THE NATAL SOCIETY OFFICE BEARERS, 1982 - 1983

President Cr Miss P.A. Reid

Vice-Presidents M.J.e. Daly
A.e. Mitchell
Dr J. Cl ark
S.N. Roberts

Trustees A.e. Mitchell

Dr R.E. Stevenson
M.I.C. Daly

Treasurers Messrs Dix, Boyes & Co.

Auditors Messrs Thornton-Dibb, van der Leeuw
& Partners

Chief Librarian Mrs S.S. Wallis

Secretary P. e. G. McKenzie

COUNCIL

Elected Members Cr Miss P.A. Reid (Chairman)

S.N. Roberts (Vice-Chairman)
Dr F.e. Friedlander
R.Owen
W. G. Anderson
A.D.S. Rose
R.S. Steyn
M.J.C. Daly
Prof. A.M. Barrett
T.B. Frost

Associate Member F.J.H. Martin, MEC

City Council Representatives Cr H. Lundie
Cr W.J.A. Gilson
Cr R.J. Glaister

EDITORIAL COMMITTEE OF NATALIA

Editor T.B. Frost

W.H. Bizley
M.H. Comrie
J.M. Deane
Dr W.R. Guest
Ms M.P. Moberly
Mrs S.P.M. Spencer
Miss J. Farrer (Hon. Sec.)

Natalia 13 (1983) Copyright © Natal Society Foundation 2010

 Cover Picture
John William Colenso,

First Bishop of Natal 1853-1883

SA ISSN 0085 3674

Printed by Kendall & Strachan (Ply) Ltd., Pietermaritzburg

 Contents
Page
EDITORIAL 5

REPRINTS

Praying for Rain: A Sermon preached by Bishop C01enso 7

Ekukanyeni in 1857 ....... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 14

ARTICLE
A Remarkable Survey: The Natal Scene at Union
W.H. Bizley . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 22

ARTICLE

The Historical Image of King Cetshwayo of Zululand:

A Centennial Comment

Charles Ballard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 29

ARTICLE

'Natal Literature': A Scrap of History and a Glance at

some Poems

Colin Gardner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43

ARTICLE
The Oldest Houses in Pietermaritzburg
R. W. Brann and Robert F. Haswell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 67

ARTICLE
The Colenso Cases: A Perspective of Law in Nineteenth
Century Natal
P.R. Spiller . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 76

OBITUARIES

Dr E.G. Malherbe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 85

Miss D.D. Tshabalala . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 87

Neville Nuttall . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 90

NOTES AND QUERIES

i.M. Deane . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92

BOOK REVIEWS AND NOTICES 106

SELECT LIST OF NATAL PUBLICATIONS

i. Farrer ................................ 117

REGISTER OF RESEARCH ON NATAL

i. Farrer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 118

NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS
T.B. Frost . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 120

 OUR NEXT ISSUE

1985 will see the one hundred and fiftieth
anniversary of the establishment of Durban
and the seventy fifth anniversary of the
founding of the Natal University College.
It is hoped to commemorate these signi­
ficant events in the life of the Province by
focusing attention on the City of Durban
and the University of Natal in Natalia 14
which will be published in December 1984.
 5

Editorial

In compiling the Index to the first ten volumes of Natalia which we

published two years ago, Mr David Buckley drew our attention to the
perhaps undue prominence given in the journal to the doings of Anglicans
and the history of the Anglican church in Natal.
His point was well taken, but Natalia 13 cannot but return to the theme,
for June 1983 saw the centenary of the death of John William Colenso, first
Bishop of Natal. We do so, however, without apology, for Colenso's
interests and influence extended far beyond the confines of his church. And
what a worthwhile centennial commemoration it was with a series of
lectures, a tour, an exhibition in St Peter's church of such excellence as to
invoke editorial approbation from the Natal Witness, and a play 'What doth
the Lord require?' on the life and work of the Bishop, performed in the
Cathedral to appreciative audiences.
Notes and Queries will record the Centenary in greater detail than is
appropriate here. What is necessary to affirm editorially is our abiding sense
of the towering stature of the man, heretic or no: of his missionary zeal, of
his huge linguistic achievement in learning Zulu and reducing it to written
form, of his biblical scholarship - he it was who identified the 'P' source in
the Old Testament - , of his fight for righteousness, truth and justice in
championing the unpopular causes of Langalibalele and Cetshwayo in the
noblest tradition of the Old Testament prophets. The extracts from his
famous Isandhlwana sermon with which the play culminated are reminiscent
of the Authorized Version of the Scriptures themselves in their inspiration
and power. That Colenso failed in many of his undertakings: that his
missionary efforts were sidetracked by sterile theological controversy, that
his attempts to reinterpret Scripture in the light of current scientific
knowledge were attacked, scorned or ignored, and that justice was not done
to Langalibalele and still less to Cetshwayo does not negate the value of the
good fight that he fought.
It is therefore fitting to publish as our reprint Colenso's sermon 'Praying
for Rain', preached in St Peter's cathedral in November 1878 and highly
relevant to a Natal stricken in 1983 by one of the worst droughts in its
recorded history. The second reprint is also Colensiana, extracted from the
short-lived Natal Journal in 1857 and affording an interesting glimpse into
the life and development of the Bishopstowe community a few brief years
after the establishment of the mission. It was hoped to publish some of the
centennial lectures, but this has regrettably not proved feasible because
either the material would appear more appropriately in theological journals
or, in the case of Dr Jeff Guy's paper, it would pre-empt publication
elsewhere. We are grateful to Dr Peter Spiller, however, for the interesting
sidelights he offers on the characters and quality of the Natal judges who
pronounced judgement in the so-called 'Colenso cases'.
6

The energies of Bishop Colenso's last years were devoted in large measure
to attempting to secure justice for Cetshwayo. It is therefore not
inappropriate that 1983 should see also the commemoration of a Cetshwayo
Centenary for, though he died in early 1884, it was in 1883 that he was
restored as Zulu King. Our thanks go to Dr Charles Ballard for so willingly
meeting our request for an historiographical survey of the changing
perceptions of the King.
We are happy to be able to publish a study of Natal literature by, most
fittingly, Professor Colin Gardner, Head of the Department of English at
the University of Natal in Pietermaritzburg, which takes Natalia into
hitherto untrodden literary territory. His colleague in the English
Department (and also our colleague on the Editorial Committee), William
Bizley has been able to indulge his extra-mural interests in both railways and
history in giving us a fascinating glimpse into the Natal Railway Guide of
1911.
Russell Brann and Robert Haswell have cast new light on the Pietermaritz­
burg urban scene with their discoveries of Voortrekker buildings still
standing, but hitherto unrecognized as such.
Natalia has attempted to cast its net a little wider this year by recruiting
correspondents in the persons of Mrs Sheila Henderson (Dundee), Mrs Gill
Tatham (Ladysmith), Mrs Belinda Gordon (Greytown) and Miss Estelle
Gericke (Eshowe). We thank them for their interest and support - which
has sometimes extended beyond corresponding to occasional attendance at
committee meetings. Our thanks go, too, to those many who have so
willingly and without rewarrl agreed to contribute obituaries or book reviews
or to Notes and Queries. We are confident that their efforts, together with
those of our authors, will provide an edition of Natalia of abiding interest
and value.
T.B. FROST
7

Praying for Rain

EDITORIAL NOTE
For people who were suffering directly as a result of the drought, Bishop Colenso was offering
littl", comfort in his sermon of 17 November, 1878. Instead of urging them to pray for it, he
commenced by contrasting prayer with the so-called laws of nature. He pointed oilt that one
does not pray that one of these laws be contravened. While there are prayers for the recovery
of the sick, there are none for people to be brought back to life. Nor are there prayers that the
farmer's garners and sacks be miraculously filled with grain.
In the same way, argues the bishop, prayers should not be offered that rain miraculously fall
from the skies. His scientific mind knew that rain only fell when the weather conditions
conformed to certain complex standards. When the winds, clouds and temperature were not in
their right conditions no rains would fall, no matter how hard we prayed. To pray like that
would be demanding God to contravene his laws of nature and expecting from him a miracle.
Such prayer is not suitable, not so much because it conflicts with the laws of nature, but
because it does not do justice to God himself. As Colenso points out:
Yes! if we truly believe in God, the living God, we must ascribe to Him Infinite
Perfection, perfect Wisdom, perfect Love.
Our prayers should be consistent with this attitude and assume that God knows what he is
doing. Nevertheless we are entitled to approach God and find
in Him a tender, compassionate Father, and be cheered with the light of His
countenance.
With this attitude we can instead address him with the words of the prayer taught by Jesus:
Father, Thy will be done on earth, as it is done in heaven!
These were not only taught by his son but were set as an example when in desperation Jesus
addressed his father on that night of agony.
Father, all things are possible unto Thee: take away this cup from me ... Father, not my
will, but Thine be done!
This is the example which we are to follow. God is not to be told to regulate his creation or to
change his rules. His will is always to be done. But as children we may approach him and ask
him for mercy and support.
Father I am not worthy to be called thy child: have mercy upon me and inspire thou me
with strength to become a better man than [ am, more submissive to Thy Law, more
faithful in my duty, more true to my own inner conviction of what becomes a child of
Thine.
This is the pattern that prayer should follow even during times of drought.
We pray only that we may be able to go through our appointed trial in the spirit which
becomes thy children, in patience and trust and in love to One another.
Many of Colenso's traits are apparent in this sermon, in particular his knowledge and
application of science to theology, his rationalist approach and his unwillingness to surrender to
sentimentality. God remains sovereign and loving father. Humankind continues to be a family
under God, with Jesus as 'our Elder Brother in God's Family'. We as children approach the
father in order that the 'spark of Divine Life' in each of us may be nurtured, even when faced
with evils and calamities.
Colenso is undoubtedly right in pointing out that rain does not just fall from the skies. Should
he have lived today he would have been able to show how the pollution caused by humankind
can disturb what we now call ecology. And further, Colenso could have asserted that God is the
giver of rain and the director of the weather and in time of drought our subjection to him must
be acknowleged. God remains sovereign and father, and a drought such as we are experiencing
teaches us that he both gives and withholds rain, just as he gives and withholds love and mercy.
IAN DARBY
Praying for Rain 9

Eph. VI. 18. Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit.
The text leads us to consider the duty of prayer. The idea most commonly
held on this subject is that in prayer we are to beseech God to give us, not
merely spiritual gifts and graces, blessings for the soul, but especially such
temporal blessings as we may think we need - recovery from sickness,
worldly prosperity, success in our undertakings, supplies of rain, or a
plentiful harvest - deliverance at all events from some immediate danger or
distress, "from lightning and tempest, from plague, pestilence, and famine,
from battle and murder, and from sudden death." And happy indeed are
those who habitually pour out their hearts in prayer to God, expressing to
their Heavenly Father, with all the confiding simplicity of children, all their
wishes, all their necessities, all their fears - "in everything by prayer and
thanksgiving making their requests known unto God." It is but natural for us
as human beings, dependent on Power and Wisdom above our own, and it is
our privilege as Christians taught by our Saviour's lips, so to do. Happy is
that man who in all his troubles of every kind can throw himself upon the
bosom of his Almighty Friend, his Faithful Creator, and tell out all his
sorrows, as well as all his sins, into the gracious ear of Him who knows them
all before he utters them, who tenderly cares for all his children, of whom
the Psalmist said of old that, "as a father pitieth his children, even so the
Lord pitieth them that fear Him." On this point indeed the Master himself
has left us a precious example. "Father, all things are possible unto Thee:
take away this cup from me" - or rather, as we read elsewhere "0 My
Father, if it be possible" - if it be consistent with Thy Holy Will and
according to the ordering of Thy Good Providence - "let this cup pass from
me." There spake the human heart of Jesus, shuddering at the near prospect
of death and cruel agony, yet ready to endure whatever the Father's Infinite
Wisdom and Love might see good to lay upon him, to drink to the dregs the
cup, however bitter, which Perfect Goodness had prepared for him; and so
he added "Yet not my will, but Thine, be done."
Our prayers, then, in the time of our deepest distress, in the prospect or
in the actual sense of our saddest bereavements, may be fashioned upon that
of Jesus, our Elder Brother in God's Family: we cannot go wrong if we
follow the example which he has set us. Only in the light of that bright
example, and of that Divine Teaching which we have received from his lips
and from the whole record of his life, we must remember not to pray to God
as if we would prescribe to Him what He must do to help us, as if we would
explain to Him what He does not know, forgetting that blessed word "Your
Father knoweth what things ye need before ye ask Him" - as if we would
teach the Infinite G80dness and Wisdom what is best and most useful for us
- as if we were wiser and better than God, and would make God wiser and
better than He is!
The prayers of many however, do in fact lose sight of the fundamental
principle of our religion, that God is unchangeable in Truth, in Wisdom, and
in Love, as if they were worshipping some capricious heathen deity, whose
will could be overcome and changed by our importunity. And such prayers
also lose sight often of the fact that God's Laws in Nature are unchangeable.
This truth is so clearly revealed, and indeed in our day is so generally
recognised, that no intelligent person will now be found asking God in plain
terms in his own particular case to set aside some law of the natural world,
10 Praying for Rain

to violate His own established order in the Universe and work a miracle on
his behalf. No one, for instance, would pray that the Sun may rise in the
West, or that a stream, which bars his way or threatens to drown him, may
be dried up or turned aside in its course, or that some dearly loved one may
be raised to life again. Why do men not ask for such things as these?
Because they know that God's laws in the natural world are never broken,
they have learned by experience that in such cases as these the unchangeable
order of nature is never disturbed. But other natural laws are not as yet so
generally recognised or so fully understood. Everyone knows that one who
is dead will not be restored to life again in this world - not that God cannot
do this, if He will, by His Almighty Power and Wisdom, but that experience
teaches us that He will not do so, He will not disturb in this way the order
which He has Himself established, and we never expect Him to do so. But it
is not everyone who realises as certainly the fact that, in order that there
may be a fall of rain, certain causes in the atmosphere must be at work and
certain changes must take place in it, and that, until those conditions are
fulfilled, there ·cannot possibly be rain, - that is, there will not be,
according to God's established order, anymore than a lifeless form will be
restored to health and activity again. Hence we often hear of prayers being
offered for rain or against rain, while we never hear of any sensible person
praying that a dead friend may be raised to life again. If only men
considered that to pray for rain or for fair weather is simply to ask that God,
for the sake of some person or people, would work a miracle, just as it
would be to ask that he should raise the dead - and considered also how
unwise, how irreverent, how presumptuous, is such a request, when we
really understand what it means - we should not hear of prayers being
made for rain or sunshine anymore than we hear of prayers for the raising of
the dead.
Suppose that a man's crops are suffering from drought, and that he asks of
God relief·in his distress. He does not simply pray that his crops may be
saved from destruction, nor does he expect that they will be saved without
rain. He knows enough of the fixed laws of nature to be sure that the grain,
in order to grow, must be nourished with rain. He prays therefore expressly
for rain: that is to say, while recognising one law of nature which regulates
the growth of the grain, he takes no account of that other law of nature,
equally unchangeable, which regulates the fall of rain. In other words he
asks for a particular miracle to be wrought for his own special benefit. The
wind must be changed in answer to his prayers, and the clouds be driven
over his fields. But that change of wind requires certain changes in the
atmosphere in the direction from which it came, and will produce certain
changes in that to which it goes. And, if we thus go back along the chain of
causes which produce storms and calms, rains and droughts, we shall always
find that a link - nay, a thousand links - must be violently broken, and the
whole order of nature thrown into confusion, in order that this one man's
fields may have the rain which he desires. In praying for rain, then, he prays
that a miracle may be wrought on his behalf, just as much as if he prayed
that his crops may be saved by some miraculous agency without any rain at
all. And why does he not do this? Or why does he not ask that the grain may
be made to grow in his garner without any sowing or reaping at all, that the
sack may grow full again, through some miraculous agency, as fast as it is
Praying for Rain 11

emptied? He does but prescribe the mode in which the miracle shall be
wrought which he requires; he undertakes to instruct the Almighty in what
way He sh,!ll fulfil his wish and save his harvest! And the wind, which brings
up the rain for him, may wreck a vessel caught in it on some lee shore, or
hinder its progress to the port, where medical aid might have been obtained
for one on board, shattered by accident or struck by disease, whose friends
are longing - perhaps are praying - that just the very opposite wind might
blow, and bear them swiftly to the haven where they would be!
If, indeed, our knowledge of the laws of Nature, and of all the powers
which must act together to produce certain results, were perfect, we should
no longer ask God for many things, which now are often the subject of
prayers put up in the Church or in the secret chamber. It has been truly said
that with most men prayer begins where the knowledge of the laws of
Nature ends, and that, as that knowledge of the laws of Nature ends, and
that, as that knowledge advances, prayer retires backward, and confines
itself more and more to that region to which it specially belongs, to those
things which concern the spiritual world and the Life Eternal. A man would
not in these days pray that a deadly poison should be changed on his behalf
into wholesome food. But many will still think it proper to pray for the
removal of a drought or a pestilence - not for increase of patience to bear
the trial, faith to go through with it, wisdom to make the best of it, charity
to feel for the sufferings of others under it - but for a miraculous removal
of the cause of distress, by some suspension or violation of God's laws
established in the Universe. By those who understand that one miracle, one
interruption of the regular working of the laws of nature, is, according to the
Divine Order, as impossible as another, such prayers will not be offered ­
except it may be out of mere human weakness, with full recognition of their
unfitness, and with a mute appeal to the merciful compassion of Him who
bears, like a tender parent, with the infirmities of His Children, who "knows
our frame and remembers that we are but dust."
Twice during the past week have I been called to read the Burial Service
over the remains of those who were dearly loved - who are loved tenderly
still, but have left blanks in their families, and places vacant, which in this
life will be filled no more. One was a young wife and mother, known well to
the members of this congregation, when taking her part in days gone by in
the Sunday School and in the Choir, who has been called in her youthful
prime, from her sphere of useful activity on earth and the joys of her home,
to come up higher, where sorrow and sighing are unknown, and the seed
sown in this life will bear fruit for evermore. The other was a little one of
the flock, who had but just begun to taste life's mingled cup of bliss and
pain, and has been taken from the loving arms that held it here into the
embrace of the Eternal Father. Doubtless for each of these, while still in
life, fond prayers were offered that, if God so pleased, the precious one
might be spared awhile. But the Father of spirits, their Father as well as
ours, has seen good to order otherwise, and the heads of the mourners will
be bowed to say "The Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away - blessed
be the name of the Lord!" And in each case I have read the words which our
Church orders to be read - "We give Thee hearty thanks most Merciful
Father" - "we give Thee hearty thanks!" - the words of Christian faith
and hope - words which we are taught to use because we ought to use
12 Praying for Rain

them, ay, though our hearts are breaking, if we really believe in the Wisdom
and Goodness of God.
But so should it be with all our prayers in times of trouble, such, for
instance, as this time of drought which in God's good providence has of late
afflicted this land. Here too we should be ready to say "we meekly accept
what Thou in Thy Wisdom and Goodness hast ordered; we yield Thee
hearty thanks, most merciful Father," for this result of Thy everworking
laws, brought about through the natural ordinances which Thou has
established. We are sure that it has been wisely and graciously meant for
some good end. We do not wish this drought to be removed, except in Thine
own good time and way, and when it has thoroughly worked Thy blessed
Will, ~for ourselves and~ for others - Thy Will which is infinitely wiser and
better than ours. We pray only that we may be able to go through our
appointed trial in the spirit which becomes Thy children, in patience and
trust and in love to one another, and to those poor heathens round us, who
will suffer, if suffering there should be, as well as we, but who have not the
assurance which we have, as Christians, that a Fatherly Love is ordering all.
Yes! if we truly believe in God, the living God, we must ascribe to Him
Infinite Perfection, perfect Wisdom, perfect Love. And such a Being,
perfect in Wisdom and perfect in Goodness, must needs will that which will
best promote our truest welfare; and though the way may be dark, and we
may not see the path by which He is taking us, yet He holds us with His
Mighty Hand, and we shall come out into the light at last. Let us not rebel
and say to our Heavenly Father, "0 God! our will is at variance with Thy
will: we do not like this trial, we do not like what Thou hast appointed for
us: fulfil Thou our desire: let our will be done, not Thine, in this matter.
What Thou knowest to be best for us, let not that happen: but change Thou
Thy purpose at our request, yea, change Thy everlasting laws, and let
something else happen, the thing which we desire." Would not such a prayer
as this clearly show that we do not really believe that God is perfectly Wise
and Good? Ah! yet we are but, the best of us, as "infants crying in the
night," and God, our God, will not be angry when he hears our feeble cries,
our foolish prayers. Nay, the Father of Spirits will bend with compassion
over us when He sees how at times, it may be ­
We falter where we firmly trod,
And falling with our weight of cares
Upon the great world's altar-stairs
That slope through darkness up to God.
We stretch lame hands of faith, and grope,
And gather dust and chaff, and call
To what we feel is Lord of all,
And faintly trust the larger hope.
(Tennyson, 'In Memoriam')
Yes! He hears when there is no voice of supplication, when only the heart
is broken, and the spirit maketh intercession with groanings which are not
uttered. But blessed are those who know the true use of prayer, as the
means of obtaining spiritual help and strength! Whenever we ask for
spiritual blessings, for a pure heart, for strength to do a difficult duty, for
power to overcome temptation, for grace to become better and nobler than
we are, then we ask Him not to work a miracle, not to break his own laws,
but to keep them, to fulfil them; for it is a law of the spiritual world, as fixed
Praying for Rain 13

and sure as those of the natural, that whoever sincerely desires to become
more holy, more brave, and true, and good, more what a child of God
should be, and who uses prayer as a means which God has given us for
growing more and marc in His likeness, shall attain what he desires. The
man who is irreligious or immoral may ask of God plentiful harvests and
favourable seasons. But he who goes to God and says, "Father I am not
worthy to be called Thy child: have mercy upon me and inspire Thou me
with strength to become a better man than I am, more submissive to Thy
will, more obedient to Thy Law, more faithful in my duty, more true to my
own inner conviction of what becomes a child of Thine" - he who prays
thus out of a full heart with all earnestness, it may even be with strong
crying and tears when he looks back upon the path which lies behind him
and sees what waste he has made of life's blessings, what wrong he has
done, what woe he has caused, to himself and to others - gives thereby a
proof that the spark of Divine Life has not been quenched in him, that his
soul is still alive unto God, that the life of God is still within him, however it
may have been at times oppressed, almost crushed out, with evil. What
strength, what joy from above, is given in answer to such prayer! It changes
not the nature of Him to whom the man prays: it changes the man himself;
his soul is quickened, cleansed, and purified through such communion with
God.
Let no man therefore say "If I cannot change the mind of God by my
prayer, it is useless to pray, and I need not, will not, pray at all." There are
prayers which are altogether useless, like those of which St. James writes,
"Ye ask and receive not, because ye ask amiss." But prayer indeed helps, if
we say as Jesus did, "Father, not my will, but Thine be done!" Prayer helps
if we seek thereby to draw near to God, if our only desire is to have closer
fellowship with God. Such prayer indeed helps if we practise it habitually,
"praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit," now in the
time of our health and strength and happiness, as well as in the time of our
tribulation. For then, when the dark days come, and the years draw nigh in
which we shall say we have no pleasure in them - when deep afflictions
overwhelm us, and earthly joys are failing us, and life itself is passing away
- we shall still be able to draw near to the presence of God as all along we
have been wont to do, and shall find in Him a tender, compassionate
Father, and be cheered with the light of His countenance. He will pour fresh
life into our souls while our outward man is perishing and our inward man is
being renewed from day to day. And the rich experience of our past life will
teach us to sum up all our desires by saying in that dread hour, with more
entire surrender of our whole being than ever, "Father, Thy Will be done on
earth, as it is done in heaven!"
14

Ekukanyeni In 1857

From the Natal Journal I, no. 2, Apr. 1857

. The central and principal station of the Mission work of the Church of
England in this Diocese, is at Ekukanyeni, about five or six miles from
Maritzburg, and (to use the colonial mode of measuring distances) within an
easy ride of thirty-five or forty minutes from it. Its name, which was given to
it by those who first took possession of the land on which it stands for
missionary purposes, signifies "Light", or "in the Light". And we may as
well inform our English friends that the word, though rather long, as most
Kafir words are, is one easily pronounced by giving all the consonants their
ordinary English sounds, and sounding the vowels as in French, with an
accent on each of the e's.
The land, on which this Station stands, was granted to the Bishop of Natal
for Mission purposes, by the late Lieutenant Governor Pine. Maritzburg
itself lies in a kind of basin of large extent, surrounded on all sides by lofty
hills; so that, before getting clear of the City in any direction, (except along
the banks of the Umsundusi), it is necessary to climb a long ascent, the toil
of surmounting which, however, is amply rewarded by the magnificent views
which open upon the eye, as one rises higher and higher above the level of
the town . . . .
The ground here, instead of being parched and bare at this season, as in
the rest of South Africa, is everywhere fresh and verdant; and the
appearance, consequently, as one mounts up from Maritzburg, of this
multitude of green hills, reaching away into the far distance, and swelling,
one behind another, like the billows of the sea, shaded with innumerable
dimpling hollows, or spotted over with the mimosa, or other bushwood, is
indescribably beautiful, more especially when the horizontal rays of the
rising or setting sun add splendour to the scene. Below, at his feet, the
traveller will discern the little City itself, looking bright and cheerful in the
sunlight, with its pretty white houses, interspersed with the foliage of
seringas and gum trees; and on its further course he will trace the shining
course of the Umsunduzi (or Little Bushman's River) as it hastens along the
plain, towards the east, to join the Umgeni, at some point far away in the
Inanda location.
The hill, upon which the Mission Station stands, is one of the lowest of
those which bound the Maritzburg basin. The road from the City, which
leads to it, passes, for about half-a-mile, through a swampy flat ... But, for
the sake of our English readers, let us suppose a friend - (and many such
find it a pleasant ride, on a fine afternoon, from the City to the Station,
where, we need hardly say, any visitors from town or country, who might
Ekukanyeni in 1857 15

wish to inspect the school and mission operations, would receive at any time
a hearty welcome) - to start from Maritzburg for a visit to Ekukanyeni.
The City itself is rectangular in form, lying N .E. and S. W. He will leave it at
its eastern corner. Ten minutes' ride on level ground, along the town
common, will bring him to Vanderplank's Bridge, of rather primitive
construction, which crosses a little brook, occasionally swelled by rains to a
considerable stream - (some of its waters, indeed, at all times wash over
the road at this place) - and has on its right, at some little distance, by a
clump of trees, the mill, for which a portion of the stream is turned off at
this point, and the town slaughter-houses. After crossing another little
spruit, he will mount a slight ascent, and come upon a good piece of
cantering ground, over which the road passes, with a very gradual descent,
for three-quarters of a mile, till it crosses another stream, (that by which the
waters of the marsh are drained), by a bridge still ruder than the former,
consisting, in fact, of a few stout stems of branches, laid side by side, and
covered with soil and grass. Over this there pass daily several heavy wagons,
bringing firewood from Mr Marten's farm, (which is just beyond the Mission
land), and drawn by ten or twelve oxen . . . .

If it bears the weight of a loaded wagon, it will, no doubt, bear that of

himself and his horse. And, in point of fact, it stands, and will stand, until
the next flood comes, which will, very probably, sweep it bodily away. Such
was the case in the flood of last April, when the whole of this marsh, for two
miles or more in length, and half-a-mile in width, was a wide sheet of water,
and the Mission Station was for some days inaccessible from Maritzburg,
except by a boat, or by swimming. Happily, such bridges, as they are easily
destroyed, so they are easily and economically replaced by new ones . . . .

A few minutes' ride, after leaving the bridge behind him, will bring our
traveller to another small stream, which separates the town common lands
from the Mission ground. Hitherto the road has been almost level all the
way from the City for three miles or more, and the last mile or so between
low elevations on each side, which completely prevent him from getting a
view of the surrounding country. But now begins a long steep ascent ....
Indeed, in slippery weather, it has more than once happened, that the
Mission cart or wagon has been stopped at the foot of this ascent, and been
unable to mount the hill, on its return from town at night, with stores from
the house, or linen from the laundry. In such cases it has been left for hours,
perhaps the whole night, in the midst of pitiless rain, till additional help
could be brought to it . . . .
Our traveller is now on Mission ground. After climbing this long ascent of
half-a-mile, he will reach a ridge, peering above which, as he rises, the first
object, that strikes his eye, will be the white cross on the roof of the Mission
Chapel. A few steps further, and the whole magnificent scene will burst
upon him, the more striking from its being so suddenly presented, and not
even suspected by a stranger, as he has travelled along the dull and dreary
bottom. For now he will come face to face with the glorious Table
Mountain, which rises before him in massive grandeur, at a distance of
seven or eight miles, with a multitude of lower hills and kloofs, in wild
disorder, filling up the space between, their universal covering of green
16 Ekukanyeni in 1857

speckled, as usual, with dark spots of bush, and tinged at this season (the
end of summer) with the brown or ruddy hue of the ripening grass. Our
Table Mountain resembles much in form that at the Cape, but differs from it
materially in one respect, that its sides, to within a yard or two of the
summit, where the red rock appears, are clothed all over with vegetation. At
one point, towards the northern end, a large triangular patch of green,
which slopes up the mountain-side, gradually narrowing upwards, indicates
the only path by which an access can be gained, without much difficulty, to
the summit. The top of the mountain is, in point of fact, a large farm of five
or six thousand acres, well watered, and abounding with game; and both on
its left and right, at some little distance, are elevations of a similar character,
which have evidently once been joined to it, but appear to have been torn
asunder by some violent convulsion, at the time the Umgeni forced its way
between them . . . .

Our visitor has only as yet caught a glimpse of the Mission buildings. But,
as he advances, the road soon brings them into full view before him, at the
distance of half-a-mile, on the crest of another ridge, running parallel to that
on which he now stands. He will perceive the Mission House, with its two
low gable-ends, over one of which is hung the Mission bell, which summons
the little flock, morning and evening, to daily worship, and marks the
intervals of rest and labour. Close to it, on his left, he will mark with
pleasure the Mission Chapel, a wooden structure - with thatched roof,
Gothic porch, lantern, and gable, these latter all of wood, and painted white
- the construction of which does great credit to the taste and skill of Mr
R yder, the mechanical superintendent of the Station. The appearance of the
building is, indeed, sufficiently ecclesiastical; but alas! its uses, as we shall
presently be obliged to confess, are just now of a very miscellaneous
character. About half-a-mile further to the right, he will notice the farm
buildings, smithy, & c., and about sixty acres of enclosed and cultivated
land, containing crops of mealies, oat-forage, potatoes, cotton, china-grass,
and sesamum. We have also gathered in this season an excellent crop of
wheat, good forage, and splendid potatoes. Mealies, of course, do well,
subject only to the colonial "contingency" of being trampled down now and
then by an inroad of cattle . . . .
Our cotton field throve well last season, and the plants, though of the
finest and most delicate kind (Sea Island), have generally survived the
winter cold. At the beginning of this season they sprouted vigorously; but,
from some cause, have not thriven since in all parts of the field. It is most
probable that frosts of this region, so much more elevated and colder than
the Bay, have really interfered with their growth; so that we must exchange
the Sea Island for a coarser kind of cotton, which, after all is said to be in
the long run more profitable in the market. The China-grass, a sort of flax,
does very well indeed, and is likely, some day, to be an article of export.
The Sesamum Indicum, called by the natives udonca, is a valuable plant,
resembling at first sight in its appearance, when in flower, a rather small
variety of the English Foxglove. The seed is very small, and grows in small
pods, a large number of seeds, from 1 500 to 2 000, upon one stalk: and
these, when pressed, yield an excellent oil. This seed forms a considerable
article of export from India. And, (according to a report from Kew
Ekukanyeni in 1857 17

Gardens, which appeared lately in the Natal papers), the sort we have under
cultivation, which is the white variety, has the highest mercantile value. The
seed, from which our Mission crop is grown, was obtained from Panda. The
plant, however, is found indigenous in some places along the coast of this
district; and the natives are aware of the oily nature of its seeds, and are
accustomed to use the oil as a delicacy mixed with their isijingi, or mea lie
porridge . . . .
It is very desirable to make a trial at the Station of any such article of
commerce, as is likely to reward the labour of the natives, by way of
example and encouragement to them to do the same.
But we have left our visitor looking at the Mission buildings from the
opposite hill. Let him now follow the long descending path, which leads him
down across a wide tract of grass into the hollow, which, with its little
brook, separates the ridge he has now left from that of the Mission House.
He will sink at last out of sight of the latter, but discover on his right, taken
off lower down from the tract of grass which he is crossing, another
enclosure of forty acres, with a small dwelling, and outhouses attached,
which has hitherto been occupied by the family of an excellent farmer, who
died suddenly in the service of the Mission about two years ago .... Crossing
now the little stream, which flows along the bottom, by a substantial
causeway, which serves as a dam to form a mill-pool to his left, and looking
down the little current to the right, he will see the mill itself, built strongly
of stone, with a powerful overshot wheel, which already grinds all the wheat
and mealies for the eighty or ninety people, white and black, great and
small, living upon the station, but will shortly be applied, as we hope, to yet
more profitable uses. Near the mill stands an extensive brick-shed, where a
brick machine is now employed in preparing for the erection of the Bishop's
house, for which a special sum was raised among friends in England at the
original foundation of the See.
The whole of the above is the work of little more than two years. At the
time the Bishop left Natal, on his return to England in April, 1854, the land
had only just been granted by the Government; and no building or
cultivation of any kind, not even a Kafir hut or mealie ground, could be
found upon the whole extent of it. Since then the Kafirs have been gradually
gathering around the Station, requesting leave to settle upon it. And at this
moment there are eight or nine kraals within sight of the windows of the
Mission House, or only hidden among the kloofs.
A short canter up a stiff bit of hill will now bring our friend to the Mission
premises, where, if he arrives out of school hours, he will probably see a
number of little black forms, in their blue-striped linen dresses, worn with
flannel underneath, but with naked legs and bare heads, as the children of
the kraal, engaged in their various childish pursuits; , .. or perhaps the
whole party of seniors may be out on the grass hard by, with their teachers,
white and black, engaged at a game of cricket - "might have been", we
should rather say, than "may be", for alas! their cricket balls, sent out some
time ago from England, are all expended. They were never of much value;
and the work of a grand field-day last Christmas, when the white boys of the
Church School at Maritzburg gave battle to the black boys of Ekukanyeni,
and both beat and were beaten, completely finished up our stock for the
present.
18 Ekukanyeni in 1857

But, having now brought our visitor to the doors, we must introduce him
to the special work of this Institution. Our readers are aware that about a
year ago (on Feb. 1st, 1856) nineteen young Kafir children were brought by
their friends to Ekukanyeni, and delivered formally up into the hands of the
Bishop for education, by the chiefs, Ngoza and Zatshuke. At the instance of
Sir George Grey, and, indeed, on his express promise, made at the time of
the review at the Table Mountain, it was intended originally to have
founded a station among Ngoza's people, in the neighbourhood of his
principal kraal. Upon examination, however, it was found that the country,
in which this Station would have been placed, was so broken and
precipitous, and utterly impracticable for agricultural purposes, that the idea
was abandoned in favour of one, which would eventually be of far greater
importance, both to Ngoza himself, and to the colony, if only the people
could be induced to think so - n~mely, that of collecting their boys, by a
voluntary act on their part, for separate continuous education, apart from
the heathen kraal. Mr Shepstone determined to make the experiment, and
sounded the principal men upon the subject. They appeared convinced by
his arguments; and, after various discussions and debates with their people,
Ngoza and Zatshuke announced their intention to accept the proposal made
to them, and bring their own children at all events, and, they hoped, several
others, to the station at Ekukanyeni - "for (said Ngoza) I should like to be
the last fool of my race" . . . .
... a long and anxious delay occurred, after the chiefs had pledged their
word to us: and again, and again, the day was changed for the arrival of the
first batch of children. At last, however, on Feb. 1st, our hopes were
realized, and our native school became a fact. The day before, the two
chiefs had arrived at the Station, with a large body of followers, men,
women and children. And, seen from a distance, as they wound their way
slowly along the hills, some of the men carrying their little ones, and others
leading them by the hand, as they "trudged unwillingly to school", with
many a longing backward look upon the snug warm hut, which was their
home, upon the pleasant mealie-grounds, and the wide cattle-ranges, and
the comfortable idle life they had hitherto been leading, and which they
were now about to exchange for the dreaded secrets of the white man's
house, and still more for that mysterious process of education, to which their
father's will had now consigned them, in opposition generally, as they knew,
to the wishes of their mothers, and in disregard of their fears - the whole
party had certainly very much the appearance of a troop of slaves. The
women followed, or went beside their young ones, carrying presents of
sweet cane (imfi) , or other school comforts for their use.
In the course of the afternoon, a council was held, at which the nineteen
boys were formally surrendered to us, and were taken out at once to be
washed and clothed in their little dresses, as the first step to civilization: for
they came to us, most of them, naked as they were born, and none of them
had ever yet known more of what can properly be called clothing, than a
corner of their mother's blanket thrown over them at night. Meanwhile,
many speeches were made upon the occasion by the two chiefs and their
indunas, which showed that, what they then did, they did deliberately,
because they had confidence in those into whose hands they entrusted their
Ekukanyeni in 1857 19

children, and believed that the sacrifice, which they now made in parting
with them, would be repaid in their permanent welfare.
The next day the parting kiss was given by the parents, with every sign of
fond affection, which, indeed, they manifest whenever they come to see
them: the friends took their leave, and the little ones looked with tearful
eyes on their departure. We say "little ones", for the great majority of these
children were not above seven or eight years old, and some younger, when
they came to us. They were now left alone with strangers, and these all
white people, except that we had secured two native men, of Ngoza's and
Zatshuke's tribe, and one old woman, well known to the two chiefs, to wait
upon the children for a time, and br~ak the sudden change from savage to
civilized life. These black attendants, however, being mere wild heathens
themselves, were a great nuisance to us after a while, and we were glad to
get rid of them, as were the boys also, when once they began to feel at
home.
The Rev. Mr Fearne resided for the first three months, as clerical
superintendent of the Institution, having been summoned hastily from his
duties at Richmond upon this sudden emergency, to lend help in the first
establishment of the school. And a great debt is due to Mr and Mrs Fearne
for their kind parental attention to the domestic comforts, and personal
health and happiness of the boys, by which so much was done towards
making them contented with their new circumstances, though everything, at
first, was strange around them. Messrs Baugh and Pigg were the boys' first
teachers; and Mr Baugh still continues to superintend their education. For
some weeks little more could be done than to break in the children gradually
to habits of order, and accustom them to the restraints of civilized life.
Indeed a great part of the day was spent at first in mere amusement, and
English games of all kinds were taught them, as also many simple chants and
rounds, to take the place of their discordant Kafir songs. By these means
their minds were kept in salutary exercise; and they were able to show
cheerful faces to their friends, who came continually to visit them, bringing
their little home-presents of imfi or amasi (sour milk), and doubtless
watching for any signs of ill-usage. They began to feel the kindness of their
new friends; and meanwhile their school-hours were imperceptibly
lengthened, and their school-work increased, till now we have the regular
colonial allowance of school-time, namely, five hours a day, with a half­
holiday on Saturday, - but no vacations at Mid-summer or Christmas. For
our boys are given up to us for five years' schooling: and, except in case of
sickness, are not likely, we trust, to return to their kraals in the interval.
They number now, as we have said, thirty-three, of whom all but two refugee
children, lately admitted, are the sons of head men of their tribes, either
chiefs or indunas, and are likely therefore, in after life, to exert more than
ordinary influence among the Kafirs of this District. We call this, among
ourselves, our Kafir Harrow, in token of remembrance of the close
connection which the Bishop of Natal had formerly with one of our great
English Schools, and also of the warm interest which the boys of the English
Harrow have taken, and practically expressed, for the success of the Natal
Missions. And we do not despair of seeing the numbers of Kafir youths, who
are being educated at this Institution, increased before long to be more
worthy of comparison with those of her English patron.
20 Ekukanyeni in 1857

This, however, we will be bold to say, that a more pleasant, well­

conducted set of boys, it would not be easy to find than these thirty-three
Kafir lads at Ekukanyeni. Nor, during the whole time that they have been
with us; have we had occasion to punish for one serious offence, such as
lying, stealing, or ill-using one another. We do punish them, when
necessary; and a pretty severe chastisement was not long ago administered
to one of them, who was not willing to lead the oxen at the plough one
morning - it being part of our system to practise the boys gradually in
ploughing, and the other processes of agriculture. The lad ran away from the
black ploughman, was caught at last, and beaten for a warning to others.
One petty case of pilfering is all that has yet come under our notice among
so many children; but that was not of such a nature as to call for severe
treatment.
For some time after the boys' arrival, much inconvenience was felt for
want of sleeping accommodation. Indeed, we fear their health suffered at
first from the way in which they were crowded at night - the nineteen boys,
with their four Kafir adult attendants, being crammed into one room, which
had afterwards to be enlarged, to make a decent kitchen to the Mission
House. We were glad, indeed, that only nineteen came at first. With as
much speed as possible, a large building was erected (of wood, to save time)
for their reception; and this is the Chapel above mentioned, which now
serves them for the compound purposes of school-room, eating-room, bed­
room, play-room, and Chapel, where the children and adult Kafirs of the
Institution meet for morning and evening prayer, and a crowd of friends or
strangers from the neighbouring kraals, within a distance of three or four
miles, gather for Divine Service on Sunday afternoon. We use a small
Prayer Book, which has been prepared for the Natal Church Missions,
consisting of portions of the English Liturgy translated, namely, the
Morning and Evening Prayers to the end of the third Collect, the Litany, all
the Collects and Commandments, a selection of prose Psalms, and twenty or
thirty Kafir hymns, translated from the Hymn Book in use in the English
Churches in this Diocese .... With all these, both words and tunes, the boys
are quite familiar, and they chant the Te Deum in Kafir with great
propriety. But we sadly want a new substantial Chapel of brick or stone,
(either of which can be easily procured upon the Station), which may be
kept for sacred purposes. The present building, indeed, cannot be expected
to last more than a few years: and, even for sleeping purposes, it will soon
become inadequate, if we receive any large additions to our present
numbers. It is a curious sight to look in at night upon them, and see how
they are dispersed all about the Chapel, upon the ground, or on the forms,
or under them, each wrapped in his little blanket . . . .
As their sleeping accommodation is not extravagantly luxurious, neither
(we may as well add) is their daily fare. Their food consists of mealie meal
exclusively, except a basin of soup on Wednesdays, and on Sundays a piece
of bread and beef, and a cup of coffee. But we have added greatly to the
dignity of the elder boys by supplying them with a brush and comb, with
which their woolly hair is carefully parted; and we have added also greatly to
the enjoyment of all, by inserting a pocket in their little coats, and greatly to
their own improvement, and to the comfort of their teachers, by connecting
the pocket with a real English pocket handkerchief. Our English friends will
Ekukanyeni in 1857 21

remember that a Kafir pocket handkerchief is a curved piece of bone, such

as we have seen freely used to wipe (that is, scrape) the faces of Kafir ladies,
when overpowered with heat on a summer afternoon.
As to their progress in their studies, a few words will suffice. They can all
read in Kafir to some extent; and, when Ngoza heard his two little boys
make out correctly in the Gospels a passage they had never seen before, he
could only exclaim, "It is frightful!" But eight or nine can read well any
passage of a Kafir book at first sight, and five or six are getting on with
English reading. They can most of them write more or less; but the first class
very nicely, in a clear, bold, running hand, which anyone can read. The
elder boys can write and spell correctly from dictation. But they can do
more. A little while ago we thought of trying them to write upon their slates,
out of their own head, whatever thoughts came uppermost. We were much
pleased, and, indeed, surprised, at the result, so far beyond what we
expected . . . .
We may add, finally, that the elder boys receive daily lessons in drawing
from Mrs Colenso, and are making very pleasing progress in that art. And
arrangements are also made at the Station for teaching them the work of a
carpenter and blacksmith, as well as the farmer, as soon as they have made
good their ground in their school-work, and have bodily strength enough for
the purpose . . . .
22

A Remarkable Survey ­
The Natal Scene at Union

In 1910 the South Coast Junction Literary Society acquired its own lecture
hall.
I suppose I was brought up short more by that fact - having in mind an
image of modern Rossburgh - and what it says about the energy of our
Edwardian forebears (for the era hadn't changed with the passing of the
monarch) than the news that Grey town and Dundee now had electricity ~md
telephones, or that the new zoological gardens at Mitchell Park, which you
reached by electric tram, had dromedaries, emus, wildebeest and a lion
house. South Coast Junction was apparently even more progressive than the
villages up the line, which often had literary societies, but couldn't sport, as
the 'Junction' did, the 'social farm' run by the Salvation Army. Facts like
these come in myriad quantities - and often with excellent photographic
illustration - in what is a beautifully bound and engraved volume, the
Descriptive Guide and Official Handbook of Natal, produced in 1911 by the
Tourist Department of what was now the South African Railways, but still
edited and printed in Durban. What I hope to demonstrate here is that these
Guides of the NGRlSAR are rich Nataliana, and that any library worth the
name should try to salvage remaining copies.
Glancing through them can be disconcerting, though. The sight of those
full-dress Edwardians, the ladies frilled and skirted whether on South Beach
pier, at the Umsinduzi Boat Station, or striding next to the tourist wagon en
route to Giant's Castle, fills one with distinct feelings of inferiority. (I felt
awfully junior on seeing the photograph of the interior of the new Natal
Museum. There they all are, in position by 1910, my favourite party pieces:
the two rhinos fighting, the lion attacking a zebra, the elephant with trunk
upreared.) This was the generation that thought nothing of building a special
branch of the Pietermaritzburg City Tramway to the Mayor's Garden in
Alexandra Park, for use on festive occasions! Not all Natal trams were
electrified by the way - one travelled from the railway station to that latest
fashionable resort, Isipingo Beach, one and a half miles, by tram of the
horse-drawn variety. Quiz question (while we are stopped at Isipingo):
Where is Dick King buried? Answer: In the Isipingo cemetery.
The Guide makes clear what a blossoming of major buildings there was in
the 1900s, pretty well compelling the judgement that our 'ancestral' genius
was frankly Edwardian. Not only was there the Maritzburg City Hall of
1901, Durban's City Hall and municipal complex of 1910, the University
Natal Scene at Union 23

Alexandra Park, Pieterrnaritzburg

1. Queen Victoria Diamond Jubilee Pavilion

2. Mayor's Garden Party
3. Bandstand
24 Natal Scene at Union

College Buildings reaching completion, the Mounted Police Barracks in

Alexandra Road, the Natal Museum, the Durban Club, the West Street
shops, the Waverley and Marine Hotels, but also such works as the turfing
of the Durban beach front between 1906 and 1909, and the consolidation of
the beautiful 'embankment' (now the considerably less beautiful Esplanade)
in the same years. Taking in the splendid Bay View from the smoking room
of the Club, you would probably miss the 94 acres of swamp that had been
reclaimed, whereby timber ships were now tying up at Congella Wharf.
Progress of this order saw also the new furrows laid at Weenen and
Winterton, and the engineering of the hard-top road between Gingindlovu
and Eshowe to put the capital of Zululand, 'English-looking and clean,'
firmly on the map, since it could now be reached by traction engine rather
than post-cart. (Cleanliness was an industry: we learn that the Inanda
'school for native girls' did business on the side as a laundry, and that 'a
great deal of Durban's washing' was done there.)

Not all Edwardian construction was successful. The attempt in 1905/6 to

rebuild the wharf at Port Shepstone failed to open the channel that would
have resuscitated that promising metropolis. But there were compensations
- at the failed wharf one could take a tourist motor launch, drawing 3'6",
for a trip of 81f2 miles up the Umzimkulu River. And if you thirsted for

Opening of the Town Hall, Pietermaritzburg, by T.R.H . The Duke and Duchess of

York, 1901.

Natal Scene at Union 25

Marine Hotel, Durban.

more, a shallower craft could take you further to the site of one of Natal's
biggest success stories, the Umzimkulu Lime and Cement Company, basking
in the achievement of having won the lime contracts against all foreign
corners for the building projects of those years, the post-offices, the city
halls and even the new Colonial Buildings. (The stone for these enterprises,
we discover, was quarried at Alcock's Spruit, near Newcastle.)
Where would the timber have come from for such a large building
programme? Perhaps from the forest near Deepdale on the Umkomaas, now
linked by the 'Cape' line, and from which 'yellow wood, sneeze wood, stink
wood, white pear and wood suitable for wagon making are sent to market.'
Country life of the time had some interesting variations. 3 000 ostriches were
being farmed around Grey town and Weenen, and one wonders whether the
'oyster bed at Umzumbi' was just left to trippers. Dairy farming was still laid
low after two decades of rinderpest and East Coast fever (two thirds of the
cattle population was lost) and the province had shamefacedly to import its
condensed milk. A white population of almost exactly 99 000 owned 33 000
horses (same as the present-day ratio of motor vehicles?) while the black
population, nearing a million, had 25 000. Horse-breeding was 'down' since
the war, of course, but in other sectors there was a resurgence. The 'mealie'
(deriving, the Guide suggests, from the Portuguese word 'milho', and 'only a
few years ago sneered at as a Kaffir crop') was suddenly discovered to be an
exportable cereal. The sequel is perhaps best illustrated by the fascinating
photographs of maize. cultivation using steam traction. But that success story
would hardly deflect the wattle farmer, whose product, which raised £16 540
in 1896, earned over £200 000 in 1910. Perhaps this euphoria explains a note
of racial sourness: the Guide regrets that banana production, worth £80 000
per annum, is 'now almost entirely in the hands of Asiatics'! Undoubteoly
there was the odious side to the people who had been systematically
introducing trout into Natal rivers since 1899.
26 Natal Scene at Union

The story on Industry is equally euphoric (though the Guide, with nice
deference to origins, records that the first steam engine in Natal was - no,
not the Point locomotive of 1860, but a unit imported in 1855 to power a
locally invented sugar mill.) The roving colonial eye, blending acquisition
and imagination in equal measure , noted that there was graphite and
copper in the Ngeli mountains, china clay at Padley's, a coal seam at
Chaka's Kraal Station, and - hush, hush , - that petroleum had been
tapped 'two miles distant' from Chaka's Kraal Station. (All proceeds to
Natalia should this information prove lucrative.) A gold-mine that came into
production at Melmoth in 1909 produced 1821f2 ounces in three months. Did
you know that there was once a brick and tile factory at Gezebuso, that Park
Rynie had a whaling station , that weekend trippers to Sweetwaters weren't
put off by the iron-works there? Did you know that Verulam once sported
- Oh those naughty 1900s - three tobacco and cigar factories? More
Offensive smoke was blown into the idyllic air of the South Coast by Messrs.
Kynoch 's new 'forest of chimneys' at Umbogintwini (those go-ahead
entrepeneurs having already installed a factory on the Bluff to convert whale
oil to glycerine .) The race of cigar-smokers had to think quickly in 1905
when the main water-supply to Durban, two reservoirs at Sarnia, was
damaged by floods. Result: by 1910 Durban was supplied from a dam on the
Upper Umlaas. The Guide describes this as 'the largest body of fresh water
in Natal'. (It was washed away by floods in 1943. Nagle Dam, on the
Umgeni River, was officially opened in 1950. Ed.) .
Also astonishing is the widespread electrification and automation,
especially in the sugar industry. (Sugar, the Guide tells us in an interesting
aside, was in Natal before the white man came, in the shape of umoba, an
indigenous plant.) Mount Edgecombe mill was packing sugar bags
automatically by 1910, but had been outstripped by Sir J. Liege Hulett's
five-storey tea plant at Kearsney, electrically operated throughout, and

Interior of Scott's Theatre, Pietermaritzburg.

Natal Scene at Union 27

producing 1 500 000 lbs of Assam tea per annum. Not only could you visit
the Kearsney factory and estate: you were assured - provided parliament
wasn't in session - of a personal greeting from the great man should you do
so. Best way was by Natal's only private passenger-carrying railway, opened
by the estate in 1901 and connecting with the main-line trains at Stanger.
Such activity no doubt explains why the colony's coal production quadrupled
between 1900 and 1910 - most of it being consumed, of course, in the
bunkering of ships - 9 passenger lines operated into Durban at this date.
The Guide produces a nice crop of 'Did you know?' Natal names. Did you
know that when the Boers occupied Newcastle they changed its name to
Viljoensdorp? - that Kelso was called 'Alexandra Junction', Renishaw
'Crook's [sic.] Siding', Paddock on the Harding branch 'Murchison',
Tongaat 'Victoria', or that Creighton was more commonly known as 'Dronk
Vlei'? But then, did you know that Stanger was named after the first
Surveyor-General of Natal? Or that the original name for the Drakensberg
was the 'Kahlamba' mountains, or that the Aliwal Shoal was first reported in
1848 by James Anderson, master of the 'Aliwal', which worthy, having
survived the discovery, went on in good imperial fashion to get a knighthood
and a directorship of the Eastern Telegraph Company? (In 1884, the Guide
tells us, as a result of a ship striking the Shoal, ten thousand railway sleepers
were washed up on the Bluff. It's full of that sort of off-beat information.
Some more quiz questions - definitely for buffs only. What station would
you buy a ticket to if you wanted to get to 'Burntown [sic.]'? Answer:
Hemu-hemu, on the Donnybrook branch. Could you post a letter to Curry's
Post in 191O? Answer: Only just - the post-cart service had been disbanded,
but there was a runner who collected the mail at Balgowan station while the
train stood for watering!)*
The Edwardians, then, didn't only consist of the languid gentlemen in
gaiters who posed with fishing rods on the banks of the Mooi, or took the
night train to Somkele, the terminus in Zululand, to join hunting
expeditions into the interior. There was also the Brownie-wielding
generation for whom Table Mountain was a natural 'rendezvous for
picnickers, photographers and scientists.' They looked eagerly out of the
train at Seven Oaks to spot hartebeest, and studied the Guide for the 'list of
Views of the Drakensberg from the main-line.' They rejoiced that the
mountains were now only a day away - you could now plan a visit to
Champagne Castle via Loskop on the newly opened Winterton branch line.
There were the advocates of the two-day trip from Verulam - horses at ten
shillings a day - to see the 200 ft. falls on the Umzinyati River, or who
arranged with the owner of the Dalton Hotel to do the excursion to the
Edwards Falls (ever heard of them?) eight miles away. (Top honours for the
'prettiest waterfall in Natal'? The Umlaas, 6 miles from Cato Ridge. And
while you were in the district, why not stroll three miles up Umtimbamkulu
from Manderston station, to get the view of the Bluff lighthouse!?)

These were a more refined variety of imperial scrutineer than those who
thronged the Ladysmith battlefields in tours arranged by Thomas Cook.
They were the sort for whom 'words fail to find adequate expression' for the
view at Mont aux Sources, but who would generously offer a point of
28 Natal Scene at Union

Sweetwaters station on the N.G.R. main line .

comparison: the drop below Drei Schusbergspitze in the Dolomites. Most

awe-inspiring of all - and let us remember how inaccessible the Tugela
Valley must have been at this time - is the casual mention of expeditions
from Krantzkop to Msinga for the view at Episweni Mountain: 'a veritable
castle of snow-white quartz', which 'in the dark forest looks like a fairy
palace.'
What does one feel - nostalgia or guilt!?
W.H. BIZLEY

*Editor's Note:

There was still a post office at Curry's Post until about World War 2 at which the postmistress

was believed to read one's postcards!

 29

The Historical Image of

King Cetshwayo of Zululand:

A Centennial Comment

One hundred years ago on the eighth day of February 1884 King Cetshwayo
kaMpande of Zululand collapsed and died near Eshowe. The manner in
which he died is still an intriguing mystery. The medical examiner at first
suspected poisoning but no post-mortem was allowed by the late King's
retainers. The 'official' cause of death was attributed eventually to a heart
attack although Cape Town and London physicians, who had both
previously examined King Cetshwayo, differed in their opinions as to
whether he had suffered from a congenital heart ailment or had died of
other than natural causes. Many Zulu to this day believe that the last king to
rule an independent Zulu kingdom was poisoned by his enemies and died a
martyr. The career of King Cetshwayo was, in life as in death, one of
conflicting interpretations and raging controversy. In the past century King
Cetshwayo's 'place in history' has been revised and, indeed, transformed by
a succession of ideological and cultural currents flowing through the
mainstream of South Africa's historical literature. 1
Cetshwayo was born about 1832. He was the eldest son of King Mpande's
first wife, Ngqumbazi. At the time Cetshwayo was growing to manhood the
region of south-east Africa over which his uncle, King Shaka, had once
reigned supreme, was beginning to feel the political, cultural and economic
impact of European penetration. During the 1820s English hunter-traders
from the Cape Colony established the first permanent white settlement at
Port Natal. In 1837 the Voortrekkers moved into Natal and thereby
challenged Zulu sovereignty in the region. The outcome was military defeat
and civil war for King Dingane and the permanent alienation of Natal from
the Zulu Kingdom. In 1843 Natal was annexed by Great Britain and white
colonial rule established. 2 During the 1840s and 1850s several thousand
British settlers immigrated to Natal and introduced a completely new and
vigorous cultural element to that which previously existed among the
northern Nguni, particularly among the Zulu. The nineteenth century
western European capitalist world, of which Britain was for so long the
acknowledged master, spread its cultural tentacles across Natal and
Zululand under a number of guises.
30 King Cetshwayo of Zululand

Nowhere was white culture more materially visible among the northern
Nguni than in the field of trade. Numerous manufactured items ranging
from blankets and hoes to guns and medicine were incorporated into the
material culture of the Zulu people. White hunter-traders from Natal
brought the products of western civilization into southeast Africa in exchange
for local commodities such as ivory, hides and cattle. 3 The expansion of
European material culture into Zululand was accompanied by the equally
expansionist social and religious norms of the European world. Norwegian,
German and British missionary societies rapidly established a score or more
of mission stations in Natal and the Zulu Kingdom in the 1850s and 1860s. 4
The thrust of British settlement into south-east Africa had by the mid­
nineteenth century introduced a further new and unsettling dimension into
Zulu society.
The most disturbing and tragic feature of British imperialism and
colonialism for the Zulu Kingdom was the unfortunate tendency of
Europeans not only to justify, but to sanctify territorial expansion and
military aggression with an elaborate racial ideology supported by pseudo­
scientific social theory. Thus the earliest historical and social literature on
the Zulu Kingdom, its people and culture was written largely by western
European explorers, missionaries, soldiers and colonists who were much
encumbered with the racial baggage that accompanied so many Victorian
documentary narratives of African societies. The first historical descriptions
of the northern Nguni written in the English language were neither accurate
nor flattering.
White settler attitudes toward the Zulu in Natal and Zululand gave vent
to the emerging racialism then currently in vogue in Britain. Many British
immigrants were no doubt familiar with the 'scientific' literature then
appearing on the innate superiority of the white European races over the
dark-skinned peoples that inhabited Africa, Australasia and North America.
The racialist literature emerging from the fairly new disciplines of ethnology
and social anthropology was fashionable fare among the educated classes
in British society. The 'scientific' racialists were opposed by a small but
influential circle of liberal intellectuals and humanitarian churchmen who
believed in the inherent equality of all men before God. Many British
immigrants in Natal justified their racialism by subscribing to Herbert
Spencer's 'social Darwinist' school - that is those who applied Darwin's
laws of evolution and natural selection to the human species and, in the
process, vindicated both scientifically and morally, the Anglo-Saxon
domination of the 'less advanced' darker races. Charles Barter, prominent
Natal settler and author of The Dorp and the Veld employed his 'Spencerian'
arguments to attack the liberal humanitarian view of Exeter Hall, that the
black man should be accorded equality with the white man: 5
... the two races, the white and the coloured - be it black, brown, or
red - cannot exist in close contact with each other, but on one
condition - that of the entire dependence of the weaker upon the will
of the stronger. The notion of equality, equality of rights, or equality
of treatment, is at best an amiable theory, unsupported by a single
evidence drawn from sound reason or experience.
The fact that Africans should be subservient to Europeans was not
incompatible with the principles attached to the settlers' 'civilizing' mission.
King Cetshwayo of Zululand 31

Blacks were thought to be in an infant stage of cultural development, and

the Natal settlers considered it only 'natural' and correct that they should
maintain their superiority in all spheres of human endeavour in order to
guide, goad, and, if necessary, coerce their 'childlike' wards along the path
to 'civilization'. That Africans far out-numbered Europeans in Natal lent an
even greater sense of urgency to the 'civilizing' mission. The Natal Witness
defined most accurately the settler community's chauvinist perceptions of
Africans:
The other class of our colonial population consists of men in a state of
infancy as regards civilization. They are far more numerous than the
Europeans, and their numbers are likely to be increased by additions
from the adjacent tribes. Scattered over large tracts of country, and
unimpeUed by want, they have worn their lives away up to the present
time in slothful indolence, to the full development of the depravity of
human nature. 6
The fact that the Zulu Kingdom had emerged out of the warfare and
social upheaval of the Mfecane as the most formidable African military state
on the subcontinent tended to arouse a keen interest in its affairs among
white settlers, soldiers, traders, missionaries and colonial administrators.
King Shaka's stunning military conquests and the great slaughter of human
beings that is said to have attended his empire-building campaigns left an
indelible imprint in the minds of those first English traders to observe Zulu
society during his rule. Nathaniel Isaacs in his 1835 edition of Travels and
Adventures in South-eastern Africa projected the first vivid and enduring
racial stereotypes of King Shaka and the Zulu people to European readers.7
The images painted were ones of African savagery at its most extreme and
frightening. Isaac's book contains lively and, it is suspected, grossly
exaggerated accounts of Shaka's unfathomable cruelty.
King Shaka's assassin and successor as King, Dingane kaSenzangakona,
conveyed yet another negative historical image to the European racial
stereotype of the Zulu - 'treachery'. When King Dingane had the
Voortrekker leader, Piet Retief, and his thirty or so followers clubbed to
death during their diplomatic mission to Zululand in February 1838, he
thenceforth was singled out for particular moral condemnation by almost
every white commentator on the subject. Nathaniel Isaacs labelled Dingane
as a 'complete dissembler' while early historical and documentary literature
on Natal and Zululand dwelt at length on the 'treachery' theme. 8 Thus, the
earliest white stereotypes of the Zulu monarchs appearing in the English
language were ones which left the singular impression of a 'bloodthirsty'
Shaka and a 'treacherous' Dingane. After King Cetshwayo's coronation in
1873 when Anglo-Zulu political relations were probably at their best, Natal's
influential Secretary of Native Affairs, Theophilus Shepstone employed
white mistrust and fear of the 'uncivilized' Zulu character when he rejected
the Zulu government's earnest overtures for an Anglo-Zulu alliance against
the Boers of the Transvaal. Shepstone stated that it was futile and dangerous
to enter into 'written treaties with savage nations'."
During the mid- and late 1870s Anglo-Zulu relations deteriorated rapidly
as the British Colonial Office under Lord Carnarvon began to implement its
confederation scheme. British imperial policy in southern Africa shifted
32 King Cetshwayo of Zululand

from one of caution and administrative economy to one of expansion and

consolidation. Carnarvon envisaged the political and economic unification
under British paramountcy of her colonies of Natal, the Cape as well as the
Voortrekker Republics of the Transvaal and the Orange Free State. Britain
aimed its aggressive policy at most of the remaining independent African
states including the Zulu Kingdom. The successful completion of Britain's
confederation scheme called ultimately for the destruction of Zulu
independence and their way of life.
The greatest obstacle to British expansion in Zululand was the Zulu King.
Cetshwayo was equally determined to defend Zulu sovereignty against
white intrustion and to maintain the status quo within the kingdom. He held
a deep reverence and respect for the cultural heritage of his people. He
made no serious attempt to alter the basic fabric of Zulu society in the face
of European pressures on the spiritual, economic and political life of the
northern Nguni state. He annually attended and presided over the important
ceremony of the feast of the first-fruits, rewarded and punished his subjects
for deeds and misdeeds according to Zulu law, and dedicated himself to
strengthening those values on which the Zulu empire had been founded and
flourished. In keeping with the wishes of his people, King Cetshwayo
displayed little inclination to implement or even experiment with western
European concepts of law and religion. In cross-examination before the
Cape Government Commission on Native Laws and Customs, King
Cetshwayo was asked whether he could alter the laws relating to the
exchange of bridewealth in cattle or the system of ilobolo. The King replied:
... No, the king says he cannot alter a law like that, because it has
been the custom in Zululand he supposes ever since the nation was
created. Every king has agreed to the law, and so must he. The nation
would say that anyone who tries to change that law was a bad king. 10
Once King, Cetshwayo made no radical changes in the government of the
kingdom; unlike his predecessors, the Kings Shaka and Dingane, he
preserved the prevailing order as far as the political hierarchy was
concerned. The King's two potential rivals and powerful section chiefs,
Hamu and Zibhebhu, still retained much of their autonomy after they had
professed their loyalty and obedience to the King. Cetshwayo initiated no
purges of his potential rivals and sought instead to reach an accord with his
powerful kinsmen.1l In essence, Cetshwayo was a traditionalist.
In 1877 Sir Bartle Frere, the famous British Indian proconsul, was
appointed by the Colonial Office as South African High Commissioner.
Frere was an aggressive imperialist bent on crowning his distinguished public
service career by subjugating the mineral-rich and strategically important
independent territories of southern Africa.
Sixteen days after Frere's arrival in South Africa, Sir Theophilus
Shepstone annexed the Transvaal and events in that region came to occupy
much of Frere's attention. As special administrator, Shepstone attempted to
win the loyalty of the Boers to the British Crown. In order to accomplish
this feat, Shepstone felt that he had to convince the Boers that British policy
placed the interests of Europeans above those of the African population.
The Transvaal Boers previously had laid claim to extensive tracts of land
just as they had appropriated African-owned lands in the Cape and
elsewhere. Boer settlers had moved into Zulu territory following the Treaty
King Cetshwayo of Zululand 33

of Waaihoek in 1861; by 1873 the Blood River area was home to hundreds
of Boers.!2
Shepstone reasoned that a successful pacification of the Boers depended
on a demonstration of Britain's will to recognize their claims by grabbing
land belonging to the Zulu in the Blood River territory. Frere was convinced
by Shepstone that an independent Zulu kingdom did not serve the interests
of confederation and that only by the complete subjugation of Zululand
could union be realized. The High Commissioner mounted an aggressive
diplomatic and political offensive to persuade the Colonial Office that
Zululand was a savage and barbaric state that threatened the stability of
southern Africa. To achieve his ends Frere used a variety of moral, political
and economic arguments to impress upon his superiors in London the
'barbarism' of King Cetshwayo's rule. Zululand obsessed Frere and he
capitalized on every incident and intemperate action committed by the Zulu
as a pretext for justifying a punitive war.
When King Cetshwayo granted permission to two Zulu regiments to seek
their brides from female regiments in 1876 five unwilling young women were
executed and scores fled to Natal. The Natal Government sent King
Cetshwayo a stiff message reminding him of his 1873 'coronation vows' to
Shepstone not to shed blood indiscriminately. The Zulu King had all along
resented Shepstone's gratuitous interference in the internal affairs of his
nation. Cetshwayo replied to Bulwer's reprimand with a sternly worded
warning to the British not to meddle in Zulu domestic affairs:
Did I ever tell Mr Shepstone I would not kill? Did he tell the White
People I made such an arrangement? Because if he did he has deceived
them. I do kill: but do not consider I have done anything yet in the
way of killing ... I have yet to kill, it is the custom of our nation, and
I shall not depart from it. Why does the Governor of Natal speak to
me about my laws? Do I go to Natal and dictate to him about his laws?
I shall not agree to any laws or rules from Natal and by doing so throw
the large kraal which I govern into the water. 13
King Cetshwayo's expression of Zulu independence was interpreted by
Frere and Shepstone as a further example of Zulu 'barbarism'. Frere
invoked the prevailing racial stereotypes assigned by Isaacs, Fynn, Holden
and other white commentators to the 'bloodthirsty' Shaka with the vicious
and calculated intention of saddling King Cetshwayo with the same negative
reputation. Frere mounted a propaganda war against King Cetshwayo. He
flooded the Colonial Office with correspondence that constantly compared
Cetshwayo with Shaka. Frere painted the worst image possible of the Zulu
King and denigrated every facet of his character:
I have not yet met in conversation or in writing with a single one who
could tell me of any act of justice, mercy or good faith, or of anything
approaching gratitude which had ever been related by a credible
witness of the present King. The monster Chaka is his model, to
emulate Chaka in shedding blood is as far as I have heard his highest
aspiration.!4
Frere also capitalized on missionary discontent in Zululand and used their
complaints of persecution against Cetshwayo to bolster his case for British
intervention. King Cetshwayo frowned upon missionary endeavour. He
thought that their teachings were seditious and that they gave aid and
34 King Cetshwayo of Zululand

comfort to misfits, social outcasts and criminals. Zululand's missionaries

were deeply frustrated because very few Zulu were ever converted to
Christianity. In August 1877 most of the missionaries fled from Zululand at
the height of an alarm on the Transvaal border. They did so on the advice of
Shepstone who wanted King Cetshwayo to appear as the 'heathen'
persecutor of Christian teaching. 15
Once in the colony the missionaries aligned themselves with Sir Bartle
Frere's drive to annex Zululand - a measure he considered vital to the
successful completion of South African federation. Capitalizing on
missionary discontent the High Commissioner appealed for the overthrow of
King Cetshwayo's regime so that the missionaries' 'civilizing work' could
continue unmolested. The most militant and uncompromising of the
missionaries were the Reverend Robert Robertson of the Anglican Church
and the Reverend Ommund Oftebro of the Norwegians. With unabashed
cultural imperialism these men called for the abolition of those Zulu social
customs that conflicted with Christianity. Robertson wrote anonymous
letters to the Natal press giving alarmist reports on the persecution of Zulu
Christians and gave exaggerated accounts of the indiscriminate slaughter of
innocent Zulu by the King's soldiers. Robertson was particularly vehement
in his criticism of King Cetshwayo and the Zulu ruling class. He penned a
number of reports to Natal officials condemning Cetshwayo for not honour­
ing the so-called 'coronation vows' extracted by Shepstone in 1873. Once
again the king was made to appear 'treacherous'.
The Coronation, in my opinion, well illustrates the character of
Cetshwayo - it may be summed up in two words, cowardice and
cunning . . . . It has always been my opinion, and of other Zulu
missionaries as well, that the King and his izinduna ought to be bound
to keep the Treaty of 1873 - because it was proclaimed as I
described above - with them as with us. 'Silence gives consent' and I
cannot help thinking that his having rent the treaty in pieces before Sir
T. Shepstone was well out of the country ought to have been
considered an insult to the English Government demanding instant
satisfaction. 16

When the Anglo-Zulu War broke out on 11 January 1879, there were
certain individuals in Britain and the Colonies who believed that Frere's
invasion of Zululand was a blatant contradiction of the British 'civilizing
mission' in Africa, and therefore, morally indefensible. They were
representatives of the growing humanitarian movement in nineteenth century
Britain. The 'humanitarians' injected the idea of collective moral
responsibility into a British society that was largely influenced by an
ideology of rugged individual capitalism, and with it, a creed that justified
economic exploitation and glorified the military and political aggression that
was felt necessary to secure and extend Britain's imperial system. Britain's
humanitarian movement emerged out of the religious ferment of the Great
Awakening in late eighteenth and early nineteenth century Britain. This
gave rise to Wilberforce and the great Anti-Slavery movement. In Southern
Africa, missionaries and agents of the Church Missionary Society and the
Aborigines Protection Society had long been active in reprimanding both the
British government and white settlers and officials for having forsaken their
King Cetshwayo of Zulu/and 35

moral Christian duty to Britain's civilizing mISSIOn when they advanced

policies that dispossessed the Africans of their land and cattle and forced
them to become perpetual servants.17
The humanitarians acted in the very controversial capacity as the 'moral
watchdogs' over white settler communities and their relations with the local
African populace. The development of mid- and late nineteenth century
British imperialism and its 'scientific' racialist ideology alongside the
humanitarian movement with its emphasis on the closer equality of all men,
regardless of race or creed, before God, and the application of Christian
moral principles as an implicit feature of the British civilizing mission ­
reflected several basic social and ideological divisions between the
Conservative and Liberal sections of British society. The Anglo-Zulu War
brought about a head-on collision between the imperialist advocates of the
war and their Liberal humanitarian opponents over the moral justification for
the war and over the conduct of Frere and Shepstone in fomenting it. The
extension of the ideological and political divisions of British society into the
affairs of the Zulu Kingdom led to a dramatic rehabilitation of King
Cetshwayo's historical image.
The individual responsible for the debunking of the negative stereotypes
of the Zulu King was the leading humanitarian and most formidable
intellectual and literary figure of colonial Natal, Bishop John W. Colenso.
He was an uncompromising defender of what he believed to be 'truth and
justice' according to the noblest principles embodied in the 'civilizing
mission'. Bishop Colenso was a social evolutionist who, unlike the hardened
imperialists who employed this philosophical approach to expound on the
savagery and backwardness of African societies, believed that men of all
races no matter where they appeared on the evolutionary ladder, were part
of the 'human family'. Compassion, sympathy, sensitivity and gradual
evolutionary approach were Colenso's priorities in his dealings with the Zulu
people. 18
The Bishop lost faith in the British government as he examined Frere's
correspondence with the Colonial Office. The Bishop concluded that the
war was a 'mistake, a sad mistake'.19 The banishment of King Cetshwayo
into lonely exile in the Cape and the terms of Sir Garnet Wolseley's Ulundi
Settlement for Zululand (1 September 1879) was to Colenso 'the crowning
act of infamy to this iniquitous war'. 20 The Bishop extended great sympathy
toward Cetshwayo and lamented his exile. 'While the King, who, if the war
was unjust and unnecessary, is assuredly a most innocent and injured man,
is a prisoner, cut off from all friends, all help, without being allowed to
speak a word in his defence'. 21 The humanitarianism of Bishop Colenso and
his daughters Harriette and Frances produced a much more humane image
of a man they believed to have been grievously wronged by British imperial
policy in Zululand. They looked upon the Ulundi settlement as a cru·el
mockery of 'British justice' and devoted their formidable political and
literary talents to King Cetshwayo's restoration and the dismantling of
Wolseley's settlement.
The move for Cetshwayo's reinstatement as King of Zululand developed
from three quarters. First, there was Cetshwayo himself, an unhappy exile
anxious to return to his former kingdom; second, there were the King's
36 King Cetshwayo of Zululand

brothers - Ndabuko, Dabulamanzi and Ziwedu-Mnyamana, the former

prime minister, and the loyal Usuthu faction, who saw a restoration as a
means of regaining political and economic power from the appointed chiefs;
last, there was the humanitarian lobby comprising the Colensos, Lady
Florence Dixie and prominent members of the Society for the Propagation
of Gospel, the Aborigines Protection Society, and Liberal Party
parliamentarians. The King, the Usuthu and the humanitarians operated as
a political lobby in the context of metropolitan and colonial politics. This
pressure-group instituted a campaign to discredit several of the most
powerful appointed chiefs and thus the Ulundi Settlement. 22
King Cetshwayo and his Usuthu had little difficulty in publicising their
case with the Colensos feeding reams of scathing commentary on the
'iniquitous' activities of Frere and the appointed chiefs to British
philanthropists and churchmen. Bishop Colenso and his daughters Frances
and Harriette singled out the Chiefs Hamu, Zibhebhu and John Dunn for
particular damnation and abuse. Without reservation or qualification the
Colensos accepted every accusation made by the Usuthu against the Ulundi
Settlement as true. Many of the allegations were indeed substantiated:
others were blatant distortions. The Bishop published Cetshwayo's
Dutchman, the account of white trader Cornelius Vijn's experiences in
Zululand, to support Cetshwayo's defensive actions during the war and to
condemn the Imperial government and the appointed chiefs. 23
The Colenso family wrote and published a number of substantial and
detailed books which laid the full blame for the Anglo-Zulu War and its
aftermath squarely on the shoulders of the imperialists, Sir Bartle Frere, Sir
Theophilus Shepstone and Sir Garnet Wolse\ey. King Cetshwayo's historical
image underwent a complete overhaul from Frere's 'savage descendant of
Shaka' to Colenso's 'noble martyr'. The Colenso publications that most
effectively transmitted King Cetshwayo's rehabilitated historical image were
Frances Ellen Colenso's two works: The History of the Zulu War and its
Origin, co-authored by Colonel Anthony Durnford's brother, Edward and
published in 1880; and The Ruin of Zululand: an account of British doings in
Zululand since the invasion of 1879 which was published in London in two
volumes in 1884 and 1885. Harriette Colenso shared her father's inflexible
moral convictions that King Cetshwayo and his only son and heir-apparent,
Dinuzulu, were the victims of British imperial policy and the avarice and
greed of Natal's colonial officials and the white settler community at large.
Harriette Colenso inherited her father's zealous spirit and much of his
literary skill. She wrote several notable works which contributed to the
humanitarian revision of the history of Anglo-Zulu relations between 1879
and the early twentieth century. Harriette published three works which all
appeared around 1890, or shortly after the exile of King Dinuzulu to
St. Helena by the British authorities in Natal; they were England and the
Zulus, Zululand Past and Present and The Story of Dinizulu co-authored by
H.R. Fox Bourne.24
The prodigious literary campaign of the Colensos and other British
humanitarians to secure King Cetshwayo's release and restoration began to
bear fruit. Lord Kimberley, the Colonial Secretary, found the Zulu King's
imprisonment an increasing embarrassment to Mr Gladstone's Liberal
King Cetshwayo of Zulu/and 37

King Cetshwayo kaMpande

tPhotograph: Cape Archives, C683)

38 King Cetshwayo of Zululand

government. The Ulundi Settlement was showing itself to be unworkable

amidst ever-increasing factional strife and bloodshed. In September 1881
Kimberley granted permission for Cetshwayo to visit England and plead his
case. 2' The King took every opportunity in his correspondence with
Kimberley to present the anti-Usuthu alliance as inimical to the wishes of
the majority of the Zulu who wanted him reinstated. Cetshwayo made an
eloquent appeal to British Liberal sentiment: 'I have great hopes of
obtaining what the English people value - justice . . . the Zulu nation
would rejoice to see me back. I hope that I am not going to England for
nothing' .26
The King and his party arrived in England on 3 August 1882. King
Cetshwayo was dignity and charm itself on his historic mission to the nation
that had desposed and banished him from his homeland. He was well-versed
in white manners and customs and his genuinely courteous manner in full
view of the British public and Press went further in dissolving the hysterical
racial images of savagery and barbarism that had been attached to his name
than all the rehabilitative correspondence and publications of the
humanitarian lobby. Most crucial of all, the Zulu King made a favourable
impression on the politicans and ministers of the British Establishment who
would largely decide his fate. As a political mission and as a public relations
exercise, King Cetshwayo's one and only visit to the United Kingdom was a
huge success.
King Cetshwayo did not allow the glamour of London to divert his
energies from the single-minded task of returning to Zululand as King. After
a series of interviews with Lord Kimberley, it was agreed that he was to be
restored as King of Zululand though he would be under the supervision of a
British Resident. But, under protest, Cetshwayo reluctantly accepted
Kimberley's conditions that Chief Zibhebhu of the Mandlakazi, his most
deadly rival, be given a separate autonomous district in the north and that a
Reserve Territory be carved out of the southern part of Zululand for Chiefs
who did not wish to live under Cetshwayo and the Usuthu.27 The
humanitarian campaign to have Cetshwayo released from exile and restored
to Zululand was indisputably their greatest triumph. The revision of the
King's historical image along more humane and compassionate lines
contributed in large measure to Cetshwayo's favourable, even enthusiastic,
reception in England.
The humanitarian promoters of King Cetshwayo had scored an early
victory with his restoration, but the political forces arrayed against the king
and his followers prevented Cetshwayo from ruling either effectively or in
peace. Several months after his return to Zululand in January 1883, King
Cetshwayo and the Usuthu became inevitably locked in a life or death
struggle with their deadliest enemies, Chief Hamu of the Ngenetsheni
section and the Mandlakazi section under the leadership of Chief Zibhebhu.
This full-scale civil war was ruinous for King Cetshwayo. On 30 March 1883,
Zibhebhu's Mandlakazi inflicted a severe defeat on the Usuthu in the Msebe
Valley. The King returned to Ulundi where on the morning of the 21 July
1883, Zibhebhu launched a surprise attack on the Usuthu Kraals and
decimated the ranks of the Usuthu leadership. King Cetshwayo received two
assegai wounds in his thigh during his flight after the battle. 2R He was forced
King Cetshwayo of Zululand 39

to seek refuge with the British Resident in the Reserve and it was here that
he died on 8 February 1884.
Nearly eight months before King Cetshwayo's death, Bishop Colenso had
taken ill and died. The indefatigable champion of King Cetshwayo's cause
had become discouraged and, indeed, physically exhausted when he could
not muster the political support necessary to influence Whitehall to
intervene decisively in Zululand and restore Cetshwayo to a united
Kingdom. Thus died 'Sobantu', the Father of the People, as he was hailed
by King Cetshwayo and the Zulu people. 29 It is fitting that Bishop Colenso's
significant historical contributions are being commemorated in the centenary
observances being held throughout Natal and Zululand in 1983.
In the past one hundred years, the popular and more" serious historical
literature on King Cetshwayo and the Zulu people has been influenced, in
varying degrees, by the two divergent stereotypes which emerged out of
pseudo-scientific racial theory on the one hand and liberal humanitarianism
on the other. Thus, the racial stereotypes spawned by Frere and Shepstone
came to influence H. Rider Haggard's historical and fictional literature on
Cetshwayo and the Zulu. The author of Zulu romances elevated the Zulu to
a heroic stature comparable to the heroic primitives of Homeric Greece or
the Norsemen of Scandinavia. To Haggard, the Zulu and their 'noble but
savage' King represented a stage of European civilization that had long since
passed. Haggard used his Zulu romances such as Nada the Lily and his histori­
cal narrative Cetywayo and his White Neighbours to identify the 'European
past with the African present'. Out of such literature emerged vivid and
enduring images which reinforced the popular white stereotype ofthe Zulu.'"
To serve their Country in arms, to die for it and for the King; such was
their primitive ideal. If they were fierce they were loyal, and feared
neither wounds nor doom; if they listened to the dark redes of the
witch-doctor, the trumpet call of duty sounded still louder in their
ears.31
Much of the recent history on King Cetshwayo and the Zulu Kingdom is
contained in popular accounts of the Anglo-Zulu War of 1879 - a war that
has continually appealed to the imagination of the European world because
of its 'colourful', 'romantic' and 'heroic' dimensions. These largely military
histories vary from the substantial and well-written The Washing of the
Spears by Donald Morris to the weak and sensational 'story-telling' in The
Glamour and the Tragedy of the Zulu War by Clements. 32 By focusing on the
.~nglo-Zulu War, greater emphasis is given to analysing and describing the
formidable 'Zulu military machine'; in the process, the more persistent
Victorian racial stereotypes of a Zulu society absorbed in 'militarism' were
transferred to succeeding generations in the present day. Morris, who is
fairly sympathetic to King Cetshwayo, still reminds us in The Washing of the
Spears that 'Cetshwayo made no effort to change the usages of his people .
. . . the social fabric of the Zulus was still woven on the warp of cattle ...
and the woof of the military system'. 33
The principal modern works on the history of the Zulu Kingdom and King
Cetshwayo reflect the intellectual trends in contemporary South African
historiography. A History of Natal, written by Edgar Brookes and Colin
Webb, was very much influenced by the humanitarian ethos of Bishop
40 King Cetshwayo of Zululand

Colenso and the modern eurocentric 'liberalism' of South African academe

and clergy. Thus, King Cetshwayo receives a more sympathetic historical
treatment: 'Certainly the most attractive of the line of Zulu Kings,
Cetshwayo had great qualities of character. He was a powerful monarch and
his methods were sometimes harsh, but he never seems to have had the
sadistic pleasure in cruelty of his three predecessors'. 34
More recently, King Cetshwayo's career has been incorporated into a
totally different ideological perspective. A rigorous material analysis rooted
in European Marxist philosophy has been applied to the Zulu Kingdom. At
the heart of this analysis is an explicit focus on the productive and
reproductive processes upon which a materially self-sufficient, pre-colonial
Zulu society was based. This approach is embodied in Jeff Guy's well­
written and richly documented studies of the Zulu Civil War of 1883-84. In
his historical portrait of King Cetshwayo, Guy emphasizes that:
Cetshwayo's Kingdom was in many ways unique in southern Africa.
. . . While most African societies in southern Africa had lost their
independence through military conquest, or their economies had been
undermined by colonial expansion, the Zulu Kingdom had retained
much of its political independence and economic self-sufficiency. The
Kingdom's economy was still based on the production of grain, and the
breeding and exchange of cattle. 35
In his substantial history, The Destruction of the Zulu Kingdom, Guy
identifies the aggressive and expansionist forces of nineteenth century
British colonialism and capitalism as the destroyer of King Cetshwayo and
the pre-colonial Zulu Kingdom.
In essence the struggle which took place in Zululand between 1879 and
1884 was between representatives of the pre-capitalist and the capitalist
social formations; between representatives of the old Zulu order
working for the revival of the Kingdom, and those trying to insure
political division as a prerequisite for subordination to capitalist
production. 36
In the final analysis, King Cetshwayo's historical image is of particular
significance to the Zulu people of the present and succeeding generations.
The observations of Magema Fuze, Bishop Colenso's printer, on
Cetshwayo's qualities as a monarch were recorded in his Abantu
Abamnyama: (The Black People and Whence They Came). This was the first
major work to be written in the Zulu language by a Zulu author. Fuze's
favourable impressions of King Cetshwayo are most likely the sentiments
expressed by the majority of Zulu.
Cetshwayo was a pleasant person with a good presence, handsome,
concerned for all his people, and extremely kind in his speech . . .
when cases were brought before him of quarrels among his subjects.
He tried them justly, and in the majority of cases reconciled the
disputants, not wanting them to quarrel, and brought them together by
directing that each should produce a goat to be slaughtered and that
each should come to the same homestead and eat it together. 37
In the twentieth century King Cetshwayo's memory is still revered by the
Zulu people. King Cetshwayo is perhaps the most beloved of the Zulu
monarchs. His entire life was devoted to maintaining the sovereignty and
social system of the Zulu Kingdom. His valiant stand against the British
King Cetshwayo of Zululand 41

during the Anglo-Zulu War and his subsequent exile and successful
campaign to be restored as King bespeak the nobler human qualities of
tolerance, statesmanship and considerable courage. The great personal
sacrifices which King Cetshwayo endured for the sake of his country and his
people have not been forgotten by succeeding generations. A truer
reflection of King Cetshwayo's place in history can nowhere be found than
in the continuity of Zulu leadership over the past one hundred years. The
present Chief Minister of KwaZulu, and President of the Inkatha ye
Nkululeko ye Sizwe (National Cultural Liberation Movement), Chief
Mangosuthu Gatsha Buthelezi, is a greatgrandson of King Cetshwayo and
grandson of King Dinuzulu. Just as King Cetshwayo fought to preserve Zulu
freedom and nationality one hundred years ago, his descendants today carry
on a struggle for lost liberty, and in so doing, invoke the name of King
Cetshwayo as a symbol of inspiration and Zulu national feeling.

NOTES:
1 For an authoritative and well-written account of the history of King Cetshwayo and the
Zulu Kingdom during the Anglo-Zulu War and eivil war periods, one must read the
following: Jeff Guy, The Destruction of the Zulu Kingdom (London, 1979); and Jeff Guy,
'Cetshwayo kaMpande c.1832-84' in Christopher Saunders (ed.), Black Leaders in Southern
African History (London, 1979).
2 E.H. Brookes and C. de B. Wehh, A History of Natal (Pietermaritzburg, 1965), Chapters
Ill, IV and V.
3 C. Ballard, The Role of Trade and Hunter Traders in the Political Economy of Colonial
Natal and Zululand 1824-1880', African Economic History. no. 10. 1981, pp. 1-21.
4 The historical dimensions of early missionary endeavour in the Zulu Kingdom are
admirably documented in Norman Etherington. Preachers Peasants and Politics in Southeast
Africa: African Christian Communities in Natal, Pondoland and Zululand (London, 1978).
5 For a lucid analysis of 19th century British racial theory, it is essential to read Christine
Bolt, Victorian Attitudes to Race (London & Toronto, 1971). The quote is taken from
Charles Barter, The Dorp and the Veld; or Six Months in Natal (London, 1852), pp. 172­
173.
Natal Witness, 15 Januarv, 1847.
7 Nathanial Jsaacs, Travels- and Adventures in eastern Africa, 2 vols. (Cape Town, 1936 and
1937).
x Ibid., vol. 11, pp. 200-204.
9 British Parliamentary Papers (BPP), C.-1137, Aug. 1873, 'Report of the Expedition to
Install Cetywayo', paragraph 4.
10 Quoted in C. de B. Webb and J.B. Wright (eds.), A Zulu King Speaks: statements made hy

Cetshwayo kaMpande on the history and customs of his people (Pietermaritzburg and
Durhan 1978), p. 67.
11 Brookes and Webb, A History of Natal, pp. 98-100.

12 Donald Morris, The Washing of the Spears, (London, 1966), pp. 202-206.

13 C.T. Binns, The Last Zulu King: the Life and Death of Cetshwayo, (London, 1963), p. 87.

14 BPP, C.-2222 of 1879, no. 58, p. 266.

15 Brookes and Wehb, A History of Natal, p. 133.

16 Natal Archives, Colonial Secretary's Office, vo!. 1925, No. 19, 'Special Border Agent's

Reports', Robertson to Bulwer, 28 October 1878.

17 Bolt, Victorian Attitudes to Race, pp. 83-139.
1R Guy, The Destruction of the Zulu Kingdom, pp. 89-91.
19 Ibid., p. 93. .
20 Ibid.
21 Ibid.
42 King Cetshwayo of Zululand

22 Charles Ballard, 'The Transfrontiersman: the Career of John Dunn in Natal and Zululand
1834-1895' (Ph.D. Thesis, University of Natal, Durban, 1980), p. 314-318.
23 Cornelius Vijn, Cetshwayo's Dutchman: being the private journal of a white trader in
Zululand during the British Invasion, translated, edited and annotated by I.W. Colenso
24 (London, 1880).
Bishop Colenso's most analytically critical publication of British imperial policy and Frere's
25 role is contained in his Commentary on Frere's Policy, (Bishopstowe. 1882-83).
26 Guy, The Destruction of the Zulu Kingdom, pp. 133-135.
BPP, C-3247 of 1881, Enclosure in No. 14, p. 12. Cetshwayo to Kimberley, 10 November
1881.
27 Colonial Office Confidential Prints, CO. 879119/248, pp. 1-2. Restoration of Cetewayo;
Terms of, 1882.
28 Guy, The Destruction of the Zulu Kingdom, pp. 192-204.
29 Ibid., p. 199.

~o An able summary of Zulu literary stereotypes is contained in Russell Martin, 'British Images
of the Zulu, c.1820-85: Some approaches to a research topic', unpublished paper delivered
to the Southern African Seminar, University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 1980.
3l H.R. Haggard, Child of Storm (London, 1913), preface.
32 W.H. Clements, The Glamour and Tragedy of the Zulu War (London, 1936).
33 Morris, The Washing of the Spears, p. 282.
34 Brookes and Webb, A History of Natal, p. 95.
35 Guy, 'Cetshwayo kaMpande c.1832-84', p. 78.
36 Guy. The Destruction of the Zulu Kingdom, p. 243.
37 Magema M. Fuze, The Black People and whence they came, translated by H.C. Lugg and

edited by Trevor Cope, (Pietermaritzburg and Durban, 1979), p. 109.

CHARLES BALLARD
 43

'Natal Literature': A Scrap of

History, and a Glance at

some Poems

One cannot be certain that such an entity as 'Natal literature' can be said to
exist. Of the authors who have lived in Natal, the majority have spent large
parts of their lives elsewhere. It is clear too that literature, unlike some
other forms of human activity, is often not particularly associated with a
specific region; indeed the more important a writer is, usually, the less
regional he or she will seem.
In spite of these difficulties there may perhaps be some value in looking at
literature associated with Natal. But the subject is a complex one, and the
material is vast. In this article I shall attempt only two things: a sketch of the
history of 'Natal literature' until the 1930s, and a brief commentary on a
number of poems written by authors who have spent significant periods of
their lives in Natal.

I
The history of Natal and Zululand over the last 150 years or so has been
in many respects turbulent and unhappy, and it has produced deep divisions
between races and between classes. It is hardly surprising, then, that so far
nobody seems to have managed to get a clear view of all the literature
produced either in Natal (as it now is) or by people with Natal associations.
An additional difficulty is that there are three Natal languages: Zulu,
English and Afrikaans. When one considers the different interests and
audiences that literary works of various kinds cater for, one realises that
there could be said to be many more than three literatures.
The first literary compositions in the Natal area were oral, though some of
them have been written down since; they were the songs, prayers and tales
of the San (Bushmen) and of the Nguni peoples. Zulu oral literature is very
rich; perhaps nothing in the literature of Natal is more striking or more
beautiful; certainly nothing is more expressive of a highly integrated yet
constantly evolving culture, than the many subtly-wrought izibongo or
praise-poems, particularly those of the kings and other great men. (In
various forms the tradition of the izibongo is still alive today).
The coming of white settlers in the first decades of the nineteenth century
led to the beginnings of various European modes of writing - diaries,
reports, stories. Then as the white population increased and European
44 'Natal Literature'

civilization became dominant, other forms of writing began to appear:

journalism, sermons, tracts and treatises of different sorts, eventually novels
and verse. From about 1845, when most of the Trekkers left Natal, until the
early twentieth century, European writing was almost exclusively in English.
After 1860 Natal acquired an Indian population, and this too in due course
made a contribution, mainly in English.
My chief concern in this sketch is with what is usually termed creative
writing; but it is impossible not to mention two of the giants of Natal history,
who were both also writers of memorable prose. The first is Bishop Colenso.
An outspoken liberal in both religion and politics, he managed to create a
stir in Britain and Natal simultaneously; his biblical criticism and his
political-moral analyses and exhortations, which appeared mainly in the
1860s and 1870s, were equally striking. (His often prophetic work in the
political field was ably continued after his death by his daughters.) The
second great figure was M.K. Gandhi, later to be known as Mahatma. To
the white citizens of Natal must fall the dubious honour of having provided
the racial prejudice which pushed this young Indian lawyer on to the path
which was to make him one of the major figures of twentieth-century
political and intellectual history. His first important book, published in 1928
when he had returned to India, was called Satyagraha in South Africa;
satyagraha - truth-force - was Gandhi's word for creative passive
resistance.
Both Colenso and Gandhi found themselves challenged morally and
intellectually by the relationships between races and cultures which have
been such an important feature of the history of Natal, and indeed of South
Africa as a whole. Many of the Natal versifiers and novelists or romancers of
the late nineteenth and earlier twentieth centuries were interested in the
same relationships, but at a distinctly more superficial level. The most
competent of the writers of verse was Charles Barter, whose Stray Memories
of Natal and Zululand (1897) is still worth reading. Undoubtedly the most
remarkable of the fiction-writers associated with the Natal area was
H. Rider Haggard. Though he spent only a few years in these parts, he
located many of his tales and rooted his imagination in Natal. These tales,
which were immensely popular - King Solomon's Mines (1886), Nada the
Lily (1892), and so on - belong, we are now aware, to a particular moment
in the history of British imperialism: their simple and robust excitement,
their glorification of adventure and 'enterprise', their easy romanticization
of black people, are all symptomatic. Yet these books have some real life,
even today, and they do represent the beginnings of an attempt to bring
white and black together on the fictional page.
Significant writing by Zulus was relatively slow to appear. This is largely
because for various reasons, as Professor Albert S. Gerard has put it,
'missionary activity, which is of crucial importance to the introduction of
writing and the formation of a written literature, began about half a century
later among the Zulu than it did among the Xhosa."
The first book in Zulu - a discussion of Zulu history and customs but
also of black unity - was written by Magema Fuze and published in 1922.2
The first Zulu novel to be published - Insila kaShaka (1930) - was written
by the eminent cultural and political leader John L. Dube, who had also
founded the newspaper Ilanga lase Natal in 1907. Insila kaShaka was an
'Natal Literature' 45

important book, for it suggested some of the directions which much Zulu
writing would take: it dramatized tensions between western Christian and
traditional African values, and it showed a serious interest in that great and
puzzling figure, Shaka. For most Zulu writers - and indeed for many other
black writers too (one thinks of the Sotho Mofolo, the Senegalese Senghor,
the Nigerian Soyinka) - an analysis of the personality and significance of
Shaka has been a part of an overall investigation of the meaning of being a
black person. The first novel in English by a black writer was published in
1928, two years before Dube's novel (Sol Plaatje's famous Mhudi had been
written earlier but appeared later): this was An African Tragedy, by R.R.R.
Dhlomo. It was a small work, yet it was prophetic in some ways, as it was a
novel of the city; and the city, together with the sufferings of the oppressed
and confused urban workers, forms one of the great themes of South
African literature.
In the years which followed, there was a considerable amount of writing,
in various genres, by black Natalians. R.R.R. Dhlomo, for example,
produced a number of historical novels in Zulu. His younger brother H.LE.
Dhlomo, in some ways a more interesting figure, wrote, in English, plays,
short stories, criticism, and (in 1941) Valley of a Thousand Hills, a long
poem, rather loosely romantic and elegiac but nevertheless of considerable
thematic interest. In the mid-thirties there emerged B.W. Vilakazi: he wrote
three novels in Zulu, and became the first distinguished Zulu scholar (he
joined the staff of the University of the Witwatersrand, gained a doctorate
and was co-author of what has become the standard Zulu-English
dictionary), but his greatest achievements are the two volumes - Inkondlo
kaZulu (1935) and Amal'ezulu (1945) - in which Zulu written poetry can be
said to have come of age.
While these developments were taking place among black writers, some
very important work was being done by English-speaking whites; but there
seems to have been almost no contact between black and white. 3 In 1926 two
brilliant young writers came together and, at Umdoni Park on the Natal
south coast, edited and wrote articles for a new journal called Voorslag
(Whiplash). The first of these writers was Roy Campbell, aged 24, who had
been brought up in Natal 4 and had made a name for himself in Britain with
his long poem The Flaming Terrapin (1924). The second was William
Plomer, who was 22 and had spent his childhood in the Transvaal and in
Britain, but who had been living near Eshowe when he wrote his remarkable
novel Turbott Wolfe, which was published in London early in 1926. Turbott
Wolfe impressed Britain and the United States but scandalized most of white
South Africa: it is a lively annd imaginative book, which evokes Africans
with great sympathy and is critical of most whites; its central theme is
miscegenation, a topic which many white South Africans are reluctant to
discuss even today. Campbell and Plomer were joined by a third young
writer - Laurens van der Post, an Afrikaner, who was only nineteen. The
Umdoni Park moment was one of the greatest that South African literature
has yet produced: Campbell wrote some of his finest poems ('The Serf',
'The Zulu Girl', 'Tristan da Cunha'), and Plomer wrote his celebrated short
story 'Ula Masondo', about a tribal Zulu who experiences the full impact of
Johannesburg. But the Voorslag venture could not last: in its cultural and
political views it was too advanced for public opinion - which meant, then,
 46 'Natal Literature'

white public OpInIOn. The financial sponsors of the journal began to

interfere in the editing, and the team dispersed - Plomer and van der Post
to Japan, and Camp bell back to Britain.
By this time a certain amount of creative work had been published by
Afrikaans-speaking Natalians; Martha Jansen brought out a play as early as
1918. But the first really important 'Natal literature' in Afrikaans was
produced in the mid-forties by D.J. Opperman.

II
Breaking off my survey at this point may seem arbitrary, but it is
necessary. By the 1930s the picture has acquired a complication which puts it
beyond the reach of a short essay.
In this second part of my article I propose simply to print an extract and a
number of poems - with translations into English where the original
language is Zulu or Afrikaans - and to make a few comments on them and
their authors. My only aim is to give some immediate sense of the richness
and variety of the work that has been produced. This way of presenting
poems does not of course do full justice either to the poems or to the poets.
More important, it is obviously unfair to focus all of one's attention on
poetry and to omit novels, short stories, and plays - to say nothing of other
types of literature. I have singled out poetry because it is the most
concentrated form of literary art and can for this reason be more easily
presented to the reader.
In adopting this procedure I have, inevitably, passed over many important
writers. I name a few of the more recent ones (some of the earlier ones have
been mentioned already): Bessie Head, C.L.S. Nyembezi, Jack Cope,
Abraham de Vries, E.E.N.T. Mkhize, J.c. Dlamini, Henrietta Grove, June
Drummond, Daphne Rooke, O.E.H. Nxumalo, Marlise Joubert, J.F.
Holleman, Jenny Seed, Ronnie Govender, C.J.M. Nienaber, Jordan
Ngubane, Khaba Mkhize.
With these explanations and apologies, then, I pass on to my brief
anthology and commentary.

1. Shaka's Praise Poem: Extracts

UDlungwana kaNdaba!
UDlungwana woMbelebele,
Odlung' emanxulumeni,
Kwaze kwas' amanxulum' esibikelana.
UNodumehlezi kaMenzi,
USishaka kasishayeki kanjengamanzi,
lIemb' eleq' amany' amalembe ngokukhalipha;
UShaka ngiyesab' ukuthi nguShaka,
UShaka kuyinkosi yasemaShobeni.
UNomakhwelo ingonyama;
UMahlom' ehlathini onjengohlanya,
Uhlany' olusemehlwen' amadoda.
UDabaz' ithafa ebeliya kuMfene;
UNomashovushovu kaSenzangakhona,
UGaqa Iibomvu nasekuphatheni ...
UTeku Iwabafazi bakwa Nomgabhi,

Betekula behlez' emlovini,

'Natal Literature' 47

Beth'uShaka kakubusa kakuba nkosi,

Kant' unyakan' uShaka ezakunethezeka.
Inkom' ekhal' eMthonjaneni,
Izizwe zonke ziyizwil' ukulila,
Izwiwe uDunjwa waseluYengweni,
Yezwiwa uMangcengeza wakwaKhali.
UMlilo wothathe kaMjokwane;
UMlilo wothathe ubuhanguhangu,
Oshis' izikhova eziseDlebe,
Kwaya kwasha neziseMabedlana.
Odabule kuNdima noMgovu,
Abafaz' abenendeni baphuluza;
Imikhubulo bayishiy' izinqindi,
Imbewu bayishiya semahlangeni,
Izalukazi zasala semanxiweni,
Amaxhegu asala semizileni,
Iziqu zemithi zabheka phezulu
Ozulu lizayo khwezan' abantwana,
Ngabadala bodwa abazozibalekela,
UDunjwa yedwa limkhandanisile ..
UMxoshi womuntu amxoshele futhi;
Ngimthand' exosh' uZwide ozalwa uLanga,
Emthabatha lapha liphuma khona,
Emsingisa lapha lishona khona;
UZwide wampheq' amahlonjan' omabili,
Kuma kwedala ekwethuk' omusha.
USilwane-helele emizini yabantu;
USilwan' ubenduna kwaDibandlela.
UBhincakade waze wafunyaniswa,
Ovunulel' ezimfundeni zamanzi,
Into zakhe zomuka namanzi . . .5

Dlungwana son of Ndaba!

Ferocious one of the Mbelebele brigade,
Who raged among the large kraals,
So that until dawn the huts were being turned upside-down.
He who is famous as he sits, son of Menzi,
He who beats but is not beaten, unlike water,
Axe that surpasses other axes in sharpness;
Shaka, I fear to say he is Shaka,
Shaka, he is the chief of the Mashobas.
He of the shrill whistle, the lion;
He who armed in the forest, who is like a madman,
The madman who is in full view of the men.
He who trudged wearily the plain going to Mfene;
The voracious one of Senzangakhona,
Spear that is red even on the handle
The joke of the women of Nomgabhi,
Joking as they sat in a sheltered spot,
Saying that Shaka would not rule, he would not become chief,
Whereas it was the year in which Shaka was about to prosper.
The beast that lowed at Mthonjaneni,
And all the tribes heard its wailing,
It was heard by Dunjwa of the Yengweni kraal,
It was heard by Mangcengeza of Khali's kraal.
Fire of the long dry grass, son of Mjokwane,
Fire of the long grass of scorching force,
That burned the owls on the Dlebe hill,
And eventually those on Mabedlana also burned.
He who travelled across to Ndima and Mgovu,
And women who were with child gave birth easily;
48 'Natal Literature'

The newly planted crops they left still short,

The seed they left amongst the maize-stalks,

The old women were left in the abandoned sites,

The old men were left along the tracks,

The roots of the trees looked up at the sky ..

He who is an oncoming storm, pick up the children,

For it is only the adults who will flee by themselves,
Dunjwa alone it has crushed ...
Pursuer of a person and he pursues him unceasingly;
I liked him when he pursued Zwide son of Langa,
Taking him from where the sun rises
And sending him to where it sets;
As for Zwide, he folded his two little shoulders together,
It was then the elder was startled by the younger.
Fierce animal in the homes of people;

Wild animal that was in charge at Dibandlela's.

He who dressed late was eventually overtaken,

He who puts on his finery at the water's edge,
His things will be washed away ... 6
(translated by Daniel Malcolm)

Even in cold print, and even in translation, this epic poem has, it seems to
me, considerable power. But it was made for passionate recitation by an
official praiser or imbongi on occasions of great excitement and importance,
and it would have had an extra communal meaning which it is not easy to
recapture fully. The imbongi was the mediator between the chief and his
people, and the heroic qualities and deeds that he praised (sometimes he
criticized too) were offered to the gathering not simply as personal laudation
but as social ideals. Needless to say, most people at the gathering would
have known all the names that appear in the poem, while at the same time
recognizing, consciously or intuitively, the poet's artistic accomplishment.
Some modern readers may find the ideals offered here rather bloodthirsty
and frightening. But it is important to remember that every culture has
praised the warrior-virtues where they are felt to have been employed in a
good cause. (English readers need go no further than Henry V or the
wartime speeches of Churchill.) Shaka was the founder of the Zulu nation,
and a leader of great intelligence, energy and boldness; he can be said to
have partly created, by his life and exploits, some of the characteristic
features of the corporate Zulu personality.
A reader who does not know Zulu will not of course be able to detect the
poem's rhythmic subtlety; but the force of the imagery comes through in
translation, and a careful look at the Zulu text reveals impressive rhetorical
repetitions and delicately interlocking instances of assonance and alliteration
(consider, for example, the first six lines). This is poetry in the richest sense
of the word.
'Natal Literature' 49

2. Ray Campbell (1901-1957)

The Zulu Girl

To F. C. Slater

When in the sun the hot red acres smoulder,

Down where the sweating gang its labour plies,

A girl flings down her hoe, and from her shoulder

Unslings her child tormented by the flies.

She takes him to a ring of shadow pooled

By thorn trees: purpled with the blood of ticks,

While her sharp nails, in slow caresses ruled,

Prowl through his hair with sharp electric clicks.

His sleepy mouth plugged by the heavy nipple,

Tugs like a puppy, grunting as he feeds:

Through his frail nerves her own deep languors ripple

Like a broad river sighing through its reeds.

Yet in that drowsy stream his flesh imbibes

An old un quenched unsmotherable heat ­

The curbed ferocity of beaten tribes,

The sullen dignity of their defeat.

Her body looms above him like a hill

Within whose shade a village lies at rest,

Or the first cloud so terrible and still

That bears the coming harvest in its breast. 7

On Some South African Novelists

You praise the firm restraint with which they write ­

I'm with you there, of course:

They use the snaffle and the curb all right,

But where's the bloody horse?8

Roy Campbell is probably better known in the English-speaking world

than any other South African poet.
Like several other twentieth-century writers - one thinks especially of
D.H. Lawrence and W.B. Yeats - Campbell was imaginatively excited by
natural energies, the mysterious forces of the universe which in one
manifestation or another work upon people or work through them. Many of
his best-known poems - 'The Serf, 'The Zebras', 'Tristan da Cunha', 'The
Sisters', 'Horses on the Camargue', 'Choosing a Mast' - are, partly,
celebrations of nature's power. (Celebrations rather than analyses:
Campbell lacks the complexity and profundity that one finds in Yeats and
Lawrence.)
'The Zulu Girl', though it is a political poem, is also in its way a
celebration of power - the power of the Zulu determination not to remain
a subject people and the quiet but ominous power of a gathering African
thunderstorm. One of the poem's most striking features is its fusing of these
two great natural forces: the life-giving storm which must come at the end of
a hot afternoon is given all the ferocity of a Zulu uprising, and the uprising,
which is subtly foreshadowed, is made to seem as natural and as inevitable
as the storm.
The poem is beautifully managed in every detail, and repays careful study.
One notices, for example, the way in which many of the words not only
vividly evoke what they are describing but carry a double suggestion, both
 50 'Natal Literature'

physical and psychological ('smoulder', 'flings', 'tormented', 'electric', and

so on). Many of the phrases in the poem are powerful and memorable (for
example, 'an old un quenched unsmotherable heat'), and rhythms and sounds
constantly reinforce and deepen the meaning - consider, say, the effect of
the short 'u' sounds and the sharp consonants in:
His sleepy mouth plugged by the heavy nipple
Tugs like a puppy, grunting as he feeds.
The poem can be seen, too, as an elaborate harmony built up out of
opposing elements of violence and tranquillity. This opposition is
summarized, in the last line but one, with the phrase 'so terrible and still',
and it is resolved, in the final line, in the crucial word 'harvest'.
Campbell was also a satirist - vigorous, boisterous even, sometimes very
amusing. South Africans might perhaps note that as long ago as 1928 he
began The Wayzgoose with these lines:
Attend my fable if your ears be clean,

In fair Banana Land we lay our scene ­

South Africa, renowned both far and wide

For politics and little else beside.

The quatrain 'On Some South African Novelists' is superb; some people
have thought it the best epigram written in English this century. It is
interesting to note that here, too, Campbell's attention is focused on the fact
- or rather the absence - of power.

3. William Plomer (1903-1973)

The Boer War
The whip-crack of a Union Jack

In a stiff breeze (the ship will roll),

Deft abracadabra drums

Enchant the patriotic soul ­

A grand sire in St James's Street

Sat at the window of his club.

His second son, shot through the throat,

Slid backwards down a slope of scrub,

Gargled his last breaths, one by one by one,

In too much blood, too young to spill,

Died difficultIy, drop by drop by drop ­

'By your son's courage, sir, we took the hill.'

They took the hill (Whose hill? What for?)

But what a climb they left to do!

Out of that bungled, unwise war

An alp of unforgiveness grew 9

Plomer employed a number of styles in prose and in verse; but an urbane

yet serious irony is fairly common.
In this poem one is struck by the calculated incongruity of the
juxtapositions. The first stanza evokes effectively (though the suggestion of
irony is there from the first) the heady emotion of patriotism: this, then, is
the feeling that kept the British Empire going. The words 'abracadabra' and
'enchant' carry the hint that patriots allow themselves to be bewitched.
Suddenly we are transported from a parade on a battleship to a vision of
an old man in a London club. But the leap makes sense: the club is also a
'Natal Literature' 51

facet of British imperial life. Two lines later we are on a battlefield, and we
are given a shockingly exact picture of the death of a British soldier, the
clubman's son. Why did he die? 'By your son's courage, sir, we took the
hill.'
But, as the last stanza goes on to stress, that kind of answer is hopelessly
unsatisfactory. The minor triumphs of battle look paltry and dubious in a
larger perspective, and indeed the whole war created problems far greater
than any that the British could have claimed to be attempting to solve.

4. Benedict Wallet Vilakazi (1906-1947)

Inyanga
Nyanga, muhlekazi womnyama,

Wen' owaditshaniswa nenyanga,

Yathi yon' ithwal' izikhwama

Yetsheth' izimpondo nemigodla

Wena wawenyuk' uyezulwini.

Wen' omuhle ebusuku

Laph' abanye bemathunz' amzizi,

Uhlangane nabo bakusinde,

Kodwa wena ma uqhamuka

Kuqin' amadolo ngihambe.

Ngikubonile ngisekhaya,

Ungiphumele phezu kwethantala,

Lamanz' emisinga yolwandle

Ngama ngaphuthelwa kuhamba

Ngakhex' umlomo ngadla ngamehlo.

Obab' omkhulu bakubon' uphuma

Ugqolozela umhlaba kanje,

Uphuphis' abalel' ubuthongo,

Ufunz' izimbongi ngamazwi

Ziwaqephuze zikhihliz' amagwebu

Asik' imizwa yomphefumulo kuphela.

Nami ngifunze Nonyezi,

Nyezi wemingcwi yokusa,

Obuhle bakho buqhamuka

Phezu kwamadamu emifula,

Nasohlazeni lotshani bezintaba.

Wen' odud' izithandani

Engizibon' emizin' emkhulu

Abelung' abayivus' emathanjeni

Abantwana bakaZulu noXhoza

NoMsuthu. Ngithi ma nami ngithi

Ngiyaphuma ngidonswa okudonsa

Umunt' ophila enozwelo lwemvelo,

Ngithuke ngikhalelwa zinsimbi.

Ngiphakele nami kuleyondebe,

Ongiphakela kuyo lapho

Ngikhumbul' ekhaya, ngibon' amahlathi,

Ngibon' izigodi, ezimbiwa imichachazo

Ngizwe ukuduma kolwandle,

Ngibon' ucansi lwamasimu akamoba,

Engiwakhumbula maqede ngibheke

Phezulu, ngikubone uliqand' elimhlophe,

Ngikhothame: Ngabe ngiyakwanga,

PhO!1O
52 'Natal Literature'

The Moon
o moon, bright queen of darkness! ­
Some see you as a healer
Who carries medicine bags
And shoulders horns and satchels;
I watch you climb the skies.
Dear moon, so radiant at night

When shadows dim the world

And mortals change to spectres,

Your shining presence in the sky

Renews my courage to look ahead.

How often I watched you when at home

You rose above the widely surging

Waters of the sky-bound sea;

While staring transfixed and open-mouthed,

I feasted my eyes in wonder.

My forbears must have watched you too,

Gazing down, as now, upon the world,

Bringing dreams to those who sleep

And inspiration to wakeful poets

Striving to compose such songs

As echo through the human soul.

Inspire me too, 0 pallid moon,

Fading in the ghostly dawn,

Faintly hovering in beauty

Over the waters of the river

And greening grasses of the hills!

Enchanting and merciful to lovers

Whom often I see in sprawling cities

Raised by white men on the graves

Of children of the Zulus, Xhosas,

Sothos - all. But, when I thus

Have ventured out, enticed by beauty,

Sacred to one who worships nature ­

I hear the warning of the curfew.

Heal, I pray, my vain nostalgia

When I hanker for the forests
And valleys eroded by the rains,
And crave to hear again the sea
Where fields of sugar-cane spread towards the shore.
Dreaming of these, once more I look above
And watch your elusive pale white globe:
Then, as I offer my obeisance,
I whisper my longing to reach you and embrace yoU. 11
(translated by Florence Louie Friedman)

Ngoba ... Sewuthi Because ...

Ngoba ngimamatheka njalo Because you always see me smile,

Ngikhombisa nokwenama, You think that I must be content:

Ngihlabelela ngephimbo, Because I sing with all my voice,

Nom' ungifak' emgodini The while you drive me underground

Ngaphansi kwezinganeko To find the treasure hidden there -

Zamatsh' aluhlaz' omhlaba Those diamonds tinting earth with blue:

Sewuthi nginjengensika You say that I am like a log

Yon' engezwa nabuhlungu. Insensi tive to pain.

'Natal Literature' 53

Ngob' umlomo warn' uhleka Because you see my laughing lips,

Namehlw' am' ebheke phansi My downcast eyes,

Ngifingqe ngabek' idolo My trousers rolled above the knee,

Nezinwele sezimpofu My matted hair like ochre

Zigcwel' uthuli lomgwaqo From dust of sandy roads,

Ngipheth' ipiki ngesandla; My hand around a pick,

Neyemb' elingenamhlane My shirt without a back:

Sewuthi nginjengedwala You say I am insentient

Lon' elingakwaz' ukufa. And durable as rock.

Ngoba njalo ngakusihlwa Because, when night approaches,

Sengigumul' iketango You see me loosening the chains

Lomsebenz' onzim' emini, Of daily drudgery,

Ngihlangana nabakithi And, meeting people black like me,

Siyogadlela ngendlamu Dance with new-born energy

Singoma ngamadala While chanting tribal songs

Asikizelis' igazi, That rouse our stifled zest

Kuphele nokukhathala, And banish weariness:

Sewuthi ngiyisilwane You think me but an animal

Esifa kuzalw' esinye. Who, should it die, is soon replaced.

Ngoba ngiwumngquphane Because I am a simple dupe

Ngibulawa ukungazi, Who pays the price of ignorance

Ngingaqondi namithetho, And cannot understand these laws

Kodwa ngizwa ingiphanga; That use, abuse me and exploit me;

Nendlu yami ngiyibeke Because you see me build my shack

Ngaphansi kweziwa zetshe; Beneath the roeky krantz

Utshani buyindlu yami, And know my home is made of grass,

Isaka liyisivatho; My garment but a sack -

Sewuthi ngiyisiduli, You think that I accept my lot

Kanginalo nonyembezi And have no cause to weep.

Olucons' enhliziyweni, But tears secreted in the heart,

Luwel' ezandlen' ezinhlc Flow only onto sacred hands

Zamadloz' abuka konke. 12 Of spirits never blind to human anguish. 13

(translated by Florence Louie Friedman)

In some of the poems in his first volume, Inkondlo kaZulu (Zulu Songs),
Vilakazi, partly under the influence of the English Romantic poets, tried
experimenting with EuropeatJ metrical forms; but in his second volume,
Amal'ezulu (Zulu Horizons), fmrp. which these two poems are taken, he has
fully developed a style of bis owii, modelled to some extent on the praise­
songs or izibongo.
Vilakazi wrote poems on a variety of subjects, but in almost all of them
one is aware of his brooding, probing personality, his love of the Zululand
and Natal of his childhood and youth, his desire to be a true poet and true
spokesman for his people, and his abhorrence of the indignities suffered by
his fellow blacks.
'Inyanga' is one of his more intimate poems, a poem in which the writer's
personality is vividly conveyed to the reader. In his poetic use of the moon
he has succeeded in combining traditional Zulu notions (in Zulu, for
example, 'inyanga' can also mean a diviner or herbalist) with ideas that he
might have come across in English poets. The poem expresses the writer's
sense of being not only alienated in a white-dominated city but also, to some
extent, lonely in a disappointing world. At the same time the moon,
symbolizing the mysterious power both of the universe and of the poetic
imagination, is a source of inspiration to him.
54 'Natal Literature'

'Ngoba . sewuthi' is one of those poems, typical of many black writers,

in which the'!, means not merely 'I myself and 'I as a member of the
human race' but 'I as a member of our community'. This kind of
representativeness, partly inherited from the izibongo, has been reinforced
by the experience of oppression. The poem is indeed an expression of
protest and disaffection. The black man is exploited by the white man, who
salves his conscience by taking the black man's rather desperate attempts to
cheer himself up as indications of real happiness and unconcern. The black
man is grieved and angry at being hopelessly misunderstood, but his final
appeal is not to the hearts of white people, or (as with some recent black
poets in exile) to those who might conduct an 'armed struggle', but to the
amadlozi, the spirits of the dead.

5. D.J. Opperman (born 1914)

Man met Flits Man with Flashlight
In die klein wit kol In my small white spot
van my wete stol of awareness clots,

bruin en skerp 'n klip brown and sharp, a rock

soos 'n bok wat skrik, like a startled buck,

staan, vinnig weghol stands, is off like a shot

uit die klein wit ko\. out of the small white spot.

Aan 'n takkie hang On a twig suspended

twee ogies wat bang two eyes that, offended,

uit die klein wit skyn disappear from the small, white

van my flits verdwyn. glow of my light.

Oor waters wat glip Stone by stone, by its gleam

soek ek klip na klip I feel across the stream,

maar 'n duister land but a darksome land

bedreig my alkant. '4 threatens on either hand. 15

(translated by Guy Butler)

Digter Poet

Ek is gevang I have been taken

en met die stryd prisoner of war,

erens in die ewigheid eternally, afar

op 'n Ceylon verban on some Ceylon forsaken.

waar al my drange The call of the lost way

na 'n verlore vaderland back to the fatherland,

my dag na dag geeiland keeps me here islanded

hou met horisonne en verlange, day after day,

en in die gee! gloed van die kers from words at candle-time,

snags deur die smal poort creating under

van die wonder elke woord the narrow gate of wonder,

laat skik tot klein stellasies vers small structures of rhyme,

wat groei tot boeg en mas that grow to bows and mast

en takelwerk - en die uiteindelike and rigging, till I slip

reis met die klein skip the cable of my small ship

geslote agter glas. 16 finally englassed. 17

(translated by William Branford)

'Natal Literature'
KersJiedjie
Drie outas het in die haai Karoo
die ster gesien en die engel geglo,
hul kieries en drie bondels gevat
en aangestryk met 'n jakkalspad
al agter die ding wat skuiwend skyn
op 'n plakkie, 'n klip, 'n syferfontein,
oor die sink en die sak van Distrik Ses
waar 'n kersie brand in 'n stukkende f1es,
en daar tussen ese1s en makriel
die krip gesien en neergekniel.
Die skaapvet, eiers en biltong
nederig gele voor God se klong
en die Here gedank in gesang en gebed
vir 'n kindjie wat ook die volk sou red . . .
Oor die hele affere het uit 'n hoek
'n broeis bantam agterdogtig gekloek 18
55
Christmas Carol
Three outas from the High Karoo
saw the star, believed the angel true,
took knob-sticks, and three bundles with
and set forth along a jackal path,
following that bright and moving thing
that shone on shanty, rock and spring,
on zinc and sacking of District Six ­
in a broken bottle a candle flicks
where salt fish hangs and donkeys jib,
and lights them kneeling by the crib.
Biltong, sheep fat, and eggs they've piled
humbly before God's small brown child.
With hymn and prayer for thanks, they tell
That a child will save this folk as well . . .
And on her nest, throughout the whole affair
a bantam clucks with a suspicious stare. '9
(translated by Anthony Delius)

Dirk Opperman comes from the Dundee district, and took an M.A.
degree at the University in Pietermaritzburg in 1939. Since 1960 he has been
Professor at the University of Stellenbosch. He is generally regarded as the
greatest living Afrikaans poet.
Of all the poets that appear in this chapter, Opperman is perhaps the most
difficult to do any sort of justice to in a short space. He is a poet of
remarkable depth, complexity and variety. In his uses of symbolism and in
the philosophical edge to his poetic explorations, in his recognition of
central tensions in human existence and in his translation of these tensions
into the structure of his poetry, Opperman is in some ways comparable to
such great twentieth-century masters as Yeats, Rilke and Valery. And yet
his poetry is profoundly South African too - profoundly of this soil.
'Man met flits' is on one level a sharply-etched account of the experiences
of a man making his way, past stones, branches and waters, with a torch or
flashlight. But there is obviously, from the first, a deeper resonance: the
poem is offering, in fact, an account of man's life in the universe; the torch,
with its bright but narrow and moving ray of light, represents man's
perception (as is made clear in the first stanza). Life is dark, then. What we
see we tend to see fleetingly, and in isolation; we never get the full 'daylight'
picture. Moreover the very act of seeing is rather frightening to us, and we
seem somehow to frighten away the things that we look at: they won't stay
still to be examined. We managed to keep going, with great difficulty; but
on both sides a dark land threatens us. It is a sharp, grim, challenging poem.
Its short words and spiky consonants thrust themselves at us like objects
seen briefly by the light of a torch.
In some respects 'Digter' resembles 'Man met flits'. The poet is a person
who is actively aware that he (like other people) is an exile from a lost
fatherland - the land, presumably, where meaning and fulfilment exist. All
his longings draw him back towards this fatherland, and he resolves to
construct a poetic work which will be the ship in which he will sail home. At
56 'Natal Literature'

last the vessel is fully rigged, and the journey begins - but the ship is in a
bottle, it can't be launched on a real sea. What does the poem mean? It
seems to suggest that our noble or desperate attempts to reach the truth ­
valuable though they may well be - are all subjective, perhaps even
solipsistic. We cannot escape the glassy confines of our own visions. The
best that we can attain to is a personal, long-distance view of the truth. The
imagery of Ceylon and the fatherland is of course South African (in the
Anglo-Boer War, some Boer prisoners were sent to Ceylon, now Sri
Lanka), and the poem may have some meaning on this level. But
undoubtedly its main thrust is universal.
'Kersliedjie' is one of the poems in which Opperman shows his lively
awareness of social and political problems. The birth of Christ - tersely and
vividly recounted - is seen as an event in the life of the 'Coloured'
community. The poem recreates crucial features of the Christmas story
which are apt to be blurred, particularly in the eyes of those upon whom
society bestows privileges: the poverty in which Christ lives is real, not
merely decorative, and the salvation that he embodies has been offered to
all human beings, and especially to those who are humbled by being poor
and powerless. The final stanza is enigmatical; it perhaps suggests that the
poet, like the bantam, for various reasons reserves his judgment on 'the
whole affair'.

6. Alan Paton (born 1903)

In the Umtwalumi Valley
In the deep valley of the Umtwalumi
In its tribal valley with its kaffirboom
Red, red, and red again along the banks
We in our swiftly moving car
Pass small boys on the road walking
And they call out in their own language
For pleasure or hope of gain, I cannot say,
Their salutations, father, father.
Yes, I will not forget your salutations
I sit here pondering the deep meanings
The solemn and sacred meanings
Of your salutations
I sit here pondering the obligations
The solemn and sacred obligations
Of your words shouted in passing. 20

Except for a crucial thirteen years as Principal of a reformatory at

Diepkloof (now part of Soweto), Alan Paton has spent most of his life in
Natal. He has, however, travelled widely, in South Africa and overseas. His
novel, Cry, the Beloved Country (1948) - a story of Johannesburg and of
the Natal country districts - has made more of an impact, in this country
and in the world at large, than any other book by a South African.
'In the Umtwalumi Valley' may seem a very small piece with which to
represent Paton's great imaginative capacities; but in fact this haunting little
poem, written in 1949, conveys a number of his central preoccupations.
The opening lines take us deep into the Natal countryside (which Paton
has often described so memorably), but they take us also, we feel, into the
'Natal Literature' 57

poet's inner consciousness and towards the heart of the country's innermost
problem:
We in our swiftly moving car
Pass small boys on the road walking
In a few words, with great simplicity, we are given the gist of the South
African issue: rich whites as against poor blacks, an affluent economy
interwoven with rural underdevelopment - an overall complexity in which
everyone is involved. The poet hears and sees the boys calling out to him ­
'father, father' - and he considers the meaning of their call.
He ponders: the style of the poem, with its Whitmanesque repetitions,
suggests - as much of Paton's writing does - a man thinking deeply and
earnestly. He feels that behind the salutations thrown out by the small boys
- 'For pleasure or hope of gain, I cannot say' - there lie 'solemn and
sacred meanings', meanings which the boys t,hemseives are not distinctly
conscious of but which the poet in his partial detachment can discern. What
he is above all aware of is that the boys' salutations - all that they signify, all
that they suggest - lead to obligations, 'solemn and sacred obligations', in
the poet, in the reader, in white people, in society at large.
It could be said that Alan Paton's life-work has been a continual attempt
to articulate and dramatize these 'obligations'.

7. H. W.D. Manson (1926-1969)

Prologue to Pat Mulholland's Day

(Spoken by the playwright or his representative)

Now that you are settled and still,

The house lights doused and dim,

Make your minds like this dim darkness

And bring up into it the smallest speck,

The tiniest mote or atom it can think of - tip and touch

And yet hold some memory of so doing ­

And imagine it

Spinning and spinning in empty space.

Then say this spinning speck

Is our whole world - in one perspective.

Ridiculous that it should spin

Being flung off so long ago

From another star or other speck

That still is spinning, I suppose, somewhere ­

Or exploded - long ago - gone ­
In a silent white blast we never heard

Or ever shall see,

Although that blast may be

What will blow our world away one day.

Yet this day our little world still spins ...

Magnify this mote or speck and what do we see?

It is dark on the one side away from the sun,

Silver bright, it seems. on the other,

And spinning and spinning continuously . . .

And on that mote or speck are men - millions of them ­

Infinitesimal animals ­
Who crawl upon its surface and cling

To life and this atom as it spins

58 'Natal Literature'

Through day and night

Dark and light

And life and death

In a day, so to say - ridiculous!

Ridiculous to live at all

On such a tiny spinning ball!

But these are words, mere words ...

Let's zoom our minds down, say, in human focus and feel;

Know and feel and see

Our huge, majestic world reel slowly through centuries,

And the great and glorious sun come up slowly,

And the distant, vast hills begin to loom,

Soar and assume dark shapes and sharp edges

Against the pale pink of the sky,

And the high peaks run down in ridges

To the wet, dark, silent valleys below,

Where nothing yet can be known but noises,

Running water and the croak of frogs.

But the world turns,

And pink pales slowly to pearly gold.

And rivers run not nowhere now,

And no longer only murmur in darkness

As· if they'd lost their way;

We see.

We see reed beds dimly swaying and dark rocks,

And how the river mist lifts and curls.
As rose to pale gold lost,
So pale gold now to other lightness lifts,
And clouds all mackerel green and grey
Stay steady like a painted scene,
While the clear light of morning blue is set
That declares the scene is day.
What sort of day has dawned for this man
Whom we shall see presently behind this curtain?
Nothing is certain but that dawn begins
And night ends day.
And who among,~s shall see the next dawn certainly
No man can say.·

Harley Manson taught for a number of years in the English Department

of the University of Natal in Pietermaritzburg. He wrote ten plays, in free
and flexible verse; a number of poems; and an unfinished novel. This is the
prologue to one of his plays.
It is not only an effective introduction - preparing the audience
imaginatively for a play which will present a most important day in one
man's life - but it offers, challengingly, two visions of human life: one cold
and scientific, the other more immediate and human and perhaps therefore
more true. In the last six lines the two visions are to some extent brought
together.
The writing is fresh, lively, intensely poetic. Without any sense of
conscious art, the passage abounds with subtly-evocative alliterations,
assonances, internal rhymes; and again and again words and phrases,
through their sounds and rhythms, actually enact what they are expressing.
The scenes conjured up in the second half of the poem are both specific
and universal; but no-onc who knows the province can doubt that they were
inspired by the countryside of Natal.
'Natal Literature' 59

8. Sheila Cussons (born 1922)

1945

Europa le in puin: 'n swart koerantberig,

staccato, stomp; 'n oggendteegerug.

Europa is 'n krater in die firmament, niks meer.

Maar deur die blokkiesraaisel van verstarde staal

tuimel die reengrou duiwe he en en weer,

hunkerend na broeityd, neste op die plein

en paring bo die swart verminkte katedraal.

'n Aartsengel le in die reen se glans en stil verteer

die roes sy silwer vlerk, die kosmos van sy silwer brein 22

1945

Europe lies in ruins: a black headline story,

staccato, blunt: a teacup prattle.

Europe is a crater in the firmament, no more.

But through the crossword puzzle of rigid steel

the rain-grey pigeons tumble, flap and soar,

longing for broods, to nest and mate again

above the black cathedral's tortured shell.

An Archangel lies in the rain's wet gleam, and rust devours

quietly his silver wing, the cosmos of his silver brain 23

(translated by Jack Cope and Uys Krige)

This is a strong little poem, a piece of modern impressionism which

catches brilliantly something of the agony of the end of the Second World
War. Large areas of Europe, once so proud, have been devastated. But still,
undeterred by human tragedies, the forces of life reassert themselves. Man
will continue too, of course - but has his spiritual dimension, his religion,
been irreparably damaged? Does this poem tell the story of the twentieth
century?
Sheila Cussons lived in Natal for many years, but is now in Spain.

9. [na Rousseau (born 1926)

Eden Eden

Staan daar nog in Eden erens, Lies there still in Eden somewhere,

verlate soos 'n stad in puin, deserted like a town in ruins,

met poorte grusaam toegespyker, with gates closed up and nailed so grimly

deur eeue die mislukte tuin? that ill-starred garden, through the aeons?

Word daar nog die swoele dae Are the sultry days still followed

deur swoele skemering en nag vervang by sultry dusk and night time now,

waar donkergeel en purper vrugte where purple and dark yellow clusters

verrottend aan die takke hang? of fruit hang rotting on the bough?

Sprei daar ondergronds 'n netwerk Underground, is there a network

soos sierkant deur die rotse heen: that runs like lace through rocks unknown

die sware, onontgonne riwwe of heavy undeveloped ridges

van goud en onikssteen? of gold and onyx stone?

Vloei daar deur die natgroen struike Do there flow with rippling echoes

nog met kabbeling wat ver weerklink, through dank green bushes on their brinks

die viertal glasblink waterstrome that clear quartet of crystal streams

waarvan geen sterfling drink? at which no mortal drinks?

60 'Natal Literature'

Staan daar nog in Eden erens
verwaarloos soos 'n stad in puin,
gedoem tot langsame verrotting
deur eeue die mislukte tuin?24
Lies there still in Eden somewhere
neglected like a town in ruins
and doomed to gradual putrefaction
that ill-starred garden, through the aeons?25
(translated by C.J.D. Harvey)

Ina Rousseau lives in Pietermaritzburg.

This poem, like Sheila Cussons's, presents a ruin; but what lies decaying
here is not the hard factual Europe of 1945 but the Garden of Eden, an
entity or an experience that can be thought of as both mythical and
psychological. The elegiac tone and the formality of the verse are typical of
the poet.
Since human beings were banished from the Garden - since it has
remained therefore an unlivable ideal - what has become of it? It is now
'mislukte' (,ill-starred'), useless, wasted. Its gates are nailed up; its fruit is
rotting; its underground riches are untapped and unknown; its marvellous
waters are untasted. This Garden, which lies 'somewhere', is located (one
feels) partly in history, partly in some area of the human mind. It is as if the
human capacity to live up to an ideal has died, or perhaps as if to yearn for
an ideal is to dedicate oneself to 'Iangsame verrotting' ('gradual
putrefaction'). The restrained, traditional stanzas form an odd and
disturbing counterpoint to the jarring quality of the theme.

10. Mazisi Kunene (born 1930)

To the Soldier Hero
Who was Langula
That he should trample over a thousand victims
And praise himself over their graves~
Is it not true: for him there was only one great joy ­
To hold the iron dripping with their blood,
As though this fame
Fulfils all life's ambition?
But even he who sharpened the edge of hearts
Conceived new truths,
Telling us that truth is not the truth of swords,
But the long buds growing from the ruins 26

Mazisi Kunene took an M.A. degree at the University of Natal in

Durban, but for twenty years he has been a voluntary exile, living first in
London, now in California. He is an authority on Zulu tradition; writes
many of his poems in Zulu before translating them into English; and has
published, in English, an epic poem on Shaka.
Kunene's poems cover a wide range of subjects. A number of them are
'freedom poems', in which the lonely exile fiercely proclaims the right of
black people to live in freedom in the land of their birth. The poet does not
however believe in militancy simply for its own sake - as 'To the Soldier
Hero' reveals.
In this poem, as in all of his successful pieces, the reader is struck by the
vigour of the words, the eloquence of the rhythms (it is as if one can actually
hear the words being passionately spoken) and by the vivid simplicity of the
images.
'Natal Literature' 61

11. Douglas Livingstone (born 1932)

Steel Giraffes

There are, probably, somewhere

arms as petal-slight as hers;

there are probably somewhere,

wrists as slim;

quite probably, someone has

hands as slender-leafed as hers;

the fingers, probably

bare of rings, as thin.

Certainly, there is nowhere

such a dolour

of funnels, mastings, yards,

filaments of dusk ringing shrouds

woven through the word goodbye,

riveted steel giraffes

tactfully looking elsewhere j

necks very still to the sky. 7

Mpondo's Smithy, Transkei

Cold evenings: red tongues and shadows

spar under this dangerous thatch

rust-patched; one weather wall of planks;

long-limbed tools, wood, coal in smoke-dimmed stacks;

a hitched foal's harness musical.

The grindstone's rasped pyrotechnic

threatens the stopped-dead angled tip

of a stripped Cape cart that waits on

the return of its motivation;

a sudden hiss as quenched irons cool.

Two cowled purple-cheeked bellows-boys

pump, or jump for smiths or furies;

files of elders sucking pipestems,

ordered by fire's old feudalism,

squat: wrinkled jury on this skill.

Horseshoes, blades, shares and lives: all shaped

to the hoarse roar and crack of flame,

by the clang of metallic chords,

hammer-song, the anvil's undertone;

nailed to one post a jackal'S skull. 28

Douglas Livingstone is one of the most distinguished of contemporary

South African poets. He lives in Durban.
'Steel Giraffes' is a fascinating love poem, both traditional and very
modern. The first stanza, with its partly unromantic tone, serves to focus our
attention not so much upon the appearance of the loved woman (though
that is there too) as upon the profound moment of parting that is suggested
in the second stanza. And this moment is evoked, boldly, by a description
not of the couple but of the scene at the quayside. It is in 'funnels, mastings,
yards', and finally in the seemingly-sentient cranes, that the poet's emotion
lodges itself; and it is through these images, which while remaining factually
vivid quietly become psychological symbols, that his emotion is conveyed to
us.
62 'Natal Literature'

'Mpondo's Smithy, Transkei' is a striking, concentrated picture, but the

painting is made up not of pigments and brush-strokes but of rich words,
resonances, rhythms. The poem succeeds in summoning up a way-of-life
which is alert, energetic, traditional, in close harmony with both natural and
supernatural forces.

12. Oswald Mbuyiseni Mtshali (born 1940)

Boy on a Swing
Slowly he moves

to and fro, to and fro,

then faster and faster

he swishes up and down.

His blue shirt

hillows in the breeze

like a tattered kite.

The world whirls by:

east becomes west,

north turns to south;

the four cardinal points

meet in his head.

Mother!

Where did I come from?

When will I wear long trousers?

Why was my father jailed?29

Oswald Mtshali is naturally associated mainly with the Johannesburg area:

he was the first of the Soweto poets of the late sixties and early seventies to
have a collection of poems published. But he spent the first eighteen years
of his life in Natal.
Many of Mtshali's poems present vignettes of township life - precise,
pungent, ironical.
The first stanza of 'Boy on a Swing' is a skilful evocation of the swinging.
In the second stanza, besides the suggestions of carefree pleasure, there is
perhaps in the third line a hint of vulnerability, of deprivation. The next five
lines offer the results of the swinging: on the one hand, giddiness and
confusion; on the other, a shaking-up of normal thought-categories, and so a
new focusing and questioning.
The final three lines present the questions of a child. The first is
philosophical or religious. The second is more superficial and social - but
equally important to a child. The final line is clearly the climax of the poem.
It startles us; yet it seems to be introduced quite casually. Again the child
cannot distinguish one type of question from another. But can we? The fact
that the child's father is in jail- what kind of fact is it? Is it something to be
explained in terms of the workings of society, or is it somehow a part of the
constitution of the universe? We are led to suspect that it must surely be the
former; but it can easily feel like the latter - to the child, to us, to anyone
who is either suffering or benefiting from the conditions imposed by our
society.
'Natal Literature' 63

13. Peter Strauss (born 1941)

Femme-F1eur
I sing of a lady
Who is matchless;

Tall she is, and

Springy, a daisy ­
Head on a stalk
(But no ways leafy)
- Who well defends herself
But isn't touchy
- Who's grave and gentle.
She bows her head to kiss me:
Her lips are softer than satin,
Her mouth is full of honey.
Gay she is sometimes
And bitter at others
(What does she have against me?)
And fierce she is in her loving
And reproach ­
But always gentle,

Always witty. 30

Peter Strauss teaches at the University of Natal in Durban, and has

distinguished himself not only as a poet but as a literary critic too.
His writing is intelligent, lively, always original. In this poem he produces
a subtle, witty, deeply affectionate portrait.

14. Mafika Pascal Gwala (born 1946)

Kwela-Ride

Dompas!

I looked back

Dompas!

I went through my pockets

Not there
They bit into my flesh (handcuffs).
Came the kwela-kwela
We crawled in.

The young men sang.

In that dark moment

It all became familiar. 31

Mafika Pascal Gwala was born and educated in Natal, and lives at
Mpumalanga, near Hammarsdale.
'Kwela-Ride' is a vivid poem of 'black experience' - or of the experience
of anyone who feels the victim of an unjust and arbitrary system of law­
enforcement. The poem is brief, and surprising: that is a part of its point. It
is also dramatic; every line offers a new concrete fact. And the details are
significant. 'I looked back': he is stopped short in his tracks, addressed
rudely from behind. 'I went through my pockets': one pictures the man's
desperation, and his humiliation, there in the street. 'They bit into my flesh
64 'Natal Literature'

(handcuffs),: the handcuffs bite, but behind the physical biting is the
psychological biting of 'they', the 'guardians' of society. 'We crawled in': the
people are reduced now to the condition of animals or insects. 'The young
men sang' - in defiance, but also to raise their morale.
In that dark moment
It all became familiar
What the poem offers us is, in the end, not an isolated incident but a central
fact of folk-experience.
15. Chris Mann (born 1948)
The Prospect from Botha's Hill
on Good Friday

Far below,

in the grey-blue valley,

the valley of a thousand wrinkly hills,

an unseen donkey and cockerel

utter their own particular cries.

What provoked

both them and the herdboy

who somewhere deep in a dim-blue hillside

keeps floating out a line of song,

is hazier than the tiny farms.

No calm is falser

than the distance's,

and working through that braying and crowing

leaves my thought in such a shambles

of dismay at human weakness and betrayal,

I almost shut myself

against the music of that single line of song. 32

Chris Mann has studied and worked in a variety of places; he is now one
of the directors of the Valley Trust in Botha's Hill.
The scene of the Valley of a Thousand Hills, and the sounds of donkey,
cock l!nd herdboy, are vividly evoked. Looking and listening, the poet is
depressed by the ways in which the whole scene seems to symbolize 'human
weakness and betrayal': an essential aspect of the South African situation is
before his eyes, and he is reminded of the great betrayal of the Christian
story (it is a poem for Good Friday).
The poem also pictures a conflict within the poet. His dismay is in danger
of making him insensitive to the beauty of the herdboy's song, but
something within him suggests that insensitivity can never be valuable.
16. Shabbir Banoobhai (born 1949)
in each you
you model before me
every day
i see
beyond the chameleon of your never self
now green against my growing happiness
now brown against the dUll twig of my sorrow
the still you
longing
to lose yourself
in my whoever me 33
'Natal Literature' 65

Shabbir Banoobhai lives in Durban, where he works as an accountant.

His poems deal sensitively with a variety of themes - religion, love,
society and politics. 'In each you' is a love poem which is tender, vital and
subtle; in its quiet lyrical intensity it forms an interesting contrast to the
more 'springy' poem by Peter Strauss.
17. Nkathazo kaMnyayiza (born 1953)
Forgotten People
Broken
rusty
and hanging gates
fallen leaves on unswept yards
where mangy dogs stretch out their empty beings
and where fowls peck fruitlessly at unwashed dishes
I saw him the old man on an old bench seated
leaning his old back against the crumbling mud walls
thoughts far off man's reach and sight
and like the setting sun
he gave way to the dying embers of life
and slowly he slouched into bed
with a dry and an empty stomach
to await another empty day or death. 34

Nkathazo kaMnyayiza lives at Mpumalanga.

This poem focuses our attention on a part of the Natal scene that many
Natalians are apt to forget. Old age is often sad, and neglected; but is likely
to be particularly so in a community which is itself forlorn, forgotten,
marginalized. In the Natal-KwaZulu area there are many thousands of
'discarded people'.
The unbroken dragging movement of the poem suggests the old man's
hopeless slipping towards death; and his condition is echoed in everything
around him.
18. Dikobe wa Mogale (born 1956)
people
some people laugh like advertisements
with their macleans white teeth only
others with their hearts
some people maintain a boerewors status quo
with liberal cheese and wine dignity
with conservative rent 'n bakkie plastic smiles
and braai-vleis moralities
based on contraband kentucky fried thread-bare race theories
whilst others feed on malnutrition
the question is why?35

Dikoba wa Mogale lives and works in Edendale, on the edge of

Pietermaritzburg.
'People' is both tough and witty. The poet assails the bourgeois white
world, with what he feels to be its superficiality, its commercialism, its bogus
sentiments, its feeble theories, its general blindness. In contrast to it ­
underlying it and undermining it - is the world of black emotion and
suffering. The final question suggests a militant determination not to be
content with merely ironical analysis.
66 'Natal Literature'

III

I have offered a glance at the earlier history of 'Natal literature' , and I've
presented and commented on a number of poems. One cannot draw large
conclusions from such an impressionistic half-survey.
But it seems safe to say that Natal - or Natal-KwaZulu as it might
perhaps be called today - has produced, not only complex socio-cultural
clashes and interweavings, but a fair range of subtle literature. Or rather, it
has provided the site for this literature. It is difficult to be sure in what sense
Natal, which is a part both of South Africa and of the world, can claim
ownership of 'Natal literature'.

NOTES AND REFERENCES

1 Albert S. Gcrard, Four African Literatures (Berkeley, 1971), p. 182.

2 An English translation of it has recently been published by the University of Natal Press.

3 Plomer did, however, meet Dube, and Gandhi's son Manilal. And van der Post has said

that the three young editors of Voorslag intended to publish work in Zulu as well as in

English and Afrikaans.

Campbell had been a pupil at Durban High School; so, some fourteen years earlier, had

Fernando Pessoa, who went on to become the greatest modern Portuguese poet.

5 Trevor Cope (ed.), lzibongo: Zulu Praise· Poems, collected by James Stuart, and translated
by Daniel Malcolm (London, 1968), p. 89.
Cope, Izibongo, p. 88.
Roy Campbel\, Collected Poems: Volume 1, (London, 1955), p. 30.
8 Campbell, Collected Poems: Volume 1, p. 198.
9 William Plomer, Collected Poems (London, 1973), p. 25.

10 B.W. Vilakazi, Amal'ezulu (Johannesburg, 1945), p. 13.

11 F.L. Friedman, B. W. Vilakazi: Zulu Horizons (Johannesburg, 1973), p. 88.

12 Vilakazi, Amal'ezulu, p. 19.

13 Friedman, Zulu Horizons, p. 92.

14 D.J. Opperman, Negester oar Nineve (Cape Town, 1947), p. 8.

15 A.P. Grove and C.J.D. Harvey (eds.), Afrikaans Poems with English Translations (Cape

Town, 1962), p. 235.

16 Opperman, Negester oar Nineve, p. 28.
17 Grove and Harvey, AfrikaansPoems, p. 243
18 D.J. Opperman, Blom en Baaierd (Cape Town, 1956), p. 26.
19 Grove and Harvey, Afrikaans Poems, p. 269.
20 Alan Paton, Knocking on the Door (Cape Town, 1975), p. 70.
21 H.W.D. Manson, Poems (Pietermaritzburg, 1973), p. 6.
22 Sheila Cussons, Plektrum (Cape Town, 1970), p. 1.
23 Jack Cope and Uys Krige (eds.), The Penguin Book of South African Verse (Harmonds­
24 worth, 1968), p. 230.
lna Rousseau, Die Verlate Tuin (Cape Town, 1954), p. 5.
25 Grove and Harvey, Afrikaans Poems, p. 313.
26 Mazisi Kunene, Zulu Poems (London, 1970), p. 50.
27 Douglas Livingstone, A Rosary of Bone (Cape Town, 1975), p. 13.
28 Douglas Livingstone, The Anvil's Undertone (Johannesburg, 1978), p. 7.
29 Oswald Mbuyiseni Mtshali, Sounds of a Cowhide Drum (Johannesburg, 1971), p. 3.

30 Peter Strauss, Bishop Bernward's Door and other poems (Cape Town, 1983), p. 27.

31 Mafika Pascal Gwala, lol'iinkomo (Johannesburg, 1977), p. 28.

32 Chris Mann, First Poems (Johannesburg, 1977), p. 36.

33 Shabbir Banoobhai, Echoes of my other self (Johannesburg, 1980), p. 15.

34 Michael Chapman and Achmat Dangor (eds.), Voices from Within: Black Poetry from
Southern Africa (Johannesburg, 1982), p. 84.
35 Dikobe wa Mogale, Baptism of Fire (Johannesburg, to be published 1984).

COLIN GARDNER

 67

The Oldest Houses In

Pietermaritzburg

The Voortrekker period of Pietermaritzburg's history is still characterised by

more questions than answers. Who chose the site for the dorp? When and
how was it laid out? Whom was it named after, and, the sole concern of this
paper, how many, where and what type of buildings had been erected by
1843?
In addition to clarifying our picture of the built environment of embryonic
Pietermaritzburg, this research identifies a number of Voortrekker abodes
which are still standing.
The number, location and type of buildings extant in Pietermaritzburg at
the time of British annexation has not been well documented, and not
surprisingly, therefore, a number of conflicting opinions on the matter have
been expressed.
A correspondent to the Grahamstown Journal in 1844 asserted:
Were you here you would doubtless enquire about them (namely
buildings springing up like mushrooms) and like mushrooms you would
find they had withered away by a twelve hours sun if they ever existed.
Be assured that the Buildings Report is all moonshine; for no buildings
beyond the temporary hovels for present shelter, are in the course of
erection at any place.
This adverse description was promptly refuted in the Pietermaritzburg
newspaper, De Natalier:
In this part of the southern hemisphere there is no city, including
Cape town , better situated or with a more regular layout than
Pietermaritzburg. All the streets here are equally broad and run in
parallel and straight lines. As far as the number of occupied or
inhabitable houses (all built of stone or brick) is concerned, this
number certainly exceeds the following inventory:
In the Burger Street 22 houses
Loop Street 28 houses
Longmarket Street 21 houses
Church Street 22 houses
Pietermaritz Street 16 houses
Berg Street 13 houses
Boom Street 7 houses
Greyling Street 3 houses
Total 132 houses
68 Oldest Houses in Pietermaritzburg

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Oldest Houses in Pietermaritzburg 69

This number does not include the 11 new buildings which will probably
be completed before the end of this month; and 30 temporary houses
of wood erected by those who have not yet decided whether they will
stay in the city or sell their property.
Well then - of these houses which are described by the shameless
person as 'temporary hovels', at least half are favourably comparable
to the houses in the old capital of Doctor Van Riebeeck as far as
external appearance, solidity, and the arrangement of comfort inside
the house are concerned. The houses of the following people are
examples of this: Landsberg, Ohrtmann, Hansmeyer, Coqui, Boshof,
Muller, Ripking, Poortman, Eick, Ferreira, Van der Merwe,
Wolhuter, Botha, as well as 25 or 30 others.
Then one also has to consider the beautiful gardens behind these
houses, which, for their neatness and the quality and the variation of
their products, are a recommendation to their owners.
These, then, are the houses described by the mendacious person as

'mushrooms' . . .

(Translation: De Natalier, Natal Archives, Pietermaritzburg)

The total of 162 houses (132 built of stone or brick plus 30 wooden
structures enumerated by De Natalier) , is corroborated l by Commissioner
H. Cloete's 1843 Register of Erven Claimed in Pietermaritzburg (Table 1).

TABLE 1: A COMPARISON OF THE NUMBER OF HOUSES IN PlETERMARITZ­

BURG LISTED BY H. CLOETE AND 'DIE NATALIER' RESPECTIVELY

CLOETE 'DE NATALIER'

STREET (1843) (1844)
Burger 24 22
Loop 26 28
Longmarket 25 21
Church 28 22
Pietermaritz 27 16
Berg 19 13
Boom 10 7
Greyling 2 3
161 132

Cloete's report distinguished 'Built upon and Bona Fide occupied erven'
from 'cultivated and occupied erven' without explanation, but he was
probably distinguishing permanent from temporary houses. However,
Cloete's report does not indicate the location of houses upon their respective
erfs. Article 5 of the dorp regulations stipulated:
De woonhuizen zullen, naar aanwyging van een daartoe gekwalificeerd
persoon, in den front moeten worden gebouwd en in eengelyke linie.
(S.A. Archival Records, Natal No. 1, (1958) p. 295).
But which was the front of the erf? In dorps such as Graaff-Reinet rows of
houses faced each other along every alternate longstreet, but this pattern
was not followed in Pietermaritzburg. An 1851 sketch of the dorp, Plate 1,
indicates rows of houses along Longmarket, Church and Pietermaritz
Streets. This sketch along with slope considerations, viz. that the houses
would be located at the higher end of the erfs, and Cloete's report were used
 Plate 1: Pietermaritzburg from Fort Napier in 1851.
(Photograph: Natal Museum)

to compile Figure 1.2 The double-storey house which stands on Erf 33 Boom
Street, which has been accepted as 'The Oldest House in Town' and is a
National Historical Monument, is notably absent in Figure 1. According to
Cloete's report Erf 33 Boom Street was not 'Built Upon' although it had
been enclosed and cultivated. 3
The next step was to check Figure 1 in the field in order to answer the
question: how many if any, of the 1843 houses have survived?' Ten houses.,
which occupy expected locations on erven 'Built Upon' in 1843, were
identified in July 1983. 5 Table 2 provides additional information on these ten
dwellings.
Although each of these historic dwellings has been modified, their floor
plan and construction materials point clearly to their historic character. They
are all basically single storeyed rectangular plan cottages, with a loft,
standing lengthwise to the street. Each of the dwellings contains thick walls
- the smaller mud brick wall cottages average 40 cms in thickness and the
larger houses, whose walls were built with shale or burnt brick reach 60 cms
in thickness. 6 Yellow wood floor and ceiling boards, and in one instance a
staircase, provide additional evidence . In terms then of architectural
features, historical records and geographical location these dwellings are the
oldest in Pietermaritzburg.
Six of these historic houses are worthy of conservation and restoration,
and hence warrant further detail.
Oldest Houses in Pietermaritzburg 71

TABLE 2: THE OLDEST HOUSES IN PIETERMARITZBURG

PRESENT STREET ORIGINAL TITLE

STREET ERFNo. NUMBER LOT No. DEED

Burger 56 10 Burger Street Rem Burpine G . 384/1846 to

J.J . Smit
Burger 81 241 Commercial Road Rem 2781 G. 409/1846 to
S.W. van der Merwe
Burger 10 Loop Street Lot 2701 G. 32911846 to
P .H. Kritzinger
Loop 5 54 Longmarket Street Sub 4 of G. 277/1846 to
2605 J.J. Viljoen
Loop 6 64/66 Longmarket Rem 2606 G. 277/1846 to
Street J.G. van Vuuren
Loop 41 420 Longmarket Rem 2641 G. 313/1846 to
Street C.F. Botha
Loop 42 428 Longmarket Rem 2642 G. 314/1846 to
Street H .A . Ripking
Berg 20 205 Berg Street Rem 2220 G. 1846 to
P.G . Pretorius
Berg 22 219 Berg Street Rem 2222 G.1846to
M.J. Fourie
Berg 42 417 Berg Street Rem 2242 G. 1846 to
F.J. Maritz

Plate 2: Oxenham's Bakery, 1983.

(Photograph: R.F. Haswell)
72 Oldest Houses in Pietermaritzburg

Plate 3: Oxenham's Bakery, 1896.

House van der Merwe (Old Oxenham's Bakery, 241 Commercial Road)
This house stands on Erf 81 Burger Street, which was built upon by 1843.
The house was identified by De Natalier in 1844 as one of the best in the
dorp, and the 1846 title deed shows the building in its present location.
Although it has been substantially modified (Plate 2) the loft, yellow wood
ceiling beams, walls and an 1896 photograph (Plate 3) all verify its longevity.

Plate! 4: House Kritzinger, 1983.

(Photograph: R.F. Haswell)
Oldest Houses in Pietermaritzburg 73

House Kritzinger (10 Loop Street)

The erf on which this house stands was built upon by 1843, and according
to Kearney (1967, p. 22) originally had end gables. As in the case of House
van der Merwe this house has been 'Anglicised' by the addition of bay
windows (Plate 4).

Plate 5: House Viljoen, 1983.

(Photograph: R.F. Haswell)

House J.J. Vi/joen (54 Longmarket Street)

This is probably the least altered early nineteenth century cottage in
Pietermaritzburg (Plate 5). Mudbrick walls, an historic hearth, yellow wood
floor and ceiling boards and its simple design make this house a good
example of an ordinary house, and its restoration would therefore
complement our preoccupation with monumental structures.

Plate 6: Houses van Vuuren, 1983.

(Photograph: R.F. Haswell)

74 Oldest Houses in Pietermaritzburg

Houses I.C . van Vuuren (64, 66 Longmarket Street)

One of these two cottages (Plate 6) had been erected on this erf by 1843,
but, because they are so similar in design and materials, it is not possible to
determine which was built first. Number 64 may well be the last mudbrick,
yellow wood and pan tile cottage in Pietermaritzburg.

Plate 7: House Botha, 1983.

(Photograph: R.F. Haswell)

House Botha (420 Longmarket Street)

Erf 41 Loop Street was built upon by 1843, and an 1845 Title Deed
indicates a house on the site of the existing house (Plate 7). In terms of
documented evidence this is the oldest house in Pietermaritzburg. It was
mentioned by De Natalier in 1844 as one of the better houses. Currently in
a state of disrepair this house contains shale walls, pan tiles, a hayloft,
yellow wood beams and wooden door frames.

Plate 8: House Ripking, 1983.

(Photograph: R.F. Haswell)
Oldest Houses in Pietermaritzburg 75

House Ripking (428 Longmarket Street)

This is another of the houses singled out as noteworthy by De Natalier in
1844. The erf had been built upon in 1843 (Plate 8). Apart from being more
pretentious than the other houses which have been described in this paper,
this house has added historical value by virtue of the fact that it was
purchased by John Moreland, the Byrne Settler Agent, in 1859. It was
described as 'one of the most English-like residences the city of
Pietermaritzburg can boast of, not only in appearance but in the internal
comfort and arrangements . . . ' (Clark, 1969, p 283). The yellow wood
staircase which leads to the loft is a gem in itself.

Conclusions
Much basic research concerning the early development of
Pietermaritzburg still remains to be undertaken. This study claims only to
have pointed the way. Pietermaritzburg is widely renowned for its late
nineteenth century architecture. The conservation and restoration of the six
early nineteenth century houses detailed herein would add considerably to
the city's architectural record and reputation.

NOTES
I Hattersley (1938, 1951), Kearney (1967) and Gordon (1981) all accepted De Natalier's
1844 tally of houses without verification from Cloete's 1843 report.
2 The location of Widow Retief's house and the Church of the Vow on Church Street lend
further support to the locations proposed in Figure 1.
No dwelling is shown on Erf 33 Boom Street on the 1845 Town Plan of Pietermaritzburg
drawn by Chas. Piers and P.L.G. Cloete, which is on display in the Natal Museum.
4 Although the Church of the Vow was originally a house it is not included in this tally of
dwellings.
5 Since then the house at 417 Berg Street has been demolished.
Ii Pistorius' brick and tile works, at the foot of Town Hill, began producing bricks in 1840,
while shale was quarried at Ohrtmann's quarry to the east of the dorp.

REFERENCES
CLARK, J. (1969) John Moreland, Byrne Agent (Ph.D. Thesis: University of Natal, Pieter­
maritzburg).
CLOETE, H. (1843) Register of Erven claimed with names of claimants at Pietermaritzburg,
Congella and Weenen (Natal Archives).
GORDON, R. (1981) The Place of the Elephant (Pietermaritzburg: Shuter and Shooter).
HATTERSLEY, A.F. (1938) Pietermaritzburg Panorama (Pietermaritzburg: Shuter and
Shooter).
HATTERSLEY, A.F. (1951) Portrait of a City (Pietermaritzburg: Shuter and Shooter).
KEARNEY, B.T. (1967) Architecture in Natal (1824-1893) (Master of Arch. Thesis: University
of Natal. Pietermaritzburg).
SOUTH AFRICAN ARCHIVAL RECORDS (1958) Natal No. 1: Notule van die Natalse
Volksraad (1838-1845) (Cape Town: The Government Printer).
RW. BRANN & ROBERT F. HASWELL
76

The Colenso Cases:

A Perspective of Law in

Nineteenth Century Natal

John William Colenso, Bishop of Natal, was a recurrent figure in litigation

in Natal, during the 1850s and 1860s. The cases in which he featured ranged
from Colenso v Acutt (1856),' in which he appeared on behalf of the Bishop
of Cape Town, in a dispute with the churchwarden of St Paul's, Durban; to
Lloyd v Colenso (1859),' in which he was sued by the Colonial Chaplain for
£1 125 damages for libel and illegal suspension from office; to the numerous
wrangles of the late 1860s with the Bishop of Cape Town, Dean Green and
other local opponents. 3 The judgements handed down in these cases provide
graphic evidence of the legal context in which Bishop Colenso and his
contemporaries operated.
Between 1846 and 1858, the chief legal tribunal in Natal was the District
Court: comprising one judge styled the Recorder. 5 In 1858, this Court was
transformed into the Supreme Court,6 composed of three judges. 7 This
Court had jurisdiction in all causes and over all residents within Natal,
unless this power was specifically curtailed by statute. s Of particular
relevance, the Court asserted its right to decide upon ecclesiastical causes: in
Bishop of Natal v Wills (1867),9 the Chief Justice declared that the Court had
'as much jufisdiction within the colony ... as the Master of the Rolls has in
England'.lo Final judgements of the Supreme Court, in civil cases without a
jury, could be appealed against to 'Her Majesty in Her Privy Council'. 11 This
step was very rarely taken, because of the huge costs and extensive delays
involved,12 and the few appeals that occurred were at the suit of large,
corporate bodies or powerful institutions wishing to vindicate a major
principle. A conspicuous example was the case Bishop of Natal v Bishop of
Cape Town (1866),13 and here the Privy Council gave judgement nearly two
years after the judgement of the Supreme Court. For the overwhelming
majority of litigants in Natal, the Supreme Court was effectively the highest
legal tribunal to which they could turn.
It was within this legal framework that the judges of Natal deliberated
upon the legal troubles of Colenso. These Colenso disputes offer insights
into the characters of those on the Bench. They reveal, firstly, that the man
at the helm, Chief Justice WaIter Harding,'4 was a simple homespun
character, of limited ability and training. 15 Harding's awareness of his own
limitations was clearly expressed in Bishop of Natal v Wills, where he stated:
 The Colenso Cases 77

I should indeed be delighted if the disputes now existing here . . .

could have been dealt with by men in England far, very far, my
superiors in every respect. Their position and their learning would
have carried a weight with their decision which mine cannot possess. 16
Harding nevertheless strove, to the best of his ability, to produce justice
in his decisions. In the Bishop of Natal v Wills case, he declared that his
decision would be 'what my conscience dictated as the right step'. 17
Harding's good intentions led him, on occasions, to try to get Colenso and
his opponents to settle their differences out of Court. In Bishop of Natal v
Green, Robinson, Williams, Spence and Jenkyn (1868),18 he twice asked the
litigants if they would refer their dispute to arbitrators, to be settled
amicably. 19 This same impulse led Harding to phrase his Colenso judgements
as blandly and succinctly as possible, to avoid stimulating passions and
prejudices further. 20 This was all the more admirable, as the religious
disputes evidently caused Harding much anguish. In the first draft of his
judgement in Bishop of Natal v Bishop of Cape Town, he included the
following observations (later omitted):
We all know and deplore the state things have been reduced to in the
Colony in reference to the affairs of the Episcopal Church. Subjects
connected with religion are never considered with calmness. 21
Harding's efforts in the Colenso disputes were further assisted by the
knowledge which he had of the local populace and its affairs. In Bishop of
Natal v Green (1868),22 the Court was asked to confirm Colenso's order
depriving Dean Green of the right to officiate as a minister of the Church of
England in Natal. In deciding on the power of Colenso to issue this order,
Harding C.l. said that the Anglican Church in Natal was merely a 'voluntary
association'. To illustrate, in concrete terms, what this expression meant, he
cited the law of 1843 regulating the constitution of the Dutch Reformed
Church in Natal. This stated that the regulations of a voluntary association
would affect persons connected with it only if they subscribed to or
. recognised these rules as being binding on them (and this, Harding C.l.
said, Green had done).2] It was because of knowledge such as this that
Harding was called 'the connecting link between the past and present of the
colony, and between its Dutch and English inhabitants'. 24
Assisting Harding on the Bench was the first puisne judge, Henry
Connor. 25 Connor's judgements on the Colenso issues stamped him as a man
of great talent, learning and ability. His pronouncements were backed by
extensive research, and the authorities he quoted were wide-ranging. 26
Connor was also blessed with clear and logical reasoning and an extremely
lucid mode of expression. In Bishop of Natal v Wills, he argued that the
clergy of the Natal Anglican Church (a 'voluntary association') were bound
to yield obedience to the Bishop in conscience but not in law, and reasoned
thus:
Common law is the unwritten will of a nation.
Statute law is the written will of a legislature.
But law, whether written or unwritten, has jurisdiction because of its
being law. It governs all to whom it is law, without any consent or
contract by them. And this governing power of law, and the right in
some men to exercise it . . . independently of any contract or personal
or pecuniary relations or the like with them, is jurisdiction. The rules of
78 The Colenso Cases

a voluntary association are not law, even to those who have voluntarily
subjected themselves to them, because law governs irrespectively of
there having ever been consent. 27
At times, Connor would enliven his learned, carefully-reasoned
judgements with an attractive and lively mode of expression. In Lloyd v
Colenso, the plaintiff objected to Colenso's decree of suspension for certain
alleged wrongs, on the ground that the offences charged against him (LJoyd)
had not been committed in Natal. Connor J. rejected this defence, and
asked rhetorically:
Is there any locality but that of the mind and soul in morals? Can a
person commit an immoral act and then by leaving the scene of its
performance leave his immorality behind him too? If a person acts
wrongly in England and then comes to Natal, does he by his voyage
change his nature as well as his sky?2R
Also on the Natal Supreme Court Bench was the third puisne judge,
Henry Lushington Phillips.29 His judgements in the Colenso cases were
generally short, direct statements, containing a small amount of legal
authority, and a large measure of personal assessment. 30 The highly
subjective nature of his judgements was shown in Ex parte Wheeler (1866).31
Here the applicant sought an order calling on Dean Green to produce the
baptismal register of St Peter's, so as to allow an entry to be made of
Colenso's baptism of Wheeler's child. Phillips J. declined to grant the order,
saying that he did not see the importance of the matter, as 'he had not been
baptised'.32 In expressing his opinions, PhiIIips was often extremely
forthright. In Williams v Brooks and Fraser (1867)/3 he decided to impose
only a small fine on certain Colenso supporters, for contempt of court. After
condemning the 'desecration' of the church through the holding of 'orgies
and committing brawls', he went on to:
blame a Christian Bishop [Twells], who, if he did not proclaim,
allowed his partisans to proclaim, that he would invade the diocese and
usurp the functions proper to the Bishop of Natal alone in his
Cathedral Church. If this invading Bishop does not follow the precepts
of peace and charity which were inculcated by his master, he ought at
all events to show that delicacy of feeling which is observed between
one gentleman and another. 34
On occasions, one of the above judges would be absent from duty, and an
acting judge would be appointed to officiate on the Bench. During the
1860s, Connor was twice called to serve on the Bench in the Cape Colony. 35
During his first absence, Henry Meller36 officiated as acting second puisne
judge. Meller was an English barrister, with very limited knowledge of the
local legal system. 37 Therefore, his judgements were usually in line with
those of the Chief Justice, supplemented by personal opinions. In Bishop of
Natal v Green, Williams and Dickinson (1866)/8 Colenso applied for an order
that he be allowed access to the baptismal register of St Peter's, held by the
respondents. Meller A.J. supported Harding's decision to grant the
application, and then (gratuitously) went on to condemn Dean Green's
mode of conduct in the dispute. 39
On the occasion of Connor's second absence, Henry Cope40 was
appointed. Cope was a lowly English solicitor, with barely an elementary
knowledge of Natal law.41 He achieved his elevation to the Bench through
The Colenso Cases 79

zealously promoting his cause before the local authorities, and by working to
the very best of his limited abilities. 42 On the Bench, he produced pompous,
longwinded judgements, perilously deficient in sound legal reasoning and
authority. In Bishop of Natal v Green, he produced a jUdgement far longer
than those of Harding and Phillips, and said that this was because the main
issues had 'not been as fully noticed by the Chief Justice in his judgement,
nor do I think by Mr Justice Phillips, ... as I deem it advisable they should
be'. He then went on to outline his conclusions, which were, he admitted,
'adverse in many respects' to those of the judges of the Privy Council on the
matter!43
The Colenso cases thus reveal a Bench of sharply contrasting abilities:
encompassing the talent of Connor and the abysmal ignorance and
subjectivity of Phillips and the temporary judges. The next issue to be
examined is the kind of law that these judges applied to the disputes in
hand. A statute of 1845 had established Roman-Dutch law as the official
legal system of Natal. 44 In Bishop of Natal v Wills, the Court considered the
application of Colenso for an interdict restraining Wills from officiating as a
minister in any Anglican Church in Natal, without the licence of Colenso to
do so. Harding c.J. affirmed that the 'foundation or constitution' of the
Supreme Court was based upon 'the law adopted and modified in Holland
from the [Roman] civil law, and commonly called the Roman-Dutch Law'.
He said that '[t]he process of interdict is well known in the practice of the
Roman-Dutch Law, and to the Courts which like this Court are founded on
that system', and so proceeded to consider the Dutch authorities on this
issue. 4; Following Harding C.J.'s judgement, Connor J. also canvassed the
Roman-Dutch law on the matter. 46
However, Roman-Dutch law was a legal system which had, by the 1860s,
long since ceased to operate in its country of origin, and so was becoming
out-dated and obsolete. 47 Furthermore, many of the major Roman-Dutch
works were un translated from the original Dutch and Latin in which they
were written. 48 Harding knew Dutch, but no Latin; Connor knew Latin but
no Dutch; and the other judges on the Bench displayed scant knowledge of
either language. 49 Thus, reference to Roman-Dutch law was at best
spasmodic, and in the case of Phillips, Meller and Cope, hardly at all. 50
Where recourse was made, this would often be to English translations of
Roman-Dutch works. In Bishop of Natal v Wills, Connor J. relied upon
Johannes van der Linden's Koopmans Handboek translated as Institutes of
the Laws of Holland. 51 This reference was unsatisfactory for two reasons:
this work was written for Dutch laymen, not for legal experts; and the
translation used was done by an English barrister, who at times incorporated
notions of English law in his rendering of the text. 52 Connor certainly did
possess the intellectual capacity for a thorough grasp of the Roman-Dutch
law, and this was evidenced to some extent in his Colenso judgements. 53 But
at the time of these cases, his interest in and mastery of Roman-Dutch law
had not yet reached the levels he was to attain in the late 1860s and
beyond. 54
Because of the deficiencies in Roman-Dutch law, and the judges' limited
grasp of it, recourse was had to other sources. In particular, as the Colenso
cases show, the judges used English law extensively, to supplement and even
supplant Roman-Dutch law. This was hardly surprising, in view of the
80 The Colenso Cases

complexion of Natal society and the Bench at this time. A correspondent to

a local newspaper, in urging the wisdom of applying English law in Natal,
remarked:
The great majority of cases coming before the Courts here are suits
between Englishmen . . . the members of the Bench here will be
selected from the British Bar ... the law of England is daily going on,
reports are published and learned men devote their energies and time
to clear up difficulties. [English law] has kept pace with improvement
and is adapted to the nineteenth century ... [Roman-Dutch law] has
long since ceased to move, even if not to exist, and thrusts on the
people of 1861 the notions and ideas of the fifteenth century.55
In certain legal spheres, the practice of referring to English law was
expressly sanctioned by statute. For instance, an ordinance of 1852 had
introduced the English institution of trial by jury in civil cases,56 and
provided that all matters relating to jury trial not expressly provided for by
the ordinance had to be determined according to 'the law and usage of
England'.57 Thus, in Lloyd v Colenso, where the judge at the initial jury trial
had nonsuited 58 the plaintiff, the full Court, on review, upheld this ruling on
the basis of English cases. 59 Here Harding c.J. stated specifically that the
ordinance bound him to the law of England. 60
But on many other occasions, the judges turned to English law for
guidance, where this was not required by statute. In Bishop of Natal v Wills,
Harding c.J. was careful to qualify his commitment to Roman-Dutch law
with the following statement:
No man has a higher respect or is willing to pay greater deference to
the wisdom and the justice of the laws of England, ... than I have. 61
Therefore, after he had canvassed the Roman-Dutch law of interdict, he
turned to 'see how the English law stands on this part of the subj ect' .62
Connor J. did the same, and when he went on to deal with constitutional,
ecclesiastical and other issues related to English affairs, he relied exclusively
on English law. 63 This trend was even more marked in the judgements of
Phillips J. and the temporary judges. 64 In Bishop of Natal v Wills, when the
Court issued a provisional order prohibiting Wills from acting as a minister
in the Anglican Church in Natal, Phillips J. said that here 'the Court was
following the practice adopted at home, and which experience showed to be
the most efficient method of trying a matter of that sort'. 05
Thus, Natal law was an amalgam of two different legal systems. In this
fluid, sometimes confused mix, free rein was given to the entry of another
source of legal decision-making: the judges' subjective opinions. The judges'
attitudes were partly dictated by their own personal preferences, and
instances of these have been considered above. 66 Besides this, the judges'
decisions were also shaped by the desires and needs of the society in which
they operated. The judges of Natal took cognisance of the views of Natal
colonial society, and sometimes Court decisions were dictated by the effects
which the judges perceived their judgements would have on the local
community. In Bishop of Natal v Green, the Court refused to impose a fine
or term of imprisonment on Green for refusing to obey an order of Court, as
'it did not wish to make a martyr of Dean Green'.67
The presence of subjective, non-legal elements in the decisions of the
Natal judges proved to be extremely unfortunate, within the emotion­
The Colenso Cases 81

charged atmosphere of the Colenso cases of the 1860s. Most of the judges
were seen to have decided views either for or against Colenso, and their
judgements were seen to follow these preconceived opinions. Thus, Harding
was held to be on the side of Colenso,68 and on one occasion, in Bishop of
Natal v Wills, bets were freely offered on his judgement, long before the
case came up for hearing. 69 Harding's line was adopted with even greater
fervour by Cope and Meller: the latter's judgement in Bishop of Natal v
Green, Williams and Dickinson, which was sharply critical of Green's
conduct, was reportedly presented with 'face white with rage, his teeth all
but clenched with fury'. 70
Ranged on the side of Colenso's opponents was the redoubtable Connor.
As seen above, Connor's legal ability was of the highest order, and he was
generally esteemed as an impartial, scrupulously careful and level-headed
judge. 7! However, on the personal level, Connor lived a very narrow, at
times eccentric existence: he never married, and 'lived all alone in a cottage
bare of anything but the most primitive and cheap furnishings [and] plank
shelves round the rooms, full of books'. 72 Within these limited confines, he
devoted his time and energies to his studies, and to the handful of non-legal
subjects that interested him. This was done with great intensity, and it is not
surprising that the views which he formed on his pet topics tended to be
rigid and dogmatic. Perhaps the most important amongst his interests was
religion: he was said to be 'a devout [Anglican] churchman'.73 Connor's
brand of Anglicanism was traditional and precise, and he was reportedly
'very particular in his interpretation of the rubrics'. 74 It was, then, to be
expected that when Colenso began to expound his controversial ideas in the
1860s Connor would be deeply affected, and would find his own religious
views sharply opposed to those of Colenso. Connor proceeded to attend
services held by Colenso's opponents, and when he and Colenso happened
both to be in Durban, he ostentatiously left the church as soon as Colenso
began the reading of prayers. 75
What was highly unfortunate was that Connor brought his personal
religious views to bear on his decisions in the Colenso cases. Con nor
consistently gave judgements in favour of Colenso's opponents, and often
appended personal comments adverse to Colenso's position. In Bishop of
Natal v Bishop of Cape Town, he noted that:
if a new trustee [of the Natal Anglican Church] were to be appointed I
should say it ought not to be the plaintiff; . . . Every trustee is duty
bound to look to the interests of all, and not of any particular member,
or class of members of his [trust].76
Then his dissenting judgement in Bishop of Natal v Wills, concerning the
grant of a provisional order, was emotional, repetitive and punctuated by
strong statements. 77 On the return day of this matter, Advocate Pinsent,
counsel for the Bishop, appealed to Church of England members, from
'every principle of decency', to submit quietly while Colenso remained
Bishop of the local Church. To this Connor 1. replied: 'Of course there are a
good many answers to that'. 78 He later went on to indicate fairly explicitly
his own position in the conflict, when he noted that:
the question was a most important one to all persons in the Church of
England. The principles in this case would affect every single
worshipper in the English Church in Natal. 79
82 The Colenso Cases

Again, in Williams v Brooks and Fraser, he concluded his judgement by

stating that:
The one side has as much right as the other to say that it was against
their consciences that the rite of confirmation should be performed by
a certain Bishop, and they had also as much right as the other to reject
the Bishop they did not choose to have over them. so
The result was that Con nor was accused by the Bishop's supporters of
'palpable' and 'unbecoming' partiality, caused by him being 'unduly
influenced by the principles of the party to which he belongs'. 81 In fairness to
Connor, his performance in the Colenso cases was exceptional, but
undeniably it constituted a serious lapse - probably the most serious in
Connor's lengthy judicial career in South Africa.
It is evident, then, that the Natal Supreme Court was hardly the ideal
legal forum within which to settle the heated Colenso disputes. Far from
being the firm, sure and dispassionate institutions that they should have
been, the Supreme Court and the legal system it administered were fluid and
changeable, depending much on the personalities of those on the Bench. An
advocate of the time, Arthur Walker, reportedly said that 'the law (here at
all events) is a wax nose capable of taking any shape you choose to give it'.
Whether that nose was to assume a shape corresponding with Colenso's
views or those of his opponents, depended on the legal knowledge, acumen
and personal preferences of those who manipulated it.

REFERENCES
Abbreviations: SC = Supreme Court;
PRO CO = Public Records Office, London: Colonial Office
1 Natal Archives, SC, 115/46: case 501.
Natal Archives, SC, 11811: case 56.

3 See references 9, 13, 18, 22, 31, 33 and 38.

4 Ordinance 14 of 1845 (Cape), section 1.

5 Ordinance 14 of 1845 (Cape), section 3.

Law 10 of 1857, section 4.

Law 10 of 1857, section 6.

Law 10 of 1857, section 25.

Natal Archives, SC, 118/28: case 2599.

to 1867 Natal Law Reports, p. 61.

11 Law 10 of 1857, section 39.

12 In 1863, a Natal advocate estimated the total cost of an appeal to be at least five hundred

pounds (Natal Witness, 6 June 1863: letter by S. Pinsent).

13 Natal Archives, SC, 1/5/67: case 1072. See also (1869) 39 Law Journal (New Series) Privy
Council cases, p. 58).
14 1813-1874. See P.R. Spiller, The Natal Supreme Court: Its origins (1846-1858) and its early
development (1858-1874)" (Ph.D., University of Natal, Durban 1982), pp. 106-129.
15 Harding was born in Scotland, but reared in the Cape Colony, where he spent the first half
of his life, before moving to Natal in 1845. Harding never passed a legal examination,
attended a university or was admitted in his own right as an advocate. His appointment as
Natal's first Chief Justice in 1858 rested on a twenty-nine year long career of faithful service
as a legal official and later as public prosecutor (ibid.).
16 1867 Natal Law Reports, p. 60.

17 Ibid.

18 Natal Archives, SC, 1/8/30: case 2842.

19 1868 Natal Law Reports, pp. 169-170.

20 Times of Natal, 9 February 1867: judgement of Harding c.J.

21 Natal Archives, SC, 115/67: case 1072.

22 Natal Archives, SC, 115171: case 1198.

The Colenso Cases 83

23 1868 Natal Law Reports, pp. 140-141.

24 Times of Natal, 22 April 1874: editorial.
25 1817-1890. See Spiller, 'Natal Supreme Court', pp. 130-154.
26 Connor was born in Ireland, obtained the BA and LLB degrees at Trinity College, Dublin,
and was admitted to the Bar in England and in Ireland. He practised at the Irish Bar
between 1841 and 1854, and then became Chief Justice and Acting Governor of the Gold
Coast. He was appointed first puisne judge of Natal in 1857, and arrived in Natal in 1858.
On the death of Harding in 1874, he became Chief Justice of Natal, a post he held until his
death in 1890 (ibid.).
27 1867 Natal Law Reports, p. 65.
28 PRO, CO 179/55: judgement of Connor J. in Lloyd v Colenso.
29 1825-1896. See Spiller, 'Natal Supreme Court', pp. 155-185.
30 Phillips was admitted to the English Bar in 1850, and practised as a barrister for seven
years. He was a clever, capable man, but expressed disdain for Roman-Dutch law, and
rarely exerted himself in the way of legal research (ibid.).
31 Natal Archives, SC, 118120: case 1790,
32 Natal Witness, 5 January 1866: judgement of Phillips J.
33 Natal Archives, SC, 1/8/27: case 2530.
34 1867 Natal Law Reports, pp. 22-23.
35 During 1865-1866 and 1867-1868 (Spiller, 'Natal Supreme Court', p. 130).
36 1808-1881. See Spiller, 'Natal Supreme Court', pp. 186-191.
37 Ibid,
38 Natal Archives, SC, 118/21: case 1929.
39 Natal Witness, 3 April 1866: judgement of Meller A.J.
40 1806-1880. See Spiller, 'Natal Supreme Court', pp. 192-198.
41 Ibid.
42 Also a major factor was 'the unfortunate scarcity in Natal of lawyers of good character'
(PRO, CO 179/84: Keate to Buckingham 6 September 1867).
43 1868 Natal Law Reports, p. 146.
44 Ordinance 12 of 1845 (Cape). section 1.
45 1867 Natal Law Reports, pp. 60-61.
46 1867 Natal Law Reports, p. 63.
47 Roman-Dutch law was abolished in Holland in 1809, and was soon replaced by Napoleon's
Code civil (H.R. Hahlo and E. Kahn The South African Legal System and its Background
(Cape Town, 1973), p. 564).
4l' E.g. the Commentarius and Pandectas of J. Voet, regarded as an encyclopedia of Roman-
Dutch law, was untranslated from Latin.
49 Natal Witness, 31 July 1863: letter by T. Phipson.
50 Spiller, 'Natal Supreme Court', pp. 335-336.
51 1867 Natal Law Reports, p. 63.
52 The translator was J. Henry 'of the Middle Temple, Barrister at Law'.
53 See e.g. 1867 Natal Law Reports, p. 63.
54 Spiller, 'Natal Supreme Court', pp. 335-345.
55 Natal Courier, 1 May 1861: letter by 'Anon'.
56 Ordinance 7 of 1852 (Natal).
57 Section 15.
58 I.e. prevented the plaintiffs case from being decided by the jury, as the plaintiff had failed
to make out a legal case.
59 PRO, CO 179/55: judgement of Harding C.l. in Lloyd v Colenso.
60 Ibid.
61
1867 Natal Law Reports, p. 60.
62 1867 Natal Law Reports, p. 61.
63 1867 Natal Law Reports, pp. 63-67.
64 See e.g. Cope A.J. 's judgement in Bishop of Natal v Green, in 1868 Natal Law Reports,
p. 149.
65 'Times of Natal, 11 May 1867: judgement of Phillips J.
66 See notes 32, 34 and 39.
67 Natal Witness, 4 May 1866: judgement.
68 Harding was not a church-goer, but had close ties with the Natal establishment (notably the
Shepstones), and his funeral service was held at St. Peter's (Spiller, 'Natal Supreme Court'),
pp. 106-129.
69 Natal Herald, 8 August 1867: letter by 'G'.
84 The Colenso Cases

7(J Natal Witness 6 April 1866: letters by 'An Eye Witness' and 'A Churchman'.
71 See e.g. PRO, CO 179/90: Keate to Buckingham 1 September 1868.
72 C. Bird, ~Natal Judges of Former Days', 1936 South African Law Times, 5, p. 215.
73 A.F. Hattersley Later Annals of Natal (Pietermaritzburg, 1938), p. 204.
74 Ibid.
75 Natal Mercury, 13 August 1867: comment by 'Maritzburg Correspondent'.
76 Times of Natal, 9 February 1867: judgement of Connor J.
77 Times of Natal, 11 May 1867: judgement of Connor J.
78 1867 Natal Law Reports, p. 15.
79 1867 Natal Law Reports, p. 17
80 1867 Natal Law Reports, p. 23.
81 Times of Natal, 8 May 1867 and 18 May 1867: letters; and Natal Witness, 6 August 1867:
editorial.

P.R. SPILLER
 85

Obituaries
Dr Ernst Gideon Malherbe
At the end of November, 1982, some three weeks after his eighty-seventh
birthday, Or Emst Gideon Malherbe died in Durban. Few men have
contributed more to the welfare and progress of South Africa. Throughout
his long and busy life he devoted himself to the promoting of co-operation
and harmony among our diverse racial groups.
If any man had cause to be a "bittereinder", a narrow racialist, it was
surely Emst Malherbe. In the impressionable years of early childhood his
home, a Free State parsonage, was looted and burned by British soldiers, his
father made a prisoner of war, and the rest of the family, including the five
year old Ernst, forced to seek refuge at the Cape. But the father drew the
right lesson and passed it on to his son! "It was war, and war is a terrible
thing." Throughout his life, Or Malherbe, an eighth generation descendant
of another refugee, a Huguenot, remained a thorough Afrikaner, proud of
the Afrikaner volk and its achievements, but also a citizen of the world,
singularly able and willing to work with people of the most diverse origins
and experiences.
Education at a small Boland school and at the University of Stellenbosch
was followed by extensive research for a doctoral degree at Columbia
University and other seats of learning in the United States. To pay his way
this versatile and ever-resourceful man took on a variety of jobs, among
them shovelling snow at a few cents per hour, steering a taxi through the
crowded New York streets (he was always as proud of his taxi-driver's
licence as of any of his academic honours), tending seasick cattle on an
overloaded cattle boat , and tutoring the mentally defective heir to a
millionaire at a Boy Scout camp.
On his return to South Africa in 1924, he became a senior lecturer in
education at Cape Town University under Fred Clarke and published
Education in South Africa, still the most authoritative work in its field.
Some fifty years later, when retirement brought some leisure to an
incredibly busy life, he brought his history up to date in a second volume. In
his first volume, he gave no space to non-White education; in the second he
amply made good this omission. Malherbe could learn as well as teach.
In the thirties he founded, and became director of, the Bureau of
Educational and Social Research. One result was particularly noteworthy.
Investigation into bilingualism convinced him of the need to educate English
and Afrikaans speaking children side by side in the same schools.
When a Commission was appointed under the aegis of the Carnegie
Corporation to investigate the Poor White problem, the presence in South
86 Obituaries

Dr E .G. Malherbe
(Photograph: PRO University of Natal)

Africa of a large mass of poor, unskilled, often illiterate and, in many cases,
possibly uneducable Whites, Malherbe was a most active member. The
problem is still with us but seems no longer so intractable. How much
improvement was due to general economic expansion is arguable, but the
Commission certainly made an important contribution.
Towards the end of the decade, Malherbe was Director of Census. Then
came World War 11 and, by the barest Parliamentary majority, South Africa
decided to join the Allied ranks. Nationalist opposition was fierce, and
sabotage and subversion were rife.
A group of liberally-minded academics, notably Alfred Hoernle and
Leo Marquard, persuaded Smuts to set up, under Malherbe, a corps
of information officers to counter subversion in the armed forces and to
stimulate the troops to consider what they were fighting for. About the same
time, Smuts made Malherbe Director of Military Intelligence. Henceforward
South African propaganda which had hitherto been too defensive, too prone
merely to counter Nazi propaganda, became much more positive and more
South African in its orientation. Also, the unrivalled insight Malherbe
gained into treason within our borders made him then and for the rest of his
life a feared and disliked object to not a few politicians still active. Though
habitually diplomatic, genial and urbane, he has never been afraid to remind
even the most exalted of their nefarious traffickings during World War 11.
Just before the War ended he became Principal of the Natal University
College and remained there until his retirement twenty years later. Under
Obituaries 87

his guidance it acquired full university status, spread from Pietermaritzburg

to Durban, added a Medical School, and increased enormously in size ·and
importance. In his early years he had striven to have Afrikaans and
English speaking children taught in the same classes; now he struggled to
throw open the universities to students of all races. But for a time his policy
was defeated by sectional prejudice.
Malherbe's record is long and illustrious. He did much for his country.
But it is to be mourned that the climate of his times did not permit this
gifted, dynamic, industrious and far-seeing man to do more. We should then
have been assured of a more promising future.
1.W. MACQUARRIE

Daphne Duduzile Tshabalala

Daphne passed on to the next world very peacefully on the 9th May 1983.
After a short illness her doctor recommended hospitalisation and on the
fateful day as she was being taken to hospital she breathed her last and was
certified dead on arrival at the hospital. Another shining light was snuffed
out in the community life of Edendale and Pietermaritzburg. Daphne left
the world in the same way in which she had lived - peacefully.
She lived a full life, though she never married, and etched a lasting
memory in the hearts and minds of many. Hers was a household name not
only with the locals but also in parts beyond our boundaries. Her life
blossomed in three particular fields viz:- love for lean;ting and teaching,
love for mankind and love for her Creator.
The eldest in a family of six she was born on 21 March 1930. Her
education followed the normal pattern of any child up to Matriculation. At
this point she was nearly lost to the world when a severe chest ailment
caused her to undergo a pneumonectomy - and not many survived that in
those days. Daphne was spared an early exit from the cares of this world and
lived on to weather the storm to the mature age of 53.

Educationist
Her love for learning and teaching produced in Daphne the ideal student
and a very gifted teacher. After gaining her Teachers' Certificate Daphne
started as a teacher at Smorzomeni, outside Richmond, Natal in 1953. Later
she joined the Nichols Infant School in Edendale, Pietermaritzburg as an
Assistant Teacher. She was promoted to the position of Principal of Nichols
in 1963. She encouraged her pupils to join the Girl Guide and Scouting
movement which she believed contributed in the moulding of the young
characters in her charge. In the Girl Guide movement she excelled and
achieved the rare honour of being elected to the position of South African
88 Obituaries

Headquarters Adviser. Highlights in her Guiding activities include

presentation with the Silver Award for her contribution to the Girl Guide
movement; first Black Guide to deal with girls of all race groups in the
Ranger branch; an invitation in 1972 to be the first Black member of the
Guide delegation to represent South Africa at the 21st World Conference of
the World Association of Girl Guides in Toronto; attendance at the World
Conference of Guides in Iran in 1979.

Daphne Tshabalala
(Photograph : Natal Witness)

Her talent as a teacher became evident in her drive for organisation of

Nichols School which she managed under very trying conditions. The
buildings were in an advanced state of dilapidation and the school lacked the
normal furniture. But Daphne was able to motivate her group of assistant
teachers to make good with whatever was available and ensure that the
pupils were given the right education . She did not stop at the classroom level
of education but expended herself in the organisational area of Teachers'
Societies. She served as record-secretary of the Natal African Teachers'
Union (N.A.T.U .). In Pietermaritzburg she organised Zulu classes for those
white friends who desired them. Daphne's involvement in this field not only
helped the white 'pupils' to learn the language but it gave them an insight
into the culture of the Zulus. This was a breakthrough for BlacklWhite
relations.
Obituaries R9

Philanthropist
Inside the Nichols School and outside of it Daphne displayed a unique love
for mankind. Her pupils were not only just children to be taught but she
looked upon them as one large family. The mother instinct came to the
fore when she observed how needy they were. She inculcated amongst her
teacher colleagues the same concern for the children and their homes. As a
result she was instrumental in starting a feeding scheme known as
'Bonginkosi' (thank the Lord) whereby children were supplied with some­
thing to eat at school. This scheme grew and was introduced in other
local schools. Bands of concerned people joined and formed feeding
schemes in several other places. Alongside the feeding scheme Daphne and
some friends extended this philanthropic exercise so that today an
impressive Community Centre stands as a memorial to her initiative in
Edendale - the Thuthuka Community Centre. Here children gather after
school to have a meal before returning to their homes. What a pity Daphne
died just when we thought the Centre was reaching completion! Perhaps the
good Lord will raise yet another Daphne to continue this good work. The
story is told that even at her own home Daphne cared for a few waifs whom
she adopted just so that they too might enjoy the warmth of a home life.

Evangelist
Perhaps it was her firm Christian background that led Daphne to be what
she was. Born of sincere God-fearing parents she too grew to be a
committed Christian. In the Methodist Church she played a full part both in
worship and organisation. She was a member of the Young Women's
Manyano (Auxiliary) whose focus is constant prayer. She also served her
church as representative at the Annual District Synod. In the wider
Christian family she served on the Board of Africa Enterprise, an
organisation whose thrust is to proclaim the Gospel to all nations. Amongst
her activities in this field was attending PACLA (Pan African Christian
Leadership Assembly) in Kenya in 1976. Again in 1979 she was prevented
from attending the South African Christian Leadership Assembly (SACLA)
in Pretoria because of her mother's fatal illness. In 1982 she attended the
Consultation on World Evangelism in Thailand. The fruit of her evangelistic
fervour is that an on-going Bible Study group was established where a group
of the teachers of Nichols School meet with members of Africa Enterprise to
share on matters scriptural and spiritual.
So it was that on that gloomy Saturday afternoon in May 1983 at the
Mountain Rise cemetery in Pietermaritzburg as the casket containing
Daphne's remains was lowered into her last resting place I recited the
solemn words of committal and felt the impact of the scripture which says
'The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away, blessed be the name of the
Lord'.
And so departed a daughter of Africa - Natal's loss was God's gain.
ERNEST H.B. MKIZE
90 Obituaries

Neville Nuttall
The death of Neville Nuttall in July 1983 in his eightieth year must have
reminded many men and women in Natal of the important contribution
made to education in its widest sense by a man who was a schoolmaster Ipar
excellence and a supremely gifted teacher of English.
Neville Nuttall was born in Durban on 14 October 1903. His first school
was Highbury Preparatory School at Hillcrest, a school for which he had a
life-long affection. From Highbury he went to Kingswood College,
Graharnstown and, for the final year of his school career, to the Durban
High School.
He was one of the outstanding students of his time at the Natal University
College in Pietermaritzburg. A Bachelor of Arts degree in 1923 was
followed by a Master's degree in Engish in 1924 and the Higher Education
Diploma in 1925.
For thirty-eight years he served in the Natal Education Department, being
successively Senior English Master at the Durban High School, Headmaster
of Newcastle High School, Inspector of Schools and Principal of the Natal
Training College.
On his retirement from the Education Department at the end of 1963 he
was invited to join the staff of Hilton College, where he was Senior English
Master for six years .

Neville Nuttall

(Photograph: Natal Training College Archives)

Obituaries 91

During his retirement in Underberg, in his home on a stretch of the

Umzimkulu River, he was actively involved in the work of the Anglican
Church. In 1973 he was ordained a priest of the Church of the Province of
South Africa.
In the midst of his busy life he wrote four original works. They were Trout
Streams of Natal: a Fisherman's Philosophy (1947); a novel, Proud River
(1965); Lift Up Your Hearts: The Story of Hi/ton College (1971); and Life in
the Country (1973).
He was the compiler of two anthologies of verse, a selection from the
writings of Olive Schreiner, an anthology of long short stories and an
anthology of biographical writings.
Through the years he wrote verse of quality and appeal and in his
retirement he wrote a regular column for The Star, the Johannesburg daily
newspaper.
Neville Nuttall gave his loyal devotion to the three institutions where he
spent the most fulfilling years of his professional life. They were the Durban
High School, the Natal Training College and Hilton College.
Generations of DHS boys were aware of his deep poetic insight and
remembered with gratitude his ability to transmit to them his own
enthusiasm for English literature. One of those boys, while serving in the
Western Desert during the Second World War and looking up at the stars,
remembered his English master's exposition of Lycidas and was moved to
write and tell him so.
Neville Nuttall's eleven years at the Natal Training College saw a
transformation in the nature of the College. The Director of Education had
said to the newly appointed Principal, "Your job will be to teach them the
primary school syllabus - and nothing more." Happily for the College, that
directive was ignored and NTC became a place in which the value of
academic study for its own sake was recognised. His own intense pleasure in
literature was passed on to his students and, as one who worked with him
during those years testified, "The study of a poem was a kind of voyage of
exploration and discovery".
Hiltonians of the 1960s were privileged to experience what DHS boys of
the 1930s and 1940s and NTC students of the 1950s had known as Neville
Nuttall took them on journeys of literary discovery.
While men may be honoured for the glittering prizes of office which come
to them, richer by far are the memories which are cherished of men who
have deeply influenced others. Generations of Natalians acknowledge their
debt to Neville Nuttall for what he taught them, but they remember him not
only as an inspired teacher whose every lesson was a little masterpiece; they
also remember him as a man of kindliness, charm, imagination and humour
and as one who was ever generous in his encouragement of his pupils and of
younger colleagues.
He was greatly blessed in his family life. He and his wife, Lucy, who was
his collaborator in much of his writing, created a truly happy home for their
two sons, in whose successes they rejoiced. The Nuttall home, whether in
Durban, Newcastle, Pietermaritzburg, Hilton or Underberg, was a
welcoming place of grace and gentleness.
R.G. SLATER
92

Notes and Queries

Miss L.E. Dudley
On the 24th May 1983 the Natal Society Council held a function to honour
Miss Dudley's remarkable accomplishment of 60 years service with the Natal
Society and to mark her retirement.
She joined the staff in January 1923. Here is her own account:
Once upon a time at the end of the day's duties, one rather shy pig­
tailed teenager would be dismissed with the words, "Run along,
Kiddie".
A few years later the Deputy Librarian, who later became a well­
known journalist and broadcaster, would say in his broad 'Lancasheer'
accent, "Run along, little one!" He once enquired of me, in the days
when we enjoyed a half day's holiday for the Show, 'Are you going to
the show to see the pretty bulls and cows?"

Miss L.E. Dudley

(Photograph: Mrs F.J. Lancaster)
Notes and Queries 93

But whether she went to the show or not she stayed with the Natal Society
full-time until March 1973. Not content with 50 glorious years she returned
part-time until her final retirement at the end of May 1983.
Miss Dudley is a lady of many parts. We gather she could sing before she
could talk and is well known for her participation in Philharmonic concerts
and as a soloist in the Methodist Church. She has also sung at many staff
weddings.
Miss Dudley was a keen tennis player and walked undeterred from the
library after a Saturday morning's work to Alexandra Road to play.
A great number of Pietermaritzburg people will remember Miss Dudley
accepting them as members of the Natal Society and the pleasant welcome
she unfailingly gave them.
Many soldiers during World War 11 had occasion to be grateful to the
Natal Society for Books for the Troops. Miss Dudley played a large part in
organizing this service. These books were sorted in rented premises in
Theatre Lane now occupied by an outfitter. The library was of course where
PADCA is now. Most people know the present double storey building but
when Miss Dudley joined the staff it was a single storey structure with a
garden in front. She ended her part-time job in the new four-storeyed
library building behind the City Hall in May 1983.
The length of her service is certainly a record unequalled in the Natal
Society and we wish her a happy and busy retirement.

The Bird Papers

A note received from Mr V.S. Harris contains information about some
interesting archival material on which work is at present being done.
In 1896 Kit Bird, then Principal Under-Secretary, was commissioned
by the Natal Government to collect and prepare for publication
material relating to the early settlers of Natal. Like his father John
Bird, author of Annals of Natal, Kit Bird was well-known for his
interest in Natal history. He was in demand as a speaker, particularly
by the Natal Society (of which he was a lifelong member), and from
1885 he had published many articles on Natal history in the Natal
Witness.
He embarked on the project by advertising it in newspapers within
and outside Natal, and by sending questionnaires to prominent early
settlers. Response varied from lengthy reminiscences to brief notes
scribbled on the questionnaire. And while some respondents were able
to throw new light on important events and on the experience of the
early settlers, others provided 'only' genealogical data or bare
autobiographical or biographical detail. One respondent used the
questiorlOaire as an opportunity to press his claim to compensation for
unfair treatment meted out to him in the past by the Government. Bird
added to this material his own notes (including lecture notes) on
various aspects of early colonial Natal, ranging from biographical
sketches to an examination of Natal's postal service.
But Bird failed to fulfil the commission, his collection of material
remaining in his private possession until his death in 1922. The
94 Notes and Queries

executor of his estate donated the collection to the Natal Society,

which in turn handed it over the the Natal Archives Depot (N.A.D.)
for safekeeping in 1926. When the Society asked for its return in 1955,
the N.A.D. persuaded the Society that it was properly the property of
the Government and that it should not have been donated to the
Society in the first place. In the following year the Society officially
acceded to the N.A.D. 's request to retain possession of what the latter
had labelled the 'Bird Papers'.
While the collection is an extremely valuable source of research as it
stands, its value to historians is greatly diminished in its present form.
The editing and publication of the collection is an essential task if this
problem is to be overcome. It is worth noting that Professor A.F.
Hattersley, author of many books on Natal history, was of the same
opinion. In the 1930s he took preliminary steps towards editing the
collection himself.
Together with Avenal Finlayson, I am presently engaged in
attempting to complete what Hattersley began. The final product
should command wide interest, including as it does valuable primary
source material for specialist researchers as well as a wealth of
fascinating and often humorous comment on early Natal for the
general reader.

More news about Mr Botha

Robin Lamplough of Kearsney College who wrote 'In Search of Mr Botha'
in Natalia 12, has unearthed some more information:
Some readers may be interested in a few additional snippets about
Cornelis Botha of Botha's Hill (Natalia No. 12, p. 27). When the
original article was written there existed a gap between the failure of
Botha's Pietermaritzburg hotel in 1844 and his move in 1847 to what
would come to be called Botha's Hill. That a son was born to him in
Pietermaritzburg in 1845 suggested, but did not prove, that in the
interim (or part of it) he had remained in the capital. The additional
information places him beyond reasonable doubt in Pietermaritzburg
at the beginning of 1846 and may reveal how he occupied himself
during the 'silent period'.
The material comes from the journal of the unknown traveller,
published in Natalia No. 5, p. 7. The relevant entry is dated Thursday
22nd January, 1846 and reads as follows: 'Went over to Landsberg's to
get supper but he said he did not keep an inn and referred me to
Botha. Went to his place, far on the west side of town. He said he did
not keep an inn, only a billiard room. However, we got a tolerable
supper.'
There is no direct evidence that the man running the billiard room
was Cornelis Botha. When we consider, however, that Cornelis Botha
had until a little while before been an hotel proprietor in the town and
Notes and Queries 95

that the traveller was directed simply to 'Botha', it seems a reasonable

inference that the same man was meant. One imagines that if there had
been another Botha running the billiard room Landsberg might have
found it necessary to distinguish him from Botha the innkeeper.
Furthermore, Landsberg's words as reported by the traveller: "He did
not keep an inn and referred me to Botha" seem to carry the
implication that Botha did keep an inn, which had been true of
Cornelis Botha in the past even if it was not true then. It seems likely,
therefore, that after his unhappy foray into the victualling trade in 1844
Cornelis Botha made a living looking after a billiard room on the edge
of Pietermaritzburg. Some would doubtless find in this occupation
indications of a nautical rather than a Voortrekker background and
certainly that would fit what we know of the past of this one-time
ship's captain. Of course, if Cornelis Botha had by that time left
Pietermaritzburg and the billiard room was being run by a different
Botha altogether that would provide an even simpler explanation of
Landsberg's words!
FinaJly, there is in the Natal Museum, Pietermaritzburg, a
photograph entitled 'Botha's Hotel, Botha's Hill, 1850'. It shows a
nondescript single-storeyed thatched building largely obscured by the
members of a travelling group and their conveyance in the foreground.
The photograph is reproduced in Brian Kearney's Architecture in
Natal, page 106. The date falls within the period when Cornelis Botha
was himself in charge of the inn, before he handed over to J.F. Smith.
Post scriptum. Even as this note lay in draft upon my desk there
came a telephone call late on the night of October 2, 1983, to tell me
that the old oak tree near Padley's Crossing, Hillcrest, had fallen. So
the last indication of the site of Botha's Halfway House has gone. I
have written to the local Town Board asking them to consider marking
the spot in some suitable way. Otherwise another link with old Natal
will have disappeared for ever.

Dreaming spires
The older buildings of Pietermaritzburg have a remarkable variety of
turrets, spires, belfries, lanterns and other unclassifiable protuberances. It
was A.F. Hattersley in Portrait of a City (p. 107) who referred to the
'strange trio of glorified bowler-hats' on the roof of the Natal Government
Railways offices in Loop Street (now the police station). Our Editor,
forsaking awhile the pen for the Pentax and lifting up his eyes unto the
rooftops , has compiled the collection appearing on pp. 96-97. For the
benefit of those who know the city and may wish to test their powers of
observation, captions have not been placed with the photographs, but will
be found at the end of Notes and Queries.
96 Notes and Queries

7 8 9

Notes and Queries 97

13 15

16

98 Notes and Queries

Gandhi and the Train Incident at Pietermaritzburg

The screening of the film Gandhi during the year brought Maritzburg some
notoriety as the place where the Mahatma was forcibly ejected from a Natal
Government Railways train in 1893.
Members of the Editorial Committee were struck by several inaccuracies
in the portrayal of the incident:
(i) the correct setting would have been the present Maritzburg station
which had been completed the previous year;
(ii) the official who ejected Gandhi would probably have been Scots,
not Dutch or Afrikaans;
(iii) the tender engine which drew the train was grossly anachronistic;
Gandhi's train would have been hauled by a Dubs tank engine;
(iv) the train was labelled as belonging to the South African Railways,
but it only came into existence seventeen years later with Union in
1910.
Such errors notwithstanding, the young lawyer's experience on this
occasion is rightly regarded as very significant in the development of his life
and thought and Ms Uma S. Mesthrie of the University of Durban­
Westville, a grand-daughter of the Mahatma, was invited to contribute a
note on the incident.
Richard Attenborough's film Gandhi has brought ignominious fame to
Pietermaritzburg as millions of viewers around the globe were recently
treated to a dramatic scene where the young Gandhi becomes a victim
of colour prejudice and is thrown off a Charlestown-bound train at
Pietermaritzburg station. One might ask the question as to how
significant this episode was in Gandhi's life in view of its inclusion in
the few minutes of the film devoted to his South African experiences.
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi disembarked at Durban in May
1893, an untried, unconfident barrister not yet 24 years old, to sort out
the business wrangles between a Durban merchant Dada Abdulla
Sheth and his Pretoria relative. What was to be a brief sojourn in
southern Africa turned into a 21-year experience during which Gandhi
was set on the road to becoming a Mahatma and to the acquisition of
an international reputation as a leader with a tested political weapon
- satyagraha.
The South African experiences singled out for attention with some
consistency by his biographers' are: the train incident at
Pietermaritzburg in 1893, the founding of the Natal Indian Congress in
1894, the Durban Point Demonstration against Gandhi's return from
India in 1896, the formation of the Indian Ambulance Corp during the
South African War, the founding of Indian Opinion in 1903, the
experiments in communal living, diets and nature cures at Phoenix
Settlement and Tolstoy Farm, the brahmacharya (celibacy) vow in
1906 and the meaning and implementation of satyagraha from 1906
until the Gandhi-Smuts agreement of 1914. It is clearly evident that a
conglomeration of experiences shaped the Mahatma.
The importance attached by Gandhi's biographers to the train
incident is due to the fact that Gandhi himself singled out the episode
as the "most creative experience" of his Iife 2 and related it in some
detail in his autobiographical account. 3 In order to deal with Dada
Notes and Queries 99

Abdulla's case Gandhi had to go to Pretoria; a journey which had to

be made in stages - the railway line linking Durban to Johannesburg
being completed only in 1895. At the end of his very first week in
Durban, Gandhi purchased a first class train ticket. The train had just
reached Pietermaritzburg at 9 p.m. when a white passenger entered
Gandhi's compartment and subsequently sought the assistance of the
officials to have Gandhi transferred to another compartment. Gandhi
obdurately refused to move and was summarily pushed off the train
together with his luggage. He spent the rest of the night in the waiting
room, shivering in the cold, too afraid, lest he be abused again, to ask
the railway official for his luggage, which included his overcoat. "I
began to think of my duty. Should I fight for my rights or go back to
India, or should I go on to Pretoria without minding the insults, and
return to India after finishing the case? It would be cowardice to run
back to India without fulfilling my obligation. The hardship to which
I was subjected was superficial - only a symptom of the deep disease
of colour prejudice. I should try, if possible, to root out the disease
and suffer hardships in the process. Redress for wrongs I should seek
only to the extent that would be necessary for the removal of the
colour prejudice"" He thus continued the next day on the journey to
Pretoria, by train to CharIest own and then by stage coach to
Johannesburg.
While Gandhi was jolted by the Pietermaritzburg incident into
experiencing the reality of prejudice against the Indians, he was to
have an even more traumatic journey by stage coach, not being
allowed to sit inside the coach, being called "Sami" by the leader of the
coach and then being boxed on the ears by the man. By the time he
reached Pretoria he had a fair idea as to the treatment meted out to
Indians. The young man, who, out of shyness, could not confidently
defend a client in a Bombay court now addressed a meeting of Pretoria
Indians in his first major public speech, appealing to them to take steps
to ameliorate their position. A leader was in the making. A cold,
miserable night in a waiting room in the station at Pietermaritzburg
was to be the beginning of much rumination and subsequent action· In
Gandhi's words: "My active non-violence began from that date".5
Attenborough may have erred in minor detail in his presentation of the
incident, but its inclusion in the film was fully warranted.
REFERENCES
See for example, G. Ashe: Gandhi: A Study in Revolution (New York, 1968); C.D.S.
Devanesen: The Making of the Mahatma (Madras, 1969); L. Fischer: The Life of Mahatma
Gandhi (London, 1982); P.S. loshi: Mahatma Gandhi in South Africa (Rajkot, 1980); B.R.
Nanda: Mahatma Gandhi: a Biography (London, 1958); R. Payne: The Life and Death of
Mahatma Gandhi (London, 1969); Pyarelal: Mahatma Gandhi. Vol. I, The Early Phase
(Ahmedabad, 1965).
Pyarelal: Mahatma Gandhi, p. 298.
M.K. Gandhi: An Autobiography or the Story of My Experiments with Truth (Ahmedabad,

Second Edition, 1940), pp. 81-83; M.K. Gandhi: Satyagraha in South Africa (Ahmedabad,

Second Edition, 1950), pp. 38-39.

Gandhi: An Autobiography, p. 82.

Pyarelal: Mahatma Gandhi, p. 298.

100 Notes and Queries

War Graves
The South African War Graves Board has recently been amalgamated with
the National Monuments Council, and two committees now operate under
the auspices of the Council. They are the British Graves Committee under
the chairmanship of Mr George Chadwick, and the Burger Graves
Committee under Brigadier W. Otto. The legal position regarding the
proclamation of war grave sites as national monuments is problematical, but
the Council and its committees are taking steps to obtain clarity on various
points.

Letters from Boarding School

On pp. 14-21 of this issue is a reprint of an account of a visit to Bishop
Colenso's mission, Ekukhanyeni, in 1857. As a sort of addendum, and not in­
cluded with the reprint, were some translations of letters written home by
some of the Zulu boys who had been pupils at the mission for about a year.
Their western education had progressed enough for them to write their own
language, though one wonders whether the parents at the other end had any
means of having their sons' messages read to them! While the stilted
Victorian style of the English translations is amusing, the evident
indoctrination against their own people, customs and beliefs, though
understandable in the religious context of the day, seems reprehensible.
Skelemu, aged 12, son of Magwaza, seems well on the way to alienation from
his people:
But white men are very clever, inasmuch as they build a house with
stones; they build it well. They work every day. They surpass black
people in working .... White men know very many works; they know
all books .... The works of white men are excellent, all of them. But
the works of black men are not excellent, they are all dark ... (the
men) are not clever. . . . You see . . . how great the darkness has
become among your people. It is all darkness; they know nothing that
is good.
Repeating his well-learnt lesson dutifully, Mankenjane (aged 11) writes:
The black people do not know how to make beautiful things. But the
white people know how to make them, because they work very much,
they don't sit down, for they work at all times .... Among the whites
the men work. They, the white men, don't beat their wives. The white
men are good for they don't love fighting. Nay, they don't begin
quarrelling with one another because they listen to the word of God.
The recurrence of the same statements and claims in several of the letters
shows quite clearly that the hapless umfaans must have been heavily primed
in the carrying out of this propaganda exercise, probably by Mr Baugh, who
was mainly responsible for the education of the Zulu boys. There was an
almost lesuitical determination to secure the minds and souls of the boys ­
though no doubt the good Bishop would have been shocked to hear it so
described!
The Zulu phrase for homesickness is ukukhumbula ekhaya. How often
must it have been heard in the dormitory at Ekukhanyeni a hundred and
thirty years ago!
Notes and Queries 101

Road Name Honours Natal Historian

We note with pleasure that in the new residential layout off Hesketh Drive
in Pietermaritzburg, a road has been named after the late Professor A.F.
Hattersley, President (1930-33) and Fellow (1970) of The Natal Society.
Very appropriately, Hattersley Road is situated in an area well-known to the
professor. From the 1920s to the 1950s he was active in the Scout
movement, and many of the outdoor activities he arranged were in the Hay
Paddock and Broadleaze area, in those days well beyond the advancing line
of suburbia.

Urban Conservation
In our last issue mention was made of the failure to prevent architecturally
incongruous property development in Leighton Street in Pietermaritzburg.
This year it is pleasing to report a victory for the forces of conservation in
the city. The proposal to erect another huge shopping centre in the suburb
of Scottsville, on the block bounded by St Patrick's, Durban and Coronation
roads, was, after much public and council debate, turned down by the
municipality. Not only does this decision check the development of the
Scottsville hillslope into a sort of lesser Hillbrow, but it means the reprieve
of some aesthetically pleasing older dwelling houses which would have been
demolished to make way for the proposed new buildings. Two of them, we
understand, were designed by Collingwood Tully, architect of the original
Natal University College building further up the hill, and an associate of Sir
Herbert Baker.
Continued vigilance is necessary, however. Although the threat of the
shopping centre is removed, there is still a possibility that plans for flats or
duplexes may in the future again threaten the houses in this block.

Sad Centenary, Strange Coincidence

Mrs S. Henderson writes of events, a hundred years apart, of 6th June 1983
and 1883 at Hlobane Mountain, near Vryheid.
Mrs Hedwig Schiitte, a stalwart septuagenarian of German missionary
stock, some months ago contacted the Talana Hill Museum, Dundee,
with regard to a lost grave. By strange coincidence, the Museum chose
to take Mrs Schiitte to search for the grave on the 6th June. Incredibly
the chance date was the centenary of the death of the man whose grave
they were seeking.
The Rev. H. Schroder, born in Rheinsdorf, Hanover, was thirty­
three years old when he came out under the auspices of the
Hermannsburg Mission Society to start a mission at Tshoba, under the
great Hlobane Mountain. For nine and a half months he laboured with
a few African helpers, building a simple thatched home, leading an
irrigation furrow from the Tshoba stream to water the orchard and
vegetable garden he had planted. Life was hard, lonely and stressful,
for in the winter of 1883 the Zulu clans were on the rampage as the
followers of Dinuzulu and Zibhebhu fought out their bitter dynastic
quarrels. One thought cheered the missionary: his beloved was on the
high seas and soon the lonely mission would see a family founded and
the work of the Lord go forward.
102 Notes and Queries

He was sitting reading his Bible at his crude handmade table on the
evening of 6th June 1883 when the door burst open. An impi of
Abaqulusi fell upon him and before he could stand and face them he
slid to the floor, blood pouring from eleven assegai wounds in the
back, his hands dragging the Bible down to fall between his knees. The
Abaqulusi swept through the humble dwelling, smashing and
plundering. The body lay on the floor for two days before the Rev. Mr
Weber and his son from Emyati mission dared venture over to bury it.
In fear of their lives Weber and his son pushed the pathetic remains
into a makeshift box and hastily interred them near the ruined
homestead. They took the bloodstained Bible with them.
Weeks later a Hollander from the Utrecht district, hearing of the
tragedy, rode over to see what he could salvage. Through him the
diary of the Rev. Mr Schroder as well as other papers were saved and
eventually returned to the Hermannsburg Society. Mrs Schiitte has
translated part of the diary which gives a vivid and poignant picture of
a missionary pioneer.
The ruined mission at Tshoba was never restored. The only sign of
the Rev. Schroder's martyrdom is a great rusting iron cross enclosed by
railings. Erected on the 50th anniversary of Schroder's death and sunk
into a heavy slab of concrete, the guard-fence is a pathetic reminder of
the vulnerability of these isolated graves.
Vandals have excavated the ground beneath the slab. No trace of the
missionary's remains is left. In time the slab must subside and the cross
and railings be smashed. As Mrs Hedwig Schiitte stood in the winter
sunshine following the tragic story and reading from the poignant
diary, a great sadness swept over her companions at society'S apparent
neglect of and disrespect for its early pioneers.

Proclaimed National Monuments in Natal

The Report of the National Monuments Council for the year ending 31st
March 1982 records the proclamation of the following buildings and sites in
Natal.
1. The property with Trevean House thereon, at 258 Wakesleigh Road,
Bellair, Durban:
This imposing dwelling-house was designed and erected in 1882 by the
well-known architects Robert Sellers Upton and Philip Dudgeon. The
billiard room was added in 1898. Trevean House is probably the best
example of a late-Colonial Victorian building in Natal.
2. The Christian Science Church building, on the corner of Chapel and
Loop Streets, Pietermaritzburg:
This imposing church building, with its Gothic and Romanesque
features, was originally built in 1903-1904 as a Congregational Church.
The building was designed by the architects Stott and Kirby.
3. Overpark House, at 122 Loop Street, Piek?rmaritzburg:
Overpark House, with its beautiful cast-iron trimmings and cast-iron
fireplaces, dates from 1884 and is an excellent example of a Victorian
verandah house in the Natal style.
Notes and Queries 103

4. The stone wall along the boundary line of the farms Glenbello and
Stockton, Weenen County:
This dolerite wall was presumably erected during the period 1870-1880
as a boundary between the farms Glenbello (formerly Tamboekies
Kraal) and Stockton (formerly Zuurbraak). The wall also played an
important role during the Anglo-Boer War (1899-1902).
5. The property with Ryley's House, as well as the outbuildings thereon, at
79 Karel Landman Street, Dundee:
This Victorian building complex dates from the years 1902-1903 and is
an excellent example of Natal Colonial architecture from that period.
6. The property with the dwelling thereon, at 219 Oos Street, Vryheid:
This elegant dwelling-house, based on the Edwardian building style, was
erected in 1905 and is situated on a portion of an erf granted in 1895.
7. The property with the Carnegie Library building thereon, at Vryheid:
This imposing Edwardian building was erected in 1908 with funds
granted by the Carnegie Trust. The land on which the building stands
was a gift from the Vryheid Town Council.
8. The property with the dwelling thereon, at 58 President Street, Vryheid:
This imposing dwelling-house, which was erected in 1920, is an excellent
example of the Tudor revival style.
9. Hilldrop House (also known as Sir Rider Haggard's House), at
Newcastle:
This imposing building was erected by Sir Melmoth Osborne, resident
Magistrate of Newcastle from 1868 to 1875. Sir Rider Haggard took
occupation in January 1881 and during his sojourn the Royal
Commission which drew up the terms of the Pretoria Convention and
which provided for the retrocession of the Transvaal after the First
Anglo-Boer War (1880-1881) held its meeting here. Present on this
occasion were Sir Hercules Robinson, Sir Henry de Villiers, President
J.H. Brand and Sir Evelyn Wood.
As these notes were being prepared for printing, the Natal Witness (14
September 1983) carried front-page news that the Victorian 'gentleman's
residence' at 149 Pietermaritz Street had been proclaimed. This handsome
and well-preserved building has often been photographed, drawn and
painted.

All Losses are Restored and Sorrows End

The physical signs of the healed rift in the Anglican Church in Natal (cf. Dr
Darby's article in Natalia no. 11, p. 43) are evident. Many items from the
demolished St Saviour's Cathedral are now to be seen in Bishop Colenso's
old cathedral, St Peter's, or in the new Cathedral of the Holy Nativity which
stands next to it. The old St Saviour's reredos now forms a rood-screen in St
Peter's, and the St Saviour's stained glass and commemorative tablets are on
permanent display there. The St Saviour's organ has been rebuilt in the new
cathedral, and the pews, renovated and not incongruous in their very
modern architectural setting, are from both the old parishes. When on 19th
June 1983 the Archbishop of Cape Town, the Most Reverend Phi lip Russell.
preached a Colenso commemorative sermon, he did so from the ornately
104 Notes and Queries

carved Victorian pulpit from St Saviour's; but he came as a successor in

office of Archbishop Gray who excommunicated Colenso in 1866.
Archbishop Russell made humorous reference to the ironies of the situation,
imagining himself being accusingly asked by Gray's portrait in the library at
Bishopscourt, 'What were you doing on Sunday?' The Archbishop's
presence on this occasion was seen as symbolic of the fact that the Church of
the Province of South Africa is now able to consider John William Colenso
without the same heat and tension as were generated in the past. For
Archbishop Russell personally there could have been no great gulf to be
bridged. Before becoming archbishop, he was Bishop of Natal; and when he
was ordained in the 1950s his first post was as assistant priest in the parish of
St Peter's, Pietermaritzburg, whose name-boards for years proclaimed to all
that it was 'The Old Cathedral'.

Guided Tour
There was a very gratifying response to the guided tour of places associated
with Bishop Colenso on Sunday 5th June 1983. Led by Mr T.B. Frost
(Editor of Natalia and Senior Lecturer in History at Natal Training College),
it was one of the numerous events arranged to mark the Colenso Centenary,
and attracted about a hundred people on a sunny winter's morning. After an
introductory talk in St Peter's Church, where Bishop Colenso lies buried,
the tour party moved across to upper Loop Street to Bishop Macrorie's
house, now a Van der Stel Foundation property and a museum furnished in
period style. Then there was a visit to Colenso's African Mission Church on
the corner of Commercial Road and Burger Street - not unlike St Peter's in
general appearance, and now the Grey's Hospital chapel. From there it was
a short step to the old cemetery, where the Bishop's wife and daughters are
buried, and where other interesting gravestones of the period can be seen.
The procession of motor cars then drove the seven kilometres out to
Bishopstowe. There, although hardly any visible remains of Ekukhanyeni
exist, one could identify the site of the Bishop's house, now occupied by a
farmhouse, and enjoy the view which Colenso admired so much -
Emkhambathini, or Natal's 'table mountain', altar-like, bathed in afternoon
sunlight. A final talk rounded off a very interesting and informative outing.
After a picnic lunch one could walk about enjoying both the rural quiet and
the historical dimension of the place before making the short journey back
to Pietermartizburg.

The Natal Museum

Considerable structural alterations to the Ernest Warren Hall of the Natal
Museum have reached an advanced stage, and when completed will provide
much-needed extra floor space for new exhibits. The museum has a well­
deserved reputation for the excellence of its attractive and imaginative
displays, and an expert visitor recently said that one of them, in the Marine
Gallery, was the best of its kind anywhere in the world. We anticipate with
interest the extensions which the new floor will make possible.
Notes and Queries 105

The Diary of William Robert Shaw Wilson (Indigo Wilson) (/820-1858)

Tht uriginal is in the possession of a descendant, Mr Dan Wilson, Curator
of the Riversdale Museum, Cape. He loaned a photostat to Dr R.E.
Gordon, and through her good offices, has now donated this photostat to
the Killie Campbell Africana Library.
The diary covers the period 20 July 1851 - 31 July 1852, during most of
which time Wilson resided on his farm Glen Anil on the Little Umhlanga
river. The latter part deals with his life on a property at the mouth of the
Umgeni river. Besides recording day-to-day events he entered copies of
memorials and letters he had forwarded to the Government. This document
has special significance in that some of the people mentioned remained in
Natal only a short time, and not much is known about them.

Brief Expectations
At one of the Editorial Committee's 'meetings during 1983, when so much
interest and attention centred on John William Colenso, there was great
excitement when a member reported hearing about the discovery at
Bishopstowe of the rusted remains of some machinery thought to be the
Bishop's actual printing press. In fifteen 'seconds the committee had
mentally accomplished the task of careful reconstruction and restoration,
and of making arrangements with the cathedral authorities for a permanent
exhibition of the physical fons et origo of so much of the published output of
Ekukhanyeni. Alas! Upon investigation the relic proved to be pastoral only
in the literal sense - an old chaff-cutter!
Compiled by JOHN DEANE

Answers to 'Dreaming Spires' Quiz

1. Main tower, City Hall
2, Christian Science Church, Loop Street
3. Publicity House
4. Former stables, Natal Training College
5. Allison's Building, upper Church Street
6. Gymnasium, Maritzburg ColIege
7. Post Office
8. Subsidiary turret, RusselI High School
9. Christian Science Church, Loop Street
10. Subsidiary turret, City Hall
11. Royal Agricultural Society Hall, Showgrounds
12. Main tower, Russell High School
13. Victoria Hall, Maritzburg College
14. Subsidiary turret, Railway Station
15. Old Boys' Model School, Loop Street
16. Natal Museum
17. Main tower, Railway Station
18. Clark House, Maritzburg College
106

Book Reviews and Notices

THE HLUBI CHIEFDOM IN ZULULAND-NATAL: a History
by JOHN WRIGHT AND ANDREW MANSON
Ladysmith Historical Society, 1983.

Compared with other indigenous societies in south-east Africa the Hlubi

have attracted considerable attention from historians. In no small measure
this has been due to the dramatic manner in which they broke their
allegiance to the Natal colonial government, whose protection they had
accepted as refugees from Zululand in 1848. The merits of that 'protection',
which proved at very least to be a two-edged sword, have been hotly
debated ever since. Bishop Colenso was the first to suggest that Chief
Langalibalele and his Hlubi people had good cause to flee the colony in
1873, as they had previously done from Zululand a quarter of a century
earlier. His spirited defence of the 'rebels', published in 1875 as a British
Parliamentary Paper (C.1141) under the title Langalibalele and the
Amahlubi Tribe, earned the enmity of most white Natalians and
foreshadowed his subsequent courageous efforts on behalf of the dethroned
Cetshwayo. White colonial attitudes towards the 'rebellious' Langalibalele
and his followers were more accurately expressed by, for example, T.J.
Lucas in The Zulus and the British Frontiers (London, 1879) and by the
contemporaneous pamphlet entitled Atrocities in Natal - Letters and
Extracts of Letters from Christian Ministers and Missionaries in Natal
(Pietermaritzburg, n.d.) The small white community's self-image was that of
a beleaguered outpost of empire, staunchly maintaining the peace and
extending civilised standards on a continent which was ill-served by the
misguided, if not mischievous philanthropy of Colenso.
The Hlubi, more accurately their Chief Langalibalele, featured to varying
degrees in several subsequent histories of southern Africa written during the
course of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries but it was not
until 1930 that B.C. Janse van Rensburg produced an empirical monograph
on The Langalibalele rising, 1873 (unpublished M.A. thesis, Natal.) The
present reviewer's Langalibalele: The Crisis In Natal, 1873-75 (Durban,
1976) re-examined the circumstances surrounding the Hlubi flight from the
colony, in the light of further documentary research, and explored the
implications of that episode for the policy of confederation which was then
being promoted in the subcontinent. Norman Herd incorporated much of
the latest research in his 'popular' version of the topic entitled The Bent
Pine; The Trial of Chief Langalibalele (Johannesburg, 1976) which
highlighted the many shortcomings of the legal proceedings brought against
the captive Hlubi chief by Lieutenant-Governor Pine's Natal government. In
Book Reviews and Notices 107

his article 'Why Langalibalele ran away' (Journal of Natal and Zulu History
Vol. 1, 1978), N.A. Etherington drew upon the archives of the Berlin and
Hermannsburg Missionary Societies in West Germany to expose the several
misunderstandings between black and white which had immediately
preceded the Hlnhi desertion from Natal.
All this might suggest that little or nothing was left to be written on me
subject. On the contrary, John Wright and Andrew Manson's The Hlubi
Chiefdom in Zululand-Natal justifies its publication by placing the now well­
known events of 1873-75 within the broader context of a clan history which
probes back into early traditions and deep into the economic circumstances
of colonial society. The originality of their work rests primarily upon
information recently brought to light through C. de B. Webb's and J.B.
Wright's publication of The James Stuart Archive (Vol. 2, Pietermaritzburg,
1979) and upon Manson's re-assessment of the Hlubi's post-1848 history in
'The Hlubi and Ngwe in a colonial society, 1848-1877' (M.A. thesis, Natal
1979.) While a synopsis of the latter was already available in article form
(Journal of Natal and Zulu History Vol. 2, 1979), Wright and Manson's
collaborative efforts have now given Hlubi history its fullest treatment to
date. It is to be hoped that their example will further enrich knowledge of
the Zululand-Natal region by inspiring similar research into the history of
other chiefdoms. As for the Hlubi, it remains to be seen whether black
historians will have more to add in the way of information or interpretation,
drawing perhaps from oral tradition.
W.R. GUEST

KILLIE'S AFRICA
by NORMAN HERD
Blue Crane Books, 1982.

For those who were fortunate enough to know Killie Campbell and partake
of her bounty, Norman Herd's Killie's Africa is nostalgia indeed. The scents
and sounds of Muckleneuk, the upstairs library, the research rituals, the
ceremony of morning tea, the little lady herself - all are recalled faithfully
and vividly. This is an enjoyable book; warm, human and gripping. One
reads it with a deep sense of gratitude both to Killie Campbell for what she
gave to South Africa's cultural heritage and to Norman Herd for reminding
us of it.
Killie CampbeIl was an unassuming woman. In a letter to the University
of Natal in January 1950 when she was to receive the degree of Master of
Arts honoris causa, she described herself simply as a collector of historical
relics, the creator of an Africana research library, the curator of an
ethnological museum and a former member of the Historical Monuments
Commission. Yet here was the essence of a remarkable achievement. It is
the reason why she was again honoured by Witwatersrand University in 1953
with an honorary Doctor of Laws degree. It earned her the friendship and
acknowledgement of authors and artists world-wide. It gave her a place in
the recent television series presenting six of South Africa's most famous
women.
108 Book Reviews and Notices

It could be argued that such blue-stocking activity is hardly the material

for a biography with popular appeal. But Killie Campbell's life is of multi­
dimensional interest. One should not underestimate the sheer fascination of
a woman who, in the course of her life, grew up with Zulu playmates,
hunted birds, snakes and animals, went to school at St. Leonard's, Scotland,
moved freely with the country's leading politicians - Molteno, Sauer,
Schreiner and Merriman, among others - befriended collectors of Africana
such as David Don, William Jardine, Meiring Beck and Dorothea
Fairbridge, scoured the bookshops of London annually, propagated
bougainvillea, played commendable golf and received scholars and guests in
her home in the tradition of Maria Koopmans de Wet. In the context of
women's history, Killie's life is equally interesting. Born a Victorian, and an
Edwardian in her twenties, she lived through two world wars into the sixties
representing what was best in a woman of her era, yet daring to shed the
trappings of traditional womanhood when these intruded upon her mission.
Thus, for example, she fulfilled the womanly roles of home entertaining,
volunteer nursing, and canteen and comfort work during wartime, but
defied the norm, and her mother, by spending her dress allowance on books
and hiding them under her bed. Then, as a member of a prominent colonial
family in Natal, Killie's life is a window into the best of the colonial
tradition. Wealth, public-spiritedness, benevolent paternalism: unpopular as
these characteristics are in some quarters today, their value to Natal in the
hands of the Campbell family cannot be ignored. The American historian,
Barbara Tuchman, has described biography as "a prism of history"; Killie
Campbell's life is surely a 'prism' of her times. It can only enrich the fabric
of South African history for the lives of such individuals to be told.

Perhaps the strongest feature of this book is the clarity with which the
endearing qualities of Killie Campbell's personality come through to the
reader: her charm, vigour, enthusiasm, compassion and, above all, her
generosity. Today, in an academic environment riddled with competition
and self-interest, it is salutary to be reminded of one who gave her ideas,
time and material so freely. Fumbling beginners and eminent scholars were
welcomed equally. Many a first thesis was helped on its way by the
knowledge that Killie was excited about it. And many a work of art owes its
existence to her persistence and patronage. Through the bequest of her
collection to the University of Natal, Killie Campbell's generosity continues
for posterity.
It is not easy to establish the genre of this book. It is neither history, nor
biography, nor journalism but a little of each. Some attention is given to
sources in brief notes to each chapter at the end of the book, but a large
proportion of the detail is derived from the author's personal acquaintance
with his subject and from oral evidence. A great mass of information is
presented, not without some local gossip, the occasional factual error, and a
fair amount of digression. Nevertheless, this is a very pleasing account of a
thoroughly pleasing person. As such Norman Herd has rendered a service to
the cultural history of South Africa, and Natal in particular, by reaching a
wider readership than a more scholarly work might have done.

SYLVIA VIETZEN
Book Reviews and Notices 109

JOSEPH BA YNES: Pioneer

by R. O. PEARSE
Pietermaritzburg, Shuter & Shooter and the Baynesfield Board of
Administration, 1983. 331 pp., illus., maps. Price R29,95 + G.S.T.

As Mr Pearse states in his preface, to write a book about a man who left no
diaries and only a handful of letters is not easy. That Baynes becomes a
character one can at times respect, at other times not like at all and
sometimes pity, shows the measure of success Mr Pearse has had with his
work.
Born in the Yorkshire village of Austwick in 1842, Baynes came to Natal
with his widowed father on the Devonian in 1850. In 1863 he purchased land
on the upper Umlaas and spent the rest of his life adding to and improving
this property.
There were three men who helped Baynes in his farming and business
enterprises. They were John Grant, farm manager from 1899 until long after
the death of Baynes, George Alexander, general manager from 1902 to
1916, and Francis Harrison, a close friend of Baynes and the man chosen by
him to be the first Chairman of the Board of Administration to manage his
estate after his death.
With Grant's help Baynes was able to establish one of the finest Friesland
herds in South Africa. It was Alexander who assisted Baynes in establishing
the factory at Net's Rust where dairy produce from the Natal midlands was
processed, and the Model Dairy Company in Durban through which these
products were sold. Alexander also helped in founding the bacon factory at
Net's Rust.
By 1910 Net's Rust was 24 000 acres in extent. In addition to this Baynes
was also in control of the dairy and bacon factories there, a dairy factory and
pig farm at Harrismith, and the Model Dairy Company in Durban. Harrison
encouraged Baynes to amalgamate the last five into Joseph Baynes Ltd
which soon burgeoned into an enormous concern. In 1920 failing health
caused Baynes to sell his interest in the company.
Baynes' main contribution to agriculture in South Africa was the
introduction of cattle dipping for the control of tick-borne diseases.
The Ixopo electoral division of Natal returned Baynes as their
representative in six successive elections. This gave him fourteen years in
office, during the last ten months of which he held the cabinet portfolio of
Minister of Lands and Works. It was his idea to develop the Congella area
of Durban Bay (Maydon Wharf). On resigning from the Assembly in 1904
Baynes was appointed to the Legislative Council where he served until
Union.
In 1874 Baynes married Maria Hendrina Zietsman. Their two-day old
daughter died on their first wedding anniversary. Maria died nine days later.
His marriage to Sarah Ann Tomlinson lasted 45 years. A girl born to them
in 1881 lived only ten days.
Towards the end of his life Baynes donated two adjacent buildings he
owned in Pietemlaritzburg to the Salvation Army for use as homes for men
and boys. When he died in 1925 Joseph Baynes bequeathed his estate to the
people of South Africa.
110 Buuk Reviews and Notices

This is a well produced, readable book with good illustrations. The text
displays evidence of fairly extensive research but unfortunately this has often
been limited to secondary sources, an inadequacy which allows previous
mistakes to be repeated. One of the numerous examples is the fact that
Paul Anstie left Natal in 1855 and therefore could not have been operating
his Natal Conveyance Company in 1857 as stated [po 17].
Mr Pearse is wrong when, in the caption to photograph 31, he describes
W.P. and E.W. Gibson as brothers; they were father and son. Photograph
36 which is supposed to show the dipping tank at Meyershoek in 19C12 was
taken recently by Dr Taylor, the present Managing Director of Baynesfield
Estate.
Henry and Robert Nicholson farmed at Moyeni and Illovo Mills in the
Richmond district, and were not early settlers of Underberg (p. 128).
The author is not clear about what happened on the afternoon in 19C16
before Hunt and Armstrong were killed. By mistake the men had gone to
Mr Ethelbert Hosking at Byrne instead of Mr Henry Hosking at Trewergie,
and it was late before they reached their correct destination. Because of mist
and approaching dusk Henry Hosking advised them to wait until morning
before going to arrest Chief Majonga but they would not listen and
confusion and death were the results (pp. 195-196).
It is misleading to give the impression that Frederick and Sarah Moor
came to Natal as a married couple and incorrect to say that they rejected
their allotment at Richmond. Moor farmed his allotted land at Byrne for
two years before marrying Miss Ralfe, and they continued to live there for
another three years before joining her parents who had moved to Estcourt
Cp. 206).
The statement that William Peel owned Onrust and Meyershoek from
1857 to 1902 is not true. Peel died in 1881 (p. 283).
All of this, coupled with an element of speculation which is unusual in a
work of this nature, undermines confidence in the book but it is reassuring
to know that members of the History Department of the University of Natal
have checked through the chapters on the political life of Baynes.
B.M. SPENCER

THEY BUILT A CITY

by RORY LYNSKY
Concept Communications (Natal) (Pty) Limited 1982.

This book presents a history of the Durban City Engineer's Department

from 1882 (when the first Borough Engineer was appointed) until 1982. It
will probably be of most interest to those who have 'grown up' with Durban
and have had a personal stake in the Council's attempts to solve, with the
help of its engineers, planning problems which often bore directly on their
own water-supply and transportation arrangements. It opens, interestingly,
in the really early days, forty years before the formation of a borough
engineer's department, certainly before Durban knew that it was going to
become a city, or indeed could have had any idea of what a modern city
would be like. Perhaps by the same token we, in 1983, can hardly imagine
the end result of another hundred years of accelerating change.
Book Reviews and Notices 111

The first survey plan - intended to regularize occupational rights, and

give title to the people who had put up shacks and palisades and settled in
what is now part of the city centre - was drawn in about 1840. It is
interesting to read that our early Durban forerunners 'bought' their first
surveyed lots in 1840 but do not seem to have paid for them; - certainly an
inexpensive way of acquiring sites in the area bounded by Aliwal, Smith,
Gardiner and West Streets!
Bishop Colenso (himself in 'centenary' news at present) in 1855 was one
of the early critics of the insufficiency and unhealthiness of Durban's water,
supplied, as he observed, from shallow wells and 'abounding in decaying
vegetables and worms'.
The 100 year record of the Borough Engineer's Department starts with
the appointment of J .F.E. Barnes. The book gives us an impression of him
as an engineer of considerable competence and cheerful perseverance.
Water supply was only one of the urgent problems with which he had to deal
and the town's first piped supply, from the Umbilo River at Paradise Valley,
was opened in 1887. It provided 200 000 gallons per day from a 35 million
gallon capacity earth dam, which amounted to about 90 litres per day of
clear potable water per consumer. The total population figure seems to have
amounted to about 16 000 in those days.
Barnes resigned at the end of 1887 and (after two or three interim
changes) was succeeded by John F1etcher who held office from 1889 until
1918. For F1etcher too, an augmented water supply was an urgent need and
by 1891 a new scheme, this time from the Umlaas River, was in partial
operation. This was completed in 1895 and in combination with the Barnes­
Paradise ValIey scheme was able to provide over 2 million gallons per day
for a population of 28 000. For the people of the day Durban's water
problems seemed to have ended. The town had a supply of good water
which was adequate for double its population. Unluckily, and ironically, it
was not drought but floods which ended this happy state of affairs. In a
storm at the end of May 1905 fifteen inches of rain fell in as many hours.
Supply pipelines were washed away and the reservoirs severely damaged.
Similar catastrophic floods were experienced in 1917, and again in 1959
when the recently built Shongweni Dam was endangered. Yet again in
March 1976 Durban's 'worst ever' water crisis was caused by floods, this
time with two of the four aqueducts from the Nagle dam in the Umgeni
Valley being damaged. The book does not mention the present crisis, but
this seems to have been the first time that Durban's water resources have
been really threatened by drought and the failure of the catchment areas.
Let us hope that the history of flood disasters doesn't repeat itself too soon
after the end of the present drought!
Beach reclamation and maintenance problems have always been of
interest to Durban residents, although no doubt the annual holidaymakers
enjoy the beaches without knowing much about the delicate balances on
which their availability depends. This aspect of Durban's engineering
problems is given realistic cover in the book. We learn that no definite
answer has yet been found and unremitting work, often makeshift and
experimental, goes on to preserve the popular holiday beaches and the
splendid surf.
112 Book Reviews and Notices

Among the more recent developments, probably the most immediately

spectacular and interesting to the general public has been the freeway
system constructed during the '60s and '70s under the direction of Alec
Kinmont's Special Works Department which was set up in parallel with the
City Engineer's Department in 1964/5. Traffic circulates through Durban at
present with commendable ease and rapidity and the book provides a
readable account of the special measures necessary in those decades to bring
Durban up to date and provide services to cope with all aspects of its
exceptional growth. The latest population figure quoted in the book is
1 774000 for 1982, a number which is expected to grow to 3 825 000 by the
year 2000. To any reader whose interest has been engaged by the book this
must give rise to some surmises. One would say that Durban, in Kinmont's
phrase (p. 72), must again be 'a city in a hurry' if it is to cope with such a
huge proportionate increase in so short a time. Twenty years is not long in
terms of the conception, planning, design and construction of large and
complicated engineering projects, especially in a crowded city environment.
The book has a 'coffee-table' format. Probably it is not the sort of
publication that many people would read through with sustained interest.
The style is rather staccato. It is written in very short, sometimes single
sentence paragraphs and it often reads rather like strings of facts which
require a stronger organization to make them properly cohesive. There are a
few stylistic 'unguarded moments' - Wc read for example of priorities
facing Donald Macleod when he 'stepped into the City Engineer's chair',
and we are told that 'the city's traffic continually grows in size and volume
and it demands that road development maintains a parallel course'.
The illustrations are of a high standard throughout. There are good
reproductions of early drawings and an excellent selection of photographs
which add considerably to the interest of the book from both the
professional engineer's and the layman's points of view. If I had to choose
one photograph to support this view I think it would be the one (on page 84)
of the viaduct which links the Western Freeway with the central business
area, taken with the central city buildings as its backdrop. An inadvertent
touch of the comic is provided by the caption of a board-room photograph
of Mr Macleod flanked by his deputies and heads of departments. These
various gentlemen are identified in the picture by a left to right reading
caption climaxed with 'H.B. Harrison (Administration) not present'.
R.H. WYLLIE

THE VIEWS OF MAHLATHI: Writings of A.W.G. Champion, a black

South African
edited by M.W. SWANSON
Pietermaritzburg, University of Natal Press, 1983.

A.W.G. Champion was a complex, ambivalent character. This is reflected

both in his paradoxical career and in his attitudes and beliefs. Mathlathi
provides us with a window into both. Swanson's concise, critical preface and
Dhlomo's less critical biographical essay (or eulogy) highlight the main
landmarks in Champion'S career. His ideas are given expression in the many
'views', which make up the greater part of this book. These 'views' were
Book Reviews and Notices 113

written by Champion during the later part of his life - the 1960s - and
were originally published in a regular column in Ilanga.
The complexity and ambivalence that pervade Champion's life are
discernible in many forms. During his early career he worked as a policeman
in Johannesburg. By the late 1920s he himself was being looked upon as a
dangerous agitator and had hecome a prime police target. With the
advantage of hindsight, however, we can see that the contemporary official
perception of Champion was largely exaggerated and mistaken. It is true
that Champion worked for the removal of local African grievances hy
successfully challenging the Durban municipality in a series of court actions
during the latc 1920s (p. xix). It is also true that Champion acted as a
spoke~man for exploited Africans. This role enabled him to risc to
prominencc in the ICU and the ANC. However, in his political ideas and
strategies he was generally cautious, and at times even conservative. He
stopped short of advocating militant tactics to fight the oppression of
Africans. He disavowed strikes, for instance. And in the late 1940s, his
cautious stance led him to fall out with the ANC Youth League when it was
planning a passive resistance campaign (p. xxiii).
Champion helonged essentially to the petit bourgeoisie. (Swanson, calls
him a 'radical bourgeois' lp. xxv]). He thus could never play the role of
militant activist or promoter of working-class interests. The capitalist system
served as his paradigm. Capital accumulation and the private ownership of
property held a high place in his value system. He saw these as means not
only towards his own personal advancement but also towards the wider
advancement of Africans. Champion was a 'lifelong entrepreneur', albeit
one whose many business ventures seem mostly to have ended in failure (pp.
163-66). Whenever the opportunity arose he hought property, and
encouraged other Africans to do the same. Clermont township, for instance,
seems to have originated in this way (p. 23 n. 6, and p. 83). At various times
Champion advocated the creation of a National Fund to help the poor
(p. 45), the founding of a Zulu Bank (p. 83), and the establishment of the
Bantu Investment Corporation (p. 87). He could even see some economic
advantages for the African petit bourgeoisie in the government's apartheid
policy: 'The beauty of this policy to me is in our obtaining a way to build up
industries in the areas where we live'. (p. 80). He believed that Africans had
to accumulate money if they were to gain any political leverage; and, rather
naively, he thought such accumulation on a sufficient scale was possible.
This preoccupation led Champion to neglect the potential for working-class
mobilization or mass action.
Champion's petit bourgeois perspective gave him a vision of an expanding
non-racial middle class, in which he, and others like him, would obtain their
rightful place. Herein, though, lies another paradox. For Champion was not
a straightforward modernist. His writings reveal in the late 1960s a deep
admiration for the political order in Swaziland (p. 132). Although Swaziland
was newly independent at the time, its power structure was heavily weighted
towards the traditional royal family and chiefly order, and against the
emergent middle class.
A Christian upbringing also seems to have contributed towards Champion's
paradoxical character and attitudes. His 'views' are permeated with
Christian beliefs; and he is often preoccupied with Christian issues. Yet
114 Book Reviews and Notices

Champion is doubtful about the Christian impact on African society. At one

point he writes, 'The Zulu nation was pure in body and soul ... Then came
the gospel . . . ' (p. 159). Moreover, he could see nothing wrong with
polygamy as long as the husband was able to support his wives (p. 132).
Swanson and his translators have performed a great service in bringing
these writings to a wider audience. His preface and explanatory notes, apart
from revealing the depth of his knowledge both of early Durban and of
African politics, are of great assistance to the reader. It would, however,
have been useful if each writing could have been given an exact date, as it
would be helpful to know the particular context in which Champion was
writing. And it was Lamontville, not Umlazi, that was constructed in the
1930s (p. xxii). These, though, are only minor citicisms of a work which will
be of value to scholars and of interest to general readers. Let it be hoped that
this is a foretaste of more to come: can we expect a biography of Champion or
an edited collection of his earlier papers?
PAUL MAYLAM

ISICHAZAMAZWI I
by A.C. NKABINDE
Pietermaritzburg, Shuter & Shooter, 1982. 125 pp. R4,15.

This is the first volume to appear of the first ever Zulu explanatory
dictionary.

MENFOLK: the Speirs family

by EUSTACE FAIRLIE SPEIRS
Johannesburg, The author, 1982. 24 pp.

This pamphlet relates the history of neighbours of the Fannins in the Dargle
district, viz. Robert Speirs (1802-1879), of Mount Park, and his family. The
Speirses arrived on the Conquering Hero in 1850. Besides detailing the story
of Robert and his children, facts are provided about the family to the
present generation.

FIELD GUIDE TO THE WAR IN ZULULAND AND THE DEFENCE OF

NATAL,1879
by J.P.c. LABAND and P.S. THOMPSON
Pietermaritzburg, University of Natal Press, 1983. R9.

This is a second and enlarged edition of the work fully reviewed in Natalia 9.
The authors have discovered new fortifications since their original
publication and also studied and mapped the colonial defence system.
Book Reviews and Notices 115

HARVEST OF OPTIMISM: the story of Thomas Fannin and his family

by NATALIE JUUL
Priv. print, 1982. 188 pp. illus.

Written by Thomas Fannin's great-granddaughter to fulfil a promise made to

her father fifty years ago, this book records firstly the fortunes of Thomas
from his birthplace, Ireland to the farm The Dargle in the Natal Midlands,
with interludes in Liverpool, Cape Town and Namaqualand en route. In
Namaqualand he was the manager of Baron von Ludwig's South African
Mining Co., an undersubscribed and unsuccessful venture to open up
copper-mining in the area. The last phase of Thomas's life from 1847 to 1862
was spent as a farmer and timber merchant at The Dargle.
A large section of the book is devoted to the life of Thomas's third son,
John Eustace (land surveyor, Special Border Agent at Kranskop during the
Anglo-Zulu War, later Resident Magistrate at Stanger, then Grey town, and
finally Judge of the Native High Court), illustrated by quotations from his
numerous writings.
Details are also given of Thomas and Ellen Fannin's other eleven
surviving children and their descendants.

CHRISTIAN INDIANS IN NATAL 1860-1911. An Historical and Statistical

Study
by J.B. BRAIN
Cape Town, Oxford University Press, 1983. 274 p. ilIus.

This study investigates the origins of Christian Indians who arrived in Natal
between 1860 and 1911 either as indentured labourers or as 'passenger'
immigrants. More than half the book consists of tables of statistics listing
each and every Christian immigrant on each and every immigrant ship. The
generally accepted estimates of the numbers of Christians among the Indian
immigrants are challenged. The book also traces the history of the Missions
opened by the various Christian churches in Natal.

DIE GESCHICHTE NEU-HANNOVERS ZUM 125-JAHRIGEN

GEMEINDEJUBILAUM (The history of New Hanover at the 125th
anniversary of the Congregation)
by H.G. HILLERMANN
Published by the Church Council, 1983. 108 pp.

In Natalia 11 we noted the appearance of publications marking the 125th

and lOath anniversaries of Hermannsburg and Wartburg-Kirchdorf
respectively. Now, 1983 marks the 125th anniversary of the New Hanover
congregation, and therefore the existence of New Hanover as a centre of
population. Mr Hillermann has compiled an interesting account of the
origins and growth of the farming community and its church and school. It is
illustrated with photographs, and includes a map of the district, showing 67
116 Book Reviews and Notices

farms, with a key in the form of a list of names of the German settlers who
owned them. The names of the original (mainly Voortrekker) owners are
also given. Mr Hillermann's bibliography indicates the extent of his
researches, and this is a book which carries on the worthy tradition of
presenting the many-stranded history of our province.

MUNICIPAL ENGINEERING IN PIETERMARITZBURG: the first

hundred years
prepared by E.N. MEINEKE and G.M. SUMMERS for the
Pietermaritzburg City Engineer's Department.
Pietermaritzburg, the Department, 1983. Roneoed. 135 pp.

Described in this publication as one of Pietermaritzburg's two 'action'

departments (the other being the Borough Police), the Engineer's or Works
Department originally encompassed work now undertaken by other
departments, e.g. Public Health, Market, Parks, Fire and Electricity. For
this reason the book is more than just a history of the Department - it is
largely a history of the development of Pietermaritzburg itself.
A major source for this book has been the minutes of the Borough
Council, now housed in the Natal Archives.

THE DEFENCE OF LADYSMITH AND MAFEKING. Accounts of two

sieges, 1899 to 1900, being the South African War experiences of William

Thwaites, Steuart Binny, Alfred Down and Samuel Cawood.

edited by ARTHUR DAVEY

Johannesburg, The Brenthurst Press, 1983. 275 p. illus. R130

This beautifully produced book draws on the rich resources of primary

material available in the Brenthurst library. The writers came from a variety

of backgrounds and their diaries and letters give personal, rather than

official, insights into the operations of the war. The book is liberally

illustrated with evocative photographs and original pencil sketches by

Melton Prior, one of the most eminent war artists of the late Victorian era.

KING CETSHWAYO kaMPANDE

by J. LABAND and J. WRIGHT

Pietermaritzburg, Shuter & Shooter and kwaZulu Monuments Council,

1983. 34 pp. illus.

This is the first of a proposed series of booklets on different facets of Zulu

history. Though popular rather than academic in style, this account

incorporates the latest historical research and paints a sympathetic portrait

of the king.

 117

Select List of Recent Natal

Publications

ALLEN, Roger D.J. Images of industrial· work and the prospects for
personal advancement among African factory workers in Durban.
Durban: The University of Natal, 1982.
BUTHELEZI COMMISSION (KwaZulu). The Buthelezi Commission: the
requirements for stability and development in KwaZulu and Natal.
Durban: H & H Publications, 1982.
CHADWICK, G.A. The First War of Independence in Natal 1880-1881.
G.A. Chadwick, Durban; 1981.
DURBAN. City Engineer's Department. Durban metropolitan transport
area: interim transport plan 1980-1985. Durban: City Engineer's
Department, 1980.
FISKE, Symond. Ploughing a furrow. Pietermaritzburg: K.M. Fiske, 1982.
The NATAL BUSHVELD: ecology and mammals. Pietermaritzburg:
Shuter & Shooter in conjunction with Natal Parks Board, 1982.
NATAL BUSINESS REGISTER -1982/83. Pietermaritzburg, Swan, 1982­
NATAL COAST ANGLERS UNION. Year book: list of records, trophy
and prize winners. Durban: The Union, 1983.
PRESTON-WHYTE, R.A. Climate of Durban. Pietermaritzburg: Town
and Regional Planning Commission, 1980.
SIVANANDA, Swami. Hindu fasts and festivals. Durban: Divine Life
Society, 1982.
SMITH, Ken. Alfred Aylward: the tireless agitator. Cape Town: Donker,
1983.
The STORY of Scottsville race course: Pietermaritzburg Turf Club/Pieter­
maritzburg S.P.C.A. Pietermaritzburg: S.P.c.A. (198] ?).
Compiled by JUNE FARRER
118

Register of Research on Natal

This list has been compiled from individual submissions from subscribers to
Natalia and the Natal Archives. Persons knowing of current research work
that has not been listed are asked to furnish information for inclusion in the
next issue. A slip is provided for this purpose.
ARCHITECTURE
Art and architecture in Natal, 191O-c1945. M. Hillebrand
BIOGRAPHY
l.C. Boshoff
A.C. Swanepoel
Lord Chelmsford
1. Mathews
Mabel Palmer
S. Vietzen
The Palmer family
T.N. Murugan
EDUCATION
African education in the nineteen-forties. T.A. Nuttall
FORESTRY
Forestry in Natal c. W. Marwick
GENEALOGY
Genealogiese inligting uit die NG-Kerk
doopregisters B. Cilliers
Genealogy C.O. Holness
GEOGRAPHY
Natal estuaries 1.E. Perry
HISTORY
Aansprake van KwaZulu en Swaziland op
Ingwavuma B. Fischer
Anglo-Zulu War P.S. Thompson
Colonial capital to a provincial centre of
the Union - Pietermaritzburg 1900-1924. l.S. Raybould
Donnybrook and District area annals M.A. Mingay
Dundee S. Henderson
Durban history and Clermont Township M.W. Swanson
Empangeni A. de V. Minnaar
l.L. Dube E.D. Gaza
History of Chesterville G.1. Sithole
The history of the coal industry in Northern D.R. Edgecombe
Natal and W.R. Guest
History of the Tugela Ferry/Msinga area C. Bond
Lamontville, 1934-1954 L. Torr
Movement of Indians before 1910 S. Bhana
Msinga district W.1. Argyle
Natal Naval volunteers S.H.C. Payne
 119

Natal prisons 1842-1910 S. Pete

Natal settlers to 1857 S.P.M. Spencer
Ndwedwe District, c1860-1920 H. Hughes
Ntumeni E. Gericke
Port Natal harbour 1845-1879 L.J. Heydenrych
Resistance to Cetshwayo P.G.Olivier
"Routine of Empire": The roles of Sir
George Grey and Sir Bartle Frere in the
Waikato War in New Zealand and the
Anglo-Zulu War in Natal G.A. Dominy
The Zulu Civil War of 1856 P.J. Colenbrander
Zululand post offices T. Davis

IMMIGRATION
Indian immigration T. R. Metcalfe
Indian immigration within the British
Empire S.A.c. Vickers

LABOUR
The de Pass family and labour on the Natal
sugar estates J.A.S. PhiIlips
Land, labour and agricultural production,
Pietermaritzburg region, 1845-1875 N.M. Wellington
Land, labour and ideology - Northern
Natal - 1910-1936 V.S. Harris
Togt labourers 1838-1910 K. Atkins

POLITICAL SCIENCE
Annexation of East Griqualand E.G. Hobson
The policies of the Transvaal and the Natal
governments towards Dinuzulu, 1897-1913. S.J. Maphalala
The question of "Indian penetration" in the
Durban area and Indian politics, 1940-1946. D. Bagwandeen

RAILWAYS
S.A. Railways R. Ellsworth

SOCIOLOGY
African women in Durban 1920-1960 J. Mackenzie
Passenger Indians - socio-historical
analysis G.D. Klein
Social and economic changes in black
Natal, 1893-1910 J. Lambert
Social and economic history of Edendale S.M. Meintjes
Some socio-cultural features of the Ama­
kholwa communities of Northern Natal,
with special reference to Telapi and
Kalabass S.W.D. Dube
White attitudes to Indians, Natal and the
far interior, in the nineteenth century P.R. Warhurst
120

Notes on Contributors
CHARLES BALLARD is a native of Virginia, U.S.A. and a graduate of
lames Madison University in Virginia and of the University of Natal. He
teaches in the Department of History at the University of Natal in Durban.

WILLIAM BIZLEY is a graduate of the universities of Natal and York, a

member of the Natalia Editorial Committee and Senior Lecturer in English
at the University of Natal in Pietermaritzburg.

RUSSELL BRANN is a graduate of the University of Natal and is currently

completing an Honours degree in the Department of Geography.

COLIN GARDNER is a graduate of the universities of Natal and Oxford,

and is Professor and Head of the Department of English at the University of
Natal in Pietermaritzburg.

ROBERT HASWELL is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Geography

at the University of Natal in Pietermaritzburg. His research interest is the
early urban development of South African towns and he has published
previously in Natalia 10.

PETER SPILLER is a graduate of the University of Natal in Durban and

now Senior Lecturer in the Department of Public Law at the University of
Natal in Durban. He was awarded a Ph.D. for his thesis on the early history
of the Natal Supreme Court by the University and is currently studying for
an M.Phil degree in Criminology at Cambridge.

T.B. FROST