1500s-1600s

This ‘timeline’ follows from ‘Prehistory and early historical references, to 1500’

Notes 
1. Places marked on the online map accompanying this historical sequence of references are coloured in green in the text below. They can be found on the google map by searching on their name. Those still to locate on the map are indicated by this symbol - §.

2. Follow these links for full references and a list of abbreviations.

3. A double-asterix [**] is a marker for myself that there is something to be checked or added at this point in the text.

4. An introduction to this chronological sequence of references is here.  

5. Information and/or connections are welcome! Please email futurepastscontact@gmail.com 

1490-1640

For the remains of open settlement sites on the Zerrissene Mountain, 35km west of the Brandberg/Dâures and 7km south of the Ugab/!U≠gab River, adjusted dates have been recorded as 1490-1600, 1630 for the collagen of a dog intentionally buried near marker cairn in apex of valley, and 1640 (extended to 80±45 BP for dung in storage cairn to S-E of sites^[1]). The site consists of ‘open station settlement sites’ involving structures similar but more robust to those found on the Brandberg – where two sites of similar dates are ascribed to Dama, leading to a tentative ascription of the Zerrissene sites to ancestral Dama. The Brandberg sites:

vary from single structures to groups of up to 20 units. They generally consist of a circular arrangements of low walls made of stones. The walls rarely exceed 20-30 cm in height and have been found to be associated with the remains of branches which must have originally formed windbreaks. The stones were probably used to strengthen the enclosures and make them more permanent.
The Zerrissene structures, on the other hand, were built entirely of stones and consequently were more robust' - reaching to 1.2m high (possibly due to lack of woody material for shelter) in multicellular arrangements.
Additional features are stone cairns, stone piles and marker cairns. Storage cairns were carefully constructed from slabs of schist skilfully placed so as to form a dome. They can be as large as 1 m high by 1.5 m across. A number of these cairns contained whole ostrich eggs^[2] or dung, the latter a possible indicator that a pastoral economy was practised. Even today, similar cairns used as pens for lambs have been seen (by L.J.) to the south^[3]. The stone piles may be collapsed storage cairns. At a number of sites marker cairns were noted at the entrance (the point of natural access) to the settlement clusters. These are interpreted as boundary markers. …
The site includes a rock painting of a goat, footprints and a skeletal figure.^[4]

Here, ‘[a] large cairn, about 0,8m high and 1,0m in diameter, is to be found in a valley to the northwest’, plus ‘[o]ne very large stone mound 2,0m across and 0,5m high in a blind gorge 200m upstream … [from site 11 on Sesob River§] was excavated, but nothing was found’^[5].

Interpretation of the Zerrissene sites is that:

[s]easonal occupation, conditions permitting, of these marginal areas by small groups of herders with, probably small herds, seems indicated. These settlements could, in fact, be the most westerly trace of herders apart from those exploiting river valleys such as the Kuiseb and Swakop^[6].

Similarities with settlements excavated on the Brandberg and attributed to Dama suggest that the Zerrissene sites ‘are part of the same cultural tradition and should be included within the Brandberg Industry’, and that perhaps ‘the Dama occupation of the Brandberg and areas further to the west was in response to pressure from Herero-speaking pastoralists who were entering Damaraland from at least the 16th – 17th centuries’^[7]. The presence of sea-shells in one of the sites suggests some form of contact with the coast, e.g. at Cape Cross where circular structures have also been found^[8], as well as at the !Uniab Mouth^[9]. A similarly aged hut circle site at Rooikamer on the !Khuiseb River consisting of 28 stone circles is interpreted (probably erroneously) as 'temporary hunting blinds, positioned to intercept animals on their way to waterholes in the !Khuiseb River'^[10].

1502

Portuguese mariners discover the islands that become known as St. Helena^[11]. The Albert Cantino planisphere compiling journeys of the Portuguese mariners, labels what becomes Walvis Bay as ‘Rostro da Pedra’ (Ridge of Rocks)^[12].

The Cantino planisphere of 1502, plus detail overleaf showing places on the south-west African coast.

Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9c/Cantino_planisphere_%281502%29.jpg, accessed 16 October 2017.

1503

A Portuguese ship under the command of Antonio da Saldhana anchors in the bay where Cape Town now lies, sending ashore a party in search of freshwater and naming the bay Saldhania, giving rise to the English name of indigenous inhabitants as ‘Saldanians’^[13].

1503 - 1510

Portuguese ships regularly stop in Table Bay to take fresh water from the stream flowing down from Table Mountain and foraging livestock from local inhabitants^[14].

1510

Angered by ‘the cattle-foraging activities’ of Portuguese visitors, indigenous Khoe attack and kill a party led by Francisco de Almeida, after which the Portuguese ‘given the Cape a long berth’, calling instead ‘at their settlement in Angola’ then rounding the Cape on course for East Africa and on to the East Indies^[15]. Wesleyan missionary Barnabas Shaw writes that,

[f]earful of [4] approaching the main land, they [Portguese ships] anchored near Robben Island, which is at the entrance of Table Bay, and proceeded from thence with their boats to see the natives. On one occasion, while a number of Portuguese were on shore with the Hottentots, a serious disturbance took place. One of the sailors having a pair of buckles on his shoes, which attracted the attention of the savages, and he being unwilling to part with them, some misunderstanding arose, which ended in the massacre of seventyfive persons, among whom were Franciscus de Almyda, deputy king of Portugal, who was shot with a poisoned arrow, and two of his captains.^[16] 

1520

An order is given in Portugal for exploration of the coast of south-west Africa but is not implemented^[17], and a later Portuguese writer claims the Namib as ‘[a]ll… desert and without people’^[18].

1500 – until end of 18th century

Generally,

Ships travelling to India in the sixteenth century via the Cape were so fearful of the coastline that they travelled 250 miles offshore to avoid its hidden rocks and treacherous currents. The Dutch, the master navigators of their age, dared to come closer, as they headed to their empire in the East Indies. Their sailors reported that, when peering through the fog, they could on occasion spot black figures on the shores staring back at their ships. The Dutch called these unknown people strandloopers - beach runners. From the fifteenth to the end of the eighteenth century this was the limit of human contact between the peoples of south-western Africa and Europe.^[19]

1540

The pope sanctions the formation of the Society of Jesus, or Jesuits, a religious order concerned especially with missionary evangelisation^[20].

Mid-1500s

By this time ‘the Portuguese had a flourishing slave trade from the Congo port of Mpinda§, where an estimated 4000 to 5000 slaves a year were exported with the help of the king of Congo who conducted wars and raids for this purpose, especially among the Mbundu to the south. Portuguese took part in raids as traders but military expeditions also indulged in this practice mainly to enrich officials and governors. Jesuits, sent out to spread Christianity, were the largest owners of slaves and land in the colony by the end of the sixteenth century.’ ^[21]

The prosperity of the island of Principe is due to the plantation cultivation of sugar^[22].

‘According to ethnohistorical sources, Herero-speaking peoples were established in southern Angola by the early sixteenth century’^[23] with Vedder estimating Herero arrival in present-day Kaokoland at around 1550^[24]. Other authors write that ‘by the time the sixteenth-century Portuguese mariners first visited this part of the African continent’ the ancestors of Herero-speaking pastoralists ‘were well established in southern Angola and present in Kaokoland’, and thus suggest that Himba may have been in the region prior to the mid-16th century^[25]. Owambo peoples are thought to have lived in present Owambo areas of north Namibia and southern Angola from around this time, having moved from ‘the matrilineal population belt of Central Africa’ and originating in the Rift Valley^[26].

1555

John Lok brings five Africans from Ghana to Britain to learn English who on return acted as interpreters in the growing trade in ivory, spices and gold, following which [503] ‘enterprising merchants and princes sent their sons to be educated in England so that they could develop commercial contacts’, which African children educated in London, Bristol and Liverpool before returning home^[27].  

After ca. 1560

The Imbangala - ‘a fearsome and warlike people from the region of Katanga§ in the Congo, and Lunda in north-eastern Angola’ who ‘pillaged settlements and allied with the Portuguese to conduct slave raids as they pushed through the present Angola to the coast’ – are considered to have ‘moved southwest from Mbola na Kasashe to encounter the Portuguese living near the mouth of the Kunene River’^[28].

1568

‘The Imbangala, or Jaga, invaders who overran Angola around 1568, lived entirely from plunder. They appear to have been genuinely cannibal and did not eat human flesh primarily for spiritual strength. The Imbangala killed their own children at birth and adopted adolescents from their defeated enemies’.^[29] 

1570 onwards

The slave trade develops:

[f]rom 1570 onwards the slave trade developed. For more than two centuries, for generation after generation, ships sailed from British and European ports loaded with gold, trinkets and, more than anything else, guns. They traded these goods along the African coast with African slavers who were commissioned and armed by the Europeans to go deep into the African countryside and hunt for slaves.^[30] 

1575

S. Paulo da Assunção de Luanda [Luanda], capital of Angola and ‘an important centre for slave trade’, is founded^[31].

1579

The seven United Provinces of the Netherlands declare their independence from Spain, ‘and set about plundering King Philip’s ships at sea and attacking his soldiers on land’^[32].

1580

Francis Drake completes his voyage around the globe, describing Cape Point as ‘a most stately thing, and the finest cape that we saw in the whole circumference of the earth’^[33].

Late 16th century

The ‘Jagga’, a ‘fierce and warlike people, properly called the Imbangala, from the Katanga region of the Congo and Lunda in Angola’ who ‘pillaged settlements and allied with the [49] Portuguese in slave-raiding as they pushed through Angola to the coast, reaching the Kunene River in the late sixteenth century’^[34]. 

1584

By this date, the Imbangala had reached São Felipe de Benguela / Benguela ‘and were moving north near the coast’^[35].

1589

An Englishman, Andrew Battels [Battell^[36]], is taken prisoner by Portuguese in Brazil and is brought to Angola where he rises to the rank of sergeant in the colonial military, but after fleeing falls into the hands of the Jagga [Gagas^[37]] tribe (Imbangala, see 1560 above) – said to be cannibals^[38].

1591

The first European account of Congo is published in Italy and refers to provinces beyond Angola towards the Cape of Good Hope as ‘Climbebe’[**include Leo Africanus/Al Hassan account]:

[b]eyond the Kingdom of Congo we may remember, is the country of the King of Angola, and farther towards the Cape of Good Hope that of King Matama^[39], and the provinces ruled over him, called Climbebe^[40].

The so-called Filippo Pigafetta map positions ‘Climbebe’ inland in Angola:

1591 map of Africa by F. Pigafetta

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:1591_map_of_Africa_by_F._Pigafetta.jpg Accessed 1 October 2021.

In August of this year, three British barques dispatched to Saldania (as the Cape of Good Hope was known) by a group of London City merchants led by Sir Thomas Smythe, put into Table Bay, under the command of Captain James Lancaster^[41]. In a greatly depleted state, they pull into Table Bay, even though they anticipated here the same fate that befell de Almeida [see 1610]^[42]. They fill up with fresh water but do not set up camp on land, sending the Merchant Royal  back to England with the worst of the ill (many of whom die) and the Edward Bonaventure and Penelope round the Cape, where near Algoa Bay the Penelope is sunk in a storm and the Edward Bonaventure limps on to Zanzibar, making it to Ceylon and the East Indies^[43].

Here they encountered the headman of a Khoe / Nama ‘group’ documented as Kora / Xhora, led by a headman named Xhoré, who at the time was married and had several children with sons that had not yet reached maturity^[44]. Eight of their crew - who had been drawn in part from the numbers of men sentenced to death in England for various minor offences - were set ashore ‘and fled to Robben Island after a brush with the Hottentots who killed their leader, Captain Crosse’^[45].

1593

The Bonaventure [see 1591] returns to London from the East Indies ‘with a rich cargo of silks and spices’^[46].

1592[?**]

After six months on Robben Island, four of the Englishmen mentioned in 1591 were drowned trying to reach a passing ship of the English East India Company and the other three were taken back to England [see 1616]^[47].  

1595

A Dutch expedition of three ships and a pinnace under the command of Cornelius Houtman sail into Table Bay and obtain sheep and oxen from the inhabitants ‘in exchange for knives and pieces of iron’^[48]. They are disappointed in their search for oranges and lemons to treat scurvy and do not set up camp on land^[49].

1598[?]

The Dutch East Indies expedition of 1595 returns to Amsterdam laden with pepper, spices and silks ‘of sufficient value to arouse considerable interest in the Netherlands’^[50].

1600s

The Portuguese build a fort and establish a colony at Luanda^[51].

Increasing numbers of English and Dutch ships call at the Cape ‘filling their casks with water and bartering … for cattle and sheep’^[52].  

Archaeological evidence dates to this century for copper smeltings at the Matchless mine, south of Otjimbingwe^[53]. Sometime around the start of seventeenth century Bantu migrants arrived in the south-west, becoming the Owambo and Herero of today^[54].

1600

The English East India Company is established^[55] led by the City merchant Sir Thomas Smythe [see 1591]^[56].

By 1600 ‘the Portuguese traders were conducting a lucrative trade with the Imbangala by buying their victims as slaves’ and ‘[t]he Imbangala were later used by the Portuguese to hunt slaves’^[57].

1601

The French take possession of Saldanha Bay^[58].

1601-1602

Andrew Battell recalls military expeditions with the Imbangala into ‘Ovamboland’^[59], although given known movements of the Imbangala (see above) it seems more likely that he travelled with them northwards to Luanda^[60].

1602

The United Netherlands Chartered East India Company is created from an amalgamation of Dutch merchants^[61].

1605

‘After 1605 the Portuguese conducted wars to stimulate or protect the slave trade. Luanda became a slave port, at first illegally, as Mpinda§ was the official port where slaves were taxed’^[62].

1609

The Royal Commentaries of the Incas by Garcilaso de la Rega report on the enrichment of coastal Peruvian soils with guano^[63].

Archaeological dating for around this decade is obtained for ‘a hearth containing copper beads on a small outlier of the Wortel Midden§ at the !Khuiseb delta’^[64]. 

1614

A Samuel Burchas publishes the oral account given to him by Andrew Battel (see 1589 above) of his experiences in southern Angola / ‘Owamboland’^[65].

1616

The three Englishmen who had been stranded on Robben Island and were rescued and taken back to England are hanged ‘upon their former condemnation’ at Gallows Field near Sandwich, having escaped from the English East India Company ship lying in The Downs that had brought them from the Cape and being apprehended just a few hours after stealing a purse.^[66]

1617

‘[T]he Portuguese conquistador, Cerveiro Pereira, establishes the presidio of Benguela in Angola’^[67].

1618

Pereira (see 1617 above) battles ‘with wealthy cattle and sheep breeders to the south’ of Benguela from whom he takes around 1,000 head of horned cattle and 2,000 sheep and rams^[68].

1622

Wolstenholme Towne in Virginia is destroyed by Native Americans^[69].

Pope Gregory XV founds the Congregatio de Propaganda Fide, charged with evangelising Catholicism in a context of concern about the spread of Protestantism in Dutch and English colonial territories^[70].  

1627

The last known auroch, ‘subjects of the mesmerizing life-size rock paintings in the Lascaux’s cave’s “Hall of the Bulls” in southwest France’, dies^[71]. 

1631

Cambridge graduate John Eliot at 27 years is ‘the Apostle to the Indians’, bringing [60]‘the Mohicans into the Christian Church’ and translating ‘the whole Bible into their language’^[72].

1635

Shell middens with ‘ostrich eggshell beads and pendants, bone points, potsherds, quartzite flakes and utilized quartzite pebbles’ on dunes in the Kuiseb River delta are dated to this year^[73].

ca. 1640

Lebzelter’s research into the leaders of the ‘!Geio’ [|Geio] Damara lineage/nation suggests that at around 1640 Damara lived in the south of Ovamboland and, under their leader Narirab, wars took place with [incoming?] Ovambo, in which the Damara chief was killed, following which the rest of the tribe then moved further south^[74].

1641

The slave trade ‘reached its peak’ at Mpinda by 1641 ‘with probably more than 10 000 slaves a year exported. The mortality rate between capture and export was high. Cadornega, the seventeenth-century chronicler of the Angolan Wars [a Portuguese Jew who had escaped persecution in Portugal by fleeing to Angola^[75]], calculated that during these 100 years a million slaves were sent to the New World. Entire communities were obliterated and the country depopulated. (Angola's latest census (1960) gave a population of 4 841 000, of which 173 000 were white.) The Dutch capture of Luanda in 1641 was specifically to provide slave labour for their sugar plantations in north-eastern Brazil. The Portuguese, who had retreated to the fortress town of Massangano§, supplied the Dutch with slaves and silver bullion in return for food.’^[76] 

1645±10

A mean date of A.D. 1645±10 is reported for a copper furnace site near Rehoboth^[77].

1647

The Dutch ship the Haarlem is driven ashore at Bloubergstrand§, just north of Table Bay – after salvaging the cargo and ship’s stores and leaving these under guard, the crew set out southwards towards present-day Cape Town, settling next to a stream of fresh water – the Fresh River§, where they sow vegetable seeds they have salvaged from which they reap crops that supplement food gained from bartering from with local people – the present-day location of the ‘Company’s Garden§’^[78]. Six months later ‘the survivors and their cargo were picked up by the Dutch fleet returning from Batavia’ and [on their return to the Netherlands] two of the survivors, Leendert Janz and Nicolaas Proot, submit… a report to the Directors of the Dutch East India Company stressing the advantages which could be derived from a refreshment station at the Cape’^[79]. This report is accepted and Jan van Riebeeck is appointed commander of the expedition with instructions stating that ‘"[a]s soon as you are in a proper state of defence you shall search for the best place for gardens, the best and fattest ground in which everything planted or sown will thrive well"’^[80].

1648

Civil War in Britain between the Roundheads / Parliamentarians under Oliver Cromwell and Charles 1^[81].

‘The chance arrival of a Portuguese fleet from Brazil in 1648 enabled the easy recapture of Luanda from the Dutch’^[82].

1650±20

An excavated metal-working furnace at Rehoboth with anvil stones and foundry areas is dated to around this time, found in association with a large pot-sherd of ‘a straightsided pot with a double row of short, vertical incisions below the rim’ and pottery fragments^[83]. It is argued that the smelting techniques differ from sites in the north-east of the country associated with Bantu-speaking peoples, particularly due to the use of stone (rather than clay) tuyeres or nozzles through which air is blown into the furnace, despite knowledge of clay indicated by the pot sherds^[84].

1651

Three ships under the command of Jan van Riebeeck, the Drommedaris, Reiger and Goede Hoop set sail from the Netherlands for the Cape of Good Hope^[85].

1652

The Dutch East India Company [‘the Hollanders’] found a shipping station (a ‘refreshment station’) under Jan van Riebeeck^[86] [‘who had previously visited the country’^[87]] who anchors the Dromedaris in the natural harbor under Table Mountain on 6 April having ‘been instructed by the Dutch East India Company’s Ruling Council, the Heeren XVII [Council of Seventeen], to establish a permanent settlement at the Cape of Good Hope’^[88], thus planting the seeds of the Cape Colony^[89]. By the first resolution of the council held on 8th April on the principal ship, he is directed ‘to take possession of such lands as may be suited for cultivation &c.,’, as well as ‘to plant and propagate the true Reformed Christian Doctrine, amongst these wild and savage people’^[90]. The frontier encounter is sanitised in descriptions such as the following:

[s]cattered bands of Hottentots and Bushmen were the only indigenous people whom they met. Now the Bushmen have retreated to the near desert of the north-western Cape. There in peaceful refuge from the intruding civilization they live their stone-age lives. The Hottentots were a quite different people. In the seventeenth century they had already advanced to the pastoral stage. The Dutch tried to remain on friendly terms with them but two lethal epidemics of smallpox gravely diminished their numbers and the survivors subsequently lost their identity by mingling with other races in what are now known as the Cape Coloured people. This community numbers a million-and-a-half and they are mainly found in the Western cape.^[91] 

From Van Riebeeck’s diary ‘we learn that master gardener Hendrik Boom prepared the first ground for the sowing of seed on the 29th April’^[92] (also see 1644).

Morrell [see below] later writes that,    

having concluded a treaty with the natives, [he, i.e. Van Riebeeck] took possession of the cape peninsula, and laid the foundation of the present town, by erecting a fort of wood and earth, and some other necessary buildings, which he called Kier de Kou, – a defence against all. It was in the genuine Dutch style, like the fortress which they erected for the defence of their American colony Fort Amsterdam, now the city of New-York^[93].

Van Riebeeck is described as soon discovering:

the passion which the poor, weak, but peaceful and inoffensive Hottentots had conceived for spirituous liquors, first introduced among them by Christian navigators; and being a gentleman of some sagacity, he thought it good policy to turn their frailty to his own advantage. Thus, by giving these simple people a few casks of brandy, a little tobacco, iron, and some paltry trinkets, he obtained from them a part of their country, and many of their flocks and herds. The price of an ox was then a piece of an iron hoop, and the purchase of a whole district only cost a cask of brandy.

A hundred male members constituted the first colony of the cape: these were afterward joined by an equal number of females from the houses of industry in Holland…^[94] 

Vedder claims that ‘a flourishing trade with the local Hottentots sprang up’^[95] and Shaw writes that ‘[t]he natives of the surrounding country occasionally came to the settlement for the purpose of barter, and gave oxen, cows, sheep, and ostrich [8] eggs in exchange for European articles’, trade which gradually ‘extended much further inland’^[96].  

Van Riebeeck and indigenous inhabitants at the Cape. Source: https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51v7L2pRv4L.jpg (accessed 24 August 2017)

In May ‘a reinforcement of fifty men from Holland, arrived at the settlement’, in June dysentery kills a number of the Hollanders, and in September Van Riebeeck walks to the back of Table Mountain ‘for the purpose of inspecting the woods’ finding the dates 1604, 1620 and 1622 carved in some of them and indicating ‘to his astonishment’ that Europeans had already been there^[97]. On this excursion he is accompanied by ‘a Hottentot named Harry’ who could speak some English [?!] who assists with acquiring ‘a supply of cattle from the natives called Saldanians’ and by the end of the year Van Riebeeck possesses 89 head of cattle and 284 sheep^[98].

1653

On 15th October Van Riebeeck’s son is born, being ‘the second child born since the commencement of the colony’ [and indicating that European women travelled with the colonists], about which time ‘a number of rhinoceroses, eilands [elands], antelopes, one troop of seven, and another of eight elephants, were seen at the distance of a day’s journey from the fort’^[99]. Shaw writes further that during the time of his governorship, Van Riebeeck,

purchased [?] land from the natives in different directions; which was divided and given out to the settlers, whom he assisted by supplying with implements of agriculture, and whose efforts were attended with considerable success. He made several journeys into the country, the most distant of which was to a mountain between Zwaartland and Twenty-four rivers, which still bears the name of Riebeek's Kasteel.^[100] 

10 kms to Riebeek’s Kasteel. Source: Sian Sullivan 29 August 2017.

1654-1667

An Italian missionary Cavazzi travels in Angola, publishing an account [in 1687]^[101].

1655

Jan Wintervogel, ‘an ensign sent on an exploratory tour by Van Riebeeck’, travels to the vicinity of present-day Malmsebury (north of Cape Town) where he meets a group of people described as ‘of a very small stature, subsisting very meagerly, quite wild, without huts, cattle or anything in the world’^[102].

1657

‘Jansen’s large atlas’ mentions French and English whaling ships setting sail for west coast of Africa^[103].

In March the Amersfoort brings into Cape Town the first shipment of 170 slaves^[104], followed quickly by the Company yacht Hasselt which arrives from Holland on 6 May with 228 slaves from the coast of Guinea, particularly the Kingdom of Dahomey^[105].

Jan van Riebeeck, the first commander of the Cape, reportedly hears rumours of Namaqua being rich in copper to the north and west of the Cape^[106].

Around this time some of the Dutch immigrants,

leave the service of their company and became permanent settlers at a place five miles away from where Cape Town now stands. They were men of fine character, born pioneers. It was inevitable that they should not for ever hug the coast and soon they began to move inland across the vast unpopulated plains, trekking from one fertile valley to another over successive magnificent mountain ranges.^[107] 

1659

By this year, the Dept. of Anatomy at the University of Leiden has a stuffed elephant’s head and the skin of a rhino in its collection for scientific study^[108].

On 1st November the first roses bloom in the Company’s Garden^[109]. Pieter van Meerhoff, who later leads some key journeys northwards, arrives in the Cape on 22 March^[110].

1659-1663

Seven expeditions, none of them successful, are dispatched ‘to the country of the Namaqua to look for riches such as copper, gold and pearls’^[111].

1659-1674

Multiple conflicts between European settlers and Khoisan in the Cape lead to the Dutchmen tightening control over the area of Greater Cape Town and the Dutch East India Company begins to issue land to farmers to the north and east of Cape Town, thus expanding into Khoisan lands^[112].

1660

A Dutch expedition led by Jan Danckaert (from Nijnoven in the province of Groningen in the Netherlands^[113]) is sent north by Commander Jan van Riebeeck, the ambition being to find a route northwards to the famed ‘Kingdom of Monomatapa’. Dankaert ‘discovers’ a route northwards from the Cape through the Olifants River valley to Clanwilliam via the ‘Groote Cloof’ in the vicinity of the present-day Piekenierskloof, providing a hard but alternative route to that going along the coastal sandy terrain near the coast^[114]. It is probable that local indigenous people showed this known route to Danckaert, including directing him to Heerenlogement which became an important stopping off place in their explorations of the northern Cape^[115]. Near present-day Citrusdal, Danckert sees in December,

between two or three hundred elephant on the banks of a broad river, after the Sonquas (Bushmen) had shown them the footpath across the mountains, approximately where the present-day Piekenierskloof Pass is situated. The local inhabitant called the river the Tharrakkamma or Ruygc River, but Danckaert gave it the name of ‘Oliphants riviere’ [after the elephants he sees there]. He was convinced that he had reached the mythical Rio de Infante** and that he must have been very close to the city Vigiti Magna**. Since other members of the party were … taken ill, Van Meerhof and five others remained behind at the Olifants River, while he journeyed further north with four Whites and two Hottentots. The high mountains in the area, today known as Clanwilliam§, prevented them from going any further, and on 23 December he decided to turn back. It appears from his journal that his men would not carry out his instructions, and after their return to the Cape on 20.1.1661 Van Riebeeck considered that the expedition had failed because of bad discipline.^[116] 

Hoernlé writes that in this year ‘some men of the Namaqua people ventured into the territory of the Cape Hottentots, probably to see what was going on and who the strange people were who were willing to give such curious and delightful things in return for their superfluous cattle [i.e. having seen the trade items of the ‘Cape Hottentot’], [and] the commander lost no time in getting into contact with them … The same year [?] he sent an expedition to look for their home. Pieter Meerhoff [see below], one of the party, kept a diary from which we know that in that year the Namaquas were wandering along the banks of the Oliphants River:

[o]ur party returned, having found the Namaquas and brought some marks of them. They are a very tall people, like half giants, wearing all kinds of spotted and dressed skins ornamented with brass, iron tnd other beads; living in the same kind of mat houses as these Hottentots (that is, of course, the Cape Hottentots), and subsisting chiefly on their very [21] numerous herds. The king sent a little goat to the commander, being the first we had seen in the country. Their household utensils are large tankards of solid wood, hollowed out and narrowed at the neck; they have also calabashes; in the wooden vessels and [in] these they collect their milk and churn their butter. They have no other manufactures than in copper and iron, of which they make very neat chains and beads. They prepare skins and hides and when at war use shields of double ox-hide, large enough to cover the whole body. Their weapons are assegais, bows, and arrows. Their country is nothing but sand hills and brushwood, with a valley here and there in which they live.^[117] 

Hoernlé writes further that

[f]rom 1660 onwards many a party set out northwards in pursuit of these people. They seem to have owned, they and their enemies, the Bushmen, all the vast tracts of country between Oliphants and the Orange Rivers - and perhaps further north - and in these early days were subject to no pressure from behind, so that it was only natural that their wanderings should sometimes take them far out of touch with the more southerly tribes^[118]. 

1661

Pieter Everaert stops at Viermuisklip – described by the SA National Monuments Council as ‘a favourite outspan for explorers, hunters, stock barterers, missionaries and others to and from the north’ – at Koekenaap (Olifants River), en route to find the fabled Kingdom of Monomotapa^[119].

On 18th February, Van Meerhoff encounters Namaquas near Graafwater, writing that:

I, Pieter van Meerhoff, having taken with me our two Hottentoos went thither and when half way to the mountain Donckeman began to shout ‘Mr. Pieter Namaqua.’ I looked upwards and counted three and twenty figures standing on the rocks and gazing towards us. I went still higher and our Hottentoos who accompanied me were so affrighted that they took the shoen from off their feet and would have fled. They cried: [117] ‘Namaqua, shields of ox-hide, danger.’ I used my glass to see if it were so. I saw that they were armed with (shields of) dry hide and had a skin hanging each from his left arm, bow and arrows upon their shoulders and in either hand a spear. I gave my Hottentoos good words and told them they need not fear, that the Namaquas would not harm us. I promised them somewhat if they stood by me, saying that in so far as they would not I would tell the Master when I returned to the Cape. They could not utter a word through fear when I spoke thus. At length they went with me and being come above we could not become aware of them where they had fled amongst the rooks. I told our Hottentoos to call out that if they would come to us we would give them tobacco, beads and copper (wire), but they gave no answer. I waited an half hour upon a mountain thinking they would come to me; longer I durst not linger for the night fell and it was quite dark ere I returned to our people.^[120] 

Meerhoff in this year is also recorded as encountering Nama ‘living approximately 320km north of the Cape Peninsular’ who have ‘a knowledge of mining’ with ‘“a native industry in two metals, copper and iron, materials locally available and in quantity”’^[121].

1662  

The Anglican Church publishes the Book of Common Prayer (the original being published in 1549)^[122].

Van Riebeeck and the Council of Policy orders a second expedition northwards under Pieter Cruyhoff/Cruythoff which leaves on 30 January – it is unclear whether or not Danckaerts joins this, although the Council approves his participation^[123]. Pieter van Meerhoff, who arrived in the Cape on 22 March 1659, was second-in-command and on 11 February finds ‘a cave in a mountain, west of present Nuwerus [clearly a Nama name!], which he called 'het casteel Meerhoff' (Meerhoff's castle)’^[124] and makes it to at least the Spoeg River where he sees a new type of bird and vegetation and giraffes^[125]. 

13 November, to lighten load, Pieter Cruythoff buries goods on banks of Oliphants River near Elands Kloof:

Because Cruijthoff was feeling somewhat indisposed we remained resting this day, and because he considered it advisable we have buried such goods as were not absolutely required on our outward journey, because we found suitable dry and sandy places there, and we have secreted in some of them a portion of our [105] food.^[126] 

The size of the Company’s Garden has increased by this year to 21 1/10 morgen (18,1 ha), incorporating the site of the present-day Garden and comprising a vegetable and fruit garden, a herb and medicinal garden and latterly various ornamental plants were introduced, including oak, pine trees and roses^[127].

1665

Jan Wintervogel leads expedition north that reaches Zwartland – present-day Malmesbury^[128]. In this year the prices in the Cape colony were fixed for various food items, i.e. per lb. beef = 2 farthings; mutton = 3; pork = 4; a wild goose = 6; a wild duck = 5; common duck = 4; water melon = ½; 25 turnips = 2^[129].  

1666

Great Fire of London.

Ca. 1670s

A second pot (see ca. 1300) found at Conception Bay is dated to 310±20 BP^[130].

1670

The Dutch East India Company dispatches from Cape Town the Grundel under G.R. Muys [Esterhuyse reports this for 1677^[131]],

to sail as far as the tropics, to make a careful survey of all landing places along the coast … to ascertain how far the settlements of the Hottentots extended to the north and where the country of the Kaffirs commenced … [and] to look out for where vegetables and firewood could be got^[132].

The ship’s log repeatedly mentions thick fog, an ‘extraordinary number of whales’ and heavy showers of rain on the coast of what is now southern Namibia on 14 April^[133]. The ship lands at an uninhabited Angra Pequeña [now Lüderitz / **], and Sandwich Harbour (a small bay south of Walvis Bay)^[134] on 1 May, where five natives with a dog are seen who run away but on following up and between the sand dunes with ‘a few green shrubs growing on them’ [= perhaps edible !nara plants?], where Vedder reports the ship’s log to state that they find:

three small native huts and, standing next to them, ten men, who waved to them with a stick to which an animal tail had been fastened. (Evidently the Hottentot’s flyswatter, which consists of a small stick with a jackal’s tail attached and is still used today.) The natives came leaping and dancing past; they were armed with assegais, bows, and arrows. The threatening attitude which they adopted caused one of the captain’s companions to point his musket at them, but the powder refused to kindle. A stab in the chest incapacitated him; he threw his gun away, pulled the assegai out of his chest with both hands and took it with him, and the three men ran to the shore. They were pursued by the natives, who did [10] not, however, succeed in overtaking them. [The ship’s log reports that [t]hese natives were “very greasy and of a yellow colour; they wore skin clothes and had their hair smeared with fat. Their words were not, however, pronounced in the throat as is the case with Hottentots[?]. We could only come to the conclusion that they had never seen any people other than those of their own tribe.” The hostile attitude might likewise justify the conclusion that encounters with people of other races had previously occurred and that their recollection of what had taken place on those occasions was not a very happy one.^[135]

As Jill Kinahan writes, sailors on the Dutch East India Company ship the Grundel attempts unsuccessfully to communicate with nomads in the dunes^[136].

Around this time the !Kuiseb is noted as reaching the sea^[137].

Sailing north of Sandwich Harbor the log records that,

[w]e saw land, which was very sandy, but could see no opening of the nature of a bay or a river, and so we decided that, since with the help of God we had got as far as this and since the land hereabouts is still inhabited by Hottentots, we would halt and would, with God’s help, commence our homeward voyage with as little delay as possible,

arriving back in Table Bay on 26 May^[138].

As John Kinahan writes, early mariners passing the Namibian Atlantic coastline of ‘saw only unending dunes, rumoured to be the home of a people so primitive that they lacked even the power of speech’, but ‘more adventurous travellers pressed deeper inland, meeting powerful nomadic communities with great herds of livestock’.^[139] 

In about 300 BP (in the 1670s) ‘open site hut circles, containing macrolithic scrapers and ceramics’ appear in west Namibia around the Brandberg, with resemblances to macrolithic scrapers in southern Erongo sites^[140].

1673

The Prussian astronomer Peter Kolb goes to the Cape^[141].

1677

Under orders of the Dutch East India Company, on 20 January the Bode / Boode sets sail under Capn. C. Th. Wobma to explore the west coast of southern Africa, after being paid an advance on the crew’s wages of 200 rixdollars plus a further 100 rixdollars ‘for the purchase of vegetables and fresh meat’^[142] [Esterhuyse reports this for 1670^[143]]. Wobma’s orders echo those from 1670 for the Grundel:

to survey the whole west coast as far as Somberia§ in Portuguese Angola and to make a map of it ... to have regard to the places where fresh water and firewood were to be obtained in addition to cattle, sheep, rice, and millet … [and] to bring back with him reliable information as to “where the Hottentots ended and the Kaffirs began, and whether these waged war against each other, what kind of farms and houses they had, what sort of weapons they used, what they lived on, whether they cultivated anything and other matters of this kind”.^[144] 

In ‘the Portuguese Colony’ he is instructed ‘to let nothing at all leak out regarding their orders and the results of their efforts, and “always to bear in mind that the Portuguese are false friends of ours” and if possible to obtain slaves through barter bearing in mind the advice of the Hottentots accompanying the journey on how best to deal with natives, ‘and what could be achieved with beads, tobacco, and strong liquors’^[145].

On 17 February the Bode anchors ‘in a small sandy bay’ [?where] and Wobma and crew go inland, finding human footprints after around half a mile which they follow, seeing around 16-18 people around another half mile away to whom Wobma dispatches ‘his Hottentots’ following which, as Vedder quoting the ship’s log reports:

these people came running towards our Hottentots with assegais poised in their hands, and this was a sign of courage, seeing that our Hottentots were provided with similar weapons and that we were close behind them with our well-armed followers. Then the aforementioned natives tried to talk and, because these people could only understand our Hottentots with difficulty, I took them with me to the shore, where our boats lay, and we showed them every kindness by giving them tobacco and brandy; this latter they liked very much but they had little acquaintance with the smoking of tobacco. We asked them then whether they did not possess cattle, sheep, elephants’ tusks, skins, or things of this kind, and they replied, so far as our Hottentots were able to understand them, that they had not, but that there was another tribe close at hand, with whom they were perpetually at war, and that these people had recently robbed them of their cattle. They said, further; that their huts were situated fully three to four days journey inland. Thereupon I sent for the sloop de Haeghman and that reached us before midday. At midday about ten or twelve Hottentot women arrived on the scene with bags made out of seal’s [12] stomachs and bladders, filled with brackish, or rather with salt, water, which they gave their men folk to drink. After they had been with us about half an hour they betook themselves in the direction of the interior. These aforesaid people are real Hottentots[!], although their language is not by any means the same as that of our Hottentots. They wore karosses of hide and of seal skins, which had been washed ashore from the island. They wore, too, some kind of thing on their heads and they had chains made of ostrich shells and threaded on thin sticks hanging round their necks; to all appearances a poverty stricken people and an extraordinarily dry country, where there is nothing to be got; it would be possible to gather the firewood which is scattered along the shore. These said people eat stinking seals and pounded herbs and similar wretched food[!]. Many of them had small pieces of resin, which they had brought with them from the interior; so that there must undoubtedly be some trees further inland. So far as we were able to see and judge, there is nothing to be obtained here which could benefit our lords and masters in the very slightest degree, and all that there is to be found there is sand and stones, without vegetation, and a bad anchorage with fierce, stormy winds into the bargain …^[146] 

The Bode anchored at an uninhabited Angra Pequeña on 22 February and Sandwich Harbour / Anixab on 5th March ‘where the captain and crew were involved in an unpleasant skirmish with local Nama’^[147]. As with the Grundel, ‘[w]hile remaining prudently armed, the sailors tried to make clear their friendly intentions and their desire to trade iron bangles and beads for cattle. The nomads reacted with fear and suspicion, and skirmishes broke out. The reports discouraged further exploration or attempts to trade’^[148]. The ship’s log, quoted by Vedder, reports on seeing !nara harvesting natives recognised as ‘Hottentots’^[149] on the shore that:

When we were on the point of getting out of the boats, the said people took to their heels, leaving their possessions behind, namely a pot with some sort of pips lin it that looked like pawpaw pips [=!nara], nor could we come into communication with these said people. The purser and the second mate were sent out to see whether they could manage to get into conversation with them, and these went fully two miles inland, where they found that the said people had taken to flight, and discovered that there was nothing else to be seen there but an ostrich shell filled with water, which was fresh, and some bladders and pieces of seal meat, which were hanging up on a pole to dry. We did them no harm whatsoever, but, on the con-[13]trary, we left a piece of tobacco and some pipes lying in their huts as a token of friendship. We returned to the boats, and I and others set to work with nets in an estuary or river and succeeded in catching many fish of various kinds. This aforesaid estuary is salt and its waters are mingled with the sea at high tide, but, at low tide, are separated from it by a sand bank. We went on board ship again with the fish we had caught and all our people, and when we had been on board for a little while, fully 20 to 25 Hottentots again appeared on the shore and beckoned to us. We decided to land with one of our boats only, because we were of opinion that these people got frightened when we arrived there with more than one boat. When we reached them they remained stationary but they were very shy, so much so that we laid aside our guns and they their assegais, and our Hottentots threw their assegais away, too. We likewise put on the ground some strings of beads which we had brought with us, together with some tobacco and brandy, so as to gain their good graces, and this tobacco and brandy pleased them exceedingly, far more than it had the people of Grundel Bay§. When we asked them whether they had cattle, they said that they had and suggested that we should go inland with them to their huts, but, as it was already evening, we decided against that and returned to the ship.

[6th March]…  we proceeded to the shore with both boats, for the Hottentots were there calling and shouting to us. When we came up to them, without waiting for us, they withdrew inland and, when we followed them, we came to their huts, which were constructed with the bones of North Cape whales and, since the said Hottentots run further and further on, we returned to our boats and all went on board again. When we had been on board for a short time, 20 to 25 Hottentots came down to the shore, bringing 12 to 16 cows with them. We proceeded to the land with both boats, taking with us some goods for barter; in addition to the purser and Mr. Willem van Dieden, our strength was between 15 and 16 men, armed with six muskets and four pistols. When we reached the shore, I started to trade with them and when 1 had exchanged two cows for a few things such as iron bars and beads, they took these things away and likewise drove the cattle off, taking with them, too, a small bag containing beads. When I saw this, I held one of them fast, whereupon the rest grasped their bows and arrows with the object of shooting at me or running me through the body with their assegais, and in fact arrows began to fly.

   I had two loaded pistols with me and I shot a Hottentot in the skin, causing him to retire three paces; fully a hundred arrows were then discharged at me, whereupon the purser, the mate, and the other members of the crew, and likewise our own Hottentots, came to my aid and thereupon the aforesaid natives took to their heels; very soon, however; they came to a halt and they threatened us with [14] bows and arrows again, while we continued to shoot at them and wounded several of them, but of this they seemed to take very little notice, flying to rub their hurts away with their hands, and attempting to cut off our retreat to the boats. Thereupon we retired to the sloop, keeping up a continuous fire, arrived there with all our men, cut the painter, and rowed to the ship. It turned out that the purser and Mr. van Dieden, as well as the second mate and three or four of the sailors, were wounded by arrows, which were poisoned, but, since they had been shot through their clothing, it seemed as if most of the poison had been wiped off, so that very little damage resulted. We found that these people were so rash, or rather courageous, that they charged in the face of firearms, but we doubt very much whether they will readily come to such close quarters again, seeing that they have had a pretty fair experience of muskets and pistols.^[150]         

On 18 March, in ‘Great Fish Bay§’ north of Walvis Bay (which is not sighted), the captain finds ‘pieces of broken pots and human footprints and likewise four huts [of whale ribs] resembling those at Sandwich Harbour’, assumed to belong to ‘Hottentots’^[151]. On 27 March, in southern Angola (the Kingdom of Mataman^[152]) (between 14 and 15 degrees south), the ship’s log notes that ‘the Kaffirs commenced and the Hottentots came to an end’^[153], and although prevented from landing due to the heavy surf the crew see three of four ‘Negroes’ walking on the shore^[154]. The Bode lands at Portuguese Sombrera on 30th March, begins return journey on 8th April and arrives back in Table Bay on 26th May^[155].

1678

Governor Simon van der Stel takes office in the Cape^[156], as eleventh Governor of the Cape^[157]. Under his guidance master gardener Hendrik Bernard Oldenland and his assistant Jan de Hartogh transform the Company’s Garden to include ‘an elaborate system of canals and water furrows fed by the Fresh River§’ although ‘its primary purpose remained the growing of vegetables and fruit’^[158]. The first buildings were also ‘namely the pleasure lodge, church, slave house and hospital’ involving a shortening of the lower end of the Garden and extension of the top end towards the mountain, causing an initial shrinking of the Garden to 19 morgen (16,3 ha)^[159].

1680

A map by de Wit of the south-western coast of Africa is entitled ‘Cimbebas et Caffariae Littora’, and the coastal region stretching from Loanda / Luanda to Ambrosio / Ambrose Bay is inscribed with the words ’Cimbebas ofte Mataman Regnum’^[160].

Simon Van der Stel, ‘commander of the fort at the Cape of Good Hope’^[161] is reported to have made an excursion to Table Mountain ‘in the company of several ladies of the Cape’, erecting ‘a column or pyramid’ bearing his name and to commemorate the event^[162].

1680-1940

Archaeological research in the Northern Namib confirms stone circle sites and contemporaneous shell middens at multiple sites close to the coast north of the Munutum river mouth, in between the Nadas and Sechomib rivers, and at the Khumib river mouth^[163]: all northern Namib ephemeral rivers whose Khoekhoegowab names have been recorded since the area was first mapped. A site between the Nadas and Sechomib includes ‘a total of 35 stone circle features’ and some stone circles including whale bones, as well as stone artefacts, potsherds of ‘Khoi’ pottery, ostrich eggshell beads, bones and hunting blinds were also found at or near the sites^[164]. Three dates obtained for the sites were ‘within the period AD 1680 to 1940’ with coastal sites considered strongly connected to the hinterland^[165].

Excavated sites (and vegetation map). Source: Eichhorn and Vogelsang 2007: 147.

Early 1680s

Hopes are raised in the Cape by reports of copper in Namaqualand^[166].

1681

Simon Van der Stel (see above) tries ‘to induce the Namaqua chiefs to visit him’ to inform him about copper inland and ‘a deputation’ arrived in Cape Town on 21 December bearing ‘specimens of very high grade copper ore’ [as well as and mineralised sand from the Orange River^[167]], ‘taken out of a mountain in Namaqualand with their own hands’, and leading Van der Stel to seek to inspect the mines^[168].

1682

In October an expedition was sent out to Namaqualand under Ensign Olof Bergh^[169] to search for copper but did not find its source^[170]. He scratches his name at Berghfontein, which he calls Dassenberg, 9kms from Heerenlogement, and is accompanied by Christoffel Henningh (sergeant), Hans Jurian Elingh (sergeant), Daniel Reynier and Rosierick Hermansz (helmsman) (the latter two of which keep the journal)^[171]. Apothecary and artist Hendrik Claudius of Breslau, who later writes the journal for Van der Stel (1685), also accompanies this journey^[172].

They leave the Castle of Good Hope on 30 October, ‘strong 31 whites with six wagons, one cart and 111 head of oxen’, journeying north through Rietvlei§ (fed by the Diep River and the Great Saltpan in Van Riebeeck’s journal), then NW to the ‘Klip Fontein§’ via the sand tract which was the “Company’s Road§” to Groene Kloof§^[173] (over the plain where the Blauwberg Battle§ was fought in 1806)^[174]. Then to valley behind Klein Dassenberg§, carrying a hartebeest shot for food by his men and where [83] ‘[o]ur Ensign obtained five sheep by barter’^[175]. Traverses a ‘great plain’ to ‘Hoorn Kraal§’ on plains beyond Darling§ to dry river called Zoute Rivier§ northwards to the Great Berg River which ‘we happily got across with the wagons’ and [85] from a hill make a drawing and map of the country ahead^[176].
4th Nov. they leave behind the little boat they have brought ‘because it hindered us sorely and we have a bad road to go’ and go east coming to ‘some Hottentots, they being Somquaas alias Bushmen. They were armed with assegais and bow and arrows. They went on with us’^[177], north towards Piquetberg past Aurora (formerly Klipfontein)^[178] and then Klein Tafelberg§ on left/west hand, described in Bergh’s 1682 journal as ‘a great round rock like a Mohammedan pagoda’^[179]. Arrived with setting sun at the ‘Sand River’, now the Verloren Vallei River§, in the past called Quaecoma§ by ‘Hottentots’ and the ‘Cleyne Oliphants Rivier§ off Zeekoe Vallei§’ by Van der Stel in 1685. 

6th Nov. Bergh sends ‘two Hottentots across the mountains to tell Gregriqua Hottentots to come to us’^[180]. On 7th Nov. in Lange Vallei§ (called ‘Tythouw§’ by ‘the Hottentots’), near present-day Sandberg§, where

[a]t midday we came across the two Hottentots sent by us yesterday morning, also quite 15 or 16 other Gregriqua Hottentots. They brought 9 sheep and a calf, for all of which the Ensign bartered… [95] The Ensign persuaded with great difficulty one of the aforesaid Hottentots to shew us the best way to the Amacquas. They were loath to do so, replying that the Amacquas had said to them, that should we go, they would club us all to death^[181].  

8th Nov. Marched NW from Langevlei River§, arriving after two ‘at a kraal of the Gregriquas, where the Ensign bartered 5 sheep and some milk’, going on to the solitary kopje Wolfberg§ from which they see the sea at what is now Lambert’s Bay^[182]. On 9 Nov. Olof Bergh expedition names a 'rocky mountain' to the NE that has 'a good spring of clean fresh water' ‘Berg Fonteijn’, and carves ‘his name and the year 1682 upon the overhanging rock which roofs the spring which lies at the northwestern point of the mountain... fifteen miles over sandy tracks from Graafwater§ and 100 paces from the homestead of [at the time of Mossop’s edit in 1931] Mr. G. Maas, J.P.’^[183] They shoot a hartebeest here for food, after which they travel north-east to Heerenlogement/Dassenberg, crossing the Oliphants River north of junction with Doorn River§, and travel north following the Oliphants River^[184]. Just north of present-day Klaver§ they

saw close to us some Hottentots with pack oxen passing by. The Ensign sent some of our Hottentots to tell them to come to us. … The aforementioned stranger Hottentots to the number of 8 or 10 came with their women. They were Gregriquas and had 2 pack oxen, obtained from the Amacquas. The Ensign by prolonged persuasion and promises got two of them to accompany us and shew us the way.^[185] 

12th Nov. At Vredendal§ and Bakkely Plaats§^[186], they outspan the cattle ‘but there is naught but reeds and shrubs with little pasture’^[187]. After their ‘midday meal’ they find ‘the two Hottentots whom the Ensign persuaded last evening, were missing. On the march they had turned back, according to our Hottentots through fear that we would fight the Amacquas’^[188]. Resting at Bakkely Plaats/Bakkeleiplaas§ they lighten the wagon loads by burying some goods to be picked up on return journey, after which they move north to the Hol River§ and to ease the crossing again buried here some rice to lighten the wagon loads^[189]. North again beyond the Hol River, on 14-15 Nov. 1682, probably at what became known as Eerst Modderkuijl§ (on Bergh’s second journey), now Elandsfontein§ finds

a pool of stinking brackish water with nothing for the cattle but parched shrubs [and] [a]ccording to the Hottentots there was nothing else to be obtained, whereon the Ensign asked Captain Cees why he had not told this to the Commander at the Cape. He gave answer that he had done so. They said, however, that we could go no further in the dry season with so large a number of cattle. [Here they] dug holes at several places, finding nothing but brack water insufficient to give their cattle their fill^[190]     

Again they bury ‘the canvas and tarpaulins the better to advance with the wagons’^[191]. On 15th November they march further northwards ‘over and amongst very barren mountains’, crossing a high mountain from which they see ‘some high peaks which towered above others’ which ‘their Hottentots’ claim are ‘four days’ journey ahead … and that the kraals of the Amacquas lay there’, and they camp ‘in a vale at a large rock named Meerhoff’s Casteel’^[192]. From here, on 16th November,

[t]his morn the Ensign sent 4 of our Hottentots to the Amacquas with a few presents to the head Captain to ask if he will come to trade and barter with us. Because our cattle were dead beat and could go no more and because, according to the Hottentots, there was only a little brackish water and no grass on the way for four days’ journey ahead so that it would be difficult enough for the men to quench their thirst, we have thought it advisable to remain here till their return. Our men have by digging enlarged the hollow which had contained the water and was emptied by the cattle, cleaning it and making it as deep as the rock allowed them, in the hope that it will fill again. They have sought here and there and dug, but have found naught but salty water.^[193]   

19th Nov. They seem to be waiting with some anxiety for the return of their four Nama men with reply from the Amacquas (four days’ journey ahead), [115] and on 21st November they send out a different four Nama with Captain Cees ‘to see if the 4 Hottentots who went previously had not properly carried out their mission’, but their response was that,

they feared greatly and were unwilling to go, that it was inadvisable for [117] us to go on account of lack of water for the animals, for if the cattle failed us while on the way the wagons, trade goods and victuals must be left behind and compel us to return with great loss. [The diarist further reports that] Captain Cees has gone out with 4 Hottentots to see if anyone was approaching; all our cattle and the 4 men returned in the afternoon; they had drunk their fill that morning. At sunset this evening Captain Cees returned accompanied by the 4 Hottentots who had gone with him as well as 2 of the 4 who were sent to the Amacquas on the 16th November, the same brought us a reply that the Amacquas were not prepared to come and barter with us here because they were carrying on warfare[!], but if we wished to come to them some Amacquas were on the way to us, besides our two other Hottentots with [119] 2 sheep with which they wished to honour us, they said also that they would be with us by morning and that a little water would be obtained (on the way), but that it would be brackish, and that as regards water the first day would be the worst. So it was decided by us to proceed on our journey. The Ensign gave instant order that six men drive all the cattle to the place they had been before, to let them drink to-morrow morning and then all return, for with us there was no water for them.^[194] 

22 Nov. Travelling northwards from Meerhoff’s Casteel – ‘everywhere a barren land with dried up shrubs and no water’ – they arrive at ‘a pool of brack water of which each of the animals drank a little’, which Mossop states is probably now Bitterfontein§^[195]. They have to leave behind a second ox due to exhaustion^[196]. 23 Nov. Northwards again, when,

[t]en or twelve Amacqua Hottentots with two sheep and a draught ox came to us; amongst them one had a Company’s “chap” [‘tjap’] upon his cane and above thereon there stood a name “Noence”. They accompanied us and together we fared onwards in hot sunshine and through barren waterless country until close upon midday when we arrived in a valley at a dried up river-bed. It was of coarse sand (in which grew) a fine sorrel and here and there along its course was clothed with small trees. We dug in the sandy riverbed and presently obtained water, brackish but sufficient for man and beast, also there was some little pasture and a few green bushes for the cattle. We remained here this night. The Ensign asked the Amacquas all particulars as to the road and its condition; they spun us many yarns and told us there was no chance of getting further. They said we must pass all the undermentioned nations ere we arrived at the **Bri(quas) and Gri(quas) and firstly we should encounter the Cobicijqua beyond the Amacquas. They lived twelve days’ journey from them and were a small nation; the Caminge^[197] ad idem, Noecqua a great nation, Quinonqui a small nation, Nimpey a great ditto, Keijgij a small ditto, Goeachij a small ditto, Goegouckij a small (nation), Ket Sarkeij a great (nation); Chaliesbri were Kaffirs who wear made clothes; Alabriqua white folk who wear skins and are Hottentots; Aart Eyck Gamoere a people having eyes on their feet**. When the Ensign caused them to be asked if they had in truth seen such and if a single one of them had been there, they replied, ‘No’, they had only repeated what other Hottentots [123] had told them. We asked them how long a journey it would take us to reach the Eyckegammoerees**. They said they wist** not to tell us for they had no knowledge except of the nation next to them, but that they had heard it was a very far journey of many days and that they could not designate the same.^[198]     

25 Nov. ‘[T]he Ensign sent the Amacqua Hottentots to their kraals to say they must come to us with their cattle if they were willing to barter’ and,

[t]here came 3 or 4 other Amacquas, [125] one of them a Captain with the Company’s ‘chiap’ upon his staff and above thereon was the name Heijbe. We marched farther along the river till about 10 o'clock, when we came to a great plain clothed in long grass. There was good water in the river here and there and round about were many thorn trees. [= near Garies§] The Amacquas said that there would be little pasture farther on. We have unyoked the oxen and allowed them to graze. … This afternoon the Ensign has sent some Amacquas to their kraals to say they should come and trade with us. The two afore-mentioned Captains and a third Amacqua remained here; they were regaled by us as usual. We have pitched our tent and have placed all the goods from the wagons therein and then constructed a ‘kraal’ for the cattle. We named the place at which we camped the Grass-plain, the river the Green-thorntree River§. [26th Nov.] … the Ensign caused the Amacquas to be asked why they tarried so long and where their people’s kraals were. They have sent back, on the Ensign insisting, three of their Hottentots and said they would be with us by the morning. We kept the Captains with us. [27th November] … This morning the Ensign again caused the Captains to be asked if the people of the kraals were soon to be with us, for it appeared they were making a mock of us and were out [127] to deceive us, and we were well on our guard. The Captains sought to leave us, saying, ‘You Dutchmen at the Cape are masters, but the Amacquas are masters here.’[!] To this impertinence the Ensign could hardly listen. He caused them to be told that wherever the Dutchmen came, there they sought friendship, but if, they cheated them and made them angry they counted all the Amacquas as naught and would quickly be their master, but if they shewed goodwill the Dutchmen would also. Because we have consumed all of our sheep except three, we have kept the three aforesaid Captains with us against their will [!] the better to obtain such cattle as we require on the way if they did not wish to barter with us. There arrived meanwhile some of their Hottentots with 6 oxen, 5 calves and 6 sheep, whereof the Ensign obtained 2 oxen, 2 calves and 6 sheep by barter. We could not agree about the rest, for they wished to have much more for them than they were worth. At midday there came again a party of Hottentots and quite 50 or 60 women, but they brought no cattle with them. They came for naught else but to prate with our Hottentots and to gaze at us. They at last left us and again came others both men and women. This went on throughout the entire day, without bringing us more cattle than an ox and two sheep which the Ensign traded. They said they would return with many cattle in the morning. They all left this evening except one Captain, whom we kept with us on pretext that if their nation despoil us of cattle they would have to try to get him back. [129] [28 Nov.] This morn there came to us a great number of Hottentots, both men and women, well over 200. They brought no cattle save only an old and meagre cow, a calf and 2 sheep. The Ensign obtained the calf and 2 sheep by barter. They remained near us sitting round about and prating of naught save tobacco. They giggled and laughed with our Hottentots, poking fun at us, so it seemed, and had they the chance would have treated us as enemies, so that it was hardly to be endured. They said outright they would not trade with us, pretending that their cattle had been taken from them; from others we learned that this was untrue and they merely sought to cheat us. At midday we again packed our goods on the wagons and left about one o’clock. We returned the way we had come. We could have done another day’s journey, but turned back for there was nothing more to be achieved for the service of the Company; moreover, our wagons were beginning to fail us and we might find less water on the return journey and be put to the greatest embarrassment. At 4 o'clock we returned to the camping place that we had left and remained the night. There came 13 or 14 Amacquas with their women folk, bringing 5 calves and 4 sheep, of which the Ensign bartered four calves and sheep.^[199] 

Following these encounters the expedition retraces its steps, on 3rd December arriving where they had buried their rice and other provisions on 14th November^[200]. The Gregriquas kraal where they had bought milk on 8 November had departed by 9 December, although '[s]ome Gregriqua Hottentots came to us bringing nothing with them', saying that their kraals lay a little way fro us’^[201]. On 10 December their guide who is a Gregriqua Hottentot [!] leaves them having been paid ‘some copper, beads, tobacco and a drink or two’, [137] and in the afternoon ‘several Gregriquas came to us with 6 sheep which the Ensign obtained by barter’, ‘a party of womenfolk’ brings milk, and two rhebok were also shot^[202]. They arrive back at the Fort of Good Hope on 19 December^[203].

1683

Ensign Olof Bergh leads a second expedition to seek copper in Namaqualand, again unsuccessful^[204], baffled especially by the western Grootberg§ of the Kamiesberg§ where ‘ancient rock clearings to make a passage’ may be the work of Bergh’s party^[205]. On at least one of these journeys, Bergh brings back runaway slaves found near the Oliphants River^[206].

1684

Sergeant Isaq Schriver journeys to Namaqualand^[207].

1685

Van der Stel acquires official authorisation to lead an expedition to Namaqualand (camping by Heerenlogement en route^[208]). Slightly different versions of the journal and illustrations (by Hendrik Claudius) survive from this journey, for example^[209]: 

• a fuller version published in 1726 by François Valentjin, a clergyman for the VOC, apparently acquired from Willem Adriaan Van der Stel, who succeeded his father Simon as Governor of the Cape of Good Hope [1699];
• the slightly condensed MS. 984 acquired in 1802 by the Library of Trinity College, Dublin, considered to be ‘the identical section removed about 1691 or 1692 from the Archives of the Dutch East India Company’ [pp. 301, 308];
• Donald Moodie publishes an abridged version of Van der Stel’s journey to the Copperberg, reportedly from the 1726 Valentijn publication;
• Theal publishes a summary in his 1897 History of South Africa, probably drawing on both Valentijn’s and Moodie’s versions.    

The notes below mostly follow the version republished in 1979 by Waterhouse.

Van der Stel leaves on 25 August with ‘57 white men … and one Dain Mangale, or Prince of Maccasser, with his servant and also three black servants of the Honourable Commander’^[210] and a train consisting of,

one carriage with six horses, eight mules, fourteen riding horses, two field pieces, eight carts, seven waggons, one loaded with a boat, two hundred and eighty-nine draught or pack oxen, with an additional convoy … of six burghers with their own waggons, each yoked with eight oxen, who are to take leave of us at Elephants’ River.^[211]

The copper-bearing rocks were said to be located north of the Olifants River and the expedition also generated information about the existence of the ‘great river’ that later became called the Orange (see below)^[212], and ‘Great Namaquas’, namely the Bondeswarts / !Gami-nūn / Kamisons on the western reaches of the Gariep are named in van der Stel’s journal^[213]. The expedition, accompanied by a mineralogist employed by the Dutch East India Company (Frederich Mathias van Werlinckhof) who was en route to Sumatra, as well as the apothecary and artist Heinrich Claudius who contributed drawings of plants, insects, reptiles and animals as well as maps (see below)^[214], reaches the Koperberg hills two months after leaving Cape Town^[215]. The hills ‘were found to be stained green with copper minerals’ and shafts were sunk, yielding more encouraging results at depth^[216]. The remoteness of the area, its aridity, and transport costs, however, discouraged further operations, and the expedition began return journey in November to arrive back in Cape Town early the following year^[217].

Van der Stel’s journey is documented in a journal kept by Claudius^[218], and is quoted at length here because it was such a critical first journey north towards the Orange / !Garieb River accompanied by illuminating depictions of encounters with local people.

26 Aug. Travels north with Tygerberg§ on R. (east), camping at Stinck R§., so-called such because ‘in the dry time the water there stinks’^[219].

27 Aug. At plains ENE beyond Tygerberg, they camp noting

the mostly clay soils, very well suited to agriculture, sufficiently provided with grass and water, for which reason the Hottentots stay here all the year round with their kraals, three of which we passed today, namely two of Capt^[220]. Schagger and one of Capt. Kuijper^[221], who came towards the evening to present a slaughter-ox to the Hon. Commander, in return for which he was presented with some tobacco and brandy.^[222]   

28 Aug. Course set through ‘Mosselbancx Hills§’ and along ‘Mosselbancx River§’ stretching east and west, ‘so named because mussels are sometimes found in it’ [= Dieprivier§?], forded ‘passed a military kraal [on a steep hill] belonging to Capt. Dogges Meester’^[223]. Passes 'Paerden Bergh§' W by N and 'Kleijne Paerden Bergh§' SE by S [293] through valley described as ‘a lovely, luscious valley, very good soil and suitable to be cultivated by a number of households, watered by a little river, springing from the aforementioned Paerden Bergh, pleasant water, stretching East and West, overgrown on the sides with small thorn trees, but no other firewood’^[224]. Crosses Bergh River after which 'we had on the right very high, stony mountains, lying on the far side of the Bergh River, sometimes covered with snow, but nevertheless inhabited by a nation called Obiquas**, who keep themselves alive by robbing and stealing from other Hottentots. Seeing that they themselves do not have any cattle at all, or anything to live by, they thus capture their neighbours’ cattle’^[225].

30 August – after getting ‘baggage through with great difficulty’ in land wet following rains, van der Stel’s expedition marches

around a hill until we came to the mountain called Ribeecx Casteel§, below which was an exceptional valley, well provided with everything and watered by a pleasant river. This mountain bears the name of the Hon. Commander Ribeecq, and is provided with a cave into which one can enter. For the rest it is wild and waste, overgrown with trees suitable for timber. We then trekked on to the southern corner of the aforementioned Casteel and determined from there the head of the Lion Hill§ to be SSW 3 deg. westerly. From there we marched up a steep hill, being a kloof between Ribeecx Casteel and a nameless mountain which lay to our right. Having reached the top the land and mountain on the far side of the Bergh River appeared to us very pleasant, a pleasure to behold, and the plain one of exceptional size. Descending from this height, we camped, having the southern corner of the afore-mentioned Casteel NNW of us. This spot was copiously provided with grass and water.^[226] 

Different depictions of Governor Simon van der Stel’s expedition from an emerging Cape Town to the Copperberg/Koperberg near present-day Okiep§ / Springbok§ in 1685. The lefthand map is by Claudius, van der Stel’s journalist on the expedition, in which the journey north is indicated by a red line and the return by a yellow line. In this map ‘[a] total of 26 important topographic features are numbered and named in the legend and a red monogram situated close to Table Bay certifies Claudius as the author’. In the centre is a similar map found in the Bibliotheque National in Paris which seems to be a copy of Claudius map. The righthand map is a modern reconstruction of this journey.

Sources: left (copyright Dutch National Archives, 4 Vel 851) and centre (copyright Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris. Pf. 114, Division 2, P.1) are from **http://www.worldhistory.biz/sundries/47620-claudius-map-of-governor-van-der-stel-s-journey-to-the-copper-mountains-1685.html#1663 210817; right (copyright Iziko Museums, Cape Town) is from Wilson, M. L. (ed.). 2002. Codex Witsenii. Cape Town: IzikoMuseums, p.**.

After Ribeecx Casteel (31 August),

we at last came to the Bergh River at a place called the Sonquas Deurdrift§, where we found slaty soil which seemed suitable for roofing houses. This river receives its name from the mountains where it has its source and by which it is so to speak walled in on the sides, and is swelled by a small river called the Kleijne Bergh River§, which also springs from the said mountains. It stretches mostly East and West, meandering through the countryside until finally its waters flow into the sea at St. Helena Bay§. Along its banks it is also overgrown with trees suitable for timber.^[227]

1st Sept.

we departed from the 3 Huijsjes marching along the Bergh River towards the Honingh Bergen§, where we crossed a streamlet coming from inland and flowing into the aforementioned Bergh River. From there we came straight down and came to the mountain from which the 24 streamlets or rivulets flow, on account of which it is named the 24 Rivers§. Then we determined the origin of the Kleijne Bergh River to be by estimation 2 miles SE of us and the aforesaid 24 Rivers 3 miles at right angles to our course. From there after a 1/4 mile march we came to a place called the Groote Gat§, also lying on the said Bergh River, and having trekked on another 1/2 mile we came right next to the southern tip of the Honingh Berghen. These mountains are two in number, of reasonable height, cut through by a kloof, and get their name from the honey that is found there.^[228] Near the 24 Rivers we had seen several huts or little houses belonging to the aforementioned marauders or Obiquas, built in the same manner as other Hottentot huts with this difference that they cover it with branches and shrubs whereas the others, on the contrary, do so with mats, which they themselves make from a certain type of reed. Today the Hon. Commander also issued an order (seeing that we were more and more approaching the Hottentot kraals) that none of our people should have carnal intercourse with the Hottentot nation, under penalty of being whipped and being expelled from the Hon. Company as a rogue.^[229] 

Further north on hills along the Bergh River van der Stel observes the ‘preij plant’ growing ‘wild and in abundance ... being so potent that all the veld was filled with its scent’, after which 'we came to a ford called Misverstant' [near present day Misverstand Dam?] ^[230]. At this ford they make 'preparations to transport our baggage across the Bergh River. Also today the sergeant arrived who had left the Cape eight days before us to barter cattle and sheep which we needed for the journey, of which he had obtained a goodly number'^[231].

Here on 4th Sept. they see,

5 Hottentots who took to heel as soon as they saw us; whereupon the Hon. Commander ordered a sergeant with 2 men to follow them, who by gesturing and showing that no harm was meant, got them to stop and allow an approach. Having been given a pipe of tobacco, they were brought to the Hon. Commander who had them questioned by the Hottentots we had with us as to which tribes they belonged to. They said that they were Sonquas or Obiquas, and that they had come here to search for an eland which they had shot a few days earlier with poisoned arrows. They carried arrows, bows and assegais and have no cattle; they live off honey and wild animals which they shoot. They had rough and scaly skins, which comes from the hunger which they often suffer and the lack of fat to smear themselves. The Hon. Commander presented them with a sheep, and although they were not people with any education, they had the civility to give him in return 3 serval cat skins. They forthwith cut the throat of the sheep and skinned it, and then cut off both the forequarters. They allowed nothing of it to be wasted except 4 small glands which are located in the hindquarters, which they cut out and threw away. Questioned as to why they did that, they could not give any other reason than that they never ate these. They thrust the meat under the embers for 1/2 an hour, and then feasted on it until it was finished, gnawing at the haunches just like animals.^[232] 

On 5th Sept. With a high mountain (possibly Koringberg?) on the left they come

to a fountain where there was fine grass and water, in the neighbourhood of, we also found a small kraal belonging to the aforementioned Sonquas, in which no one was found, except the five who were still with us. The rest had gone hunting.^[233] 

Then they

followed a course northwards past the Pieket Bergh, coming to a resting-place where we set about to see whether this was sufficiently supplied with water and grass, which we found to be the case. Meanwhile a rhinoceros of unbelievable size appeared which headed straight for the middle of our procession with great fury and anger; he ran along it to the rear where the Hon. Command I was with his carriage, on whom it bore down. The Hon. Commander barely had time to leave the carriage, but jumped from it all the same with a blunderbuss in his hand and aimed at the beast which was scarcely 6 yards from him, intending to shoot; but the blunderbuss misfired, the rear catch striking on the front one. And the furious animal which we otherwise were sure would have devoured the Hon. Commander in our presence, by great fortune ran past him brushing against his body. We believe that it took fright as a result of a shot which one of the hunters fired at it. It ran forth at great speed, away from us. Several others, who were on horseback, were also unable to avoid it, and quit their horses in great consternation, injuring themselves in various places. We had trekked over many hills this day, all having sandy and stony soils. The aforementioned Pieket Bergh along which we had marched and below which we were still camping gets its name (seeing that the Hon. Company at the time when the Hon. Goske was Governor was at war with the Goenjemans [??]) from some of the Company’s servants having been in merry spirits and having played piquet^[234] on it, who therefore gave it the name of the Pieket Bergh. … We remained camped here because the heavy rain which fell prevented any marching. We gave this place the name of Rhenosters Krael, on account of the incident which befell us there. Here is also found a type of European slate.^[235] 

9th Sept. Disputes of Sonquas and Amaquas mentioned in Valentijn ms^[236].

7th Sept.

We left our resting-place at 7 o'clock in the morning, set our course westerly, still along the aforementioned Pieket Bergh. Found there lovely clay and sandy clay soils, plentifully grown with grass and wild oats, also watered by several brooks springing from the abovenamed mountain, and everywhere provided with good firewood and timber. A certain freeman, having gone out ahead of our procession, had shot an eland weighing at a guess as much as a thousand pounds, which was the cause that we had to camp after only 2 hours’ marching in order to slaughter the aforesaid animal and to take it with us for our needs. We then camped on a very big plain to which we gave the name of Elands Krael, because the aforesaid eland had been shot there. …^[237][pp. 305-309, to add**]

9th Sept.

Two kraals of Chocoquas encountered [Theal version], described as ‘Kraalen van Capitein Goereman [Valentijn ms]^[238].  

14 Sept.

… we came to the mountains called Bergh Fonteijn, because a spring rises on the one side of it and was first discovered by Lieutenant Bergh, and it gives very pleasant water. This mountain has an echo of which it is believed that it has few rivals, for it gave a multitude of echoes to the blowing of a trumpet. Below the mountain lay a valley with beautiful fat clay soil, well grown with grass, but brackish water. Continuing, we reached the ridge of the said mountain, where we had a further high, stony and sandy hill before us, the top of which we reached with great difficulty. From the top a very wide plain lay in front of us, stretching East and West along the mountains towards the sea-shore. We determined the sea to be 7 miles away W by S. From there we marched from the gently downwards sloping plain to below the Dassenbergh, named after the multitude of dassies living amongst the rocks of that mountain. The same is full of caverns and caves, resembling very much an old and dilapidated building. At the foot of this mountain we had to camp, because this day we had traversed deep and high sand trails by which our draught-animals were very tired and unable on this day to trek over the great heigh which lay in front of us. At this resting-place there was exceptionally fine grass, and it is watered by several fast-running springs giving very sweet and pleasant water; and the mountains were also well stocked with firewood. The Hon. Commander, climbing the mountain this afternoon, shot on the way a klipspringer, much resembling the roe-deer in Europe but much smaller; as well as a hare having a muzzle like a jackal and a tail like a fox. It has a very pleasant taste and white meat…^[239] 

15th Sept.

After taking several courses we at last came to the Eliphants River, where it stretches out in two arms. Marching along it for a short while, we came to the ford where we camped, as this was the place where we had to cross. This river has its source in the mountains which lay to the East of us and runs with many bends to the West, and finally discharges its water into the sea. It takes its name from the elephants which are often found in large numbers hereabouts, is also overgrown with trees - a kind called wilgenhout as well as thorn trees which bear fruit resembling Turkish beans but which are totally wild and unpalatable. This resting-place was abundantly provided with grass. … We made ready to transport our baggage over the Eliphants River, but owing to the rainy weather, such could not be completed. Therefore we were compelled to remain camped. In this river as also in the Bergh River fish are found resembling very much the berm in Holland. …’ Here – they ‘were able to ascertain from the Gregricquas, [that the Oliphants R. is fed in part from] springs from the Hesiquas Mountains and is inhabited along its sides by Sonquas. By investigation and enquiry we find that the aforesaid Sonquas are like the poor in Europe of which each Hottentot tribe has its own, and are used by them to give warning whenever they notice a strange tribe. They steal nothing from their own kraals in whose service they are, but from others, whether in war or peace, as they themselves, as reported by the said [315] Obiquas, have nothing except what they gain by plunder’.^[240] 

17th Sept.

… the freemen who had been in convoy with us with their wagons thus far, took their leave and at their request the Hon. Commander gave them permission to shoot hippopotami, elands and rhinoceroses.^[241] 

18th Sept.

… somewhere north of the Oliphants River they come to the ‘Baviaens Bergh§’, named after baboons where they find a ‘multitude of quails’ that ‘[t]he Hottentots we had with us hunted’ [p. 317] ‘setting themselves up in a row, each with a kerry in the hand (that is, a heavy walking-stick), beating along the veld. The moment they chase up a quail, they are able to throw it at them in flight with great skill. In the same way they hunt partridges, hares and all sorts of small game.^[242]

20th Sept.

… arrive at the Backelei Plaets (north of Vredendal on east side of Oliphants Riv.) where 21st Sept. after it was

reported to the Hon. Commander that there was a kraal of Hottentots in the vicinity, namely Gregriquas, three men were ordered to go there to visit them and to persuade them to [319] come to us with their huts [i.e. portable reed huts] and cattle. But when the men came there, they had left the previous evening, out of fear that their cattle would be taken from them, because they had risen up against their captain who had been appointed by the Hon. Company and who carried its staff with a copper knob bearing the Company's mark, and had taken away his cattle. Or otherwise because they did not want to barter any cattle. However, that it was out of fear that we would take their cattle became evident from the fact that they themselves, to the number of about 50 persons, came to us this evening with some sheep, to enquire, as it seemed, whether any harm would be undertaken against them. As they could not detect anything, seeing that nothing but friendship was shown towards them in giving tobacco and pouring brandy, and in other ways too, they decided to send some of them this very evening to fetch the women, huts and cattle. …
[22nd Sept.] We were obliged to remain here as we were expecting the said Hottentots’ kraal, in order to barter some animals and milk from them for tobacco. A part of them came here this afternoon, made a kraal and soon afterwards brought their milk and some animals to us, to barter. Whereupon the Hon. Commander treated them to mutton and rice, and poured them some brandy, with which they made merry all night.

[23rd Sept.] We were still at the aforementioned place, because the Hottentots had asked us to remain here one more day and promised to barter more animals with us, which happened towards midday. Meanwhile the Hon. Commander tried to solve the dispute concerning the said Gregriquas, part of whom were gathered here, by way of many counsellings by the Hon. Commander to do so, seeing that they were a small tribe and to fight amongst one another was bad, and that other Hottentots could so much more easily rob them of their cattle. Whereupon the matter was settled and they promised to return the cattle (which the Hon. Commander paid for, one by one, with tobacco, to their greater satisfaction) to the aforesaid Captain, and furthermore to live in peace with one another. This afternoon [p. 321] the Hon. Commander went to the said kraal. Arriving there, we found them slaughtering a sheep to give a farewell meal for one of their leaders who was to travel with us. This slaughtering was carried out as follows: First they laid it on its back, and one of them cut open the belly, thrust his hand in there and pulled out the intestines while the sheep was still alive[??]. Thereafter the skin was stripped in a careless way from the one side and then the meat was cut from the shoulder blade. The ribs were broken from one side of the back-bone and ‘peeled’ from the meat one by one, which was also done on the other side, in the same way. The reason why they do not cut the throat of the animals slaughtered by them, is to have the blood, which they collect neatly, boil up, and then eat; indeed in times of famine even the hide is roasted and eaten by them, so that of the whole sheep nothing is thrown away except the dung.^[243]      

24th Sept.

… they leave the Backelei Plaets and cross what seems to be the Holriver - normally dry but is 3 feet deep and takes two hours to cross, and is described as flanked by ‘several large hills, some of which seemed to contain minerals.^[244] 

25th Sept.

… pass through place called the ‘Hooge Krael§’ [p. 323] ‘where the mountains, judging by appearances seemed to be mostly mineral bearing’ and describes the march on this day as 'very difficult'. 26th Sept. ‘after taking many courses’ they pass the 2 Eerste Modderkuijlen (‘Muddy Holes’), so-called ‘because previous travellers found no water there other than that in the two holes, which was very muddy and brackish at that’^[245]. From here they ‘marched over 3 very high hills and then came below Meerhofs Casteel’ described as ‘a mountain named after a person who also travelled across this region’ (see 1662 above) and which van der Stel climbs^[246]. The place is described as

poorly provided with grass as the ground in the hollow was very stony, but watered by a small, flowing stream, never noticed before now. The water was slightly brackish but suitable for use. As there are no trees here we were compelled to use undergrowth and scrub as firewood, as we had done some days previously.^[247] 

In between here and the last Modderkuijl (= Bitterfontein?) they struggle with lack of grazing and water, and the exhaustion of their animals, and note that the area is ‘uninhabited except by Sonquas who roam across it and are in the service of the Amacquas’^[248]. At the spring 'on account of it being totally overgrown the Hon. Commander ordered that it should be cleared, so that we would be able on our return to find water here, since there was no other water here suitable for use, excepting a small spring under a rock which was rather brackish and scanty. The flowing water found hereabouts is very salty and emits a briny smell^[249].

29th Sept. at the

Kleijne Doorn Bos River [Swaart Doorn Riv.], so called because of the thorn trees which are here and there found along it. Previous travellers have found no water in it, or very little, but on the contrary it now had water as much as three feet deep in several places and flowed fast. … This day we had exceptionally hot weather and as a result we were pestered by a kind of fly called blind flies, yellow in colour, also black. They sting with a barb which they have in the front part of the head, to the great vexation of men and beasts. According to Hottentot information they are found here until a certain flower resembling very much the marigold starts to wither, when the flies also disappear altogether. Our halting-place was scantily provided with grass and mostly overgrown with wild undergrowth which the animals could not eat^[250].

30th Sept., in between the Swaart Doorn Riv. and the Groen Riv. (Groote Doorn Bosch Riv.) to the north they reach ‘a very high hill’ from where WSW they see the sea^[251]. The Groene Riv. they find ‘deep and flowing rapidly’ even though previous travellers ‘have found no water in this river except in the little furrows and holes’^[252]. Moving north along the Groene Riv. they

noticed a fire at night, whereupon the Hon. Commander ordered a Sergeant with 10 men and some of the Hottentots who were with us to enquire what it could mean. Having been away for about 3 hours he returned, accompanied by an Amacquas Sonqua and reported that [331] he had seen about 20 of the same together. Then he had sent out one of his Hottentots, according to the order of the Hon. Commander, to request them to come to us and to promise that they would not be harmed. But as soon as they had seen him, even though he called to them to remain, they took flight in great confusion, leaving behind all their weapons - arrows, bows, assegais. Seeing this, the Sergeant immediately went after them and called to his Hottentots to get hold of one of them if possible. They then caught up with the aforesaid one and brought him. The Hon. Commander caused him to be treated well and to be questioned forthwith as to why they fled, but he had taken such a fright that for a long time he could not speak a single word. For this reason he was kept with us for the night. [Here they] remained encamped here to repair our damaged wagons and carts, for which the opportunity was good as the timber here was heavy enough to make axles, side-shafts, shafts and whatever we had need of, and also for carpentry. The Hon. Commander sent out the abovementioned Sonqua, whom we had kept with us for the night, together with one of our Hottentots to see whether he could find his comrades who had fled the previous night, and bring them to us. He was given some tobacco to present to them as a sign of friendship. Shortly after his departure we saw 3 fires burning on the other side of the river, at which our Hottentots immediately went off with their arrows, bows and assegais to discover who might be there. As they went up the mountain those who were at the fire, namely 5 of the aforesaid Sonquas, took to flight, but at last by shouting that no harm would be done, they came to a halt and resolved to come to us. Meanwhile those we had sent out before, returned with the remaining Sonquas. They were all very thin and frail in appearance, owing to the great hunger and deprivation which they suffer. They eat nothing but the bulbs of flowers which they call uijentjes, also tortoises and a certain type of large caterpillar, and locusts which are found here in great numbers. The Hon. Commander caused a sheep to be slaughtered for them, cooked [333] with rice and bread, to which they were treated. This they ate so greedily that it seemed they would never be satisfied. Thereafter he poured them some brandy with which they made merry, dancing, singing and shouting in a very strange manner, which could not be described otherwise than a lot of young calves which are let out of the stable for the first time. [van der Stel’s diarist claims that] Without a doubt, and also according to their own acknowledgement, it was the first joyful day which they had ever had in their lives.^[253]   

3rd October, moving northwards through a kloof in the mountains, seemingly the first European to do so, they encounter ‘aloe trees’ and note that

as the Sonquas inform us, most of the mountains here have such trees. While we were still on the way the aforementioned Sonquas who had departed from us in the morning, came to us again, with women and children. The Hon. Commander caused them, as he had done the previous evening, to be well treated, on account of which there was no less singing and shouting than before.^[254] 

North again, they remain

because the Sonquas had reported that [335] there were some Amacqua kraals in the neighbourhood. The Hon. Commander at once sent out 4 of the Hottentots we had with us to find these kraals, giving them tobacco and pipes to present to the captains of the said kraals, and to request at the same time whether they would come to us. Towards the evening some Amacquas came, amongst whom was a son of a certain Capt. Nonce, whose kraal, they said, was near us. They said that 5 more kraals belonging to various Captains lay near one another further inland, who had intended to attack us when we entered their land and to take away all the cattle. The Hon. Commander received these Amacquas very civilly, treating them to brandy, tobacco and food, with which they were busy the whole night. … We remained here to await the Hottentots we had sent out. The said Amacquas departed, returning to their kraal. In the afternoon Capt. Nonce came to us in person, and with him a large number of Hottentots as well as several of their wives and children. He was riding a pack-ox and in addition they had with them 11 milch-cows and an ox which carried his baggage. He stepped into the Hon. Commander’s tent, intending to present him with a sheep and a can of milk, whereupon the Hon. Commander asked whether he would be prepared to barter. He replied that he had no cattle and was a poor devil, to which was replied that he should keep his sheep, and that our nation was of such nature that they did not take from any poor but rather gave to them, and that he would therefore rather treat him with his own sheep. At this answer he stood quite nonplussed, not knowing what to make of it. He at once had 6 sheep brought to the tent as a present, but they were also refused. He then requested the Hon. Commander to accept them adding that he had plenty of animals to barter, that he was not one of those who wished to make war, but also adding that he was the ruler here and the Hon. Commander at the Cape. At this a pretence was made of breaking camp and to march threateningly to his kraal to see who would be the ruler. He was quite taken aback by these words and began to speak much more politely, saying that the other captains had said this, but not he. He sent his son to [337] the kraal to have it broken up and to come and lie nearer us with it. In the mean time the Hon Commander had him and all the rest treated well, with which entertainment they were well pleased and they displayed a great liking for us. [6th Oct.] … The son of the said Capt. Nonce returned to us pretending that the kraal, to which he had been, could not come because of the large marshes on the way, which was in direct conflict with what he had said a few days before, when he had declared that it was a very suitable way for us to travel with carts and wagons. From this one could perceive that he intended some roguery with us, all the more as he had received previous travellers with ill-feelings. He is generally known as Joncker. In all his dealings he showed not to have the least respect for his father, who had to keep silent when he started speaking. When the Hon. Commander noticed this he ordered him to be silent and that he should let his father speak, to which he answered that his father was no captain but that he himself was such. On account of these and other bad traits which we noticed in him the Hon- Commander had him arrested [!!] and one other from the Kraal whom they called Rabi (being also one of the main ringleaders). It was also decided there and then to send a sergeant with 20 men to the kraal the next day to see whether they would come to us with goodwill, and if they refused to compel them by force [!!]. [7th Oct.] The said sergeant with his men left in the morning at daybreak to find the kraal and returned with the same in the afternoon, well provided with milch-cows but not so well with oxen and sheep. The sergeant reported that when he had arrived at the kraal, many of them had taken to flight. Therefore he had ordered the Hottentots whom he had with him to tell them that no harm would be done to them if they came with him willingly [=coercion!!]. In the mean time he had taken possession of all their weapons. Seeing themselves overpowered they broke up to accompany him, and they confirmed the truth that the roads were quite impossible to traverse with carts or wagons. For the same reason they were compelled to unload several pack-oxen which had been loaded with the kraal’s things. The Hon. Commander again had the aforesaid Joncker brought to him in his tent asking him what [339] reason he had for showing us a wrong route. He denied having ever thought or said such, while on the contrary his own people in his presence acknowledged it and at the same time accused him that he had not come to the kraal to fetch it but that he had given orders that they should prepare to move away; and also that he had sent some of his people to the other kraals to urge them not to break up and come to us, as he pretended to know that we had no good intentions with them. From this it was clear that he had intended misleading and delaying us, so that he was retained in custody under heavy threat of punishment. His father was presented to the people of the kraal in order that they should again accept him as their Captain and recognise no one else as such; which, it seemed they could not quite accept. But in the end they were forced by threats to do so. [8th Oct.] We were compelled to remain here, as the Hottentots we had sent out had not yet returned. We were constrained to await them, because they were appointed to return to us at this place. In the mean time the said Capt. Nonce came with cattle, sheep and milk to barter them with us. He also sent out two of his kraal’s people to find out where the other captains were holding out and to say at the same time that he had experienced no harm and that they could therefore come to us freely and without fear. [9th Oct.] Capt. Nonce again came with cattle and milk to barter, seemingly well pleased. Towards the evening our Hottentots whom we had sent out returned bringing with them five captains named Oedesson, Harramoe, Otwa, Habij and Ace, who in their manner welcomed the Hon. Commander, showing great joy at his coming, especially Oedesson who repeatedly stroked the Hon. Commander's body, patted him on the shoulder and pointed to his breast, by which he wanted to indicate the kind heart he bore towards him. Seeing that the captains were now together, the intrigues of the aforesaid Joncker and Rabi were exposed and they were asked what punishment they considered to have been earned. About this they consulted with each other for a long time. At last they requested that he, Joncker, might be pardoned on this occasion and that they [341] would propose a ruling to him in the presence of the Hon. Commander, according to which he would have to conduct himself in future. This request was granted. He was then notified that he was not to bear the name of Captain any longer but would have to be content to be only a soldier; that he should undertake no further mischief against the Company; also that he was to acknowledge his father as Captain and to accord him his due respect; and if he violated any of these, they, the captains, would join with each other and would punish him [!!] with death without mercy. He promised to observe all this, whereupon he was discharged. [10th Oct.] We remained camped here to question the said captains further about their country and its customs and to decide at the same time at which place they would join us with their kraals so that we could barter cattle from them, and also to make a further peace contract with them. For this purpose they appointed a place and promised to go there with us themselves. They had the second detainee called Rabi brought before them and after having examined him for a long time they condemned him to be punished with some strokes on the buttocks [!!!] and if he were again to act with such evil intentions they would punish him in the way they had proposed to Joncker. However, through the many pleas of others he was freed from the punishment to which he had been condemned, under promise of betterment. Out of gratitude he presented his advocates with a fine milch-cow. The Hon. Commander caused the captains and their wives to be entertained with food, strong drink and tobacco in order to draw them more and more to us, through which treatment one could clearly notice that they became more resolute in answering to what was asked of them, especially when they noticed that no evil was intended towards them. [11th Oct.] We left this resting-place in the morning at 7 o'clock and set our course towards a kloof between two exceptionally high mountains, which we ascended with little difficulty. Reaching the top, we found these mountains to be quite flat. We continued marching and reached the mountains where the lieutenant Olaf Bergh had to turn back in the year 1683.^[255]               

Indicating the difficult terrain the mountains here (around Garies) are described as

unbelievably high and consist of nothing but massive steep rocks and to all appearances impossible to climb. From there, after marching 1/2 mile, we reached a place where we found ourselves compelled to camp, the reason being that on the flat of the mountain right up to this halting-place of ours we had had nothing but marsh in which animals, carts and wagons continuously remained stuck, necessitating several times that other animals had to be put into the yoke, which had tired man and beast to such an extent that they seemed to be powerless. That the tracks on and between these hills are so impassable comes from the fact that the soil is full of rocks with much sand between them which the rain which fell in the past severe rainy season turned into marshes. As the water cannot soak into these stony soils but has to be dried off solely by the heat of the sun, this causes impassable tracks here for long periods, and as the Amacquas inform us here, this past rainy season has been the only one which has wet this region in four years. This resting-place of ours was reasonably provided with grass and water and the firewood was small thorn trees found here along a streamlet. … The Hon. Commander resolved to remain lying here because we surmised similar deep and difficult tracks, for which reason we dared not march forth without first having had them inspected. On which account a sergeant with 6 men was commanded to investigate the matter. He returned in the afternoon reporting that the tracks were fairly better than the ones we had had the previous day, having found only here and there a hollow that was marshy. The weather this day was altogether hazy and misty. [12th Oct.] We broke camp at 6.30 in the morning in foggy weather and set our course towards the ridge of a mountain around which we marched. From there we trekked into a very high kloof between two high, stony mountains below which flowed several streamlets with sweet and pleasant water.^[256]   

In similar terrain, a little further on, ‘[t]owards evening 3 kraals came to settle on the other side of the river near us to barter some cattle and milk with us’ and [14th Oct.] they remained

lying here to negotiate further with the Amacquas, as related above, which succeeded along these lines with the following terms and conditions: That we would forever live in a good, wholesome peace with each other. That they, Amacquas, would no more wage war amongst themselves !], and should such be violated by anyone, that the Hon. Company would then be bound to assist and lend a helping hand to whomever they judged to be in the right [=promise of protection]. Also, that the Hon. Commander would advise the Cape Hottentots, Hesicquas, Gregricquas and others resorting under the Hon. Company’s district, and make known the peace concluded here; and would furthermore forbid them to undertake any hostility against them, so that they [the Amacquas] might come in freedom and liberty to the Cape of Good Hope to deal with the Hon. Company. Nothing was agreed with them concerning the Koper Bergh because we did not know as yet how things stood with it and with the search for a bay. So it was postponed until we should have investigated it more closely. Capt. Oedesson [a Namaqua Captain] offered his services to give information about everything and to guide us there. These Amacquas had some gum coming from the trees as well as some glistening sand which was judged to be mineral-bearing. They declared unanimously, the captains as well as the ordinary folk, that they obtained it from a river called by them Eijn [= the !Garieb/Orange]. According to them it is very deep towards the seaward side and flows unusually fast there. From the Koper Bergh one could reach it in 10 days, [347] and it lies, according to the Hon. Commander’s calculation, on the same latitude as the river Vigiti Magni[‘the vast river of which the Portuguese had written’^[257]], and is inhabited along its sides as far as the sea-coast by Hottentots of various tribes, but according to them it is impossible to get there with carts and wagons. As it was the birthday of the Hon. Commander today, we fired in his honour 3 volleys, each followed by a cannon-shot. When the Amacquas became aware of this, they came to honour the Hon. Commander with some music, which consisted of long, hollow reeds, on which each one knows how to blow a special note, and it gives off a sound which cannot better be compared with anything than with the sound of an organ. They all stood in a circle, being a full 20 in number, and in the middle of them one who had a long, thin stick in his hand. He led the singing and beat the time to which they all played correctly. They all jumped around, holding one hand to the ear and with the other holding the reed to the mouth. Around these musicians were men and women who danced to this sound, enlarging it by clapping their hands, all of which took place very orderly considering that they are wild people. This playing lasted the whole day. The Hon. Commander meanwhile had an ox slaughtered to treat the captains, musicians and dancers, which indeed happened after this comedy ended. He gave them some arrack, with which they delighted themselves further and left again for their kraal. This day they had also bartered several animals, and towards the evening another kraal settled near us, who, like the ones already with us, came with their milk to request tobacco for it. [15th Oct.] We remained lying here to see whether the kraal which joined us last wished to barter something more. In the mean time another kraal came here, who today also bartered some cattle with us. In the afternoon we started making preparations to depart the following day. Towards the evening the Amacquas’ captains came again, followed by the aforementioned musicians to take leave of the Hon. Commander. It was also resolved that 2 captains would go with us to give information about everything, namely Oedesson and Habij. The Hop. Commander presented them with 3 sheep and some bottles of arrack with which they and the musicians as well as all the kraal's people made merry the whole night.^[258]   

‘Two natives, man and woman’, Source: Waterhouse 1924, Fig. 3.

These Namaquas belong to the Hottentot race and live in 29° 31' south latitude, but they have no fixed abode. According to the season of the year, they go into the mountains and then back to the valleys and the shore, wherever they find the best pasture. When they have consumed the forage in any place, they move on in search of other spots where they can maintain themselves.

[310] The men wear an iron plate on their foreheads. They know how to make these plates and they polish them so smoothly that they shine in the sun, as may be seen from the accompanying sketch [?]. They wear the skins of dassies [‘badger’, ‘cony’, ‘mountain-rabbit’], jackals and wild cats, just like the Cape Hottentots, but longer, cleaner, and not greased. Before their pudenda they wear an ivory plate, and black beads as ornaments round their neck and middle. These beads are of different sizes, but mostly like hazel nuts. They make them very cleverly from a certain gum, which falls into the neighbouring river. They also make round beads from the copper which their mountains produce, and they thread them artistically between the other beads.

        In their hand they usually carry the tail of a wild cat stretched on a stick, with which they wipe their faces and particularly their eyes.

        Their weapons consist of a poisoned assegai and a quiver with poisoned arrows, for which they get the poison both from snakes and from the mountains. They are lighter in colour and cleaner in body than the Cape Hottentots, of equal stature but clumsy in figure, living more rudely, without laws or religion. Whoever has the most cattle is considered to be the most important man among them, and they seem to fear nothing except thunder and lightning.

        They are very mendacious and deceitful. They eat everything that comes their way, down to rats, dogs, cats, caterpillars, locusts, etc. For hares alone they have great distaste and loathing so that they will not partake of any dish containing hare, whether boiled or roasted.

         Their drink is mostly fresh milk and butter-milk. They smear their bodies with butter and generally chew a certain herb called Canna. They pound it root and stem together between stones and store and preserve it in bags made of sheepskin. In October, when we were approaching the Copper Mountain, everybody was gathering this herb on the surrounding mountains as a supply for the whole year. They use it as the natives of India use betel or areca. They are of a cheerful disposition and almost every evening in their gatherings they dance to the accompaniment of their flutes, which have a monotonous note, somewhat resembling an organ. They lend their wives freely to one another and the less jealous the husbands, the more lascivious are the women. The latter wear on either side of the head a sharply pointed, oval piece of ivory fastened in their hair; in their ears and round their neck, stomach, and arms they wear red and black beads. Over their shoulders they wear, like the men, the skins of wild animals, mostly jackals. They twist a number of straps round their middles, cut from ox-hide and neatly arranged to cover their pudenda.^[259] 

On 16th Oct. they move northwards through the kloofs and mountainous terrain of the Kamiesberg, remaining camped at a stream with ‘very sweet water … because the Amacquas captains informed   us that if we trekked any further we should not find any grass or water and that in addition the way lay full of loose stones. … In the afternoon our navigator climbed up one of the said mountains and from there saw the sea in the West, by estimate some 12 to 13 miles from us^[260]. Continuing further north and descending from high hills several carts and wagons ‘overturn and break down’ and they camp at a place with brackish water ‘enclosed by very high mountains overgrown with aloe trees, without any other type of tree’^[261]. North again, near present-day Kamiesdroon, they camp at a wide river and repair their wagons, continuing due north and speaking of ‘tracks travelled by us’ as ‘nothing else but sand and stony ground’, on 20th Oct. travelling to a spring ‘which, as the Amacquas inform us, gives water all the year round’, followed on 21st Oct. ‘after various courses’ by ‘a very high mountain being of solid rock only; and, as the Amacquas informed us, on top of the same rose a fountain of very good water’^[262].

At this point, on 21st Oct. and after marching

across a very large wide plain until we came to a kloof into which we went, and where we found ourselves to be at our destined place, namely the Koper Bergen, where we set ourselves down, right in front of a kloof of one of the said mountains, from amongst which came a spring with lovely cool and pleasant drinking-water. This spring, as we later discovered, had its source in a rocky hill about a shot’s distance away from these mountains, and was overgrown with trees, rushes and reeds. This place is stony and has sandy soil and in several places we found good clay about 2 feet deep, which allowed itself to be worked very pliably. … [22nd Oct.]  The Hon. Commander and the mine-foreman began to inspect the mountains. The Hon. Commander went in an easterly direction and the mine-foreman to the West, and they had diggings made in several places to see of what sort of mineral the mountains might be. They were spotted with verdigris from bottom to top, even on the loose rocks, which gave the Hon. Commander and the mine-foreman good hope of finding something exceptional; but the mine-foreman, after he had let them work for some time, judged that one would not find anything and nearly gave up hope altogether, whereas the Hon. Commander on the other hand had good hopes and pointed out to him in which places he thought one ought to dig. It was decided to start on these the next day.^[263]   

The Copper Mountain discovered by the Honourable Simon van der Stel on October 21st 1685, as drawn by Claudius, van der Stel’s journalist.

Key:

728b. A.A.A. This is the Copper Mountain discovered by the Honourable Simon van der Stel on October 21st 1685 and explored by him in person for fully ten miles. It consists of one lode and vein throughout, which rises from below ground and ascends to the top of the mountain and is at least eight or nine feet wide but in most parts from eight to twelve yards. It was observed to be all of one colour, with a covering of verdigris.

H.V.R. A mountain consisting entirely of copper ore from top to bottom, An excavation was therefore made, at least eighteen feet deep, and large quantities of rich mineral were disclosed.

S.M. A mountain half of ore, but the interior is believed to be as rich as H.V.R. and to be part of the same lode or vein. An excavation was therefore made, four feet deep, and disclosed very good mineral.

729a. S.V.S. A mountain with a great level section which cuts through the above-mentioned lode for fully eight to ten yards in depth. It was tested to a depth of two feet and the ore was found to be as good as the preceding.

B.B.B. The lode or vein of copper, which was followed, as aforesaid, for fully ten miles. Its termination is unknown.

C.C.C. A spring or brook with a constant flow of water, both banks overgrown with the same kind of reeds as in the Netherlands.

D.D.D. Aloe trees.

Source: Waterhouse, G. (ed.) 1979 Simon van der Stel’s Journey to Namaqualand in 1685. Cape Town and Pretoria: Human & Rousseau, Fig. 1, p. 309; Waterhouse 1924, p. 309.

**include scan of kraal detail

23rd Oct.

At the break of day the miners began to continue the work at two sites and found themselves to be on a wider than usual seam, and the deeper they went the better the mineral showed itself. In the mean time the Hon. Commander sent out several of the men to see what wood and rivers there were in the neighbourhood as at this place there is no wood to be found except aloe trees and thicket. These reported on their return that they had found 2, 3 or 4 miles away several dry rivers, here and there amongst the mountains, grown with thorn trees and a hard sort of wood unknown to us. Thereupon several wagons went thither to chop wood in order to burn charcoal from it, needed for use in smelting and assaying, as it was considered very suitable to the purpose. … [24th Oct] The miners continued their work. Meanwhile the Hon. Commander ordered the mine-foreman and some others to scale the highest part of the mountain, which lay on our West side, to observe from there how the mountains appeared and to investigate at the same time whether any minerals were to be found there. Reaching the top, they found that around this place were nothing but high, massive mountains, having here and there a flat between them. As far as mineral was concerned, no signs of it were to be found in this mountain. Meanwhile the Amacquas revealed to the Hon. Commander that about 3 miles from here there was another mountain also spotted with verdigris, like the mountains over here. Thereupon it was decided to send a sergeant there together with the navigator, and some miners and soldiers, to ascertain whether it was true. During the afternoon the Hon. Commander went to inspect the diggings and found that it was progressing very well. [25th Oct] At 3.30 in the morning the sergeant departed with 10 men for the abovementioned place. They returned at about 6 o’clock in the evening and brought with them some rock spotted as mentioned above and reported in addition that they had found [357] the mineral on a plain where there was no water in the vicinity. On their way they had, however, found several small streams or rivulets, grown with thorn trees. Furthermore they declared that the route was unsuitable to get there with carts or wagons, because of the deep and steeply descending kloofs which would prevent such. Their course and distance from this place was NNW … In the mean time the wood was prepared and set up to burn coals. The Hon. Commander was, with some men, quite busy inspecting the mountains in various places, and found wherever he came that it was one and the same mineral. [26th Oct.] The Hon. Commander started building the assay and smelting ovens, with which he was busy the entire day. In the mean time the mines were worked with utmost diligence. [27th Oct.] The miners, having entirely cleared the loose stones, began to lay charges and fired the first shot at about 10 o'clock, which succeeded well and threw up exceptionally pure mineral, some of which the Hon. Commander smelted to see whether it was indeed what it appeared to be, but found it to be still volatile, as it had lain too near the surface. [28th Oct.] At the break of day the Hon. Commander rode out on horseback with the mine-foreman and some others to inspect the mountains which stretched eastwards, and found that the mountains stretched away for several miles, with mineral seams covered with verdigris. In the mean time the miners were continuing their work. [29th Oct.] Around mid-day the miners again detonated two mines; which threw up lovely mineral, some of which the Hon. Commander again decided to smelt and he found that it contained copper. [30th Oct.] The Hon. Commander went to visit the works, which pleased him very well, as the seams still maintained themselves. [31st Oct.] The work on the mines was continued. The Hon. Commander intended to make definite assays, but as the circumstances did not allow of such, it was postponed [359] until the return to the Cape of Good Hope. [1st Nov.] The miners had progressed to a depth of twice a man’s length at one place and not quite so deep at another, and found that the mineral improved more and more. [2nd Nov.] The Hon. Commander climbed the mountains lying to the West of us and resolved to have them worked for a day or two, as he had the firm intention to depart soon, to see how it would present itself, since there appeared to be a seam fully 2 fathoms wide. Meanwhile they were very busy blasting in the other 2 mines to loosen some ore which the Hon. Commander intended taking with him. [3rd Nov.] The miners began to work on the abovementioned seam and found that it presented itself exceptionally favourably. Work on the other two mines was stopped today. [4th Nov.] Everything was brought into readiness to depart the next day in the direction of the sea. In the mean time they were still very busy to work deeper into the aforesaid seam, as well as to bring down some mineral, to take it along. [5th Nov.] In the morning at 6.30 we departed in misty weather from the Koper Bergen, following the same way as we had come by, and we found that several streamlets which then had contained water had now entirely dried up, even the halting-place from which we had departed on the 21st Oct. We found ourselves compelled to search for water by digging holes, while the rivulet was mostly dried up here, where we remained camped. While lying here the Hon. Commander sent a sergeant and some men back to the aforesaid mountain on which a spring was supposed to be, to investigate. Returning, they reported that they could not find it, but only in descending from the mountain did they find a clear spring of water running down. According to their report they had seen the sea to the West of them, and a flat coastline. … [6th Nov.] In the morning we left this resting-place in fine weather and at about 10 o’clock arrived at the resting-place [361] where we had been on the 20th Oct., which we passed to the right, and we came to the spring passed on the same date and left it lying about 1/2 mile to the left of us. We set our course S by E 1 mile where we came on our old route and trekked along it as far as the camping-place to which we had come on the 18th Oct., called Touse by the Amacquas Hottentots and by us the Sant River, which was now altogether dried up. On this account we were forced to dig waterholes. Grass was still plentiful here. … [7th Nov.] We departed from the Sant River at 6.30 in the morning and followed our old route until we came at approximately 8.30 to the camping-place where we had arrived on the 17th Oct., which we now found completely without water. From there again along the old tracks right up to that difficult kloof through which we had passed on the 17th last, which now hindered us no little as a front wheel of one of our wagons broke in pieces, unfit to be repaired. By this we were compelled to unpack the load and to burden other carts and wagons with it. We had it repaired to such an extent that we barely reached a resting-place with it, being about 3/4 mile from the place where we had camped on the 16th Oct. Grass and water here was scanty. We had a cart made out of this broken (wagon) in order not to be altogether deprived of it. …^[264]           

8th Nov. Further south again, with a ‘very high mountain’ about 6 miles WSW that was ‘judged to lie near the sea’ [= the Grootberg?]

The Amacquas captains who had remained with us up to the present, now began to become quite unwilling to travel any further with us and to give directions about the route, especially Capt. Oedesson and also one Nonce, who was an Amacqua who had fled to the Cape Hottentots, having waged war against the other Arnacquas, and seeing that we were going to travel thither, had proposed to the Hon. Commander to show the way to the Amacquas’ land. Up to now he had done this faithfully and well, but now, altogether misled by the said Oedesson he was also unwilling and started to avail himself of nothing but lies to divert us from our intentions. The Hon. Commander noticed this and decided to detain Oedesson and Nonce, asking them what reason they had to resort to so many lies and excuses and why they refused to show us the way any further. To this they answered that this was not the route to the sea and that it caused their heads to ache to talk any further, so that they refused to give the least answer to anything that was asked of them and for the rest of the whole evening they remained altogether mute. … [9th Nov.] In the morning at daybreak the Hon. Commander sent the navigator with 6 men to the said mountain and also a sergeant with 6 men to look for a route below it. On their return the navigator reported that from the top of that mountain he had seen the sea due West of him about 6 miles away. The coast had sand dunes here and there and he thought he might also have seen a small sandy bay with a sandy island in it [Grootberg looking towards Hondeklip Bay?]. He had determined it to be SW by S from him. Below and along this mountain from where this sight was taken, a large river [?the Spoeg River?][365] flowed into the sea stretching mostly SW. But the route he had covered was altogether unsuitable to be travelled by carts and wagons. The sergeant reported that a good path had been found by him suitable to travel with our baggage, about 4 miles long.  It stretched S by W between the aforesaid mountain and the said river. This river was overgrown with big thorn trees such as are mostly found here. Meanwhile the Hon. Commander resolved to allow the Capt. Habij who was still with us and was feeling ill, to depart for his kraal, but to keep the other two, who were still pretending to be dumb, with us.

[10th Nov.] In the morning at dawn the Hon. Commander sent a sergeant and the navigator with 4 men to the West to see what passage existed there to reach the coast. On their return they reported that they had gone about 4 miles due West but had found the route absolutely unsuitable for travel. At 2 o’clock in the afternoon we broke up to follow the route which the sergeant had reported on the previous day. Meanwhile the said Capt. Habij took leave from us. The Hon. Commander presented him with tobacco, pipes, copper, beads and such further things as they hold to be precious. He also gave him similar presents for the other absent captains of this tribe. From here we went back as far as a small river, from there up a hill. Once over that we marched alongside a brook. Meanwhile these two detainees again started displaying their tricks and promised to show us the direct route to the sea and that the sergeant’s route was not suitable to get there. The Hon. Commander believed them as they bolstered it with a number of apparent reasons. So, with various courses and deviations, we marched according to their directions squarely away from the route found by the sergeant, as far as a high mountain, around which we marched, and through a kloof where we found some Hottentots near us, which made us suspect that there should be some kraals in the vicinity. Continuing we came to a brook, where we camped, as we saw that we were within a ¼ mile of the place where we had camped on the 14th Oct. and that they were still at the same site. Towards the evening all the captains came to us, to whom the Hon. Commander related the experiences with Oedesson and Nonce. [365] It seemed that they were surprised by this and caused Oedesson to come to them, asking him what reason he had to play such roguish tricks, and that against the person who had first treated us well at the Cape and had presented us on departure with manifold gifts, which kindness he was now again showing towards us. And whether he was not now going to cause us to become embroiled in a war with the Hollanders. They suggested thereto that it would be better that they should put him, Oedesson, to death rather than that they should land in such great embarrassment. They brought him at once before the Hon. Commander requesting that he should punish him according to his deserts, and if he would not do that, they would beat him to death. Thereupon the Hon. Commander requested that they should forgive him on this occasion, which they did after they had reprimanded him thoroughly. They also had the other one, i.e. Nonce, come before them. Capt. Otwa, without even hearing him speak, made him take off his karos, that is his cloak of sheepskin, and gave him many blows with a stick on his naked body, and asked the Hon. Commander whether he was satisfied with that, to which he replied yes. Brandy was then poured for the captains and so they departed together for their kraals. … [

11th Nov.] We remained camped here to speak further to the said captains. In the mean time several of the Hottentots came to barter their milk with us.

[12th Nov.] We departed from here at 6·30 in the morning and set our course directly towards the resting-place of 14th Oct. On our way the said captains came to meet us, each presenting to the Hon. Commander a cow. Meanwhile we saw that all the kraal’s people were up and about looking as if they wanted to attack us. The Hon. Commander at once caused a laager to be made, and set up our 2 field-guns horizontally. They went and sat down in large numbers right in front of them showing their ignorance of the power of the same. At this setting up of the guns the captains were very surprised, not knowing what it meant. After all this had been investigated [369] it was found that a Hottentot had come to the kraals asserting that we were going to take away all their cattle, which story had alarmed them thus. When at last they saw that we intended them no harm, they came to us at once and asked that we should remain camped there for the day as they intended bartering some cattle and milk. This was done. Towards the evening the Hon. Commander poured each captain a bottle of arrack, with which they made merry the whole night and now had unshakeable goodwill towards us.

[13th Nov] We broke up at 7 o’clock in the morning and marched along our old route until we reached at about 9.30 the resting-place from which we had set off on the 13th October. We passed it and followed our previous route further, which we now found totally dry. So we came within 1/2 mile of the resting-place where we had camped on the 4th last. We remained here, as we found good water and grass but a scarcity of wood.

[14th Nov.] Early in the morning the Hon. Commander sent a sergeant with the navigator and some men to inspect the route, as we had now come to the place from where we could reach the sea, according to the directions of the Hottentots. They returned, reporting that they had been about 4 miles away, and had found the route suitable for travelling, as well as a camping-place well provided with grass, water and firewood. We had also sent 2 Hottentots back to the kraals, as 4 of the bartered animals had during the previous night set off thither. When the Hottentots came there Oedesson asked why the Hon. Commander had not sent a few Hollanders with them whose necks he would have broken. About this statement he and Capt. Otwa got into such a fierce argument that they hit each other with sticks. The animals were at once sought amongst the others and were again sent to us with some Amacquas. To them the Hon. Commander gave some tobacco for each of the captains except Oedessen, as a token of gratitude. Because of the rainy weather we were compelled to remain here this day.  

[15th Nov.] In the morning we set off from here and travelled along our old route until we came to the resting-place which we had [371] left on 11th Oct. …^[265]

Trips undertaken to the sea without finding anywhere that a ship could land plus no sweet water to be found [371]. Meanwhile

[17th Nov.] ‘the Hon. Commander had been inspecting the hills and found on the other side of the river some ore which seemed to contain good mineral, and he at once had it worked in order to take some of it with us and later to assay’^[266].    

[to be completed**]

[Nb. The third map above indicates that visit to the sea leaves main route back south from south of Garies, travelling NW across Bitter and Spoeg Rivers to arrive at Hondeklip Bay, but not sure how this matches the journal..?]    

23rd Nov.

‘Hottentots’ relate,

that very large trees are found in the river they call Eyn [‘which we call Vigiti Magni’^[267]], which cannot be far from here, as we had found in the Amacqua kraals several of the Hottentots called Kamesons, who live by the aforesaid river. We questioned them about it at the time but they were unwilling to give us any information whatever …^[268]

11th Dec.

An assumed ‘Sonqua’ ‘interrogated’ by Van der Stel says,

that he was not a Sonqua but one of the tribe called Kamesons who inhabit the bank of a broad and powerful rover, which he said was called the Eyn. … the Honourable Commander resolved to take him back with him to the Cape, so as to be able to make use of him as opportunity offered, seeing that he was familiar with the whole country hereabouts.^[269]

18th Dec.

Near the Doornbosch River the expedition comes ‘into conflict with the natives, shots were fired, and a native was wounded and captured’,

[a]bout mid-day there came to the neighbourhood of our camp two Sonquas who, as they themselves confessed, intended to kill one or two men, if they could have cut them off, and then drive away some cattle, whereupon the Honourable Commander sent out a party in their direction with orders to capture them without violence, if possible, but in case of resistance to treat them as enemies are usually treated. When our party approached them, they saw eight of them and five of these Sonquas took flight and escaped, and when the other three saw that they were surrounded, two of them voluntarily surrendered. The third offered resistance, was fired on and wounded in the legs. The prisoners were then brought before the Honourable Commander and after having been interrogated for a long time they confessed that they and all the other Sonquas had been sent hither by the Amacquas to do us as much harm as they could. They were then placed under arrest, together with the above-mentioned Kameson, and guarded. In the evening about nine o'clock, the Sergeant came back and reported that they had found the aforesaid river. . . . They also brought back two Sonqua women, who were placed under guard along with the other prisoners.^[270] 

26th Jan.

Arrived back at Cape of Good Hope^[271].

Wesleyan missionary Barnabas Shaw, writing of how little was done in the early years of the colony ‘towards the conversion of the natives to Christianity’, tells a story of how at some point in Van der Stel’s governorship he,

took a Hottentot youth whose name was Pegu, for the purpose of training; whom he clothed in a military dress, and supplied with a wig, and a hat bordered with gold. He [10] gave him a pair of silk stockings, a sword to hang by his side, and thus equipped, Pegu was sent to school, where he learnt the Dutch, Portuguese, and other languages, which he could speak with fluency. In 1685, he went to India with the Commissioner Van Rheede, and continued with him till his death. Pegu then returned to the Cape, but would no longer remain in civilized life. He therefore took his fine clothing, and putting it into a chest, threw his carosse over his shoulders, and went to the governor saying: "Hoort Myn Heer," "Hearken your honour; I must no longer wear clothing, and much less be a Christian. Let me go to my own people, and live as they do. My clothing is in the chest; I take nothing but this sword and cravat with me." Having spoken thus, he departed to his people, and returned no more. He afterwards became a chief amongst them; and Kolbé says, that he had seen and conversed with him repeatedly.^[272] 

Shaw^[273] quotes a poem that appeared in the Cape Literary Gazette designed to commemorate this story:

THE HOTTENTOT HUNTER.

From long debate the council rose,

And viewing Juli's feats with joy,

To Cape Town school-o’er bergs and knowes,

They sent the tawney-coloured boy

From Keiskahama’s farthest springs,

Where savage tribes pursue their game;

His kombaars [skin blanket] tied with leathern strings,

The hunter of the woestyn [desert] came.

A while he wrote; awhile he read;

Awhile he conned o'er grammar rules;

A Hottentot! - a savage bred! -

Great credit promised to the schools.

Some thought in law he would excel;

Some thought in physic he would shine;

And one who knew him passing well,

Foresaw in him a grave divine .

[11] But those of more discerning eye,

Far different prospects then could see,-

They saw him lay his Virgil by,

To wander with his lov’d kerri [club].

The tedious hour of study spent,

The heavy moulded lecture done

To Newland's woods the wand'rer went,

And there his long-lov'd sports begun.

“And why,” he cried, “did I forsake

My native fields for pent-up halls,

The roaring stream, the wild bird’s lake,

For silent books and prison walls?

“A little will my wants supply,

And what can wealth itself do more?

The sylvan wilds will not deny

The humble fare they gave before.

“Where Nature’s wild resources grow,

And out-door pleasure never fades,

My heart is fixed! - and I will go

And die among my native shades.

He spake-and to the eastern springs

(His gown forthwith to pieces rent,

His kombaars tied with leathern strings,)

This hunter of the mountains went.

Returning to his lov'd domain,

His brethren welcom’d him with joy;

The council took him back again,

And bless'd the tawney-coloured boy.

A ‘Governor’s Garden’ for cultivation of ‘useful imported plants’ is established in Kaap Stad by the Netherlands East India Company, becoming the original Cape Town botanical garden^[274].

French Hugenots are compelled to leave France due to religious persecution, many finding their way to Cape Town^[275]. A French Jesuit missionary in the Cape settlement en route to Siam reports that:

from the ‘Hottentot’s’ point of view it was the Dutch settlers who were ‘slaves who cultivate the lands and … faint-hearted folk who take shelter from their enemies in forts and houses: whereas [49] [the natives] fearlessly camp wherever they will ... and disdain to plough the land. They maintain that this manner of life shows that they are the true owners of the land … and they are the happiest of men since they alone live in peace and freedom and in that, they say, their happiness consists.^[276]   

1686

The Dutch physican and geographical scholar Olfert Dapper publishes Description de l‘Afrique which includes observations and engravings of ‘Hottentots’ in southern Africa^[277].

1687

The Italian missionary Cavazzi [see 1654-1667] publishes an account of his observations in which he draws ‘a connection between the populations of southwestern Angola and those of East Africa’ and presumes ‘that the Jaga warrior bands had ventured all the way through the continent from the hinterlands of Mombasa to the hinterlands of Benguela, always presenting a deadly threat to early European traders settling in the coastal towns of East and Southwest Africa’ a connection that ‘reverberates in later myths on the southward bound migrations of the militaristic Hamites and ideas of missionary ethnographers on the emergence of the Herero in the Great Lakes region connecting them to the “Hamitic complex”’^[278].

1688

French Huguenots land at the Cape and become absorbed into Afrikaner society^[279]. According to Shaw^[280], the number of inhabitants in the Cape colony was 922, of:

• Christians - men = 254; women = 88; boys = 119; girls = 112; servants = 39
• Slaves - mean = 230; women = 44; children = 36.

1689

An inscription on the lid of a coffin later found buried in guano deposits on Ichabo [as the English interpreted the Hottentot name^[281]] Island, north of Angra Pequeña, states that the body was that of a Dutchman who died in this year^[282].

Sergeant Isaq Schriver (see 1684) leads expeditions into the interior as ensign in the service of the VOC – accompanied by Heinrich Oldenland, instructed by the Council of Seventeen, via the Cape Commander, Simon van der Stel, ‘to grow and collect medicinal plants … so that Bavaria and Ceylon could be supplied by them’^[283].

End of 17th Century

The Kingdom of Congo, covering ‘the whole of northern Angola north of Luanda as well as large parts of the two Congos’ [see 14th century] ‘loses importance’^[284].

1690

The South American cinchona tree - a source of quinine - was used on Royal Navy ships as early as this year to treat ‘fever’^[285].

Sergeant Isaq Schriver (see 1684, 1689) is sent out in March

with twenty soldiers, ten or twelve free burghers and three or four wagons in another attempt to find the crew of the Noord, and some time after his return he departed (11.9.1690) with thirty soldiers to barter livestock for tobacco, arrack and beads from the Hessequa and Sousequa Hottentots.^[286]

1690s

Term ‘captain’ used by the Dutch since the 1690s to designate chiefs / headmen^[287].

The Kay-Koracquoas / Gei-!Kora or Great Korannas (Choroquoa in Van Riebeeck's journal) emigrate from the Cape District before 1700^[288].

1691

Sergeant Isaq Schriver (see 1684, 1689) is sent on a bartering expedition but finds ‘Hottentots more and more hostile’^[289].

1692

Sergeant Isaq Schriver (see 1684, 1689) is again sent on a bartering expedition but finds ‘Hottentots more and more hostile’^[290].

1695

Thesaurus Geographicus published – includes information on the Kingdom of Mataman (southern Angola) (also called the land of the Simbebas, a word which is apparently identical with Tjimbas or Schimbas^[291], and Caffaria (the Cape).

1696

Sergeant Isaq Schriver (see 1684, 1689) is sent

to track down slaves belonging to free burghers among the Griqua Hottentots and was told that if the latter refused to give them up he was to bring some of the indigenous people (Hottentots) back as hostages. This was done and S. returned with two Bosjemans (also called ‘bergmannetjes’ [i.e. ‘little mountain men’] whom the Council of Polict decided to detain until the slaves were returned.^[292]

1699

Willem Adriaan Van der Stel succeeds his father Simon as Dutch Governor of the Cape of Good Hope^[293].