Cape Good Hope 1652-1702

66 (Father Marcel le Blanc)

(And see item 71.) From the translation by Dr. A.M. Lewin Robinson in QB June 1950, by his kind permission. Tachard (item 64) says that Fathers Le Blanc and de Bèze climbed Table Mountain, and gives the latter's account, so that this one can safely be ascribed to Le Blanc.

The stay at the Cape is delightful, and the Dutch settlement perfectly beautiful. There is an abundance of everything there - game, fish, corn, wine, fruit, vegetables, livestock, fresh water, fine gardens, a very large number of inhabitants, a fort* with five regular bastions, and a prodigious amount of game. Our officers have reported a lot of the latter in the four or five times they have been out hunting. The Commander of the fort, named Vadestes [Van der Stel], a friend of the French, furnished them with fifteen or twenty horses as well as dogs, and there was a great rout of game. M. du Bruant [Lieutenant-General of the troops] who has been inland is delighted with this country. The soil is very good, the sheep are fat and as big as donkeys, and the cattle are remarkable in that when harnessed to carts they go as fast as the best carriage-horses. The savage Outantos are the foulest and ugliest people of all the inhabited world. None of the pictures made of them comes near the truth. They go quite naked, covering only what Nature dictates they should hide, and when it is cold that make do with a sheep- or bear- [sic] skin which they put over their shoulders like a cloak. They rub themselves with an oily, stinking grease and with crushed charcoal, and are repulsive to look at and to smell. The women have shells and tokens of copper in their hair, which is like sheep's wool, black and oily with their nasty, smelly grease. They wind around the calves of their legs the guts of all sorts of animals, and when these are dry they make a feast of them for their husbands on special occasions. Their huts are low and covered with rush matting. There are seven or

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[51] Chart of False Bay (see Resolutions 30/10/1687). The key (here abbreviated) has: F, Foul ground; G, Hout Bay, good anchorage on North side; H, Foul ground; I, Large rock, always awash; K, Large rock - safe passage between I and K; L, Rock; M, Course to be changed here; N, Large high rock; O, ‘Simons Bay, where 14 or 15 large ships can lie as if in the safest harbour of the world’; P. Bays with much fish and abundance of fresh water and firewood; Q, Large rock, covered in strong S.E. winds; R, Island, so covered with gulls' nests that one cannot walk without treading on them, and with thousands of seals on the shores; S, Kalk Bay, good fishing; T, good landing and fishing; U, Hottentots-Hollant; W, Steep and rocky shores from U to here, bad landing. All investigated and sounded by the Hr. Commandeur Simon van der Stel with the Galliot De Noord on November 11, 1687. [Kyckuyt, the Kuyle and Eerste Rivier are also shown. The rest of the lettering gives depths and the nature of the seabed, and that of the water in the small streams.]

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eight women with one man in these huts. They work sometimes for the Dutch in order to get the wherewithal to gorge themselves, but when they are gorged they do not want to do anything. At twelve years old the women have children and as soon as they are born [sic] these run and climb like bigger children.

The day before yesterday I went up Table Mountain, from whence I saw omnia regna mundi. The expedition is a silly idea, because it is necessary to climb from rock to rock through bushes and by the steepest road in the world. You need to be a goat to get up this dreadful mountain properly. The climb takes four to five hours. On the north side it is all flat rock: there is on the rock a kind of marsh, but it consists solely of rushes and water. The sea-route on the north side of Robin Island is much wider than the other by which we entered Table Bay....

I am writing to you by the ship La Maligne which it has been found fitting to send back to France. I forgot to tell you one important event: that is, that the supply-ship Dromadaire [error for Loire] which became separated from our squadron in the storm off Cape Finisterre ... arrived at the Cape on June 9, two days before our fleet. The Dutch, alarmed by our arrival, took the decision not to allow the sick to be put ashore; but out of the respect they had for the ships of His Majesty the matter was settled to the satisfaction of both parties. It was essential for us to find such a haven after so long a voyage, because the crews and the soldiers were sick, and the land air and the good food soon brought back their strength....