THE LIESBEEK RIVER
We traced one day the old boundary-line, the Liesbeek River, from its
mouth near the Salt River to its sources in the woods of Paradise and
Bishopscourt.
In some of the old record-books I found this entry, which will do as a
prologue to the chapter:
'CABO DE BONNE ESPERANCE,
'_September, 1652_.
'Riebeek and the Carpenter proceed' (it was proceeding with
some great care and danger in those days) 'to the back of
Table Mountain' (a vague term for everything which was not
visible from the fort). 'Here to examine, whether there are
any forests other than already mentioned on the Lion
Mountain, as the timber from home has been much spoilt, and
is too light for the dwellings, in consequence of the heavy
winds from the mountain we dare not leave our heaviest
houses without supports. We found in the kloofs fine,
thick, fairly strong trees, somewhat like the ash and
beech, heavy and difficult to be transported. We found on
some trees the dates 1604, 1620, and 1622, but did not
know who carved them. Astonished that so many East India
voyagers have maintained that there is no wood here. Found
also fine soil, intersected by countless rivulets, the
biggest as broad as the Amstel (Liesbeek), and running into
the Salt River.'
This well-watered ground round Bishopscourt and Newlands became the
Company's forest lands.
In 1656, when the Commander went on another tree-hunting expedition,
there is another entry:
'_August 31, 1656._
'The Commander proceeds to the cornland, has some tobacco
sown, and proceeds behind Table Mountain, where the forests
are. He found very many sorts of trees similar to pine, but
no real pines, and not one higher than 6, 7, or 8 feet.'
The Commander grew to love the forests, and land was granted him on
the banks of the Liesbeek (where Bishopscourt now stands) in an almost
dangerous situation, for day and night a watch was kept on the
Hottentots lurking in the bushes of the Hen and Chickens Hill, or
secretly striving to drive their cattle across the river into the
Company's grazing-ground. The river, the watch-houses reported, was
fordable, and cattle were constantly stolen. And as we were now
pushing our way through the bushes and brambles along the overgrown
banks, so in 1658 did Van Riebeek ride out with Van Goens 'all
through the reeds, shrubs, lilies, and marshes.'
The old Diary goes on:
'He found the forest so closely grown from the one point to
the other that no opening could be found than the wagon
road, which might be easily closed with a bar. No cattle
could pass through this wood, even if thousands of
Hottentots were driving them. It is about two hours distant
from the fort, as far as Visagie's dwelling and brewery
below the foot of the Bosheuvel, where the Commander one
morning showed Commander Van Goens, when they were walking
over the Bosheuvel (with a Hottentot who did not wish that
land should be cultivated there), a spot on which to build
a small redoubt or watch-house, to protect the lands in the
neighbourhood, and to which spot the River Liesbeek could
be made navigable for small boats from the fort and through
the Salt River. But as the Liesbeek is thickly studded with
reeds, etc., 1½ and 2 feet high, it will be necessary to
make a clearing on the sides, in order to examine the whole
more carefully.'
Then started a great labour, and many seamen were busy for months
clearing the river, until, with much triumph, it was written in the
journal that in 'some places it was found to be the depth of a pike.'
The river as far as Rondebosch is not interesting, and often
impossible to follow, as it runs through private grounds and is very
overgrown by oaks and poplars. At the extreme end of Rondebosch it
becomes wider. At Westerford, or the West Ford, the main road crosses
it on a bridge, and the old history is perpetuated in the name given
to a shaded road running past the brewery--Boundary Road.
At Westerford is one of the old, fast-disappearing Outspan places--a
big, bare spot under the oaks, with the white walls and thatch
outhouses of the homestead which once belonged to Mostaert, 'living on
the other side of the Schuur.' Here we saw, as we rode past, some
wagons outspanned, the small black boys busy watering the mules and
oxen in the river below, farmers lying about wreathed in tobacco
smoke--the old days seem so quaintly characteristic, in spite of the
near proximity of a wine-store and a forage-loft. A scene of busy
lethargy--if such a paradox is permitted. I imagined how much more it
meant in the olden days, when the hard-grown corn, and flax, and hemp,
and tobacco were brought in from the brave little colony in the
Groeneveld; how they rushed through the deep ford to this outspan of
safety on the right side of the river.
The river runs through a lovely wood at the bottom of Government
House, Newlands, and on its steep opposite bank is 'The Vineyard,'
which little place--lately belonging to the Manuel family--was
designed and built by the Barnards, when the angel with the flaming
sword, in the guise of a new Governor--decrepit, weak old Sir George
Younge, with his debts and dissipations--turned them out of
'Paradise.'
Anne writes to Melville from 'The Vineyard' on March 14, 1800:
'I am living out of town at our little country place, which
we purchased, built a cottage on, and called "The
Vineyard," removed from all party work, except working
parties in our fields, rooting up of palmiet roots[3] and
planting of fir-trees and potatoes.'
'The Vineyard,' which is in due order the correct place to fly to when
one has lost 'Paradise,' must have been a great refuge to the
Barnards. Those were troublous times of social intrigue--the old order
and the new--the Barnards weeping over the departure of the poor
Governor Macartney, wary, well-bred and witty, all crippled with gout;
old Younge, arriving with his sycophants; the General, Dundas, busy
fighting the natives and courting the rather dull lady who came out to
marry him; the entire gang eyeing poor Anne in her comfortable
stronghold in the Castle, and (one may gather) keeping no judicious
guard over their tongues. Anne rose to the occasion, offered her
Castle home to the General and his Cummings gave a good party for the
ladies of the staff, and retired to watch the dénouement from the
comforting distance at 'The Vineyard,' and to write philosophical
letters on the political situation, which, in the district of
Graff-Reinet, was of an inky blackness.
The long oak avenues of Newlands House on the opposite bank gave us
Canaletto-like perspectives of the low white house and twisted
chimneys, the green lawns and deer-park, and the intensest blue
hydrangeas. I have seen a drawing of the house as it was in the time
of Lord Charles Somerset, with oval verandah, otherwise very much the
same. It ultimately became the property of an old Van der Pool, who
left it to the famous Hiddingh family, who have for years leased it to
the Government. A namesake of his was an amusing character, living in
semi-darkness and dirt, hoarding up his unprofitable wealth. An old
black woman who was once his cook told a very good story of this old
miser. Van der Pool was noted for having in his cellars the best wine
at the Cape--no one ever tasted it. He hated spinach, but spinach grew
in the garden, and therefore must not be wasted. In the dark
dining-room, with an old gazette serving for a tablecloth, sat old man
Van der Pool waiting for his dinner. Up came the dinner, 'Saartje'
with a big dish of spinach rotten with long keeping. Old man Van der
Pool cursed Saartje and spinach in best Dutch, and 'made a plan.'
'"Saartje," say ole Bass, very gentle, soft like, "go fetch me from
die cellar a best big bottle of ole Pontac." I run fetch ole Pontac;
ole Bass, he put die bottle jus so, in front of him. "Now," he say,
"Saartje, you trek." I trek out not farder dan die door keyhole. I see
ole Bass pour out best old Pontac and put die spinach in front too.
"Now," he say, "Hendrick, you see dis fine, werry, werry fine ole
Pontac, you eat dis verdommte spinach first, den you drink dis wine,
wot's been standin, Hendrickie, Kerl, for werry many years." Ole Bass,
he eat, eat fast as I nebber seen him before; den, when all spinach
done, ole Bass he pour die wine back in die bottle. He laf, laf, and
he say, putting his finger to his nose, "Hi! Hendrick, I fool you dis
time, I tink, fool you pretty well."'
[Illustration: OAK AVENUE, NEWLANDS]
We left the river for a time and got up a side avenue into the big
Newlands Avenue, near Montebello and the brewery. All this estate,
once called the Palmboom, or Brewery Estate, belonged to old Dirk Van
Rheenen, or Van Rhénen, Anne Barnard's friend, the most hospitable man
in all the Peninsula. Dirk got the Government beer contract and built
a wonderful mansion, designed with all its white stateliness and Doric
pillars by a Frenchman who came out to build the Amsterdam Battery--at
least, Marinus says so. But I have another story which is as well
told. Anne Barnard is my authority, and she says she considers the
Van Rheenen house possessed the air of a European mansion, it being
erected by his own slaves from an Italian drawing he happened to meet
with. There is a quaint description of how the Barnards' party went
a-dining with Mynheer Van Rheenen:
'The family received us all with open countenances of
gladness and hospitality, but the openest countenance and
the most resolute smile, amounting to a grin, was borne by
a calf's head, nearly as large as that of an ox, which was
boiled entire and served up with the ears whole and a pair
of gallant horns. The teeth were more perfect than dentist
ever made, and no white satin was so pure as the skin of
the countenance. This melancholy merry smiler and a tureen
of bird's-nest soup were the most distinguished _plats_ in
the entertainment. The soup was a mass of the most aromatic
nastiness I ever tasted, somewhat resembling macaroni
perfumed with different scents; it is a Chinese dish, and
was formerly so highly valued in India that five-and-twenty
guineas was the price of a tureenful of it. The
"springer"[4] also made its appearance, boiled in large
slices--admirable! It is a fish which would make the
fortune of anyone who could carry it by spawn to England.
The party was good, the game abundant, but ill-cooked, the
beef bad, the mutton by no means superior, the poultry
remarkably good, and the venison of the highest flavour,
but without fat; this, however, was supplied by its being
larded very thickly--all sorts of fruits in great
perfection, pines excepted, of which there are not many at
the Cape. Mynheer carried us off after dinner to see his
bloom of tulips and other flowers; the tulips are very
fine, and the carnations beautiful; _all were sheltered
from the winds by myrtle hedges_. Our gentlemen returned
delighted with the day they had spent, and very glad to
have the prospect of another such.'
Gigantic appetites, hadn't they? And if Anne hadn't tasted it all how
could she have commented with so much definiteness? They grew tulips
here! Why not? But they won't grow, is the answer. I expect the secret
lies in the neat myrtle hedges, which can yet be seen in some
old-fashioned gardens in Sea Point and Cape Town. They drank well and
unwisely, also, these Peninsula people. Thompson remarks upon this in
his book on the Cape: 'The Pokaalie cup, like the blessed beer of
Bradwardine, too often drowns both reason and refinement.'
FOOTNOTES:
[3] Palmiet is a high, strong river-weed.
[4] A fresh-water fish.