NAMAQUALAND SOUTH

Namaqualand south begins at Van Rhynsdorp and continues to the border with Namibia but I am going to start with the flowers of the West Coast National Park. The Park has Langebaan lagoon on one side and the ocean on the other. The colours are gentle mauves and yellows and white. I had a picnic there with friends just after my first hip transplant. While lying on my bed in hospital I had dreamt of baking a pork pie. I am a reasonably good home cook but had never attempted one. I got a few friends together and we picnicked beneath one of the typical round boulders in the park surrounded by flowers with the crash of breakers on the beach as music.

The West Coast National Park

The pork pie was a disaster! Anyway we all had a good laugh, drank some wine and I told them of Jenny’s walk along that beach. She discarded her clothes and strode along. A droning in the sky developed into two aircraft trainers with pupil pilots from the nearby Air Force base nearly falling out of their cockpits at the sight of this gorgeous naked redhead. They waggled their wings and Jen happily waved back!

We were seated near the site of Eve’s footprints. In 1995 David Roberts from the Museum in Cape Town was searching for fossils when he came across the prints on a sand dune made during a turbulent rainstorm. They were of a female during the time of emergence of homo sapiens and the use of stone tools. She was 1,5 m tall and her feet were the same size of modern women.

Eve, given the name by the media, lived about 5 million years ago. At the time the climate was warmer with higher rainfall and tropical vegetation. Eve must have been very wary for the animals that lived at the same time were Agriotherium Afrricanum, a huge bear and the only one found south of the Sahara, a sabre toothed tiger, a three toed horse and gomphothere Anacus, a type of elephant that later became extinct.

 The country varies, but is barren and desolate as you leave Clanwilliam with its huge dam and the Cedarberg mountains beyond, the road stretching ever upwards towards Namibia.

On to proper Namaqualand beginning at Vredendal and the town of Van Rhynsdorp that sits on the edge of the Knersvlakte (gnashing plain) that reflects the sound the early wagons made as they crossed the flats on quartz stones. Van Rhyn’s pass rears up at the edge of the flats some 549 metres onto the Bokkeveld Range (Goat or antelope field) to Niewoudtville with its lovely sandstone buildings. Vast meadows of Yellow bulbinella flowers thrive here on the lonely farms.

A farmer told me that one year he put his weaned lambs into a camp and was devastated when they all died. A friend told him to leave an old ewe with them the next year. He did so and the old lady taught them which plants they could eat and which were poison!

MacGregor is the family name of a few of the farmers here. My friend who shall be nameless met one and invited him to visit her in Cape Town. MacGregor arrived with a huge leg of mutton under his arm, unaware that she was married. She told him to come to me and hastily shut her door. Now I had a gentleman friend who was visiting, a conservative fellow who was aghast when MacGregor arrived with the leg. “You can’t possibly have this stranger in your home for the night!” “Of course, he comes from my friend!” He left, Macgregor stayed, left the next day with the large leg in my freezer.

We would often go down to Langebaan lagoon for weekends staying in little thatched cottages at Churchaven belonging to the Barsby family. The families of Curchaven and Stofbergsfontein arrived in the 1800-1900’s. They were independent folk with a code of modesty, self reliance and care for the environment. They built their homes themselves from local materials, a one roomed school house and a church. The farms were owned collectively.

One weekend Tony Millard and some other friends came too and we put the leg into a large black pot and simmered it on the fire for hours and hours. It was superb! Tony decided he wanted a bath and as there was no bathroom, just a long drop toilet, he climbed into an aluminum tub with someone offering to scrub his back. I have lost the pic but Tony is now a very successful racehorse trainer in Hong Kong.

Van Rhynsdorp is named after Petrus van Rhyn the first member for Namaqualand in the old Cape Legislative Council and a leading public figure in the district. There is a delightful little museum that has a sepia portrait of Manie Maritz, the Boer commando, a really good looking guy. As my grandmother would say, he could have put his boots under my bed! Also in van Rhynsdorp is a succulent nursery here that has a story behind it. The owner of the land was a bodyguard to General Jan Smuts who was Prime Minister of South Africa and lived in Pretoria.

The tale goes that a certain gentleman who was body guard to General Jan smuts when he was Prime Minister of South Africa used to accompany the ‘Ou Baas (Old Boss) as he was affectionately called, learnt much of botany from this remarkable man. Retiring back to Van Rhynsdorp he wondered how he was going to earn a living in this harsh environment. He hit on the idea of starting a succulent nursery. It was a success and is still there today.

At the top of the pass, one of the 10 most impressive in the Northern Cape, built by Thomas Bain, is the Oorlogskloof (War Valley) Nature Reserve and here one can see the Gymnogene raptor soaring above the escarpment. This bird is a species on its own, grey with a yellow bill and easily seen here. The Nature reserve is home to many small mammals and rare species of flora.

Gymnogene

 

Back to the Knersvlakte, the name meaning gnashing plains because as the old wagons crossed it they made a crunching noise trundling over the harsh quartz stones. The Knersvlakte is home to succulents of all kinds and during the flower season it is festooned with bright orange and red and purple.

Northwards to Bitterfontein (Bitter fountain) one passes an odd sign Douse the Glim, a farm. The name is attributed to a tired surveyor who irritably told his servant to douse the glim, meaning turn off the light.

Here I came across another story about Jan Smuts. I found a farm that offered accommodation near Bitterfontein and noticed that there were ruins of an old farmhouse. I asked my host about it and he told me the story. His forefather was building a homestead. He had only the roof to complete and the corrugated iron sheets lay waiting.

During the first world war Smuts served with distinction in German East Africa. The British government asked him to invade German South West Africa and it was when his column was en route to German South West Africa that he came across this farm. Smuts arrived with his column of men, horses and cattle on his way to German South West Africa now Namibia. He commandeered the roofing to make mangers for the animals and the poor farmer had to save up again for another roof!

Manie Maritz was commandant of the north column and together the two executed a successful annexation of German South West Africa, claiming the capital Windhoek. South Africa was given occupation of the territory.

In 1933 Smuts was deputy Prime Minister and served with Churchill during the second world war. He was instrumental in forming the League of Nations that became the United Nations. I remember him well and how he used to walk up Skeleton Gorge on Table Mountain every morning before breakfast. In 1947 the Royal Family arrived in the battleship, Vanguard and stayed in Cape Town. The Vanguard was used as the Royal Yacht. She had an illustrious name after her sister that had fought in the battle of Armade and Jutland.  Princess Margaret was a good mimic and I had it on good authority from my mother’s cousin’s husband who was their chauffeur that she often mimicked General Smuts and other dignitaries.

Onwards on our journey to Kamieskroon and the Skilpad reserve where fields of flowers emerge each spring when the winter rains are good. The name comes from the Kamiesberg range one mountain of which dominates Kamieskroon with a large boulder perched at its peak aptly named the crown. This reserve is magic and one year it was covered in scarlet bulbinella. I felt like sitting down in the middle of it with a bottle of champagne!

Jan van Riebeek arrived at the Cape in 1652 to start a garden to service the Dutch East India company ships on their way to the East. He dispatched Simon van der Stel to the northwest searching for the legendary city of Monomatapa. Van der Stel’s wagons were attacked by a rhino at Piketberg! He made frequent sorties and finally arrived in what was to become Springbok. He was told of copper by the locals and eventually found the metal in 1682 at Copper Mountain or Carolsberg today part of the Goegap Nature Reserve in Springbok.

The yield at Carolsberg was poor and more  deposits were found by Hendrik Hop in 1761 near the Orange River. Extraction was a problem and it was only in 1836 that James Alexander found rich deposits on the banks of the river. The first Copper Mining Company started working the copper in 1846. A German called von Schlicht found a huge deposit but could not get investors. Von Schlicht had a housemate, Mr. Jencken who found a company called Phillips & King that purchased the land in 1850 together with the mineral rights. They called the farm Springbokfontein and started the commercial exploitation of the copper.

The farm became a village, the village a town and was finally registered as Springbok. Springbok grew under copper mania until a new treasure was found.  Fred Cornell was the first to suspect the presence of diamonds but his efforts were unsuccessful. Jack Carstens was the first person to prove the existence of these gems in 1925 and opened a little diamond industry at Kleinsee.

Merensky searched north of Port Nolloth and found diamonds south of Alexander Bay. Today we know that the diamonds were carried from Antartica northwards by the Benguela current that originates there. In 1908 there was a diamond rush and the area was proclaimed a Sperregebiet, prohibited area. It still exists although De Beers Diamond Mining has left Kleinsee now. My daughter Susan lives there and since De Beers left Nama people have claimed the land and are digging for diamonds! I can’t wait to get there to be able to tell you the story.

In my next instalment when I return I will tell you of the journey from Springbok to Kleinsee over a pass that is not called the Spectakel

STEAMING ALONG . . .

My earliest memory of my father’s occupation was during the Second World War. I was born in 1939 and I remember Father leaving in the early hours of the morning to go work. His and the job of many others who failed the medical for the army or who had special skills was to see that the trains taking the soldiers up to the East African theatre of war would get there without mishap.

My father had tried to join the Cape Town Highlanders and I remember photos of him in his kilt. He was turned down because of flat feet. I also remember the air raid sirens that meant we had to gather at a large house on the corner. I still remember that house clearly.

Anyhow the war ended as wars do and I continued to grow up. My parents bought a chicken farm together with their Welsh neighbours but Father continued to work at the Salt River workshop. He had run away from school at the age of 15 to join the railways as a messenger boy. His father was head foreman at Salt River Works but it took years for Father to climb the ranks.

We moved to Fish Hoek when I was ten. I quickly made friends and the three of us ran wild along the sand dunes surrounding Peers Cave. We did not know then of its history and that Bertie Peers had discovered the intact body of what was in those days called a Strandloper (beach walker) although Bertie called him San. Later he became known as The Fish Hoek Man and lived around 12000 years ago.

My friends and I swam and dived for sinkers among the rocks along the famous catwalk and sold them back to the anglers who had lost them! One year we were idling away in still water on rubber car tyres when two dorsal fins approached. We were terrified as they came nearer but they then started leaping and we were relieved to see these porpoises as they were then called. The two became our friends and ultimately began to play among the bathers in the breakers. Their pictures made the press and they were called Fish and Hoek. A few years later they disappeared.

After these adventures  I had to join my Mother and sister to endure talking Afrikaans at the evening meal so that my father could become fluent in that language. His teacher, fierce Mrs. Bock, would know if he was not practicing and we would all get a lecture on just how important it was for Father to qualify and progress up the ladder in Salt River Workshop.

The Nationalist Government practiced job reservation for English speakers favouring any Afrikaner above them regardless of skill. Luckily my Grandfather and his father worked under the United Party for they both progressed to become Chief Foreman of the Salt River Works.

As a South African Railways employee Father was entitled to a free pass on the railways. Each school holiday my sister Veronica and I would plan our journeys. As long as we did not travel the same route twice we could wander around South Africa by rail!

Of course this was still the age of steam. Well I remember the train stopping at Laingsburg to take on water and coal and an extra engine to haul the carriages over the Hex River mountains the second highest in South Africa. This chain of mountains is the gateway to the interior and the long flat plains of the Klein (small) and Groot (great) Karoo, a semi desert that extends across southern Africa with the typical kopjes (low flat topped hills) of these plains. The name came from the Khoikhoi word garo (desert)

The first white man to graze his sheep and goats along this incredibly fertile Hex River valley was Roelf Jantz van Hoeting. He kept his flocks under the mountains of the red sand above the rock of the Lions. The valley is now known for its vineyards and fruit orchards.

The mountains were capped with snow in the winter and we were snug in our compartment with its green plastic seats/beds snuggled under our bedrolls. The conductor would check on us regularly and we would be escorted to the dining room for dinner. The linen was heavy damask, the cutlery heavy silver and the crockery embossed with the railways insignia, the head of a springbok, the leaping (Pronking) animal that became the name of the National Rugby team. It was fun watching the countryside whizzing by while we ate wonderful South African dishes.

The engines chuffed chuffed with the effort of pulling up the incline and gave long toots when they achieved it! Merino sheep graze the indigenous Karoo bushes while lonely windmills pump their water. The herbs lend a distinctive flavor to the lamb. Sir Abe Bailey one of the men who made millions from diamonds at Kimber together with Cecil John Rhodes and Barney Banarto would insist that Karoo sheep travelled with him by sea to England and Welsh lamb on thee return voyage such was his regard for the flesh of these sheep.

The climate in the Karoo is one of extreme cold and heat. In later years I would hear the old farmers say “Seven years of drought, seven years of plenty!” The extreme cold kept parasites to a minimum and great stud farms emerged over the years breeding some of the finest thoroughbreds in South Africa. One family, the Birch Brothers, predominated and well I remember that when their yearlings came to the yearling sales in Johanesburg they still had the imprint of the halters put on when they were weaned and turned out in the huge camps.

The Karoo is now world famous for the many fossils discovered here. The sedimentary rocks reveal a picture of African wild life and landscape of around 255 million years ago. The latest find is of a dinosaur that was the largest animal on earth during his lifetime.

My Father continued on his way up the engineering ladder until he became head foreman at the Salt River Works like his father and grandfather before him. Progress was however coming and the age of steam was waning. When I was eighteen my father was already in charge of changing the rail transport system of South Africa to Diesel electric.

I left for the UK in 1958 on one of the famous Union Castle liners with their lavender hulls and red funnels. A bank played “Now is the Hour when we must say goodbye!” on the quay and coloured paper streamers connected passengers and loved ones being left behind, breaking as the tugs moved the liner away from the dockside.

Arriving at Southampton my father was at the station to meet me. There was some trouble with the engine of our train to London and we were delayed. Well I remember him striding off to find out what the trouble was. Not long afterwards he was striding back and the train moving slowly off. He swung with long practice onto the footplate of a carriage and made his way back to me a grin on his face as he told me that he had spotted and fixed the trouble!

We stayed one night in London and the following day took the Flying Scotsman to Glasgow where Father was overseeing the construction of the new diesel electric engines. Of course this train was pulled by a diesel electric engine but it carried me through a white countryside to arrive in Glasgow in a snowstorm!  A far cry from sunny South Africa! Father was stationed here to check the components of the diesel engines and did so in Germany and Manchester at famous engineering firms like Metro Vickers.

The original Flying Scotsman was world famous and of course a steam engine. It was built in 1923 at Doncaster Works and its route was London to Edinburgh. The train is now in the National Railway Museum.

Eventually my Father returned home with the great new engines following him by ship. Finally the great day came when South Africa would change from steam to diesel. My father was invited to be on the footplate of the last steam engine to leave Cape Town station. The Cape Times newspaper ran a half page article on the 100 years of service the Goodwin family had given the South African Railways with a magic photo of Father with clouds of steam surrounding him!

What a difference when my friend June and I took the train from Johannesburg to Maputo. The tablecloth was plastic as were the knives and forks and the cook was drunk so dinner was off!

Another very exciting journey was on the Tazara Railway from Kabwe in Zambia to Dar es Salaam but that story will keep for another day!

OF MINING AND SUCH

I was in Zambia writing one of the early guide books that my daughter and I were publishing. My dear friend Diz Bostock was staying with her friends Tony and Ann and she invited me to join them. Their home was on the banks of the Kafue River, a wonderful old colonial style farmhouse with a wide verandah overlooking the river. My bedroom window looked out at the river with the view partially blocked by a very tall tree with a trunk unblemished by the emergence of branches until the very top, where they branched out when it looked as though the tree would reach heaven. Ann called it the Tree to Heaven.

I would sit with my laptop on the verandah writing about my travels and a Samanga monkey would swing from branch to branch on the opposite bank of the river to check t hat I had my nose to the grindstone! Sundays would see us having a leisurely full English breakfast attended by two Great Danes and a Rottweiler who were served exactly what we were eating! One morning Tony asked me if I would like a flight over the Copper belt and I immediately said yes. Only later did he tell me that he had built the little aircraft himself from a kit! However he was a good pilot and the little craft flew happily over the countryside and the town, giving me a birds eye view.

My last blog led me to think of the Copper belt as a natural follow up from that story. I was fortunate in that Orion Mining offered to sponsor a page in my Inside Zambia guide book about the early mining on the Copper Belt. Copper was the first metal used by man in any quantity and mining began over 6000 years ago in other parts of the world. Early Portuguese writing refers to mines in Zambia in the 14^th century. David Livingstone met a caravan with slaves carrying five tons of copper to the coast in 1868.

The first European prospectors found Africans still using old methods of mining and smelting copper. In Shaba an ancient working produced at least 100 000 tons of copper. Smelting was surrounded by secrecy and sorcery, the smelting process believed to be the spirits of the mountain showing their miraculous powers in allowing the rock to pour forth its riches. In 1920 R.R. Sharp and his colleague Raymond Brooks documented the ancient art stage by stage.

In 1962 Ndola Copper Refineries had a stand at the Ndola show where it featured demonstrations of this ancient art. Solidified copper in the shape of a capital ‘I’, a St. Andrews cross or a capital ‘H’ was used as currency throughout South and Central Africa. The early prospectors searched for these ancient mines and most of the modern copper mines originated from them. The copper flower also pointed to the presence of copper; a small blue flower classified as Becium homblei de Wild. Kew gardens found that this plant contains more than 1000 parts of copper per million and the roots up to 4000 parts. In a lot of mine sites the flower correctly indicated the presence of copper.

Tom Davey discovered the lead and zinc deposits at Broken Hill now called Kabwe. This mine had the most interesting minerals in all Zambia with the worldwide reputation of producing beautiful specimens of some 25 different minerals, including lead, zinc, vanadium and copper. When the railway came to Kabwe quarrying began in earnest and the ore was exported to Britain, but the mine was fraught with difficulties and was never a paying proposition. After the Great Depression deeper shafts were sunk and by 1960 Broken Hill had produced 315 000 tons of lead and 625 tons of zinc. The ore eventually ran out and nationalization brought the closure of the mine.

Fired by enthusiasm, Tom Davey asked William Collier and another prospector, J. J. O’Donoghue, to prospect the area around Ndola and Luanshya to look for signs of ancient workings. Collier was walking through the bush on his quest when an old man directed him to the area of the Luanshya stream. Here in a clearing a roan antelope was offering the classic shot. It fell on a patch of grey shale and Bill’s qualified eye spotted green malachite. Adjacent were the ancient workings he had been looking for. The seam he prospected was in a ‘U’ shape and he pegged 50 claims naming one arm of the ‘U’ Roan Antelope and the other Rietbok.

The mining was carried on until they eventually found Bwana Makubwa mine (another story). In 1925 an American engineer Russell J. Parker came to survey the mine and subsequent to his findings William Selkirk arrived in 1926 suggesting a daring program of drilling that revealed the rich vein that gave rise to the Copper Belt of today.

Now I must tell you of Susan, children and my experience buying precious ore. We were trundling over a tortuous pass between South Luangwa and the border into Zimbabwe when we noticed youngsters standing on the side of the road holding rocks from which triangles of amethyst grew. We stopped and haggled, eventually buying a couple that would look good in any display in one’s home. Another youngster was selling what looked like rough rubies in a small plastic container. He would not open the plastic so we took a chance and of course they were fake! The amethysts are still in Susan’s home today, in spite of having gone walkabout when certain guests were staying. However Shaun and Jacques nicked them back on a return visit to these particular guests!

I was in Lusaka when I was shown around a semi-precious gem workshop and bought my one granddaughter Meg a sapphire, a deep red stone that my daughter in law, Maud has today and another purple that Maud is keeping for another granddaughter, Michele. Since then young Neve has appeared so I will have to make a plan for her although at 5 years she firmly believes that the shining ear ring studs in her little ears are diamonds! I think her father will have to rectify that for her 21^st birthday!

Writing about the copper belt brings to mind the Chichele Mofu tree that stands in the middle of the dual carriageway between the mining towns of Kitwe and Ndola. The local people believe it to be a house of spirits where the spirit of an ancient chief resides. The tree has been declared an historical monument. At its base is this poem.

Ye who would pass by and raise your hand against me, harken ere you harm me.

I am the heat of your hearth on cold winter nights, the friendly shade screening you from the summer sun and my fruits are refreshing draughts quenching your thirst as you journey on.

I am the beam that holds your house, the board of your table, the bed on which you lie and the timber that builds your boat.

I am the handle of your hoe and the door of your homestead, the wood of your cradle and the shell of your coffin.

I am the gift of God and the friend of man.

Ye who passes by, listen to my prayer . . .

HARM ME NOT.

A TOWN CALLED ZUMBO

My daughter and I own a place in Tofo, Mozambique and during the recent bad weather the thatch blew off the roof. Now our roof could be likened that of an early wooden cathedral, it is so high and to replace the thatch is no easy matter. So my thoughts have been in Mozambique which led to remembering a trip I had to the confluence of the Zambezi and the Luangwa rivers. Here it is that Zambia, Zimbabwe and Mozambique meet. This little corner of our continent has a fascinating history to.

I stayed at Bridge Camp situated just off the Great East Road in Zambia. This was a good few years ago so I don’t know if the camp is still there. I had read a bit about this area so drove down to the town of Luangwa that in fact was originally called Fiera.

There is mention of a settlement called Zumbo in the Fiera district in 1546 that was abandoned in 1600. This was a Jesuit station about two and a half miles up the Zambezi from Fiera on the south bank. On modern maps Zumbo and Tete are about 220 miles apart. The Portuguese arrived here in 1546 and traded in gold ivory and copper as did a small party of Portuguese from Goa, India in 1720 that established a settlement on the small island of Chitakatira in the Zambezi. Francisco Pererir was the leader and earned his sobriquet of “The Terror” but kept the small community together. Eventually they outgrew the island and moved to Zumbo on the left bank of the Luangwa River.

Two different settlements existed at Zumbo and Fiera. In 1726 Father Pedro do Santissima Tridade, a Dominican priest, was installed as the vicar of Zumbo. During the thirty years that he stayed there he acquired the status of a cultural hero among the local population. According to legend he came from Sofala, itself the stuff of legends one being that it was called the city of gold and the Arabs used it as a port from which they travelled to the interior to buy gold, ivory and slaves. Sofala lies South of Beira but has a large sandbank in the entrance so that Beira was built to the north using much of the stone of the old Sofala buildings for its streets.

Father Pedro became famous for his piety and his medicines were still remembered over a hundred years later when David Livingstone passed this way on his trans-Africa journey. Livingstone’s diary of 29^th March 1856 reads “Oil of Father Pedros. Received the recipe for curing wounds from Mr. Candido and he calls it Oleo of Frei Pedros.”

From 1730 the main route for ivory trade, slaves, gold, copper and malachite from the north between the Kafue basin in Zambia and the Lunda and Biso country in Mozambique must have been down the Luangwa River to Zumbo and Feira. Glass beads that have been found on the Iron Age sites are likely to have been imports at this time. In the following years Chiefs by the name of Mburuma succeeded one another and one of the chiefs enlisted the aid of Chief Mpuka during an attack. As a reward he granted land along the west bank to Chief Mpuka who had been married to a Portuguese woman, who was killed in the fighting. The people of Chief Mpuka live there to this day.

One can still see the remains of the slave pits where slaves were kept in readiness for transportation onwards. One of the local chiefs, Kanyembo, had ambitions of creating a super race for he would measure his young men against a tree of about 6 ft. If they failed to grow to this height he would sell them to the slavers.

I sat on the opposite bank, in Zimbabwe, on the crumbling walls of the slave pits, tears in my eyes and goose bumps on my arms for the suffering of those who lost their freedom here.

There is a memorial at Fiera that reads as follows:

 FIERA

These are records of a 16^th century Portuguese settlement here abandoned in 1600. In the early 18^th century Portuguese colonialists arrived at Chitakatira Island moving soon afterwards to Zumbo with a subsidiary trading centre (Fiera) here. From 1730 to 1760 both settlements prospered greatly.

In 1745 a church and a convent were built here by Father Pedro Da S Trindade, a Dominican and vicar of Zumbo for 30 years. In 1804 Chief Mburuma 1V of the Senga destroyed Zumbo.

The merchants moved to Fiera but Zumbo was soon reoccupied to be destroyed again. In 1818 both settlements were again rebuilt but from 1826 trade gradually declined until shortly after 1830 when both settlements were abandoned.

In 1856 David Livingstone visited and saw the broken bell of the Mission. In 1887 John Harrison Clark (Changa Changa) set up his headquarters here maintaining law and order in the district.

The Chartered Company built their first boma here in 1902 and the township became an important staging post on the cattle route from Tanganyika to Southern Rhodesia. Its importance declined with the building of the railway.

BWANA CHANGA CHANGA

John Harrison Clark

A strange tale indeed. Rumour has it that John Harrison Clark, called Bwana Chang Changa, hailed from the Eastern Province. He was in love with a local girl who was promised to another. The two rivals fought and John shot his rival. Thinking he was dead John fled and wandered north where he landed up at Fiera. He arrived when the local Chief had died with no suitable replacement available. The tribe made John their Chief and called him Changa Changa. He married several of the local ladies and had many offspring. He trained the Senga tribes young men into an army to ward off slave traders while he indeed traded in ivory. He ruled here for some years until visited one day by one of Cecil Rhodes’s young men, Neville Pickering I believe. He was offered land if he would leave the tribe so that Rhodes’s men could develop the area. There is another story about his dealings with the British South African Company but my version is what I dug up in the Archive library in Cape Town.

John headed south and landed up at a mine that was then called Broken Hill now known as Kabwe. Here he became storemaster and ever since the mine storemaster is called Bwana Changa Changa (Bwana meaning Boss). He made history in becoming the owner of the first motor car in Zambia.

I love coming across these forgotten corners of our continent and ferreting out the history. When in Cape Town I visit the South African library and burrow into the old tomes, discovering many tales that Google does not have. The staff there are so helpful and recognize me when I appear every  year or  so. Then I head for the delightful restaurant in the Gardens started so long ago by the Dutch East India company to victual its ships seeking the sea route to the east, with centuries old trees around  me and a glass of wine to hand.