Dusk, the autumn sky pink and grey, and the braai fire well\non the way down at the River. Where better to contemplate the Coronavirus and lockdown? <\/p>\n\n\n\n
As I have been more or less confined to barracks for six\nweeks following knee replacement surgery, I am well used to isolation. On my\ntod with just dogs and bottles for company.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The first thing you notice is that life is not as hectic as\nbefore. You realise how much time is taken up with driving to town, working out\nat the gym, going to the pub, visiting family and friends and so on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So what to do with all these extra hours? And then it struck\nme that I have always wanted to write but was always too busy to get into the\nswing of it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Now I have no excuse! Engage right brain and get to work!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So this is the first of a series of blogs about the Village\nof Redhouse. It is not necessarily a true history, because truth is an elusive\nthing, and sometimes I make things up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For those imaginary readers who may never have heard of\nRedhouse, you will find it on the banks of the Swartkops River, 20 km north of\nPort Elizabeth, which is the loveliest city in South Africa, if one excludes the\nCity Council.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It makes sense to start the story at the earliest time when humans\n(well, sort of) may have lived in the Village.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Not very far away, in the caves at Klasies River Mouth near\nHumansdorp, about 125 000 years ago there lived some people who, according\nto the boffins, may have been anatomically modern but not necessarily\n\u201cbehaviourally\u201d so, unlike the next lot to move in 50 000 years later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The first mob apparently trampled the garbage underfoot in\nthe caves, whereas the later arrivals made a point of dumping it outside. Upon\nthis evidence the scientists calculate the degree of civilization. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Evolution does strange things. Sometime during the\napproximately 2000 generations between the two sets of tenants, a mutation occurred\nin the female DNA. One day, Mrs Klasie just had enough of this tramping dirt\ninto the carpet and threw her toys out of the cot. As the mutation took hold,\nso did the volume of screaming, shouting and nagging.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
You would think that natural selection would have favoured\nthose females less noisy, given that males prefer some intervals of peace and\nquiet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
My theory is that it worked the other way round. Males\nrealised that they got to escape the cave to take the garbage to the midden.\nOnce they were out, they could skive off to see their mates and have a Middle\nPalaeolithic beer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, let\u2019s move forward in our time machine and position\nit above the spot where a long time in the future the Village would arise. We\nare now at about 18 000BC. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I don\u2019t think the River flowed in its current position then.\nRivers change over time, sometimes rapidly. It\u2019s reasonable to think of its\nmain course running along the foot of the escarpment opposite the Village in\nthose days. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
And it wasn\u2019t a tidal river, at least not at Redhouse. The sea was 125m lower\nthan at present. The weather was about 6 degrees colder on average than today. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
This means that the\nshoreline would have been way beyond the latitude of Bird Island, then just a\nkopje in the veldt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The reason for this\nastonishingly low sea level is called the Last Glacial Maximum. Here we shall\nhave a digression into the suddenly forgotten topic of conversation, Global\nClimate Change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
You will be pleased to\nknow that we are living through the splendidly named Quaternary Glaciation,\nwhich started a mere 2.58 million years ago, and was preceded by at least\nanother four glaciations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
During this time, the\nplanet has endured cycles of cooling and warming, on average 100 000 years\nof chill and 40 000 years of bikini weather. The Last Glacial Period began about 115 000\nbefore the present and reached its maximum about 22 000 years ago. The\namount of water locked up in the ice sheets around the world caused the sea\nlevel to drop dramatically.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Then it slowly began to\nwarm up, although there have been periodic relapses of varying severity from\ntime to time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
For example, the River\nThames used to freeze quite frequently. The citizens would hold Frost Fairs on\nthe ice. The first on record was in 695 AD. The last one was in 1814.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Great fun was had by\nall. 1683 was a particularly cold spell. The River froze from 20th<\/sup>\nDecember until 6th<\/sup> February, during which time a whole street of\nshops was established, coaches plied the \u201cstreets\u201d, much sport was enjoyed,\nincluding bull-baiting, and small boys played football on the ice. <\/p>\n\n\n\n On 2nd<\/sup>\nFebruary (Candlemas day) they roasted an ox. King Charles II and his Queen came\nto the braai.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sometimes, the ice\nmelted rather too fast. In 1789, a ship anchored to a pub next to the River\nsank down as the ice melted, pulling down the pub and crushing five tipplers to\ndeath.<\/p>\n\n\n\n End of digression. Back\nto the Swartkops River.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now we are getting\ncloser. By 3000 years ago the sea level had stabilized at more or less its\npresent height and didn\u2019t alter by more than 0.2mm per annum until about 1880,\nwhen it started to climb to an average of 1.8mm pa. No doubt due to the\nindustrial revolution burning a prodigious amount of coal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Who lived in the\nSwartkops valley then? No doubt wondrous herds of game, aardvarks and antelope,\nheffalumps and hippos, lions and leopards, San and their cousins, the\nStrandlopers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We now need to shift\nour focus northwards, to Ancient Egypt, where reigned from 610BC to 595BC\nPharaoh Necho II, an ambitious fellow who, amongst many other projects, made\nthe first but unsuccessful attempt at building the Suez Canal to foster trade\nbetween the Mediterranean Sea and the Indian Ocean.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He also managed to get\na mention in the Bible for killing King Josiah of Judah at a battle at Megiddo\nin 609BC.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Most importantly for\nour story, he sent Phoenicians around Libya (as Africa was called in those\ndays) from east to west.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Greek historian,\nHerodotus, said it took them three years before they returned through the\nPillars of Hercules (Straits of Gibraltar).<\/p>\n\n\n\n He personally doubted\nthe story as they said the sun rose to the north of them, which of course would\nhave seemed strange to someone living in the northern hemisphere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Many years ago, I was\ntold by a very wise old amateur archaeologist that there was a strong\npossibility that the Phoenicians wintered over in the Swartkops River valley.\nThere would have been plenty of fresh water, game and salt. A beautiful place to chill for the winter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It makes lots of sense.\nThe Swartkops River would have been deep and wide and unobstructed by the\ndreadful bridges that have caused it so much damage over the last 150 years.\nThey would have sailed in through the mouth with a fresh south easterly on the\nport quarter and proceeded upstream until they found a fairly flat piece of\nshoreline (where the Redhouse Yacht Club is situated) before dropping anchor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The other reason to\nstop at that point might have been the presence of a San community close by.\nThe reason for surmising this is the presence of one !Click (well, he has to\nhave a name) found buried in a sitting position six years ago, with a hole in\nhis head, not far from this landing place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There may well have\nbeen a San encampment where the famous Zwartkops Rowing Club (ZRC) is situated\non slightly higher ground, just above the probable landing point.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You can imagine the\nscene. The San are sitting around digging up grubs for lunch, they look up and\nsuddenly see this large boat, an apparition totally strange to them. They would\nhave been transfixed in astonishment!<\/p>\n\n\n\n Apparently, the San use\nas many as twenty different click sounds when they talk. The excited\nconversation about this entirely new experience in their lives must have\nsounded like a knitting machine convention. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Then a large fellow\nshouts at them in a strange language \u2013 all he wanted was a cold beer \u2013 and they\ntake to their heels in fright, whereupon the thirsty one shoots an arrow after\nthem and down goes !Click!<\/p>\n\n\n\n Or perhaps !Click\nbelongs to a later era. We shall see as this series unfolds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s interesting to\nspeculate on the type of ship the Phoenicians might have used for his\nexpedition. They probably wouldn\u2019t have used one of their long, narrow warships\nfitted with a bronze ram, which would have been a bit scary to sail in the open\nocean.<\/p>\n\n\n\n They had big cargo\nvessels called Gauloi<\/em>, which were wider than the warships and had curved\nand rounded bows and sterns and would have been easier to handle in a swell.\nThey had one massive mainsail and probably weren\u2019t all that fast. They had a\nsteering oar rather than a fixed rudder. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The helmsmen must have been pretty fit fellows!<\/p>\n\n\n\n They would have had no\nproblem sailing such a ship up the Swartkops River. It had a decent depth of\nwater in those days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The fishing must have\nbeen magnificent. Add in natural salt pans, plenty of fresh water and loads of\ngame to hunt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In 1907 the bowling\ngreen next door to the ZRC used to be Mr Stead\u2019s orchard. Perhaps this was\nwhere the Phoenicians grew their fruit and veg.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I have long wondered\nwhether there are any Phoenician artefacts lurking about. <\/p>\n\n\n\n There is a large\nsilver, three-handled mug with a glass bottom at the ZRC, of unknown\nprovenance, much used in the past for drinking Black Velvet (Guinness and\nChampagne) and sometimes for decorating the ceiling with same. But sadly I\nthink it belongs to the time of Queen Victoria.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now that the Club is\ndeserted due to lockdown, and all Villagers are obeying orders and are out of\nsight at home, this might be the time to dig up the bowling green in search of\nrelics! <\/p>\n\n\n\n Finally, enjoy the lockdown\nand please refrain from uxoricide!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"