals
'26' and '28' were incised on every wall in every cell. Once it had been explained to
me that these numerals referred to the two major gangs operating not only in this
prison, but nationwide, the numerals sprang from obscurity and became startlingly
obvious. Various sources explain their significance.
Zungu, in her doctoral thesis on contemporary codes and registers in the greater
Durban area, has some intriguing, if somewhat conflicting, comments to make about
'cryptographic numerals' in her section on prison cant: 'A prison cell is known as a
klob. Thus we get klob number 1, 2, 3, 14, 25, 26, 27, and 28. A 27 is sometimes
known as a "Hollander" ... the 27s are a notorious group ... known for stabbing
other people even within prison premises. '
, "unyana" ... adopted from the Xhosa word unyana meaning a baby .. , means a
boy friend who takes the place of a girl friend ... and takes all the instructions from
his partner who is a 26 ... ' [Zungu, pp. 119 - 120]. '''Unginike'' ... This word refers
to a 26 prisoner who usually claims other people's possessions ... "nginike" means
"give it to me" '.
'Prisoners are categorised according to the offences they have committed. For
instance, a prisoner who is serving a short- term sentence of less than three months,
is known as a "fourteen". This refers to the cell number of such a prisoner and has
nothing to do with his age. For instance, a prisoner who resides in klob number 26
is called a "twenty-six" "i-16" refers to a policeman. It originates from the 16th
letter of the alphabet. [Zungu, p.121]
Zungu's section on these numerals ends with the following intriguing dialogue:
A: Ungaphakama ngani? (How can you prove to me [that you are a 26]?)
B: Ngingaphakama ngemibilijisi yami. (I can prove it with my prison trousers.)
[Zungu, p.122]
There seem to be two different suppositions here: one that such numbers refer to
the cell in which a particular prisoner is kept, and the other that they refer to the
characteristic behaviour group or gang.
While Mthembu has nothing to say about numerals and gangs, Dladla explains
the numbers 26 and 28 as follows: 'The numbers 26 and 28 are found on the walls
of each and every cell, These are the code names of the prison gangs. According to
Michelle (i.e. Ms Wilter, involved with Project Gateway at the time), "28" stands for
the dominating knife-wielding gang and "26" stands for their homosexual
[partners]. However, further explanation was given by Zephaniah (an ex-prisoner).
He explained that "28" stands for the gang which is anti-women, sodomists. He
agreed with Michelle that 28s were bloodthirsty. On the other hand, "26" stands for
the gang which was concerned about money, and its graphic equivalent is a dollar
sign [Fig. 15]. The prisoners joined these gangs for security reasons.' [Dladla, p.7]
De Villiers echoes Dladla's last statement: 'There is a brutally simple law in
prison: join a gang or suffer the consequences. Gangs mean protection and favours. '
He identifies three main prison gangs: 'Prison gangs are organised into three main
86 Scratching out one's days
K
FiSIn 17(b)
Figure 17(a) D
THIS LARGE-SCALE GRAFFITO OF A
COWBOY ORIGINALL Y SHOWED HIM WITH
HIS HORSE (ALSO HEAD ONLY). BY THE TIME
IT WAS PHOTOGRAPHED THE HORSE HAD
BEEN PLASTERED OVER. COULD THIS BE
THE 'CLINT EASTWOOD' OF FIG. 10, AND ARE
THOSE BULLET -HOLES PEPPERING HIS
HEAD?
Scratching out one's days 87
areas of influence and operation ... Each gangster is tattooed with an identification
number, or tjappie, linking him to the "twenty-sixes", or "twenty
eights" ... The 26s are into dealing in drugs or money. They're called son-op
because, in prison lore, they work under the rising sun ... The 27s resource and
organise escapes. They're known as the "airforce". The 28s, nongolozi, believe in
sodomy as punishment. They also make and provide wyfies (wives). They're son-a!
because they work after dark. ' [De Villiers]
Both Zungu (working in the Durban area), and De Villiers (referring to prisons
in the Cape Town area) mention the '27' gang. This gang is unquestionably missing
from the graffiti in the Pietermaritzburg prison. Examples of the 26 and 28
numerals from Pietermaritzburg can be seen in FiguresI6(a) to (d).
Faces
There are few of these, and one can only guess whether they are self-portraits in the
line of the 'identity comments' mentioned above, or whether they represent other
people. The dreadlocks on the faces of 'music-lover's' cell suggest Rastafarian
musicians. Examples of various portraits are given in Figures 17 ( a) to (c).
Religious symbols
The traditional Christian cross is usually found in proximity to religious messages
and prayers, but may occur on its own. It is possible that the various suns and stars
found on the walls are also symbolic of faith and hope, although Dladla [p.l0]
quotes ex-prisoner Zephaniah as explaining that a star symbolises a 'trusty', a
prisoner who can be sent anywhere without any fear he would escape. For a variety
of crosses and stars, see Fig. 18.
88 Scratching out one's days
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.;".:-
': "
" ",: - 'i-
@ \-\.J
89 Scratching out one's days
Obscene drawings
Drawings depicting either copulation or masturbation were originally found in close
proximity to the obscene statements mentioned above. It is noteworthy that these
occur far less frequently than the other types of drawing. Following the extensive
replastering which took place after the MthembuIDladla visits and my last visit, I
was only able to find one example. The message inscribed above the drawing is
indecipherable. The damaged plaster around the area of genital contact suggests that
censorship has taken place by a later inmate of the cell. [Fig. 19]
Highly individual
There are some drawings which defy classification. I think here of the cell which
has two very distinct drawings of a particular house, each with a symbolic half-sun
above it. How can we interpret these? In the same cell, and apparently drawn by the
same hand, are several representations of a vaguely cross-like symbol, but bearing
no relation to any known cross shape. Figures 20 (a) to (d) and 21 (e) include a
number of houses, and various other drawings which are not easily explained.
Conclusion
Jacobs, writing on self-identification and naming in South Mrican prison memoirs,
concentrates on the works of Ruth First
9
and Albie SachslO. He finds certain
similarities in their works, specifically that both these writers found that detention,
solitary confinement, and degrading interrogation made them lose contact with self
identification, becoming anonymous, nameless non-persons. We find phrases like:
, ... her fear that ... she might become "one of those colourless insects that slither
under a world of flat, grey stones" '. 'As the protagonist Ruth First becomes
emptied of self, so her name is voided of meaning. She becomes as detached from it
as from her selfhood .... ' [Jacobs, p.10]
Figure 19 K
90
Scratching out one's days
D
Figure 20
91 Scratching out one's days
'[Albie Sachs's] record of 168 days of solitary confinement ... charts a similar process
of personality disintegration, of insidious adaptation to the prison environment .. ,[he]
becomes depersonalised and anonymous '" The disintegrative processes in his mind result
fmally in a frightening sense of detachment from his body ... ' [Jacobs, p.12]
It is possible that these perceptions eventually led to people like Ruth First and
Albie Sachs writing autobiographies after they were released, instead of writing on
the walls while they were still detained. I say so because it is my strong feeling,
having looked at, recorded and analysed the graffiti on the walls of the old
Pietermaritzburg prison, that nowhere have I felt that these were the thoughts of
people detached from themselves, of 'colourless insects slithering under flat stones',
of disintegrated and depersonalised souls.
The cells of the old prison are empty now, and as I write most of the cells in the
old condemned block have been replastered and painted, electric lights installed,
and the graffiti now only exist in memory or in records such as this. But when I first
visited the prison in 1993, the prisoners may well have been absent in body, but
their personalities were still very evident. There may well have been anguished
prayers, vain hopes of reprieve, and comments on the harshness of prison life. But
these were certainly not the comments of people 'emptied of self. Condemned cells
or not, the lively personalities of the authors of the graffiti lived as long as the
graffiti themselves.
REFERENCES
Abel, E.L.
& Buckley, B.E. The Handwriting on the Wall. London: Greenwood Press, 1977
Bosman, H.C. Cold Stone Jug. Cape Town: Human & Rousseau, 1969
Coan, S. 'Walking in Desolation', The Natal Witness, 21 May 1993
De VilIiers, C. 'A general in the toughest gangs ofal!', The Sunday Tribune, 11 August 1993
Dladla, A 'Pietennaritzburg Prison condenmed cells graffiti research project', unpublished third
year project, Dept ofZulu, University of Natal, Pietennaritzburg. 1993
Jacobs, 1.U. 'A Proper Name in Prison: Self-identification in the South African Prison Mernoir'.
Nomina Africana. 5(1), 1991.
Mthernbu, M.B. 'Pietennaritzburg Prison Condenmed Cells GraffIti Research Report', unpUblished third
year project. Dept. ofZulu. University of Natal, Pietennaritzburg. 1993.
Zungu, P.1. 'A Case-study of Contemporary Codes and Registers in the Greater Durban Area',
unpublished doctoral thesis. Dept, ofZulu, University of Durban-Westville, 1995.
NOTES
1. It turned out that less than twenty-five pereent were in Zulu.
2. Thetenn latrinalia has been proposed for this sub-genre.
3. The validity ofthe proverb 'The pen is mightier than the b'Word' seems somewhat diminished when they
are one and the same thing!
4. It is not clear how much ofthe parenthesised material appeared in the actual inscription.
5. At this point Mthernbu includes a footnote to explain that 'make' in this context means 'was sentenced to'
or 'was imprisoned for'
6. 'Thelewmi' is a slangterm for the Inkatha National Freedom Party ofthe late 1970s. It would appear to refer to
the habit ofShaka (and pcrhaps later chiefS) ofthrowing enemies over clifffaces (uku.fuel( a) eweni).
7. Lion and Castle lager are two well-known brands of South African beer.
8. Mthernbu inserts a footnote at this point suggesting that this was said by a man who recalled what his wife
nonnally said during sexual intercourse.
9. Ruth First (1988) 117 Days: An account of Confinement and Interrogation under the South African
Ninety-Day DetentIOn Law, 1965. London: Bloomsbury, 1988.
10. Albie Sachs: (1990) TheJailDiaryofAlbie Sachs 1966. London: Paladin, Grafton, 1990.
ADRIAN KOOPMAN
Obituaries
Denis Gower Fannin (1907-1997)
For those who have some experience of the law, and long memories, the death of the
Honourable Denis Fannin in Durban in March 1997 must in some respects resemble
the fall of one of those few remaining upright and mighty yellowwoods in the
natural bush of the Dargle (which is where the Fannin family first settled when they
came to Natal 150 years ago). For Denis Fannin was an honourable and brave man
in every respect, and greatly admired.
He was educated at Hilton College (of whose board of governors he was to
become chairman) and then the former Natal University College. Bent on entering
the law, he practised first from 1930 as an attorney in the firm of Hathorn and
Fannin in Durban. But the Bar was more suited to his talents and so from 1935 he
practised as an advocate.
When the Second World War broke out he immediately joined the Umvoti
Mounted Rifles and served in East Africa and the Western Desert. He was awarded
the Military Cross, but his military career was cut short at Tobruk. It is said of him
that his claim to fame as a prisoner-of-war, of which he was inordinately proud,
rested on his stage performance as one of the ugly sisters in the Christmas
pantomime.
On his return from the war he soon revived his extensive practice. He took silk
in 1950 and in time became Chairman of the General Council of the Bar in South
Africa. Yet he found time to serve as a provincial councillor in a council then
controlled by the United Party. He had no sympathy for the policy of the National
Party's central government, and was fearless in his criticism of it.
He was also deeply involved in educational and charitable work - Adams
College, the University of Natal (serving as President of Convocation), an ex
servicemen's educational programme, the Heart Foundation, the Simon van der Stel
Foundation, and others.
In 1958 he was elevated to the bench of the Natal Provincial Division of the
Supreme Court (as it then was), where he sat for 19 years before retiring. As a
judge he was respected for his reputation as a learned lawyer, for his real concern
that the application of the law in his court should always be fair, and for his
approachability.
For many years he was an enthusiastic and valued member of the Natal Parks
Board, retiring as deputy chairman in 1980.
93
Obituaries
In his retirement his wide knowledge of affairs, his humanity and his
compassion made him an ideal chairman of a number of state and provincial
commissions of inquiry, which he conducted with an easy firmness and exemplary
patience.
He is survived by his wife Helen, a son and a daughter, and their respective
families.
SIMON ROBERTS
Philip RudolfTheodorus Nel (1915-1997)
Phi lip Nel was born in Vryheid on 1 December 1915. His parents were of farming
stock. He was educated at Greytown Primary and Vryheid High schools. He trained
as a teacher at the Natal Training College and later obtained a BA degree at the
Natal University College in Pietermaritzburg.
He taught at schools as diverse as Charlestown on the Natal border and
Voortrekker, the oldest Afrikaans-medium school in Natal. His first post as a school
principal was at Mtunzini and he followed this with postings to the Umkomaas and
Sezela Primary schools and the Oliver Lea School in Pietermaritzburg. The last
named school was unusual as it was specifically set up for children convalescing
from tuberculosis and similar long-term diseases. After leaving Oliver Lea, he
joined the staff of the Natal Training College as a lecturer in Afrikaans before
returning to the position of principal at Port Natal Senior Primary. He was the
founding headmaster of Dirkie Uys High School on the Bluff in Durban.
In 1961 he was promoted to the post of inspector of education. In 1964 he rose
further to the position of Chief Planner for Indian Education, and when this was
separated from the Natal Education Department he became the first director of the
newly-created Indian Education Department. This last post gave him seniority over
his previous colleagues, and in 1967 he was appointed Director of the Natal
Education Department, a post he held until 1977.
There can be little doubt that Nel' s appointment as director was part of a plan to
exert Broederbond control over education in Natal. An earlier attempt to position
Stander to take over as director had led to a great deal of negative publicity in the
press. Nel' s move into the top educational post went much more smoothly as he
was clearly the senior candidate. This said, Nel brought to his position as director
tremendous energy and drive and his positive personality and genuine concern for
education in Natal soon converted to his side the great majority of those who had
seen him as little more than a political appointment.
It was during his term that the 1967 education acts were implemented. Nel is
particularly gratefully remembered by the colleges of education. The establishment
of college councils and the development of a system whereby colleges were enabled
to team up with universities in order to offer degree courses owe much to his
initiative. Another lasting achievement of the Nel era was the great number of new
94 Obituaries
schools built and the extensive renovations and construction carried out at a number
of the established schools. These were indeed the fat years for white education.
III health persuaded Nel to retire from his position as director in 1977 but he
continued to lead an extremely active life, serving as Chairman of the Drakensberg
Administration Board in the years immediately following his retirement from the
Natal Education Department. During a not undistinguished career, he served on
numerous boards and councils, including the advisory board of the South African
Broadcasting Corporation. He continued to play an active role in the field of
education for several years after his retirement, serving on the main committee of
the De Lange Commission as well as serving as chairman of the Working
Committee for Languages and Language Instruction. His considerable contribution
to edueation was recognised by the award of an honorary doctorate of education by
the University of Durban-Westville.
He spent his retirement in Somerset West in a house with a commanding view of
the mountain-girt blue waters of False Bay. It was here where he died peacefully
on 8 September 1997. He leaves his wife Engela (born Cloete) two sons, a daughter,
eight grandchildren and one great-grandchild.
SIMONHAW
Gerhardus Adriaan ('Horace,) Rail (1916-1997)
Horace RaIl 'Horace' was an Anglicised version of 'Hardus' was born in
Greytown in 1916. His father had been jailed for treason during the South African
War as a Natalian who had fought for the Boers. He received his education in
Greytown. When he started school he could speak Afrikaans and Zulu, but very
little English. It was a situation soon remedied by the headmaster, the redoubtable
Dr W.G. McConkey, later to become Director of Education. In standard eight he
won the prize for English, and duly matriculated with a first class pass. Another of
his teachers was the young Ray Fuller, a future headmaster of Maritzburg College,
who instilled in him a life-long love of history.
Those were the depression years, however. His father did not have the money to
send him away to university but, thanks to his fluency in Zulu, the local magistrate
offered him a job in the Department of Justice at Weenen. Here he studied for the
civil service law exams and started on an LL.B by correspondence.
During the war years the Department of Justice was so short -staffed that he was
initially not allowed to go north with his unit, the Umvoti Mounted Rifles. When
eventually released for service, he got into the SAAF and flew Dakotas with the
Transport Squadron. One of his tasks was to fly a cargo of apes from Fez in North
Africa to Gibraltar to replenish the local population. Churchill firmly believed the
superstition that if the apes died out on the famous Rock, Gibraltar would fall to the
enemy.
Back hi the Department of Justice after the war, and after several years on the
relief staff - during which time he played provincial hockey for Border - he took
95
Obituaries
\
Mr P.R.T. Nel Mr N.A. Steele
Mr Justice D.G. Fannin
Mr Justice J. A. van Heerden Senator G.A. Rall
96
Obituaries
up a permanent post as assistant magistrate and native commissioner at Stanger.
Here it was his task to serve the order of deposition on Chief Luthuli, with whom he
was personally on good terms. From Stanger, rather than take promotion to
Johannesburg, he moved as magistrate to Kranskop. In 1955 he resigned from the
Department of Justice and bought the farm Gracelands in the Muden Valley. It was
during these years that he became actively involved in politics as a member of the
United Party, unsuccessfully contesting the Newcastle seat against a cousin, Hannes
RaIl.
From 1960 to 1970 he represented the United Party in what was then the
'enlarged' Senate, a frustrating experience given the Nationalist majority and the
inability of opposition Senators to influence legislation. More rewarding were the
next four years as the elected member for Umvoti and member of the Executive
Committee of the Natal Provincial Council where the United Party still had a
majority, and where his bilingualism was an asset. Portfolios he carried were
Education, the Natal Parks Board (of which he was chairman), the Sharks Board
and Museum Services. (It is interesting to note that one of his sons, Adrian,
represented the same geographical area, now renamed Greytown, in the Natal
Provincial Council from 1981 to its demise in 1986.)
The United Party's attempts to introduce parallel-medium education met with
enthusiasm among neither English- or Afrikaans-speakers. But what was introduced
during those years was differentiated education, offering technical training within
the same schools as provided the traditional academic courses, rather than in
separate schools. The Director of Eduction at the time was another product of
Greytown High School, Philip Nel, whose obituary is also featured in this issue of
Natalia.
RaIl's tenure as chairman of the Natal Parks Board was more controversial after
the appointment of John Geddes-Page as Director. But it also saw the development
of recreation parks around state dams such as Midmar, Chelmsford and Albert
Falls, and the proclamation of new nature reserves: Weenen, Vernon Crookes, the
Eastern Shores of Lake St Lucia and the one of which he was most proud, Itala.
Retiring from politics in 1974, RaIl returned to full-time farming on Gracelands.
In 1990 he sold the farm and spent his last years on a smallholding outside
Greytown. He leaves his wife Lilian, five children and ten grandchildren ..
(Compiledfrom an interview with Horace Rail published in Natalia 20)
Nicholas Arthur Steele (1933-1997)
The last nine months of Nick Steele's life were a time of terrible, racking pain and
sometimes deep despair, yet out of the fire of this agony Nick emerged with
undaunted spirit and renewed faith. In the last month he had spiritual experiences
and dream revelations that undeniably confirmed what he already knew: that God
and a life hereafter existed. The birth of his spiritual belief began in the wilderness
of the Mfolosi Game Reserve, where he was able to identify with the experience of
Jesus Christ and the forty days and forty nights He spent in the wilderness.
97
Obituaries
I found the following passage in Nick Steele's book Game Ranger on
Horseback:
When I first found a spring in the depths of the Mfolosi bush on a foot patrol
one searing day, I thought the heat had played tricks on my mind. An old
African game guard called Nkomo, who really knew his bushlore, showed me at
least ten places throughout the area where the water never failed in droughts. '
I think these lines serve as a metaphor for the life of Nicholas Arthur Steele. He
lived through many serious personal drought periods, but he was always able to find
a spring inside himself that inspired him. As a young boy at school in the Transvaal
there were those who tried to bully him because he was short. The same thing
happened at Weston Agricultural College, well known in those days for its
extraordinarily tough initiations. These experiences were a preparation for his
conservation career of 41 years, in which he refused to be cowed when he knew he
was right.
In 1956 he applied to the Natal Parks Board for a job, and was interviewed by
Colonel Vincent, who recognised Nick's strength of character. This was the kind of
man he needed in those very difficult years.
Nick served a year at Hluhluwe Game Reserve under Norman Deane, a tough
taskmaster, who admired him tremendously because of his untiring capacity for
hard work. They formed a deep and abiding friendship. Nick was then transferred
to Ogome outpost to guard the southern crown lands of Mfolosi. It was here that he
encountered the ancient spirit of Africa, the sense of wilderness he strove all his life
to preserve. He writes in Game Ranger on Horseback of his arrival at Ogome: 'No
droning engines broke the night out here, for Ogome was the heart of the
wilderness, and the call of the reedbuck was answered only by the lonely wail of the
jackal or the sombre hoot of the owl. '
It was at Ogome that Nick forged a lifelong friendship with Masuku Mzwabantu,
Aaron Sithole, and other men who defended the land and the game.
In 1958 we travelled with Hugh Dent and Norman Deane to the home of Chief
Mangosuthu Buthelezi at Mahlabatini. A friendship began that day which
eventually led to an unequalled partnership of achievement in conservation. Dr
Buthelezi as Chief Minister of K waZulu and Nick Steele as Director of the K waZulu
Bureau of Natural Resources, broke the racial barriers and became men - instead
of black and white. The value of the traditional field ranger was recognised, and
local communities became part of, and shared in, the conservation benefits.
No matter how far up the administration ladder Nick advanced, he was always
guided by the wilderness ethic. It was one of the springs within himself that he
drew upon constantly. His defence of wilderness areas was unwavering, and he
became angry with people in our profession who related the value of wild animals to
meat, hides and biltong. He had a deep respect for the spirit of animals, and their
right to a place in the sun.
Nick never hesitated to speak out when his inner feeling told him something was
wrong. His opposition to the proposed mining on the eastern shores of St Lucia was
more difficult for him than for other senior officials. It could have affected his
career adversely, but that did not prevent him from speaking out forcefully against
98
Obituaries
mining. He tirelessly encouraged his staff and lobbied political leaders, and
certainly had the support of Dr Buthelezi. The two of them stood firm on a matter
of principle that triumphed in the end. What a wonderful partnership.
Nick was also a practical person. He initiated the conservancy movement, which
has now spread to all of southern Africa. He introduced horses for patrol work and
proved conclusively how effective they could be, not only as an anti -poaching
method, but to bring the ranger into a close relationship with the earth.
Nick's knowledge and appreciation of horses wove like Ariadne's thread
throughout his life. The horses were of immense value in the early days of
Operation Rhino. We could never have achieved what we did without the horsemen
and the tracking skills of Magqubu Ntombela.
There was a philosophical part of Nick that brought out the poet in him,
enabling him to describe dawns and sunsets, and what Africa meant to him when he
heard the long lyrical cry of the fish eagle, the call of a cisticola, the howl of a hyena
in the night the lion roaring with the sound echoing against the krantzes of his
beloved White Mfolosi River.
We are told in the Bible that there is no greater love than to lay down your life
for a friend. I know this was true of Nick in the cameraderie and friendships that
were established in the battles for the Zululand game reserves in the 1950s and
1960s. His companions would not have hesitated to lay down their lives for each
other, either. Many game guards, indeed, did give their lives.
Nick had read widely about the American West and was a great admirer of the
American Indians. On a visit to America in 1987 when Drummond Densham
accompanied us, we spent days at the River of No Return Wilderness in Idaho,
where horses are a religion. The rapport between Nick and the ranging staff on the
subject of wilderness and horses was instant and deep.
All who knew Nick appreciated his many striking qualities: his courage, hard
work, optimism, dedication, sensitivity and quiet sense of humour. But Nick, like
us all, had his shadow side. He could be unbelievably stubborn, yet in times of
serious adversity this could be an asset.
When he was a ranger in Mfolosi and Hluhluwe, he rode horses because that was
a practical way of doing what game rangers should do patrol and get to know the
country. Later on in life, when he became a director, he rode horses for relaxation
and contemplation. Not ten days before he died, Nick, with the encouragement of
his wife Nola, mounted his horse and rode - for what was to be the last time in his
life - to the White Mfolosi River. He crossed it to sleep for a while under an
mdoni tree.
Psalm 20 speaks of 'Some who put their trust in chariots and some in horses, but
we will trust in the name of the Lord our God.' On that last ride Nick knew he was
near death, and he wanted to speak with the Great Spirit in the wilderness of the
upper White Mfolosi. You can imagine how he went over his life as he rode, giving
thanks for being allowed to serve the world in the wilderness. He always said it
was the most noble and important cause in our world today. For 41 years he had
served it with untiring passion.
We are entering a new era with the amalgamation of the Natal Parks Board and
the K waZulu Department of Nature Conservation. Conservation in this province
99 Obituaries
has never been easy. When I saw Nick as he lay dying, but conscious and coherent,
he asked me to say that in this testing time people should not take packages and
quit. He knew that everyone with experience is needed for the future organisation.
Some of the last sounds that Nick carried with him into the next world were the
songs sung by the Zulu nurses at Eshowe Hospital, and I am sure that Magqubu
Ntombela, Masuku Mzwabantu and many others will be waiting for him on the
other side of the great river, to say thanks for all he has done to keep the wilderness
flame alight.
Go well, Nick Steele, go well.
Hamba kahle, Malamba, hamba kahle.
You have done your duty.
IANPLAYER
(This was the eulogy delivered at Nick Steele 'sfuneral on 4 June 1997)
Auret van Heerden (1918-1997)
We have gathered here to pay tribute to the memory of our late colleague, Auret van
Heerden, who died at his home in George in the Cape a month ago.
Auret van Heerden was born in 1918. His father was an attorney in Bredasdorp
in the Cape Province and he matriculated there in due season. In 1936 he joined the
Department of Justice and worked firstly in the magistrate's court and thereafter for
approximately nine years in the Master's Office in Cape Town. During that period
he studied part-time and attained his LL.B. degree from the University of South
Africa. Then he left the service and took up articles with a Cape Town firm of
attorneys. After completing his articles he rejoined the civil service as a prosecutor
in the Department of Justice, first in the magistrate's court and then on the staff of
the Attorney-General of the Transvaal.
In 1955 he resigned from the civil service and commenced practising as an
advocate at the Bar in Pietermaritzburg. He took silk in 1965 and was appointed to
the Natal Bench in January 1967. When he retired in August 1988 he was the
Judge President of Natal, having been so appointed shortly before his retirement.
After his retirement he continued to serve, for he acted as a judge in Cape Town,
Kimberley and in the Eastern Cape.
It is of interest to note that Auret's brother, Nils, was appointed to the Cape
Bench some two years before Auret was appointed in Natal. They also shared an
interest and ability in rugby. Auret played for the Gardens club in Cape Town as a
flank forward and was a serious contender for inclusion in the Western Province
rugby team. NHs played for Western Province as a fullback and was at one stage on
the verge of selection for the Springbok team. Auret was a keen golfer, and member
of, and regular player at, the Maritzburg Golf Club.
He was active in the cultural life of the Afrikaans-speaking people of
Pietermaritzburg and Natal. He was a life member of the Federasie van Afrikaanse
Kultuurverenigings. He was a member for many years of the Afrikaanse
Kultuurraad and the Rapportryerskorps of Pietermaritzburg. He was also a member
100 Obituaries
of the board of the Voortrekker Museum. He was active in the Dutch Reformed
Church, not only as an elder for many years, but also as a member of the legal
committee of the Natal Synod and its standing council until his elevation to the
Bench. He also served for many years as a member of the Council of the University
of Natal.
He was a man of integrity and a hardworking and conscientious judge, who
made a meaningful contribution to the administration of justice in this province. We
extend our deepest sympathy to his widow, Ann, his son Auret, who has followed in
his father's footsteps by practising at the Bar in Pietermaritzburg, and his two
stepdaughters June and Christine.
([his tribute was paid by the Judge President ofNatal,
AIr Justice J.A. Howard, in 'A' Court, Pietermaritzburg.j
Notes and Queries
Further notes on the sinking of U-197, 20 August, 1943
Readers of Natalia who have, in Volumes 23, 24 and 25, been following the
research project initiated by the query, 'Who spotted U-197?' (the only U-ooat sunk
off the Natal coast in the costly years of our maritime war, 1942 and 1943) will be
aware that I have found the incident to expose a considerable division of political
interest in the allied surveillance of our coast during the war years. It seems that the
Royal Navy operated a small High Frequency Radio network - certainly not
unknown to Prime Minister Smuts, who provided the 'Price-Milne' technicians to
service the outfit - but which reported back to no South African surveillance
command (such as the Special Signals Service) but rather to a Direction Finding
intelligence, which we can now assume to be the de-crypting Headquarters at
Bletchley Park near London.
It must be remembered that all official South African war histories were ignorant
of the facts, only published by Professor F H Hinsley in 1979, that as early as 1940
Britain had captured the ultra-secret German cypher machine Enigma, and
developed at Bletchley near London a de-coding process (using those primeval
computers that were the size of a house) that, by June 1941, began to have a
significant effect on the Allied anticipation of German strategy. A researcher at the
Imperial War Museum told me that this extraordinarily important jigsaw piece in
the War War II puzzle was deliberately withheld because, even as Hinsley made the
revelation in 1979, Enigma was still being employed in many Eastern bloc
goverments, and the British were still using their Ultra decryption technique. One
can well imagine the British reluctance to share the decrypting technique with a
government such as Smuts's, where it was common knowledge (as I don't think
anyone would deny in retrospect) that certain departments were infiltrated through
and through with 'fifth column' sympathisers.
Hinsley does not record the sinking of U-197 as an Ultra achievement.
Nevertheless, the difference that High Frequency radio interception made is
marvellously clear to the eye as one studies the reel upon reel of Admiralty
microfilm that is today housed in the British Public Records Office at Kew in
London. Our little Indian Ocean submarine warfare accounts for some two percent,
perhaps, of the reams of decoded, translated messages between U-boats and
Command that were regularly and painlessly radioed in to Bletchley by British radio
intelligence. Even Doenitz's 'happy Christmas' messages, along with the
conveyance of good wishes to distant fathers on the birth of oonny babes in the
Fatherland, are all enshrined in the shiny black rolls of film.
102 Notes and Queries
Hinsley himself claims only one U-boat sunk off South Africa as a result of
Enigma decoding (south of Cape Town in 1944), but the overall impression is quite
misleading. The late Prof. Glen Harvey of Rhodes University, who was a member of
the 'Price-Milne' secret team, asked, after the war, at the office of C-in-C
Simonstown, whether 'huff duff' had in fact scored any triumphs on the coast of
Africa. He was told that South African receivers had accounted for only one U-boat,
off Dakar, North Africa. This hardly accords with the 'Most Secret' letter of 14
October 1943 that I quoted in Natalia Vol 25, which, two months after the sinking
of U-197, congratulates a local officer for the 'efficiency of your station and close
relations with this office' whereby 'the Royal Navy has been able to take effective
measures against enemy units operating here ... '. But above all it does not accord
with the reams of decrypted and translated radio messages that are now a matter of
public record, and which, even if they were not all busy using the Enigma code, bear
witness to the extraordinary job that was done by radiographic interception.
If the sinking of U-197 exposes a major political division in South African
surveillance, the strange fact is that this exposes a stress-symptom on the German
side, even in Doenitz's massively efficient network. Already the authors of the
standard text, War in the Southern Oceans, knew that U-197 had given her position
away in the attempt to find a meeting-place with her sister vessels, a 'rendezvous'
called specifically to 'pass on to each other "Bellatrix", a newly-issued cypher code'.
The question arises: How could experienced officers of the Kriegsmarine, with years
of experience in Enigma operation, quite used by now to the machine that sat like a
gawky typewriter on their radio desks, suddenly require, far south in the Indian
Ocean, this irregular and extraordinary procedure?
The near-invincible power of Enigma lay in the fact that, with one twist of a cog
on the machine itself, the cypher rotors could be changed manually, and a
completely new alphabet of letters linked to numerals instated. Doenitz's U-boat
arm had, in fact, become suspicious in the summer of 1942 that its 'ultra' secret
code had been breached (a completely accurate suspicion, as we can now see) and
their response was to insert
a fourth wheel into its Enigma machines. It was like a spanner in the works for
Bletchley, who got no more joy after that until, after intense and exhausting
work, the cryptographers began to break through again in April 1943. (Hough,
p.51)
The thesis I put in the rest of this article is that when a new generation of
Enigma code was ordered for August 1943 (to be called 'Bellatrix') U-197, even
though it was commanded by such a veteran officer as Lt Kapitan Bartels, did not
know how to handle the transition.
Let me amass the documentation to substantiate this thesis. Even as early as 19
June 1943, one might wonder whether the message from HQ to Gysae, one of the
five vessels in the Indian Ocean gruppe, 'Have rotor blades suffered alienation or
warped due to tropical climate?', refers to the diesel engines, or in fact to the actual
cog rotors on the Enigma machine. (That tropical conditions were plaguing the U
boat men is made clear when Gysae radios home on 17 July: 'Ask Agfa whether
film material which is unstable in tropical conditions can be stored at -20 deg C'.)
103 lvTotes and Queries
Amidst the hundreds of cryptographs coming in to Doenitz' s headquarters in
August 1943, one soon begins to see that the Indian Ocean gruppe were coming
under a stress that was not inflicted by the enemy, but that was internal to the
organisation. On 1 August Bartels earns himself a typical Doenitzian riposte:
'Expend your rage on the enemy ... '(I) Why Bartels's irritability? By 14 August all
V-boat commanders were in receipt of an 'ultra' secret order that 'the Key Word
order Bellatrix comes into force at 12.00 on 16 August.' Why were the Indian
Ocean V-boats, for some fascinating but intangible reason, unable to accept this
instruction? That the change of code was not going to be easy in this theatre is made
clear by a further Head Office missive, also on 14 August, and also sent in Offizier
Cypher (Le. in Enigma cypher) to the effect that Bartels and LOth must be
in naval grid sq 5855 at 8.00 on 17 Aug for instruction in regard to "Bellatrix."
Kentrat is likewise to begin passage thither and report arrivaL Bartels is to
report when instruction has been effected.
One can only speculate that this wide deviation from general procedure was
caused by a major breakdown in communication in the Indian Ocean gruppe: as HQ
says to Kentrat (the leader of the group) on 18 August: 'A meeting with Bartels is
necessary for instruction regarding the key-word order "Bellatrix".' The fact that in
the message cited above, it is Bartels who is asked to make the confirmatory report
suggests that it was he and his officers who were causing the essential difficulty. If
that was not enough, there came a further message on the 14, addressed to the
gruppe in general, which shows a keen awareness that communication has reached
a point of considerable fragility. It orders that "rendezvous with other boats are
always to be proposed in terms of disguised squares in future. If no disguised
squares can be used give the rendezvous in terms of naval grid squares and send
message in offizier code.' (The German Navy, we must remember, did not use
compass points but a 'chess-board' of squares for plotting positions.) It seems that
Headquarters realised that if some of the Indian Ocean V-boats were not going to
convert to Bellatrix on the due date, then they would have to take the extra security
precaution of disguising their particular square of ocean. No doubt to the radio room
back at Headquarters, this warning seemed purely academic: after all. what evidence
was there that the British had so much as sniffed the new Enigma variation? But of
course the hunch was all too correct and I would assume that at least one
explanation of Bartels's sudden demise on 20 August 1943 is that he omitted to
disguise his positional square when he reported his whereabouts on High Frequency
broadcast.
V-boat headquarters, with a whole world war on their hands, finds that it has to
concentrate a whole flurry of messages on the Indian Ocean flotilla in the days
leading up to 20 August. An order on 17 August, for example, a day after the
change to Bellatrix is supposed to have h a p p e n ~ instructs Bartels to meet up with
Liith at 4.00pm on 18 August in square 7725. Immediately Kentrat in V-196 begs a
countermand to this instruction, and he too joins in the radio fray on 17 August,
when he requests, in offizier cypher, a new rendezvous with Bartels in JA2235 at
10.00am on 20 August. The strategists back home must have tom their hair: the
Indian Ocean gruppe were quite unable, it seems, to get their act together.
104 Notes and Queries
War in the Southern Oceans suggests that it was on 17 August that U-197 fatally
gave its }X)sition away, and claims that it did so in an operational re}X)rt to Liith in
U-18!. Alas, with no citation given at all, one cannot test this evidence. That work
was written without knowledge of the Enigma }X)litics within the U-boat arm, and I
will simply note Bartels' s radio message to Headquarters, again, on 17 August, the
day after all U-boats were sup}X)sed to have converted to Bellatrix:
Have just sunk the Empire Stanley in Naval Grid sq KQ 6676 course 050deg.
Was that, then, the fatal giveaway moment for U -197 and Captain Bartels? The
message is not in ofiizier cypher! how could it be: Bartels was unable to make
use of the new variation of Enigma code. Now if we could also prove that KQ 6676
is not a 'disguised square', then we would see exactly how Bartels betrayed himself
to the enemy (a nice retrospective justice, one would have to say, for the unfortunate
Empire Stanley!) Incidentally, Liith in U-181 might just have sealed the fate of U
197 by signalling Headquarters on the 19th: 'Bartels is remaining in area of the old
rendezvous, as I have sighted four steamships there on westerly and easterly courses,
and I (have missed) a 3000 tonner'. The last radio message recorded from the
gruppe before the fateful afternoon of the 20th is an interesting one from Gysae:
'Bellatrix known but hold cyphers only 'til I October'. In cryptic fashion, Gysae
seems to be asking how long he can survive with the wrong generation of cyphers in
his Enigma machine.
The terminal hours of U-197 are very briefly re}X)rted. Paging through hundreds
of cryptographs frfty years later, I could not but wonder whether the officer on duty
in Doenitz's office on 20 August 1943 had time to indulge a certain flicker of pathos
as I did (the sun }X)uring down over Kew in October 1996) when I read Bartels's
message of2.26pm: 'Aircraft has attacked with a stick of bombs. Am unable to dive,
}X)sition is 8252 southerly. U-197.' I wonder whether, as Headquarters radioed sister
ships 'Assume that you are ... proceeding at best speed to Bartels ... bombed and
unable to dive' the officer on duty realised that this submarine was going down as a
result of some acute deficiency in what was otherwise a brilliant and efficient
security system.
At any rate, the 'enemy' was now very much on top! Gysae re}X)rts on 24 August
that he is being 'shadowed by flying boats' (i.e. RAF Catalinas) and requests that
the very notion of a rendezvous now be abandoned. Headquarters was no doubt
relieved to agree; on the same day it instructed that the scheme for a rendezvous be
duly scrapped. Thus did the Indian Ocean flotilla slip away to the Atlantic, and to
theatres of warfare that were less and less propitious for the German cause.
REFERENCES
Hinsley, F.H., British Intelligence in the Second World War, (HMSO, 1979).
Hougp, Richard, The Longest Battle: The War at Sea, 1939-45, (Pan, 1986).
Turner, Gordon-Cumming and Betzler, War in the Southern Oceans (OUP, 1961).
Admirahy Archives ofthe Public Records Office, London.
WHBIZLEY
105 Notes and Queries
Ruston Reminiscences from Natal
The following piece was found among the papers of Mr Roland Deane of
Pietermaritzburg, who died in 1988 at the age of 86. It was written in the late
1950s or early 1960s for the house journal of Ruston & Hornsby, Ltd of
Lincoln, England, but was apparently never submitted or published. A copy has
been sent to the firm, which may possibly use it in some form. Its Natal interest
and flavour, however, make it suitable for inclusion in the pages ofNatalia.
During a lifetime of selling, installing and servicing Ruston & Hornsby engines in
Natal, very few remarkable incidents can be called to mind, mainly because the
engines perform so well that, once installed, we hear very little more about them.
Exceptions to this rule do occur, though happily not very often, and these can
usually be attributed to the failure of the human element to carry out the
manufacturer's instructions.
One of our earlier experiences concerned a Ruston & Hornsby portable steam
engine delivered to a farmer in the midlands of Natal for general farm work, such as
threshing, grinding and timber-cutting. A Zulu employee was trained in the care
and maintenance of this engine, and it was his pride and joy to keep it in spotless
condition and perfect running order. About a year after delivery the engine was used
to drive an ensilage cutter and blower to fill two 500-ton tower silos. There was a
good spring of water adjacent to the two silos, and this was used to keep the boiler
filled. All went well until the first silo was filled. We then received a complaint that
the engine was losing power for no apparent reason. The Zulu attendant said it was
bewitched, and this seemed to be borne out by the engine, which began to foam
alarmingly at the safety-valve and other places.
The reason for this extraordinary failure was found to be in the boiler water. As
the silo filled up it exuded juice containing a fair amount of sucrose, which seeped
into the spring and was being pumped into the boiler. After a thorough cleansing of
the inside of the boiler and cylinder, the engine ran as well as ever - with a
different water supply, of course. This happened more than thirty years ago, and that
particular engine is still working, the only replacements being a set of fire-bars and
tubes.
The main difficulty in many of our engine installations is that they have to be in
inaccessible places. Machinery has to be dismantled and taken to the site in pieces,
the larger ones slung on poles and carried by men, the smaller ones balanced on the
106 Notes and Queries
heads of African women. This way of carrying loads is traditional among rural Zulu
women, who are trained from childhood to carry most things on their heads, and
will invariably choose this means, thus leaving their hands free. Once the writer,
working at one end of a mile-long pipeline, passed the word along for someone to
bring his cigarettes which had been left at the other end of the line. In due course
the packet of twenty cigarettes appeared - balanced on the head of a young Zulu
woman who had been working in a field nearby. A strong Zulu woman can carry a
class PT engine or a bundle of water-pipes on her head with equal ease, and only
requires assistance in picking up and putting down the load. We have several times
had to transport plant and material in this way.
In 1948 our firm was commissioned by the African and European Mining
Company to lay on water to their works in the Tugela valley, where gypsum was to
be mined. The site of the pumping station was selected by the construction
company's engineer, on the bank of the Inadi River, about a quarter of a mile from
where the road forded the river. It was quite impossible to approach the site with
any vehicle except along the bed of the river, which was smooth, and had a
precipitous bank on one side and a gently sloping bank on the other. The water was
from six inches to a foot in depth, and we had previously taken that route in an
unladen vehicle, without any trouble. It was a different story, however, when our
motor truck had on board a Mark II VSH engine. After proceeding up the river bed
for about fifty yards, the truck sank into deep sand and would not move forwards or
backwards, but settled down with water up to the floorboards. This was quite a
serious predicament, and we dared not delay as the truck showed signs of sinking
still further. The writer thereupon walked to Mr Smiley, the foreman at the mining
camp, with a view to borrowing a suitable truck to salvage our Ruston & Homsby
engine before it disappeared into the river. Unfortunately no truck was available, so
Mr Smiley sent twenty-four Zulu labourers to help us. We did not feel confident that
they would be able to get us out of our difficulties, but we were mistaken. They
waded into the river and completely surrounded our truck, grasping it wherever they
could get a hand-hold. Having done this, a member of the gang began to chant a
Zulu song, very like an old English sea shanty, with the rest joining in the chorus at
appropriate intervals. We were still somewhat sceptical about the outcome, and
would have preferred more action and less singing, but that is their way of doing
heavy work.
When the song seemed to have reached its climax, the loaded truck shuddered,
rose up out of the water, and was deposited a little to one side of where it had been
embedded. More singing, and the process was repeated. Now that the truck was
standing on firmer ground, we were all for trying to reverse down the river bed to
safety again, but the cheer-leader would have none of it. He and his men continued
to move the truck until it was standing on dry land well clear of the river, having
carried it sideways for about ten yards up the sloping bank. The engine was then
unloaded and the truck driven back the way it had come. Our rescuers carried the
engine across the river and deposited it safely on its site, much to our relief.
On one occasion we had delivered and set up a milling plant which included a
Mark II VTH engine, to a trader at Tugela Ferry. As usual we ran the plant for him
and carefully instructed the miller in caring for the engine. On leaving, we gave him
107 Notes and Queries
a full case of lubricating oil which we informed him was sufficient for 250 hours'
running. We were very surprised a few days later to hear that the engine was very
unsatisfactory, had lost power, and was difficult to start. There was nothing for it
but to send a mechanic back to investigate. He found that the miller had used up the
case of lubricating oil, but he had used it as fuel oil! Strange to say the engine ran
on it, with no ill effects except a slight loss of power and much exhaust smoke.
No wonder Ruston engines have such a reputation.
'Majuba' or 'A majub a , - a misnamed battlefield?
Dr G.D. Campbell of Richmond, Natal, writes:
'On Sunday 28 February 1881, General Sir George Pomeroy Colley completed a
climb to the summit of the Majuba Mountain with 375 men, arriving at about 5am.
He was thrown off in less than seven hours by a much smaller Boer force in one of
the most stunning defeats in British military history. British losses were 92 killed,
including Colley himself, 134 wounded and 59 taken prisoner a total of 285
casualties. The Boers lost one man, killed in their own crossfire, one died of wounds
and five were wounded. (See Campbell, G.D. and Wilmans, IF., 'Die emosionele
toestand van Generaal Sir George Pomeroy Colley tydens die slag van Amajuba' in
Historia, University of Pretoria, 1993.)
For many years this mountain has been referred to as Majuba or Amajuba, and
more popularly the 'Hill of Doves'. However, it is plain to people that spend time
there that doves (Streptopelia capicola, Zulu: amaJuba) are not all that commonly
seen, nor are rock pigeons (Columba guinea, Zulu: izimVukudu), and certainly not
as frequently as on the craggy inKwelo ('Whistle') mountain immediately to the
south, from the base of which Colley marched. That indeed is the home of many
doves and rock pigeons.
To the local Zulu people the Drakensberg is divided into two parts the
spectacular High Berg or Qathlamba (,Barrier of spears') and the Low Berg' or
Izintabazondini ('Hills of Ondini'), named after a royal Zulu regiment. In the High
Berg there is only one negotiable pass, the Sani Pass, in hundreds of kilometres, but
between Oliviershoek where the mountains change into the Low Berg. and the
Majuba Hill, there are no fewer than 16 - which include the magnificent
Normandien Pass, known to very few Natalians or even tour operators.
If you look at a map of the Low Berg you will see that Majuba splits the range
suddenly, so that it swivels acutely through 70 degrees to the east in a traverse
towards the town of Piet Retief. Initially it runs towards Mandlakampisi (' Strength
of the hyena') surely the most magnificent of the Low Berg's mountains.
In the minds of many older Zulus and local Zulu-speakers, the mountain cleaves,
splits or splinters the range, causing it to change course dramatically. If you look at
the mountain from the Newcastle side, the summit appears to be perfectly flat.
However, if you approach it from the Memel-Kwaggasnek side you see the summit
as the long base of an isosceles triangle and it has a sharp and long aspect, rather
like the back of a bush pig. The Gordons' Knoll, McDonald's Kopje and the Sailor's
108
Notes and Queries
TO WAKKERSTROOM,
MANDLAKAMPISL

IZINTABAZONDINI
...,......_--.-THE LOW
THE
DRAKENSBERG
TO YOLKSRUST.

MAIN
BATTLE AREA
ROAD FROM
MEMEL AND
KWAGGAS
O'NEILL'S
NEK.
COTTAGE
PROSPECT
HILL CAMP
A.ND
CEMETERY
ZINTABAZONDINI
THE "LOW'
DRAKENSBERG
I
/
TO SKUINSHOOGTE
(INGOGO HEIGHTS)
INKWELO
AND NEWCASTLE.
"WHISTLE'
MOUNTAIN
Schematic view, showing how the lubela Mountain "splinters' the Low Drakensberg.
(G, D, Campbell)
109 Notes and Queries
Knoll are like bumps on a knife-like ridge, which neatly splinters the Drakensberg
range.
The local word for a splinter is ijubela, and to splinter is ukujubela, and it is
from this verbal base that the mountain has derived its inaccurate name of Amajuba.
When one speaks of cutting certain cattle off from a herd, one uses the word
ukujubela, as in Awujubela lezizinkomo ezine ('Just cut (splinter) off those four
cows. ') Hence the connotation of splintering the Drakensberg range.
A plea is made that the battlefield be referred to as the Jubela Mountain, and that
the names Amajuba and Majuba be abandoned. '
Denis Hurley OMI, Archbishop Emeritus ofDurban
The fiftieth anniversary of Archbishop Hurley's consecration as Bishop of Durban
in that city's Emmanuel Cathedral was on 19 March 1997. At the time of his
consecration he was the youngest bishop in the Catholic Church, and when he
retired in 1990 he was the Church's oldest serving bishop.
From the beginning of his episcopate he worked for racial equality and social
justice. The Catholic Church in South Africa itself was largely conservative in this
regard. In 1951 he became the first president of the South African Catholic Bishops'
Conference, and through his influence the Church became more outspoken the
Council's first pronouncement on race relations followed in 1952. He continued as
president until 1961, and had a second period of office from 1981-87.
In 1976 he founded Diakonia, an interdenominational church organisation
concerned with achieving justice and democracy in South Africa.
His opposition to apartheid called forth reactions such as the petrol-bombing of
his home, and his arraignment on charges of slandering the South African Defence
Force in regard to its actions in the then South West Africa. Three days before the
trial the government withdrew the charges, realising how damaging the defence's
evidence could be.
Archbishop Hurley had an international reputation, not only as a champion of
human rights, but as someone whose thought has had a part in influencing modem
Catholicism. At the Second Vatican Council in Rome from 1962-1965 he was one
of a small group of delegates who ensured that controversial issues came under the
spotlight. This assisted in the Church's ongoing adaptation to conditions in the
contemporary world.
The golden jubilee was celebrated with a breakfast organised by Diakonia on 19
March, and a thanksgiving Mass on Human Rights Day (21 March). At the former,
Archbishop Hurley gave an address entitled 'Memories of 50 years: from
segregation, through apartheid to liberation and democracy.' In thanking him
Professor Fatima Meer paid tribute to his constant battle for the oppressed. A
selection of the archbishop's writings, entitled Facing the crisis, was launched at
this function.
Archbishop Hurley is now curate at the Emmanuel Cathedral.
110 Notes and Queries
Baywatch '97
Robert Cross, of the Wildlife Society, writes:
Durban Bay, under pressure from 'civilisation' ever since its first visitors from
Europe passed by in their sailing ships exactly 500 years ago, has been even more
seriously threatened during the last year or so.
This time the threat came not from over-exploitation or pollution or from any of
the other inevitable side-effects of having Africa's busiest port inside the Bay.
Causing concern was the announcement made by Port net in 1995 that it urgently
needed to expand Durban harbour's container-carrying capacity and was planning
to build a new container terminal on the Bay's central sandbank.
The response from the KwaZulu-Natal Region of the Wildlife and Environment
Society was instantaneous and vociferous. After a well-attended meeting (which
clearly showed that the people of Durban were deeply concerned about the
suggestion), a sub-committee of the Society, known as Durban 20120, was formed. It
immediately launched a hard-hitting campaign attacking the sandbank option - so
hard-hitting, in fact, that it acquired something of a reputation for being made up of
'rabid greenies' .
From the beginning, Durban 20120 made it clear that it was not opposing
development in the harbour, nor was it ignoring the need for another container
terminal, but that it was opposing the sandbank plan on a whole range of
environmental, social, conservation, aesthetic and economic grounds.
Its chairwoman, Jean Senogles, pointed out that Durban had lost about 430/0 of
the Bay's water surface to concrete and metal when the authorities filled in sections
of the Bay, instead of digging out from the land to create the necessary wharves and
quays as has been done in so many other parts of the world. 'The visual appeal of
the water surface has an enormous impact on everything from property values on the
Berea (where a bay view is highly sought after) to the requirements of our tourists,
who contribute so greatly to the economy of our city and our province,' she said.
The loss to the city in rates from the prime buildings along the Victoria
Embankment would be considerable, for they would lose value as a result of the
sandbank's disappearing under cranes and concrete - with the ensuing noise and
lights of round-the-clock operations at the new termina1.
The sandbank option and the whole container terminal question was subjected to
an Environmental Impact Assessment, and later a Local Advisory Committee was
established where other options were explored and various interested and affected
parties could voice their concern, share their knowledge and give explanations.
Eventually it was decided that the sandbank proposal was unacceptable and that
other options needed to be examined. It seemed that the Wildlife Society had
successfully made its point, and that the sandbank and all that it symbolised
was safe.
However, Portnet (in the person of its Port Manager, Mr Bax Nomvete),
subsequently made several media statements about his personal preference for the
sandbank site - and so Durban 20120 continued its fight. Meanwhile, the Wildlife
Society realised that it would be necessary to make the wider public aware of the
enormous value of the Bay to the people of Durban and the province. This included
III Votes and Queries
Durban harbour in the 1890s, showing the bay, the town and the Berea hill in the
background. (By courtesy of the Durban Local History Museum.)
A Durban bayside scene of 1997 - showing electrified railway linc, palm trees,
pedestrian promenade, surviving Victorian cast-iron railings, and distant
skyscrapers. (By courtesy of Val Adamson and The Wildlife Society.)
112 Notes and Queries
the obvious value to the city of the port itself, because of the thousands of people it
employs, and the Bay's value as a tourist attraction or as the base for so many
recreational uses, from fishing to yachting, from bird-watching to jogging (all of
which have financial spin-offs for the city); or yet again as the aesthetic heart of the
city.
And so in February 1997 the Society launched Baywatch '97 a deliberately
popularist public relations initiative to make the people of Durban more aware of
their Bay. Activities have ranged from the obvious (media campaigns, talking to
service clubs, taking stands at the Royal Show, Expo, etc.) to the less obvious, like
'fun days' for children at the bay, commissioning a dance score for the Playhouse
Dance Company's piece 'This is not a parking Bay', exhibitions and 'soft-sell'
media involvement.
In July the Local Advisory Committee finally put paid to any suggestions of
using the sandbank for a terminal, and, by a consensus decision, agreed that the new
terminal should be built at Salisbury Island. The one dissenting voice came from the
Leisure and Commercial Bay Users' representative who, while totally rejecting the
sandbank site, opted for the much-discussed southward development of the harbour
into the area now occupied by the Durban International Airport.
And the way forward? Jean Senogles says 'We look to the day when a body of
people with the broader interests of our Bay, our city and our province, are
appointed to encourage good, integrated planning, bearing in mind that we need an
efficient harbour, a thriving tourist industry and a beautiful city in which to work
and live. We need an overarching Bay Authority that will be sensitive to both city
and Bay after alL the one is here because of the other. '
The Pietermaritzburg Philharmonic Society
Natalia 15 noted the beginnings of choral music in Pietermaritzburg in 1864 with
the first performance of Messiah, and the establishment of the Philharmonic Society
in 1881 under the leadership of Charles Lascelles. Natalia 27 must now record its
demise.
The Philharmonic Society, unlike the Tatham Art Gallery which was in an
analagous position vis-a-vis the city council, has found itself increasingly out of tune
with the Transitional Local Council in recent years. The latter felt that it was not
getting value for money for the municipal grant paid to the society. When it
discontinued funding, the Philharmonic had little option but to disband.
It is a sad end to an institution whose life spanned more than a century. Moves
are currently afoot to establish a Pietermaritzburg Amateur Music Society.
A forgotten Centenary
June 22, 1997 was a quiet winter's Sunday in Natal with not very much happening.
It was very different 100 years previously, for Tuesday, 22 June, 1897 was the
Diamond Jubilee of the reign of Queen Victoria, an event which threw the entire
British Empire into a delirium of imperial and patriotic fervour. Indeed, the entire
113 Notes and Queries
week was marked by commemorative events, particularly in the capital of a
fervently loyal British colony.
The whole of Maritzburg was decorated. Hardly a business or private residence
but was bedecked with bunting, flags and lanterns, the combinations of colours
selected by Indian traders being described by The Natal Witness as "fearful and
wonderful". All the churches began the week with special services of thanksgiving,
while a combined military service in the town hall raised a collection of 900 pounds
for the new garrison church. The great day itself was greeted by the Witness by an
editorial of epic proportions no less than four columns long. There was a grand
military review of the garrison troops on the polo ground, a garden party at
Government House (where the bands of four different regiments played) and
corporation sports in the park. That evening bonfires 20 feet high, the wood
liberally smeared with tar, were lit on Table Mountain, Cope's Folly, Swartkop and
World's View. In the market square there was a fireworks display, the spectacle
inadvertantly added to when the decorations in front of the post office (not the
present edifice but the building now housing the Tatham Art Gallery) caught fire.
Two foundation stones were laid. The first was that of the new YMCA in
Longmarket Street. Today only older Pietermaritzburg residents will remember i t ~
the site is occupied by United Bank on the corner of Buchanan Street. But the other
architectural memorial of the occasion also designed by the architect William
Lucas in the shape of the Jubilee Pavilion in the park, has survived. Indeed, it is
presently getting both a facelift and a new lease of life as the future headquarters of
cricket in the city. But it is the only survivor of an otherwise forgotten event.
If such enormous changes in lifestyle, demography, political ideology and social
values can take place in a century, what, one wonders, might the Natal of June 2097
be like?
The role records play in revealing the past
At this time, when much of our country, and this province in particular, is tussling
to unearth and distil the truth about our immediate past, a seminar led by three
experts was an appropriate place to be on Heritage Day, 24 September 1997. It was
hosted jointly by the KwaZulu-Natal Branch of the South Mrican Society of
Archivists and the Alan Paton Centre and took place in the Colin Webb Hall at the
University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg.
Professor Charles Villa-Vicencio, seconded from his position as Professor of
Religion and Society at the University of Cape Town to be National Research
Director of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, spoke on 'Documentation in
the quest for "truth" in the TRC'. In answering three questions - Whose memories
are housed in our archives?, How do we access that memory? and Who gets access
to that memory? - he demonstrated, in a finely reasoned argument, that archival
material is highly selective in its nature and its audience. It is available only to an
elite. Archives must seek to service the nation in the more banal and ordinary events
of life.
114 Notes and Queries
Cherryl Walker, previously Head of the Department of Sociology at the
University of Natal in Durban, now KwaZulu-Natal Regional Land Claims
Commissioner for the Commission on Restitution of Land Rights, gave the
discussion a practical dimension by describing the work of the Land Commission:
the day-to-day administrative procedures, frustrations, delays, multiple
understandings of land use and ownership and the many varieties of the 'record'
which are complicating the task of resolving land disputes. An underlying difficulty
is that 'rights', which are implicit in restitution, often conflict with 'development'.
A strategy must be found for rights and development to go together.
The seminar moved into a decidedly philosophical mode with an erudite
presentation by Verne Harrls, Deputy Director in the National Archives of South
Mrica, on the topic, 'Claiming less, delivering more: a critique of positivist
formulations about archives in South Mrica.' He challenged the archives profession
to move from its long-held custodian approach to the post-modem era in which
archivists will not merely hold material but will be purveyors of concepts; in which
functions will shift from archives to 'archiving'. He pleaded for a broadening of
context, opening up of space for new opportunities, soul and imagination. He went
on to discuss the scope and limitations of technology for archives and left listeners
reeling and somewhat appreciative of the 'sliver of a sliver of a sliver of the window
into the past' which Harris suggested was probably all we get anyway.
The ardent group of archivists, historians and related enthusiasts went away well
stimulated and as convinced as ever that evidence, if it is obtainable at all, hardly
exists once it has been interrogated. The communal memory must nevertheless be
nurtured against all odds - a salutary message for Heritage Day.
Hymnist identified
Angus Rose, formerly of Pietermaritzburg and now retired in McGregor in the
Western Cape, writes:
'Some years ago I had the happy experience of editing the late Reg Pearse' s
biography Joseph Baynes - Pioneer, published by Shuter & Shooter in 1981.
Both Reg and I - and doubtless others - were intrigued by the identity of the
author of a hymn beginning "Thou knowest, Lord, the weariness and sorrow".
Baynes had arranged for this hymn, six verses in all, to be inscribed on the wall of
the small mausoleum which he had erected to house his and his wife's mortal
remains on Baynesfie1d Estate, where it can still be seen. The hymn's author
appears to be someone with the initials H.L.L., though some old hymn books cite
the name of lane Borthwick.
Eighteen months ago I wrote to the editor of a magazine published in England
asking if anyone could elucidate further. Several correspondents have produced the
answer. The author was indeed lane Borthwick, who died shortly before the end of
last century. The hymn appeared in several old hymn books, notably those of the
Methodist church, and one or two in Dublin. It appears that Miss Borthwick was a
competent German linguist and had translated several hymns from the German. To
115 Notes and Queries
those translations she appended not her own initials, but H.L.L. - which stands for
Hymns from the Land of Luther.
Sadly, all this information arrived too late for it to be shared with Reg Pearse,
who died last year in his late nineties.
National Monuments in KwaZulu-Nalal
In its report for the year ending 31 March 1996 the National Monuments Council
lists twelve premises in the province as having been newly declared as national
monuments. We quote from the report.
Dorchester House at 190 Loop Street, Pi etermaritzburg. Built in the early
1890s, this house is regarded as a fine example of late Victorian red-brick
architecture.
Norfolk Villa 196 Loop Street, Pi etermaritzburg. This double storey building
forms an impressive architectural unit with the adjacent Dorchester House. It was
used as the residence of high-ranking officers of the imperial garrison.
Conservatoire de Hammerstein at 141 Alexandra Road, Pietermaritzburg. This
house is named after the famous musician Oscar Hammerstein, a relative of a
former owner. Its most important feature is a double-volume timber verandah
characterised by the use of various carpentry techniques.
King's House in Eastbourne Road, Durban. Built in 1902 to serve as the seaside
residence of the colonial governors, it became the traditional Durban residence of
the Governors-General of the Union after 1910, and State Presidents after 1961. Set
in extensive park-like gardens, it is a fine example of the colonial Edwardian style.
The John Dube House at Oh lange , Inanda District. Built about 1920, this is a
late, but typical redbrick Natal colonial verandah house. It was the residence of John
Dube, the first president of the South African Native Congress, which became the
African National Congress.
The Green Point Lighthouse, Umzinto District. Built in 1905 to give seafarers
warning of the notorious Aliwal Shoal, this cast-iron structure is one of the two
oldest functioning lighthouses on the Natal coast. It was the first lighthouse in South
Africa to be fully automated in 1961.
The lighthouse at Port Shepstone. This cast-iron structure replaced an earlier
candle-powered masthead lantern in 1906 and is a prominent landmark on the Port
Shepstone beachfront.
The Hattingsvlakte Rock Engravings on the farm of that name in the Estcourt
District. These engravings are thought to date from four different periods in the late
iron age.
The site with the so-called Collingham Shelter thereon, Afpendle District. The
ceiling of the shelter has collapsed making an archaeological excavation possible.
Most of the deposits accumulated over a period of 150 years of occupation
approximately I 800 years ago.
The site with the cave known as Afhhvazini on the farm Solar Cliffs in the
Bergville District. This cave is about 40 metres wide and 8 deep. Radio-carbon
dating shows that it was first occupied from about 2 700 to 2 000 years ago. It is
116 Notes and Queries
regarded as one of the most im}X>rtant Holocene sites yet discovered in the province,
and is noted for both the quantity and quality of artefacts preserved in its de}X>sit.
The site known as Ngoduyanuka on the farm Zuurlaager in the Bergville
District. This site consists of a number of circular primary enclosures which vary
between 5 and 20 metres in diameter, and used to be livestock pens. They are
surrounded by the remains of the floors of a ring of huts. Radio-carbon dating
suggests that the site was occupied in the 17th and/or 18th centuries, and was
probably built by the Zizi people who lived in the area before the Mfecane.
The property with the Morewood Memorial Garden thereon in the Lower Tuge/a
District. The Morewood Memorial Garden is on the farm Compensation which was
owned by Edmund Moreland, a Durban pioneer who, in 1851, refined the first sugar
from sugar cane grown on the surrounding land at a mill situated on this site.
This will probably be the last time that Natalia lists new national monuments in
the present format. The draft Heritage Bill pro}X>ses to reflect res}X>nsibility for a far
wider range of heritage categories than the term 'monument' implies. The staff and
assets of the National Monuments Council will be redeployed to a South Africa
Heritage Agency, while the Bill provides for the devolution of }X>wers to provincial
heritage authorities, which will take res}X>nsibility for the management of heritage
resources identified as culturally significant in the province.
Book Reviews and Notices
TRAVELS IN SOUTHERN AFRICA, Volume 2
By ADULPHE DELEGORGUE
Translated by FLEUR WEBB, introduced and annotated by STEPHANIE J
ALEXANDER and BILL GUEST.
Durban, Killie CampbeU Africana Library and Pietermaritzburg, University of Natal
Press, 1997. xxxii, 401 pp. R94.95
The division of Delegorgue's Travels into t\\lO volumes was an arbitrary one and the
appearance of the second volume now completes a project initiated and inspired by
the late Colin Webb. Once again, Fleur Webb has presented a smooth and highly
readable English translation of the original French and Stephanie Alexander has
provided the valuable scientific commentary. The general editorship was taken over
by Bill Guest who has performed it with insight and sensitivity. Much of what was
said by Gordon Maclean in his admirable review of the first volume of the Travels
in Natalia, no. 21, December 1991 could be said again of the second. Delegorgue,
not without his prejudices and an ability to exaggerate, was, on the whole, an
accurate observer and lively commentator whose account conveys his own
consuming curiosity and pleasure in discovery.
Delegorgue's travels began when he sailed from France in May 1838. In June
1839 he arrived in Port NataL and it is from January 1842 that the second volume
takes up the story and continues it until he returns to France via St Helena in
February 1844. His account of the latter part of his Natal and Zululand experiences
occupies just over half of this second volume. The continuation of his journey over
the Drakensberg and his observations and hunting exploits in the 'land of
Massilicatze', though interesting, are of less specific concern to readers of Natalia.
It is worth noting that his admiration for the Zulu people did not extend to the
'Makatisse'. With unashamed arrogance he viewed the Zulu as the 'French of
south-east Africa' while the loosely defined 'Makatisse' (Mantatees) of the interior
highveld he likened to the German-speaking world. His acquaintance with the
emigrant Boers of the interior only served to confirm the disdain with which he
viewed them in Natal, although this prejudice did not exclude his admiration for
their hunting prowess and some pleasant relations with particular individuals such
as Servaas van Breda of Congella and the 'Vermaes' north of Potchefstroom. He
also shared their dislike of the English and of missionaries.
In the Natal and Zulu context, two aspects of this volume are especially worthy
of note. The first is Delegorgue's first-hand account of the Boer-British struggle for
118 Book Reviews and Notices
Natal and the hostilities at Port Natal in 1842. Add to that his account of the earlier
negotiations between Piet Retief and Dingane and their violent aftermath; and
Dingane's overthrow and succession by his half-brother, Mpande, as Zulu King; and
Delegorgue's own participation in the commando which drove Dingane northwards,
and one has here a source which historians cannot ignore. The second is a chapter
devoted wholly to the 'Customs of the Amazoulous' which could well be compulsory
reading for all who live in KwaZulu-Natal. While specialists might debate the
detail, his close and sympathetic observation of the Zulu people engenders warm
interest, to say the least. It amplifies his admiration for the Zulu already evident in
the first volume. His view does not appear to have been affected by his fall from
grace with Mpande which contributed partially to his departure from Natal to the
interior.
For Delegorgue, hunting and collecting and scientific observation went together.
While he admitted to the pathos of killing innocent creatures for the sake of
displaying an 'imperfect imitation of life', he also revelled in the hunt. The sensitive
reader cannot but be appalled by his comment that '... all we could do was to
collapse in helpless laughter at the ludicrous scene' of three wounded elephant
falling one by one on each other and two others, and who then had to extricate
themselves, only to be treated by Delegorgue to 'a parting shot at the back-side of
one of the last to leave' (p.20). If the reality that men hunt is accepted, then it is the
discoverer and the naturalist which dominate Delegorgue' s writing. It makes for
gripping reading whatever one's conservationist leanings might be.
The completion of the Delegorgue project is an important event for scholarship.
It contains one of the earliest known lists of Zulu words, introduced here by Adrian
Koopman. It makes available a mass of source material for historians, biologists,
sociologists, environmentalists and a source of interest and pleasure to countless
others. The fact that Fleur Webb and Stephanie Alexander were so significant a part
of the team which translated and edited this essentially masculine work, augurs well
for its all-round appeal.
SYLVIA VIETZEN
POLITICAL ECONOMY AND IDENTITIES IN KWAZULU-NATAL:
HISTORICAL AND SOCIAL PERSPECTIVES
Edited by ROBERT MORRELL.
Durban, Indicator Press, 1996. ii, 200 pp. ISBN 1-86840-231-2
At last we have a scholarly work which extends beyond the colonial history of Natal
and KwaZulu. Political Economy and Identities will become an indispensable
adjunct to courses which involve the teaching of the history of the province.
The history of the region to 1990 is treated in seven chapters, each of them
demarcated by subheadings for clarity of presentation. The first focuses on political
change and ethnicity in the precolonial period and especially on development in the
Zulu kingdom. The next chapter describes the effects of European intrusion in the
region, and the third the consequences of the European settlers' more or less firm
119 Book Reviews and Notices
control of government there. Chapter 4 deals with the self-conscious efforts of the
unenfranchised groups to articulate and to remedy their grievances. Chapter 5
carries the story forward into the apartheid era. and the last two chapters interpret
the revolutionary movements of the 1970s and 80s.
The editor tells us in the preface that the parturition of this work was not an easy
one. Conceived at the Workshop on Regionalism and Restructuring in KwaZulu
Natal at the University of Natal in Durban in early 1988 and born by the Natal
Worker History Project connected with the University's Sociology Department, it
experienced many vicissitudes before reaching maturity.
No small part of the difficulty seems to have arisen from the determination of
contributors to preserve a collective authorship for the respective chapters, an
approach which could not be sustained in every instance. The contributors initially
wanted to write "a history of the underclasses", but their number and predilections
evidently precluded this and resulted in a work of somewhat broader scope,
involving "a wide range of revisionist historians and social scientists" under a four
person editorial collective. There are eight authors for seven chapters - four for
one chapter, three for another, two for two, and one for each of the remaining three.
Ten other persons are cited as having made material contributions to four of them. It
is hardly a wonder then that Professor Irina Filatova writes in the introduction that
the text is "not entirely theoretically coherent". There are some rather curious
discrepancies in statements regarding intentions and accomplishments between the
preface and the introduction, but notwithstanding these the contributors have
succeeded rather well in keeping the material together and on track. Of course,
some chapters are better than others.
The sub-title states plainly that the work presents "historical and social
perspectives". The term "political economy" has a special meaning for radical and
revisionist historians and the innocent reader who expects to learn much about past
politics and economics will be disappointed. There does not appear to be a political
scientist or economist among the contributors, and the chapters show it. Faithful to
their first desire their work focuses primarily on the underclasses. somewhat
discursively on the so-called middle class. There is virtually nothing about money
and banking or about business and entrepreneurship or about the broader rational
intervention of the state in economic affairs which historically constitutes "political
economy". Indeed, after Chapter 3 the Europeans practically drop out of the text,
and it becomes more of a strain to reconcile the incompatible partners of the
unhappy marriage of ethnicity and class formation.
This is not a book for light reading by persons with a passing interest in the local
history. In its narrow field it is a good book. Its initiators frankly set out to produce
a certain kind of history, and after troubles along the way they got that kind of
production. In the broader field of regional history the book stands alone, until some
similar or more comprehensive work is published. Probably we shall wait a very
long time for that. In the meantime Political Economy and Identities will hold sway
among the professional if not the amateur historians of the province.
P. S. THOMPSON
120 Book Reviews and Notices
GANDHI'S LEGACY: THE NATAL INDIAN CONGRESS 1894-1994
By SURENDRA BHANA
Pietermaritzburg, University of Natal Press, 1997, x, 187 pp. illus., soft cover,
R64,95.
Yet another by-product of Gandhi's eviction from the train on the Pietermaritzburg
station is this concise but penetrating study of the Natal Indian Congress from its
founding in 1894 to its somewhat dismal centenary celebrations in 1994. It is, on
the one hand, the history of a political organisation, with enough acronyms,
legislation and intrigue to test the reader's concentration. On the other hand, it is a
cultural study of a colonial people who are as concerned with their ethnicity as with
the principles of justice and freedom in the broader South African society. In the
balancing of these interests lies the fascination of the book.
Surendra Bhana identifies three distinct periods in the Congress's history. The
early period from 1894 to 1914 was dominated by wealthy Indian merchants who,
largely in their own interests, sought to resolve issues of racial justice in Natal by
appealing to the doctrine of equality within the imperial brotherhood. In the second
period from 1921 to 1961, there was a shift from empire to a search for liaison with
other black peoples. While retaining its focus on Indian issues, it broadened to
identify with the Freedom Charter of 1955 and its challenge to the whole racial
system in South Africa. In the third period from 1971 to the present, the Natal
Indian Congress has become part of the broad front of organisations which has
worked to destroy apartheid and promote non-racial democracy. There were two
fallow periods: between 1914 and its revival in 1921, and between 1961 and 1971.
The first followed Gandhi's return to India and the conflict which emerged around
leadership <;!\ Ics. including Gandhi's. The second related to a sense of
III the wake of the treason trials of 1956 and the state's heavy
handedness. The author traces the course of events systematically and brings life to
his account with thumb-nail sketches of leading figures. Abdulla Adam, the first
president, A.I. Kajee and P.R Pather, 'Monty' Naicker, H.A. Naidoo, Debi Singh,
J.N. Singh, I.C. Meer and Dr K. Goonam, and, from beyond Natal, influential
people like Nana Sita, Yusuf Dadoo and Ahmed Kathrada, are among those whose
work and personalities are given perspective.
The central issue which this work faces boldly is whether a 'settler' group can
promote its own rights and those of the majority indigenous group at the same time.
Herein lay the essential flaw of the Natal Indian Congress. When it worked with the
freedom movements as when it adopted the Freedom Charter conservative
elements in its membership were alienated. Without the support of the alliance - as
when the ANC was banned in 1960 - the Natal Indian Congress could not sustain
itself politically. Linked to this is whether 'passive resistance' without the help of
radical political action was an effective strategy.
What, then, was Gandhi's legacy in terms of the Natal Indian Congress? He
urged the Indian merchants to establish it on 22 August 1894 to oppose the
threatened disfranchisement of Indians in Natal, and was its first secretary. In
Bhana's view, 'Gandhi's enduring legacy was that he created "Indianness"',
inadvertently playing on racial divisions and helping to embed them in subsequent
121 Book Reviews and Notices
South African politics. Those seeking to rejuvenate the Natal Indian Congress after
its centenary in August 1994 will need to heed Surendra Bhana' s concluding
sentences:
... we need to be wary of moves that will reiterate the ideological underpinnings
of apartheid. 'Indianness' as a basis of politics has come to an end however
useful it may have been in the early and intermediate years ... In the new
political terrain since 1994, it is dead. (p.150)
For the specialist this well-produced book would provide ample substance for
debate. For the generalist it is a manageable and tempting invitation to pursue
further the Gandhi myth and the intricacies of the Natal Indians' history.
SYLVIA VIETZEN
DRAGONFLIES OF THE NATAL DRAKENSBERG
By MICHAEL SAMW AYS and GAEL WHITELEY
Pietermaritzburg, University of Natal Press, 1997.78 pp., illus., R42.95
This booklet is the sixth in the Ukhahlamba Series of guides to what is one of the
most scenic and biologically interesting regions of southern Africa, the mountainous
region known as the Natal Drakensberg or simply the Berg. The series aims to assist
visitors to a fuller appreciation of the natural resources and beauties of the Berg.
This contribution, which deals with the dragonflies occurring above an altitude of
1500 metres, is not only the first in the series to be dedicated to a group of
invertebrates, but also represents the first new work on South African dragonflies in
a generation. The first five booklets in the series dealt with the Trees and Shrubs
(1985), Grasses, Sedges, Restiads and Rushes (1987), Frogs & Toads (1988),
Flowers (1990) and Rock Paintings (1992).
Although most people are able to recognise dragonflies when they see them, few
are able to identify even the most commonly encountered species. In providing an
identification guide to the 23 most commonly encountered Drakensberg species,
Samways and Whiteley have not only provided a guide for use by visitors to the
Berg, but also a useful introduction for keen amateur naturalists and students of
entomology to what is both a well researched, but poorly appreciated group of
insects.
The first chapter provides a brief, but useful, introduction to dragonflies. Of
particular importance are the sections dealing with the life history of these predatory
insects. Subsequent chapters provide a list of the species covered, giving both the
scientific and common names by which they are known, as well as identification
keys for both the adult and larval forms. Useful descriptions and notes on habitat
preferences, behaviour and distribution occupy the bulk of the booklet, the adults
being handled separately from the larvae. The usefulness of the booklet is enhanced
by an abundance of illustrations. The adult male of each species is featured in a
series of colour photographs while the larvae are illustrated by means of line
drawings.
122 Book Reviews and Notices
There is no doubt that this is a useful addition to the Ukhahlamba Series and
that it will assist in no small measure to sensitise readers to the beauty and
fascination of dragonflies. In so doing it is hoped that this booklet may also cause
people to reflect on the need for far more research on invertebrate animals in
general. It is indeed to be lamented that our depth of knowledge of virtually every
other group of invertebrate animals (butterflies being one of the few exceptions)
does not allow for the production of many other books of this kind.
Dragonflies is well written and produced. The book is a little disjointed
inasmuch as the colour plates are all placed at the end, while the use of certain
scientific terminology could have been avoided. Perhaps the greatest problem which
serious users of this booklet will encounter is the problem of collecting and
preserving specimens for study. Unlike the identification of many groups of animals,
insects are not easy to identify without actually catching them. The novice keen to
gain an appreciation of dragonflies will almost certainly need to catch specimens for
study and be in a position to file the material away for reference purposes. This is
not always easy, as collecting permits are required for much of the Drakensberg. In
addition, the interested person will need suitable equipment and chemicals, so that
specimens are not damaged during or after collection. These problems, however,
should not put people off, as there are museum and university professionals only too
keen to encourage and to assist would-be dragonfly enthusiasts.
JASONLONDT
THE NATAL NATIVE CONTINGENT IN THE ANGLO-ZULU WAR
By P.S. THOMPSON
Pietermaritzburg, Privately published by the author, University of Natal,
Pietermaritzburg. 1997.394 pp. RI00 + VAT.
Not long after his successful book, The JfTashing of the Spears, had captured the
imagination of readers of South African history. overseas and in South Africa, the
author Donald Morris, conceded that the role of the Natal Native Contingent had
been insufficiently explored in his work. Since then, perhaps spurred on by the
success of Morris' book, the Anglo-Zulu War has been subject to intense scrutiny.
notably by increasing numbers of academic historians. The aim has been, it seems,
to produce books which are more academically sound than Morris' work, but are
also readable and exciting enough to capture the imagination of thousands of non
academically inclined readers of social and military history. Paul Thompson's work
is, however, the first to examine the role of the NNC during the war in great detail.
Thompson's work appears at a difficult time for an author attempting to make a
significant impact on the historiography of the Anglo-Zulu War. Although the topic
has undoubted academic merit the task of producing something to rival the impact
of authoritative books of the calibre of recent authors like John Laband and to a
lesser extent Ian Knight, is a very daunting one. For many established readers there
is the perception that the market has been flooded with books on the conflict. many
of them readable, attractively illustrated and well-researched.
123 Book Reviews and Notices
Thompson himself alludes to this in his oook, pointing out that the literature of
the war has a predominantly European readership which has evinced little interest
in what non-Europeans did in the conflict. Moreover, African readership is unlikely
to be interested in following the fortunes of colonial collaoorators. It is difficult,
however, to disagree with Thompson' s assertion that without a comprehensive
analysis of the role of the NNC in the war, its story would be incomplete.
It is clear that Thompson has attempted, in this work, to produce an analysis
which is ooth academically sound and eminently readable. To what extent has he
succeeded?
Scrutiny of the footnotes and source list reveals that he has made a commendable
effort to base a great deal of his analysis upon documentary evidence and reputable
secondary sources. He is no newcomer to the Anglo-Zulu War, having worked for
many years in collaooration with John Laband on several important projects and
publications. The result of years of meticulous research into the sources is evident.
However, it is disappointing to discover that he has not consulted Ingrid Machin' s
recent doctoral work on the levying of forced African laoour and military service by
the colonial state of Natal. Neither has he really attempted to place the role of the
NNC in the wider context of Imperial and Zulu strategy. The NNC fell under
Chelmsford's overall command and much of what happened to them in the conflict
should be seen in the context of the Lieutenant-General's conduct of operations and
overall strategy. This has been analysed in Jeff Mathews' doctorate on Chelmsford's
generalship in southern Africa and also in some detail in Laband's Rope of Sand.
As far as Zulu strategy is concerned, Thompson needed to have looked no further
than John Laband's extensive analyses. The story of the role of the NNC in the war
is comprehensively dealt with, but should have been placed more within the
framework of what ooth the British and colonial authorities and the military were
attempting to do, and how Cetshwayo and his generals and advisers were
responding to the invasion. It is this somewhat one-dimensional approach to the role
of the NNC which is disappointing.
The author's attempt to produce a readable analysis succeeds to a degree. There
are a number of lively accounts of episodes of the war and interesting and humorous
anecdotes. The accounts of major battles have been retold so many times that it is a
considerable challenge to present them in a way which will capture the attention of
readers. Thompson' s answer is to write short, punchy and dramatic sentences, a
strategy which does not always succeed. An example is when he writes aoout the
battle of Ulundi:
.. , The enemy is within three hundred yards. Captain Shepstone gives the order.
The rifles flash. The Zulus do not stop. They fire, too. The fire is heavy, but the
bullets go overhead ... The Zulus are within a hundred yards. Shepstone orders
his men to fall back into the square. They won't. They are checking the enemy.
They are afraid to go into the square ...
The narrative is also shortened, not only in terms of the length of sentences, but
also in the depth of actual analysis. The NNC takes centre stage, but the reader is
left to deduce to what extent the other role-players in the conflict contributed to the
final outcome.
124 Book Reviews and Notices
An example of this is his explanation of the role of the NNC at Isandlwana
(which he refers to throughout as Sandlwana), both in its presence as the
reconnaissance-in-force to the Mangeni area, and the battle itself. Although there is
some detail of the role of Chelmsford, Durnford and the Zulu, there is little attempt
to analyse their actions which led to the British defeat. As the book progresses there
is less and less space devoted to the important battles and more attention is paid to
events such as relatively minor raids into Zulu territory and the advance on Ulundi
during the second invasion. Although these aspects of the war have some relevance,
there is a disturbing imbalance which sometimes relegates major episodes and
events, to minor ones.
It is unfortunate that the book contains no illustrations or photographs, but the
sixteen maps included are usefuL One can perhaps take issue with the accuracy of
the labelling of the mountains in the map depicting the NNC in action in
Matshana's territory, the size and detail of the British square at Ulundi, and the
placement of British and Zulu forces in some instances, but overall they add value to
the narrative.
The author succeeds in placing the origins of the NNC in the wider social and
political context of the time and includes an interesting account of the various
African groups of which the regiments in the war were comprised.
To what extent did the NNC contribute to the final victory of the British forces?
In many analyses of the conflict the NNC, despite its large numbers, is regarded as
an insignificant force which did more harm than good to the British cause.
Thompson argues to the contrary, contending that the NativeContingent was
indispensable to British victory. He argues that they were the eyes and ears of the
British army in the field, serving as scouts and skirmishers, stalkers and harriers.
Their lack of success as a purely fighting unit, he asserts, can be ascribed to the
unsuccessful attempt to accustom them to the European regimental system and to
unsympathetic white officers. Moreover, far from being cowards, as is often alleged,
many of them perfermed acts of great personal bravery.
As the centenary of the Anglo-Boer War draws near, many readers of African
military history will be turning their attention away from works on the Anglo-Zulu
War. There nevertheless remains a loyai following of Anglo-Zulu War addicts who
will want to augment their growing libraries. Despite some drawbacks, Thompson' s
work on the NNC adds considerable value to our understanding of the 1879 conflict
and the role of the more than 8000 men who fought for a cause they perceived as
just.
Copies of the book can be ordered directly from the author at the Department of
Historical Studies at the University of Natal in Pietermaritzburg.
JEFF MATHEWS
125 Book Reviews and lYroticee"
ZULU MEDICINAL PLANTS: AN INVENTORY
ANN HUTCHINGS. ALAN HAXTON SCOTT. GILLIAN LEWIS, ANTHONY
CUNNINGHAM.
University of Natal Press in association with the National Botanical Institute & the
University of Zululand. 1996.450 pp. A4. soft cover, R241,00.
The dictionary defines an inventory as including a statement on every one of its
itemisations, 'giving the nature and value of each'. This volume does not claim to
offer more than provisional statements of this kind, hence its raison d 'etre: to
provide a ready reference to 'what we have' on each plant's nature and value,
preliminary to further work on a very under-researched subject. Readers should
appreciate that very little fresh field information on the Zulu plant pharmacopoeia
appears: the book's very publication presupposes an absence of the available facts in
accessible form. The compilers have for the most part presented a literature review
of works published both before and since the early 1960s, when Watt & Breyer
Brandwijk published their landmark and Poisonous Plants of Eastern
and Southern Africa (1962), the first encyclopaedic treatment of fully half the
continent. The current work less updates this classic than complements it given that
it considers a much smaller geographic region, and accordingly a more limited set
of plants and magico-medicinal practices. However, since many of the taxa detailed
by Hutchings et aL are widely distributed throughout the southern Mrican sub
region. this volume will prove useful to researchers working further afield.
Families and genera are arranged phylogenetically, and species listed
alphabetically within. Where data is available, four infornlation fields appear for
each species profile. 'Zulu medicinal usage' draws on the earliest ethnographic
work, by Fathers AT Bryant (1909) and Jacob Gerstner on popular
publications MM Hume's JVild Flowers ofNatal (1954), Margaret Roberts' Book
of Herbs (1983) and Indigenous Healing Plan!.s' (1990), and Natur .lifrica: the
Herbalist Handbook (1990) by the late Jean Pujol: and on unpublished ethnographic
data from the main author's fieldwork, in the form of personal communications
from the likes of the late 'muthi' luminary MY Gumede and the Valley Trust group
of healers, along with other Zulu and white informants, as well as data from a
'herbal history' survey of hospital patients.
A couple of very small quibbles would be that occasionally this kind of
information is unattributed, and secondly, that since Doke & Vilakazi's 1972 Zulu
English Dictionary is used as an ethnographic source, the odd medicinal plant listed
in the latest edition (1990, Wits UP) is missing. Herbarium collections in the region
supply another source, and in the text, the genera are arranged in accordance with
the numbering system followed by the National Herbarium (based on Dalla Torre &
Harms). This allows for easy cross-referencing with most regional herbarium
collections, as well as various international publications, particularly biosystematic works.
Of the other fields under each species, 'Other medicinal usage' often ranges
outside Mrica, while 'Physiological effects' and 'Chemical constituents and
biological properties' can vary from a few lines to half a page. With some 37 pages
of references to relevant literature, the book offers an impressive summary of the
present state of scientific knowledge of plants used by the Zulu. To date, native
126
Book Reviews and Notices
mastery of one of the subcontinent's richest sources of medicinal plants has been
relatively poorly documented. With the great upsurge of interest worldwide in such
'tribal wisdoms', and the advent of ethnobotany and ethnopharmacology as
interdisciplinary approaches to them, this important inventory's appearance can
only be described as timeous. It will be of value to researchers across the entire
range of disciplines associated with ethnobotany, from anthropologists and linguists
to natural products chemists.
One of the most useful features is the quick reference appendix, 'Table of Plant
Usage', summarising present knowledge of the often multiple uses of each species
by local cultures - here, Xhosa and Sotho as well as Zulu. A key codes for each
taxon the relevant usage/s among 32 possible categories. from aphrodisiacs to
animal medicine, physical ailments to anti sorcery/trance induction. As with the
main tex1 body, the table is phylogenetically arranged, allowing the user to pick up
patterns of usage and potential toxicity quickly within groups of related species.
This feature is of particular benefit to ethnopharmacologists and organic chemists
looking for ethno-directed research leads.
Equally valuable to the cultural anthropologist sifting for leads into uses either
esoteric or lapsed is the citing of Zulu names sometimes up to five variations per
species. all indexed in addition to the scientific and common name indexes. Used
in association with the family and genus indications, this can help target specific
species for pharmacological investigation, by offering ethnolinguists the opportunity
of an etymological approach (since names tend, in many if not most cases, to clue to
principal action, and therefore to use). Etymology is a notoriously fraught method,
but in the absence of a large fund of historical ethnographic data, and confronted
with the undeniable dying-away of inherited traditions of use, here is at least one
way forward. The inclusion of known botanical synonyms is welcomed, as it further
facilitates access to literature past and present as do the common names listed
though it must be said these may sometimes themselves generate confusion.
One caveat: given the limited detailed information offered on plant (mixture)
preparations and dosage, the book is unlikely to prove directly useful to healers, and
accordingly may receive criticism from this quarter. The absence of illustrations
does alert one to the fact that a non-scientific readership is not really intended, and
indeed there is a prefatory caution against indiscriminate experimental use. But with
the stimulus this book has already given, since publication last year, to natural
products research and to ethnopharmacological and toxicological investigations in
South Africa, it may already be rendering the healer community invaluable service.
In providing further scientific support to validate traditional claims, current research
is facilitating (albeit slowly) the incorporation of traditional healing systems into the
formal health care sector.
In short, this book serves a broad research and medical community in the region,
and as an imposing contribution to future ethnobotanical research, it will likely find
a prized place on many an academic's shelf. However, with a limited print run of
fewer that 2 000 copies, and a reasonable price, it is unlikely to remain available for
very much longer.
NEIL CROUCH & ROBERT PAPINI
127 Book Reviews and Notices
ZULU POTENTATES - From the earliest to Zwelithini KaBhekuzulu
By M Z SHAMASE
Durban, S.M. Publications, 1996. 170pp., illus., soft cover, R74,20
Perhaps produced with the school and college market in mind, this book is clearly
intended to present the general reader with a convenient source of basic information
about the genealogy and lives of the eight Zulu kings from Shaka to the present
monarch, Zwelithini. It deals with various issues surrounding their reigns, and in
the case of the present king, deals frankly with previous state policies towards the
monarchy, the pressures placed on the king, and the political tensions created
tensions which still affect the political life of KwaZulu-Natal. An appendix in fact
contains the texts of various recent memoranda and agreements between political
entities. The chapters are illustrated with photographs or drawings of key figures
and important occasions, and genealogical tables, and the author includes a
translation of the iZibongo of King Zwelithini
Serious historians may question some of the assumptions and assertions made at
various points throughout the text Also, the book would have benefited from more
imaginative typesetling basic word-processing capacity should enable a publisher
to avoid underlinings in lieu of italics - and more careful editing would have
eliminated the many typographical and other lapses.
Select List ofRecent
KwaZulu-Natal Publications
ASKEW, Derek J. Cabbage production guidelines for the Umlaas River Valley area
of K waZulu-Natal. Pietermaritzburg: Department of Horticultural Science.
University of NataL 1996.
ASKEW, Derek J. Lettuce production guidelines for the Umlaas River Valley area
of KwaZulu-Natal. Pietermaritzburg: Department of Horticultural Science,
University of Natal, 1996.
ASKEW, Derek 1. Tomato production guidelines for the Umlaas River Valley area
of KwaZulu-Natal. Pietermaritzburg: Department of Horticultural Science,
University of NataL 1996.
COLENSO, Harriette. Cases of six Usutu (other than the exiles at St. Helena)
punished for having taken part in the disturbances of 1888. Durban: Killie
Campbell Mricana Library, 1996 (Colin Webb Natal and Zululand Series;
No.9).
CONYNGHAM. R. V. The "K and S" class locomotives of the Natal Government
Railways. Kenilworth: Railway History Group of Southern Mrica. 1996
HARRISON, Philip, and others. An industry in distress: Pietermaritzburg's
footwear sector. Durban: Centre for Social and Development Studies,
University of Natal, 1997 (CSDS research report; No. 10).
HURLEY, Denis Eugene. Facing the crisis: selected texts of Archbishop Denis E.
Hurley; edited by Philippe Denis. Pietermaritzburg: Cluster, 1997.
JENNINGS, Guy. A study of socio-economic conditions in Msinga, 1993: report
prepared for Iser and the Urban Foundation. (Pietermaritzburg: Department of
Geography, University of Natal), 1993.
KIENZLE, Stefan W., Lorentz, Simon and Schulze. Roland E. Hydrology and
water quality of the Mgeni catchment. Pietermaritzburg: Department of
Agricultural Engineering, University of Natal, 1997. (WRC report No.
TT87/97).
LABAND , John and Knight, Ian. The war correspondents: the Anglo-Zulu War.
Johannesburg: Jonathan Ball, 1996.
MALANGE, Nise and Nhlengetwa, Zandile. On common ground. Durban:
KwaZulu-Natal Programme for the Survivors of Violence, 1996.
MOLLER, Valerie. Perceptions of development in KwaZulu-Natal: a subjective
indicator study. Durban: Indicator Press, 1996.
129 Selected List ofRecent KwaZulu-Natal Publications
SCHW ABE, C.A. and others. Service need and provision within KwaZulu-Natal.
Pretoria: HSRC Publishers, 1996.
SHEARER, Colleen. An ordinary family. Port Edward: Aries, 1996.
SHEPHERD, Olive. Wild places of KwaZulu-Natal: nature reserves, resorts and
walks; revised by Leslie Fraser. Durban: KwaZulu-Natal Region of the
Wildlife and Environment Society of Southern Mrica, 1997.
SLADE, D.G. Vryheid. Pietermaritzburg: Urban and Regional Development
Research, Department of Geography, University of Natal, 1994. (Urban
Foundation's small town project).
Notes on contributors
NEIL CROUCH is on the staff of the Natal Herbarium.
SIMON HA W is a subject adviser for history in the KZN Education Department,
and author of histories of the Natal Education Department, Maritzburg College, and
The Natal Witness.
HUW JONES , who lives in the United Kingdom, worked for the British Colonial
Service, the United Nations and the World Bank in Swaziland, India and the United
Sates, and has published developmental and historical studies relating to Swaziland.
ADRIAN KOOPMAN is Professor of Zulu in the University of Natal,
Pietermaritzburg.
DR JASON LONDT is an entomologist, and Director of the Natal Museum.
DR JEFF MA THEWS is a historian, former teacher, lecturer and curriculum
planner, now working as a publisher.
ROBERT P APINI is on the staff of the Durban Local History Museum.
DR IAN PLAYER is a world-renowned conservationist.
SIMON ROBERTS is an attorney, and a trustee of the Natal Society.
SHELAGH SPENCER is a historical researcher, and author of the multi-volume
British Settlers in Natal: a biographical register.
DR BRIAN STUCKENBERG is Director Emeritus of the Natal Museum. An
entomologist by training, he has also done extensive research into aspects of the
Portuguese voyages of discovery.
DR PAUL THOMPSON is Professor of History in the University of Natal,
Pietermaritzburg.
DR SYL VIA VIETZEN is a historian, and former teacher and school principal.
GA VIN WHITELA W is head of the department of archaeology at the Natal
Museum.