Seven Years in South Africa, Volume 1

Seven Years in South Africa, Volume 1

Emil Holub's "Seven Years in South Africa" opens with his voyage from Southampton to Cape Town aboard the "Briton," a thirty-six-day passage on which he battled dysentery for four weeks and nearly fell overboard off St. Helena when a wave swept him from the forecastle into the ship's anchor. He describes Cape Town on arrival in 1872: Table Mountain, the Lion's Head, and Devil's Peak; the fish-market with its Malay fishermen; the town's public buildings, the Castle housing the captive Zulu king Cetewayo, and the suburbs of Green Point and Sea Point. Sailing on to Port Elizabeth, Holub, nearly penniless after paying customs duty on his firearms, is aided by the merchant Hermann Michaelis and the Austrian Consul Herr Adler, gains a medical practice, and turns down a lucrative offer to settle permanently so that he can press toward the interior. He spends weeks collecting specimens along the shore and the Baker River valley, capturing nautiluses, vipers, and other fauna, and joins a bee-hunt on the table-land. Michaelis advances him funds and accompanies him overland via Grahamstown, Cradock, Colesberg, and Philippolis toward Fauresmith in the Orange Free State, encountering springbok herds and various hunting methods along the way. In Fauresmith the promised medical practice fails to materialize, so Holub, joined by Michaelis and the rabbi Herr Rabinsvitz, travels on to the diamond-fields, passing Coffeefontein and Jacobsdal before reaching the dust-choked encampments of Dutoitspan and Bultfontein. There, in severe financial straits, Holub sets up practice in a decrepit rented tent-hut, gradually builds a clientele, and pays off his debts. He recounts the history and geology of the Griqualand West diamond-fields, the rivalry among Waterboer, Yantje, and Gassibone, the rise of Klipdrift and Kimberley, and the evolving techniques of digging, washing, and sorting diamonds. He describes the morning markets, canteens, and the trying dust storms and floods of the settlement. At Christmas 1872 he joins a baboon-hunting excursion into the western Free State hills, observing Koranna and Basuto farm life along the way. In February 1873 Holub sets out on his first reconnaissance journey with companions Eberwald and others, traveling down the Vaal valley to Klipdrift, visiting Koranna villages, and continuing up the Harts River through Batlapin territory — Likatlong, Mitzima's village, Springbockfontein, and the kraal of chief Gassibone — hunting game, enduring severe thirst, and suffering an accidental gunshot wound to his hand during a thunderstorm. He nearly drowns in mud while fording the Harts River, then proceeds north across the Vaal into the Transvaal, passing Christiana and Bloemhof, hunting springbok, blessbok, and black gnu on the plains near the Klipspruit, and traveling on through Klerksdorp to Potchefstroom, the flower-adorned "Flower-town" of the Transvaal, before continuing east through the Mooi River valley toward the caverns of Wonderfontein.

By Emil Holub · First published 1881 · Genre: Travel Narrative, Natural History, Memoir · 11 chapters · 111,201 words

First lines

However fair and favourable the voyage between Southampton and South Africa, a thrill of new life, a sudden shaking off of lethargy, alike physical and mental, ever responds to the crisp, dry announcement of the captain that the long-looked-for land is actually in sight. As the time draws near when the cry of "Land" may any moment be expected from the mast-head, many is the rush that is made from the luxurious cabin to the deck of the splendid steamer, when with straining eyes the passengers eagerly scan the distant horizon; ever and again in their eagerness do they think they descry a mountain summit on the long line that parts sea and sky; but the mountain proves to be merely the topmast of some distant vessel, and disappointment is intensified by the very longing that had prompted the imagination.

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African exploration · South Africa · Cape Town · Travel narrative · Natural history · Specimen collecting · Scientific observation · Botany · Zoology · Marine biology · Physician-explorer · Colonial Africa

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