THE NATAL SOCIETY OFFICE BEARERS 1987-1988 President
Vice-Presidents Trustees Fellow of the Natal Society Treasurers
Auditors Director Secretary ElectedMembers City Council
Representatives MrM.l.C. Daly H. Lundie S.N. Roberts Prof. C. deB.
Webb M.l.C. Daly ClIr. Miss P.A. Reid S.N. Roberts ClIr. Miss P.A.
Reid Messrs Dix, Boyes and Company Messrs Thornton-Dibb, Van der
Leeuw and Partners Mrs S. S. Wallis P. C. G . McKenzie COUNCIL
M.l.C. Daly (Chairman) S.N. Roberts (Vice-Chairman) Dr F.C.
Friedlander W.G. Anderson Prof. A.M. Barrett T.B. Frost l.M. Deane
Prof. W.R. Guest Prof. C. de B. Webb G.J.M. Smith ClIr. P. C.
Cornell ClIr. N.M. Fuller ClIr. R.L. Gillooly EDITORIAL COMMITTEE
OF NAT ALIA Editor T.B. Frost DrW.H. Bizley M.H.Comrie l.M. Deane
Prof. W.R. Guest MsM.P. Moberly MrsS.P.M.Spencer Missl. Farrer(Hon.
Secretary) Natalia 18 (1988) Copyright Natal Society Foundation
2010Cover Picture Alan Paton at work in his study (Photograph:
Natal Witness) SA ISSN 0085 3674 Printed by The Natal Witness
Printing and Publishing Company (Pty) Lld Contents Page EDITORIAL 5
REPRINT Deux Ans A Natal. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . 6 NATAL SOCIETY LECTURE Alan Paton: Often Admired,
Sometimes Criticized, Usually Misunderstood Colin Gardner. . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 ARTICLE
Her Majesty's Loyal and Devoted Trekker Leader: Petrus Lafras Uys
fan S. Uys . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . 30 ARTICLE Commercial Coal-mining in Natal: A
Centennial Appraisal Bill Guest. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 ARTICLE The Natal Society
Museum (1851-1904): Potentialities and Problems Shirley Brooks. . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
ARTICLE Italians in Pietermaritzburg George Candy. . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70 ARTICLE Planning
and Planners -Issues to be Addressed in the NatallKwaZulu Region P.
S. Robinson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . 80 OBITUARIES John Clark . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91 Alphaeus Hamilton Zulu
....................... 93 Christoffel (Stoffel) Johannes Michael
Nienaber . . . 96 NOTES AND QUERIES Moray Comrie
................................ 99 BOOK REVIEWS AND NOTICES. 119
SELECT LIST OF RECENT NATAL PUBLICATIONS. 126 REGISTER OF RESEARCH
ON NATAL..................... 127 5 Editorial There has been a
distinct tendency, in the media at any rate, to link history with
the arbitrary clockwork of the calendar. Thus anniversaries of
events 500, 400, 300, 200, 100 or 50 years ago are deemed worthy of
celebration; those of 501, 401, 301, 201, 101, or 51 are not. In
fact, anniversaries in terms of prime numbers - 509,419,307, 127,
73 or whatever- might be more interesting to mathematicians and no
less interesting to ordinary mortals, though perhaps more difficult
to remember. Certainly 1988 has been defined in terms of other
years, none of which has any particular connection with the
present: 1588 (the Spanish Armada), 1688 (the 'Glorious'
Revolution), 1788 (white settlement in Australia), 1888 (the Jack
the Ripper murders) and 1938 (Hitler's Anschluss or the
establishment of the Dried Fruit Board - take your pick!) In Natal
we have had commemorations of Bartholomew Dias (1488) and the
Huguenots (1688) - neither of direct significance to this Province,
but dutifully celebrated as declared National Festivals - as well
as the Great Trek and the establishment of Pietermaritzburg (1838).
Any jollifications to mark the latter have been understandably
subdued in the light of the tragic 'unrest' which continues to sear
and scar the city's surrounding townships. Posterity will almost
certainly judge the most enduring monument to the sesquicentennial
to be Pietermaritzburg 1838-1988: A New Portrait of an African City
published jointly by Messrs Shuter & Shooter and the University
of Natal Press. Several members of the Natalia Editorial Board were
among its seventy contributors and Ms Margery Moberly, as head of
the University Press, the driving force behind its production.
Natalia 18 pays only partial attention to fashionable
anniversaries. lan Uys, historian of the Uys family, casts a
questioning light on some traditional Trekker hagiography in the
article we publish to mark the 150th anniversary of the Great Trek,
while Bill Guest sets the scene for the 1989 centenary of
commercial coal mining in Natal. For the rest, the articles on the
Natal Museum, the Italians in Pietermaritzburg, and Planning in
Natal are unrelated to anniversaries - and no less interesting for
that. Undoubtedly the most distinguished Natalian to die during the
year was Alan Paton, whose life we commemorate not with the usual
obituary, but by the publication of the annual Natal Society
Lecture - 'Alan Paton: often admired, sometimes criticized, usually
misunderstood' - delivered by Professor Colin Gardner. But Natal
has lost other sons and daughters - Bishop Alphaeus Zulu, Dr A.D.
Lazarus, Professor C.J. Nienaber, Professor Jill Nattrass, Mr
Douglas Mitchell- whose passing has impoverished us all. We regret
not being able to publish obituaries of all of them due to the
failure to produce copy timeously by people who were asked to
write. A more personal loss to members of the Editorial Board was
the death, after a long illness, of Dr John Clark, a former Editor
of Natalia. His irrepressible zest for life has made his departure
like the extinction of a light. My thanks go to all those who have
contributed obituaries as well as articles, book reviews, notes or
queries to this edition of Natalia, and not least to my colleagues
on the Editorial Board without whose untiring efforts the journal
could not possibly continue to appear. T.B. FROST 6 Deux Ans ANatal
The Reminiscences ofa Traveller by M. Bourbon translated by Fleur
Webb Let schoolmasters puzzle their brain With grammar and nonsense
and learning, Good liquor, I stoutly maintain, Gives genius a
better discerning. So wrote Oliver Goldsmith in She SlOOpS to
Conquer. It is our hope that some genius, whether sustained by
learning or by liquor or by both, will help solve the puzzle of the
little piece of midnineteenth century Nalalialla which we publish
in three parts in this and the next two issues of Natalia. Items in
the French language about colonial Natal are rare. In this
instance, to the charm of rarity is added the fascination of
mystery. The little book which we are serialising in English
translation appeared first in French in 1850. Written by M.
Bourbon, and published in Mauritius, it went out into the world
under the title Deux Ails aNatal: Souvenirs d'un Voyageur. But,
anyone who reads Deux Ans will soon find grounds for wondering
whether M. Bourbon, in fact, ever visited the colony, let alone
spent two years there. If he did, why is his text so littered with
inaccuracies? Does his book, as the title suggests, consist of the
'souvenirs' of a traveller in the real world, or is it made up of
the 'souvenirs' of a well-informed savant with a gift for romantic
and whimsical invention? If the latter, what had this savant read
to feed and fatten his creative spirit" One source was certainly A.
Delegorgue's Voyage dans l'Afrique Australe, published in 1847.
Bourbon's account, given in translation in the pages that follow,
of a herd of elephants destroying an African village at the head of
the bay at Port Natal is, in the original French, almost word for
word a transcription of a similar story on pp. 100--1 of volume 1
of Delegorgue's Vovage; and there are other passages in Deux Ans
which clearly have a similar derivation. But is it adequate, or
fair for that matter, to categorize Bourbon simply as a plagiarist"
Large parts of the book are reasonably accurate, and cannot be
shown to lean on any prior source. At least one passage (an
allusion to colonial Natal's labour 'problem' and the probable
future need for imported Indian labour) is prescient in a way that
suggests first-hand knowledge of conditions in the colony.
Alongside these passages are others which, while they appear to be
factual, are tantalisingly non-specific (e.g. the reference, which
can be found in the pages below, to the merchant who became'a kind
of honorary French consul'). And alongside these, in turn, are
still others, which appear to be neither derivative nor factual,
but simply the products of a fertile imagination. What, for
example, does one make of the star-crossed lovers - Natal's own
Pyramis 7 Deux Ans cl Natal and Thisbe - whose heart-rending story
is told in this first part of Deux Ans? Did they really exist? And
if they did, who were they, and when did they come to Natal? So the
questions can be stacked up. But underlying them all are the prime
questions: Who was M. Bourbon? What was the course of his career?
And, when, if ever, did he visit Natal') Only one person has so far
been able to produce information with any bearing on those
questions. That is the distinguished Africana expert and historian,
Or. Frank Bradlow, who has gathered together a number of obituary
notices relating to the death in Mauritius in September 1881, of a
much-loved and revered educationist and journalist, M. M. Bourbon,
who 'lived his life with gallic zest', and was renowned for his wit
and eloquence. (Mauritius Argus, 19 September 11\81.) Those
obituary notices are a start - but possibly, of course, a false
start! Not one of them. in the biographical information which it
carries, makes any allusion to a sojourn in Natal. Can anyone else,
therefore. contribute to untangling the Deux Ans puzzle? C.deB.
WEBB In September 1847, as I was leaving the 'dark and
inhospitable' shores of Bourbon (to quote the rather severe
expression of Commander Laplace) for the 'lovely friendly island'
of Mauritius, I chanced to encounter on board a passenger who told
me so much of the wonders of Natal, that I resolved forthwith to
accompany him on a visit to that African California, Upon
disembarking at Port Louis, I hastily gathered together a small
supply of goods suitable for trading: blue cloth, knives, scissors,
mirrors, etc. Although I had not much, it was more than enough, I
was told, to offer in exchange for a magnificent herd of oxen, to
settle down in princely fashion in Natal, and to lead the
patriarchal life of a great rich farmer. I lived for two years in
Natal. I am far from having made my fortune, but at least my
experiences might prove useful to others who intend making the same
journey and who will perhaps be more fortunate than I was. As you
know, Natal (the coast of Natal) extends from the Bay of
LorenzoMarquez to the Keis-Kamma river, the eastern limit of the
Cape Colony. The name derives from its discovery by the Portuguese
on Christmas Day 1497. In 1824 the English founded a little
settlement at Port Natal which was soon abandoned. Then came a
great number of Dutch families from the Cape, seeking to escape
from English domination. But several years ago the Dutch were
expelled, and Port Natal today is under British rule. There is no
port at Port Natal, although there is a fine roadstead protected by
a bar about 150 feet wide which is not without danger to the larger
vessels. As we came in, I saw the wreckage of two handsome French
three-masters which had run aground as they attempted the crossing.
The population of Natal has increased considerably of late. Almost
daily one sees ships arriving from England laden with immigrants,
numbering eight or nine hundred a month. The principal town,
Pietermarisbourg, boasts a population of no fewer than 10 000
Europeans. It is the seat of government. They have there
doublestoreyed houses, most of which are built of locally made
bricks, with roofs of slate. The streets are wide and well laid,
but not yet macadamised. Three miles from Port Natal, where we
disembarked, stands another, much less important town named Urban
where the inhabitants number barely 1500. The streets of Urban are
obstructed by heaps of sand which render them almost impassable.
The place called Port Natal is not even a village. There is not
much to be found there apart from the customs offices and a few
scattered huts. The native population of the two towns, or rather
settlements, for they do 8 Deux Ans aNatal not yet deserve the name
of town, is not numerous and appears unlikely to increase in the
near future. The Cafres have few needs and do not easily accept the
domesticated state. It is interesting to note that one does not
encounter a single Cafresse or Caffrine (whichever you choose to
call them)hence no maid-servants! The population of Natal is
therefore almost entirely white. There are English in great
numbers, Germans, a few Dutch still, and very, very few French. I
met a Belgian in Urban, who was engaged in a number of minor,
rather lucrative trading ventures. He was at one and the same time,
a wholesale dealer and a retail seller of land in both town and
country, a provision merchant, a vendor of tiger skins and exotic
as well as indigenous goods, and finally a kind of honorary French
consul. Many people in Mauritius speak of Natal as an Eldorado, a
sort of promised land where it suffices simply to set foot in order
to make a rapid fortune. To avoid disappointment and
misunderstanding, I should explain the situation. In Natal, as in
all the countries of the world, money makes money. If one has
nothing, one acquires nothing. If a man wishes to amass even a
modest amount of money, he must arrive in Natal with some sort of
capital, a sum round enough to enable him to buy a substantial
number of acres, to clear the land, to purchase agricultural
implements, to pay farm labourers, to fill the pastures with herds
and, finally, to build a house if he does not wish to sleep under
the stars. Admittedly, the government sells the land cheaply, a
shilling an acre out of town. One could hardly do better. The lots
are six thousand acres, no more, no less, for six thousand
shillings (1500 piasters). One pays a fixed price, as one does for
little pies - 6 000 acres for 1 500 piasters - it is almost a gift.
But not all acres are the same. As there are as yet no surveyors in
Natal, do you know how land is measured? You take a horse, a good
trotter, and you put on its back a Cafre, trained for the task, who
trots for half an hour in a straight line (as far as is possible)
from north to south, then for another half hour from east to west.
You place a stake at the furthest limits, and you are told: 'There
are your 6 000 acres-take them and pay up!' These 6000 acres are
usually virgin soil and wooded, so you have to clear them, then
plough them, then sow them; in fact make them productive. And to do
this what do you need? Hands, money, more money, and still more
moneyl And even with money, if you have it, where do you find the
labour? You cannot rely on the Cafres who are a pastoral people,
and not agriculturists at all. Where will you find workers? In
India perhaps - later. You need a house, unless you carry it with
you ready-made, like a snail, or, like some of the immigrants, have
it built at great cost by the speculators, who watch out for the
new arrivals, as a cat watches out for a mouse. The Cafre who is
satisfied with boiled or roasted maize, lives very cheaply, but the
man who is accustomed to live after another fashion, who relies on
a well-stocked bazaar for his regular meals, may be caught unawares
and forced to content himself with things which formerly he would
have disdained. These 6000 acres are thus worthless, even with
sufficient capital to exploit them, and one can make no profit from
them as things stand. Doubtless (and this is the reckoning of the
more patient and wise) the land must increase in value with time
and the growing number of immigrants. The present owners will be
able to divide up the land and sell, for five or ten shillings,
that for which they paid only a shilling. (This is already
happening on 9 Deux Ans aNatal the outskirts of the towns.) But one
must be prepared to fold one's arms and wait for such
opportunities. In fact one must be young and ready to sacrifice the
present for the future. Many times have I attempted to console
disappointed immigrants, and I must admit that this distant future
of which I tried to give them a glimpse, appeared to them rather
dark and disquieting. They continued to be concerned with the
difficulties of the moment. As I see it, the only possible industry
in Natal today is cattle-breeding. Oxen are sold very cheaply - for
next to nothing, if one is able to go into the interior to buy
them. Pasturage is rich and abundant and the Cafres, who know no
other trade, eagerly offer their services in return for one or two
shillings a month, with or without food. Ten miles from Port Natal
I met a man well-known in Mauritius, who, under a charge of bigamy,
married for a third time (so they say) to escape from the severity
of the English law which, as everyone knows, does not punish
trigamy at all, although bigamy is a capital offence. This man,
whom I will not name, arrived in N ata! with the first immigrants
and, in return for 6000 shillings, became the owner of 6000 acres
of more or less arable land. Today (that is to say four or five
years later) this same property, not yet cleared, but enhanced by a
fine house, extensive outbuildings and huge cattle paddocks, is
valued at 20000 p., not including the numerous herds which are
fattening at no cost in the pastures, and which represent a
considerable asset. It is generally reckoned that cattle sent to
Port Natal in the condition required for export are worth a minimum
of fifteen pi asters a head. The milk of the cows is made into
butter which is salted for export and even for consumption inland;
the remainder serves to maintain a profitable piggery. A few
Cafres, for the moderate remuneration I have already mentioned will
herd the cattle, milk the cows, etc. In the towns, income is
derived quite differently. One buys, or rather, one used to buy
(for at present the prices are higher) an acre for eight or ten
shillings. On this land one builds, after a fashion, little houses
which one then rents out to new immigrants at a price! Even greater
profits are made by those who keep furnished lodgings (heaven knows
in what manner they are furnished) for the use of those who come to
take the air of the country and to seek their fortunes. This
speculation is not without profit, as many people have in less than
six months (I cannot claim that their gains were strictly lawful)
found the means not necessarily of enriching themselves, but of
operating on a larger scale and of making even bigger profits due
to the greater number of victims to be exploited. There is little
or no trade. A few rare provision merchants sell, for their weight
in gold, the tinned goods from their trader's packs, adulterated
wine and spoiled brandy and liqueurs. I believe that a well-stocked
shop would attract many customers in either of the towns and would
make a fine profit. But in a country where luxury is not yet known,
and where even the basic necessities are lacking, it would be folly
to contemplate importing fancy goods and opening an expansive
business of the sort that flourishes in Port Louis, where the wise
man may join the philosopher of old in crying: 'What a lot of
things I do not need' . The Cafres, by inclination, and the
immigrants, from necessity, are great philosophers of this sort.
Both are satisfied with the bare necessities by way of outward
ornament. Fashionable dressmakers and tailors would waste their
time and trouble here. 10 Deux Ans if Natal I have heard, since I
left, of a young pastry-cook, well-known in Mauritius, where his
little cakes were all the rage, who has not found it possible to
produce a single little pastry in Natal. He tells all who will hear
him that he cooked his goose by leaving Port Louis for Urban, where
threequarters of the houses are simply little huts, whose only
aperture is a miniature door, in which immigrants are obliged to
lodge for a rent of five piasters a month. In such a hovel, where
one can only breathe by putting one's nose out of the door, how
would it be possible to produce those culinary wonders which are
the delight of gastronomes and the glory of civilized
dinner-tables? A strange thing! There are no doctors in Natal. I
shall not presume to say it is for that reason that there are no
invalids; one must not quarrel with the profession. The climate has
something to do with it; a real Italian climate. Moreover one lives
very soberly - of necessity it is true, but what matter? Sobriety
is the mother of health, and I fear for the doctors and the
druggists that this state of affairs will continue for a long time.
Lawyers are also unknown here. What a fortunate land, says some
poor litigant whose resources have been drained by legal fees.
There is no police force either, not the shadow of a policeman on
the beat. Who patrols the streets then? I will tell you, for I have
not yet enumerated all the delights of Natal. The Cafres are not
the only indigenous inhabitants. There are present also in great
numbers, lions, hyaenas, wolves, tiger-cats and cl host of other
quadrupeds which are very interesting to observe in a menagerie,
well barricaded behind a good iron cage, but which one hardly
wishes to meet face to face at a turning in the forest or at the
corner of a street. These animals, whose ferocity varies according
to the state of their appetites, never come out during the day.
This is very considerate of them since they have the right to do as
they please. But at night it is a different matter. Hardly has the
sun set, when they sneak into the town and sniff at the doors which
the townspeople, knowing their habits, are careful to keep well
closed. And, let the unfortunate late-corner take heed, whether he
be delayed by business or a lover's tryst. A hundred to one he will
not return home. The night-watch of this new kind of police force
is very effective. You will realise then that theft and nocturnal
adventures are rare in Natal. There are also snakes in great
numbers. Following the advice given me on my arrival, I cannot
recall ever going to bed without having inspected carefully all the
nooks and crannies of my room and even my bedding - for that is
their preferred hiding place - to assure myself that I was not
harbouring one of these dangerous guests. I do not claim to be
brave like the Bayards and the Chevaliers d'Assas, but I am not a
coward. I confess, however, that I shall never forget how I was
frightened one day by a gigantic boa. I still shudder at the
thought. At that time I was living in the country, ten miles from
Urban. I was on a visit to one of my neighbours who was showing me
his nursery of cotton, olive, and orange plants etc. As we returned
to the house, I walked ahead into the sitting-room. Suddenly I saw,
only three paces in front of me, a huge snake rearing up with its
mouth wide open, hissing, and ready to dart forward and entwine me
in its sinuous coils like a latter-day Laocoon. I was frozen to the
spot and would have been done for, had it not been for the presence
of mind of my host who was following behind me. Suspecting that
something was amiss, he pushed me aside, closed the door and called
his servants who made short 11 Deux Ans aNatal work of the terrible
visitor. Do I need to add that, in spite of the repeated
invitations of my neighbour, my first visit was also my last? After
the snakes, the tigers and the hyaenas, to talk of locusts is
something of an anti-climax. Locusts are, however, along with the
flooding of the rivers and the great rains, one of the most
terrible scourges of agriculture in Natal. They come in their
thousands, casting a shadow across the sun, and settle on the
planted fields, which they ravage and destroy in a moment - it is
worse than an Algerian Arab raid. Talking of wild animals, may I,
in passing, tell you the little story that was the topic of every
conversation when I arrived in Natal, and which recalls the legend
of Pyramis and Thisbe. It was just like that story of ancient
times. On the banks of the Ouse, not far from the city of York,
lived a young girl of noble birth and a handsome young plebeian
whom chance, or some powerful deity, had thrust together to their
mutual misfortune. They loved each other tenderly, but the noble
lords whose Gothic towers looked down on the fertile plains of that
country, did not intend that an improper alliance should tarnish
their bright escutcheon. Rendered desperate by the obstacles placed
between them, and resolute in their determination to be together,
whatever the cost, the two lovers agreed to abandon a cruel
motherland, where happiness was denied them, and to go to some far
country to seek the fulfilment they dreamed of. The name of Natal
reached their ears. They heard this land described as a new Eden,
free as it was of the vices and the prejudices of civilization, and
they thought that they could do no better than to settle on those
distant shores, blessed by Heaven and the African sun. They set
off, taking with them an aged relative who was to serve as a mother
to the young and inexperienced girl. After an uneventful voyage
which I shall not describe, their ship cast anchor off the coast of
their dreams, which our travellers greeted with a cry of hope.
Disillusionment met them as soon as they set foot ashore. This
land, which they had pictured as green and pleasant, appeared
lonely and arid; the mirage had vanished and only the desert
remained. However, in spite of the difficulties and the various
disappointments which they had to endure, they were far from being
unhappy; at least they suffered together. At some little distance
from the town (for they did not wish to shut themselves up between
walls which reminded them of Europe) two humble huts, like those of
ancient times, became their temporary abode. There they were to
wait until a holy minister should bless this union for which no
sacrifice was too great. In one of the huts huddled the scion of a
noble line, together with her discreet companion, while in the
other, situated a mile away for the sake of propriety, lodged the
amorous abductor. They met each day and charmed the sorrows of the
present hour with hopes of future happiness. One evening their
conversation was more than usually prolonged. The moment they
longed for was not far off and they felt they brought it nearer
still each time they talked together of their plans for the future.
Immediately after their marriage they were to leave Natal and
return to England where they were to try and soften the hearts of
their austere relations to receive them favourably like two
prodigal children who had been punished and were repentant. It was
midnight when they parted. The sky was dark and from the plain
below there arose dull grunts, stifled murmurs, distant threats,
which at this late hour would have frightened all but the most
ardent lovers. 12 Deux Ans cl Natal The next day, the young girl
and her female companion waited, waited a long time; 'But only the
Cafre from the valley Disturbed with the sound of his footsteps ...
' the silence of their isolated hut. At the hour when the sun dips
towards the western mountains, unable to continue in this terrible
uncertainty, her heart heavy with dire forboding, our Thisbe came
from her humble cabin and set off in the direction of the dwelling
where, she hoped still, her beloved was detained by some
indisposition. She walked on, she entered the forest where the
shadows were lengthening. Suddenly, at the foot of a tree, which
must have been a mulberry, she saw ... Those of you who have been
moved by the misfortunes of our lovers, read no more. She saw some
shapeless remains, bloody tatters, and lying beside the mutilated
hat of the one she was to see no more, her own portrait which she
had given him as a love token. This was all that the panthers had
left. At this deadly sight, cold and stilL the poor wretch shed no
tear. She uttered one cry; then smiling, she turned and took the
road back to her hut: she had lost her reason. We will not tell you
the names of the principal actors in this sad story; what good
would it do you to know them') But if you wish to see one who was
once so loving, so weak, so imprudent and so unfortunate, go to
Bedlam and, if you can make yourself understood, they will show her
to you. They tell in Natal of many other adventures which, although
less poetical and romantic than this one, are nevertheless full of
local colour and are not lacking in interest for the keen observer
of human nature. 1 met many times in the little town of Urban,
where I often went on business, a butcher whose pitted and scarred
face was horrible to behold and who himself told me the cause of
the terrible mutilation of which he was the sad victim. 'I was one
day,' he told me, 'far out in the country hunting, when suddenly a
panther appeared before me. What was 1 to do? To take flight was
out of the question, for in two bounds my terrible adversary would
have leapt upon me and brought me to the ground. 1 decided on what
seemed the wise course, though it proved to be otherwise. I took
aim at almost point-blank range and my bullet struck him right in
the forehead. The wounded animal rushed furiously at me, sank his
claws into my face and died without relaxing his hold. My
companions, attracted by my cries, came running immediately and had
all the difficulty in the world freeing me from my terrible enemy,
dead though he was. They carried me home, more dead than alive,
although I had not lost consciousness for a minute. The bones of my
face were crushed as though in a vice and blood gushed everywhere.
A whole year of treatment was not sufficient to heal my wounds, so
you see I had a narrow escape.' This man was awful to look upon;
his face was hardly human: it was a frightening mask. Well, this
man, in spite of his terrible lesson, went hunting again as
frequently as before, and as far from the town as ever. Apart from
the unpleasantness of meeting with a panther or a hyaena, which is
rare before nightfall, Natal is a real hunter's paradise. Anyhow,
hunting is the only possible diversion, and the best way of
employing one's time. The famous Egyptian ibis swarms there; the
red partridge and other birds are so numerous and so trusting, that
they virtually offer themselves to the murderous bullets. Quails,
larks, woodpigeons, turtle-doves are at the 13 Deux Ans aNatal
mercy of even the most inexperienced hunter. Their numbers are so
great that even the clumsiest shot cannot fail. 1 know what 1 am
talking about for in France, however hard I tried, 1 was never
successful in killing any game, biped or quadruped, while in Natal,
1 counted my victims by the dozen. Notwithstanding the remorse 1
felt at killing inoffensive creatures, who were trusting enough to
come and take maize from the hens in my yard, 1 was not sorry to
leave the inevitable piece of beef to my Cafres and to regale
myself from time to time on some red partridge or morsel of
Egyptian ibis, a treat fit for a king. But hunters worthy of the
name find no enjoyment in such small game. They require quarry of
another kind, and excitement at any price. They would willingly go
out at night, if they were not afraid of being treacherously
attacked, and confront hyaenas and all the other wild animals which
hide away during the daylight hours. 1 can assure you that 1 have
never had any such inclinations, but I have known in Natal so many
intrepid and experienced hunters that 1 can understand, after all 1
have seen and heard, this passion for hunting carried to the extent
even of risking one's life. Now take lion hunting for example, many
of my readers would not care for it 1 wager. Well, I have seen (it
must be seen to be believed), 1 have seen hunters who, for reasons
of serious indisposition, have been unable to participate in the
hunt, and who have almost wept with despair. In such circumstances,
1 would soon have been consoled, and yet 1 took pleasure in stories
of these adventures, where hardship doubtless outweighed enjoyment,
but where danger doubled the price of victory . 1 knew intimately
one of these intrepid lion hunters. I can still hear him telling me
of his first success. He was a worthy Hollander, not by nature a
braggart, and one whose reputation had long since been made in the
land. '1 was,' he told me, 'still a child, entrusted to watch over
my father's horses, when 1 saw a lion and a lioness prowling about,
waiting for a favourable moment to seize their prey. I was unarmed
but, as our wagons were not far off, I went to look for the gun
which my father, who was absent, always kept loaded. Half an hour
later, the lion was lying dead with a bullet through his head. This
early success encouraged me, and since that time, whenever anyone
wishes to be rid of dangerous neighbours, they call on me.' They
tell me that this man, who must have been about fifty at the time,
had killed more than 300 lions in his lifetime. He went lion
hunting as others might go to the theatre or to a ball for the
pleasure of it, and not in order to sell the skins, which are only
worth ten or twelve pi asters in Natal. He gave me some very
interesting information about the habits of the king of beasts: the
lion, taken unawares, flees at the approach of a man, a child or
even a dog. But beware the hunter who would come between him and
his prey! The lion will share with no one, and if there is a
confrontation, one of the contenders is sure to be killed. The
proof that this noble beast is full of generosity, if not of
disdain, towards man, is that he rarely kills the hunter who has
wounded him and whom he has at his mercy. His revenge is limited to
a few bites which leave deep memories, it is true, but which do not
kill. They tell in Natal of one of these intrepid hunters who, in
seven years, twice found himself beneath the claws of a, wounded
lion. All that happened was that he had a bad fright, a few broken
limbs, and some deep imprints of teeth and claws. The Cafres, armed
only with the assegai, go lion hunting on horseback, not in order
to make a more rapid escape after the attack, but to leave behind
14 Deux Ans cl Natal them a prey for the lion, which enjoys a
substitute revenge and forgets the real culprit as he attacks the
innocent victim. These people, whom we call savages, have invented
another ingenious method of ridding themselves of the dangerous
intruders which threaten their herds. They never attack them as
civilized hunters do, for the sole pleasure of killing and boasting
of it later, but simply to protect their possessions in legitimate
defence. At about ten or eleven at night, fifteen or twenty of them
gather round a dead ox, which the lion had attacked the previous
evening, and to which he is bound to return. For even if one is a
lion, one can hardly eat up a whole ox in less than two meals. The
lion arrives at the appointed hour; his majesty eats when he
pleases. Then one of the Cafres, the bravest among the brave,
protected by a great shield of buffalo hide, thick and tough and
concave in shape, approaches his terrible adversary and casts his
assegai. The lion starts up and leaps at his attacker who, falling
flat on the ground, covers himself with his shield. The furious
animal roars and attempts to tear with his teeth and claws the
upper surface of the shield, which resists all his efforts. As he
returns to the attack with increased strength and fury, he is
encircled by a band of armed men who are watching for their
opportunity. He is attacked and stabbed by twenty or even a hundred
assegais. He thinks that the man he holds pinned beneath him is
responsible and attacks him relentlessly while his strength lasts.
But soon the lion grows weak and falls beside the Cafre under the
shield, who emerges only when the king of beasts shows no further
sign of life. I could tell you also of hunting hippopotamus,
buffalo and crocodiles, etc., but after having heard of the lion
you would not be impressed. I shall make an exception in the case
of the elephant, who deserves this favour. If the lion is king of
the beasts, the elephant is the giant. This is the story I was told
the very day I arrived in Natal. A herd of elephants (for these
animals always move in herds of 15, 20 and sometimes even, in the
interior, of 80 or 100), well, a herd of 5 or 6 elephants, a kind
of vanguard probably, had crossed the upper regions of the bay
during the night, and had advanced across a farmer's lands, along a
pathway that leads into the forest and up a hill. At the end of the
path stood a mouzi (Cafre village) composed of a dozen inhabited
huts which were unfortunately not protected by the hedge of dry
thorns. The first elephant crushed one of these huts, probably
unintentionally. Upon hearing the cries of the startled
inhabitants, the colossus fled. Those following him did the same,
trampling through the mouzi, and crushing huts, animals and people
beneath their feet. I have seen near the bay of Natal, the
footprints of one of these elephants. They were three and a half
feet deep, and wide enough for me to hide in if I needed to. But
there is scarcely any elephant hunting in the territory of Natal as
such. It is only beyond the boundaries, in the interior, which was
formerly Dutch and is now English, that one can have some idea of
this kind of hunt which, according to the accounts of travellers,
surpasses in excitement the hunter's wildest dreams. One must cross
the Tonguela river, the northern boundary of the country of Natal,
venture into the land of the Zoulas, and request a safe conduct of
their dreaded and formidable king, Panda, either to arrange for the
exchange of cattle with his subjects, as I was obliged to do
myself, or to hunt elephants which he himself prizes for their
ivory. Here it becomes necessary, in order to give the reader an
idea of the 15 Deux Ans aNatal customs and usages of these unknown
lands, to enter into some explanation. People have a vague notion,
from reading the Cape newspapers, that the Boers or Dutch farmers,
were driven from Natal by the English bayonets and assegaied by the
Zoulas. But why so much conflict over such wild and desolate lands?
This is what so many people do not understand, and what I myself
would still be ignorant of, had circumstances not brought me to the
spot. It is a sad and bloody story, which I shall tell as briefly
as possible. In 1820 the eastern part of the Cape Colony which was
separated from the country of the Cafres by the Groote-Vish-Rivier,
was left uninhabited by reason of the departure of the Dutch
farmers (Boers) who, to escape from the continual invasions and
pillaging of the Cafres, had moved to the towns. In order to
replace them, new colonists (Settlers) were brought from England in
such numbers that two towns sprang up as if by magic: Port
Elizabeth and Graham's Town. The Boers shortly afterwards returned
to their former dwellings, hoping to live in peace because of the
increase in the population. But the Cafres began their raids again
just as they had in the past. Finally in 1836 the Boers,
complaining of insufficient protection from Sir Benjamin D'Urban,
then governor of the Cape, emigrated once more. They numbered 1 700
men, women and children under the leadership of Pieter Retief, a
man of great simplicity and dauntless courage. 'Let us go beyond
the deserts and seek a new promised land', he told them. Scarcely
had this large nomadic colony crossed the Great River (Oranjie
Rivier) than they were obliged to find grazing for their numerous
herds. A tribal chief, Massilicatzi, a hundred leagues away, sent
10000 men against the Boers, who were taken unawares. However, at
the first cry of alarm, they prepared to defend themselves. The
Boers took up their guns, the women loaded, and the children passed
the bullets. The Cafres, surprised by the resistance, beat a
retreat, taking with them a large proportion ofthe herds; that was
all they wanted. The earth was littered with dead bodies lying all
around the camp. The women had taken part in the combat with the
desperate courage which God has given mothers to protect the lives
of their children. Several were seen to break the heads of men who
attempted to penetrate the enclosure by crawling flat on their
stomachs like snakes. More than 600 Cafres were left dead on the
field. Massilicatzi, hearing of the defeat of his warriors, whom he
believed to be invincible, had several of his men stabbed to death
on their return because they had not obeyed his express orders to
bring back 'ten white women and ten white houses' (Boer tents). In
vain they tried to explain that the emigrant women were not the
sort to allow themselves to be carried off so easily; the assegai
performed its task and all was soon over. One hundred and twenty
leagues away in the south east, another tribal chief, Dingaan,
hearing of the good fortune of his neighbour, and furious not to
have a share in the booty, sent 25000 armed men against him.
Massilicatzi, beaten at the first encounter, was forced to move
further inland, taking with him the remainder of his people and his
numerous herds. Retief, taking advantage of the dispute between the
thieves, made his way towards Natal, where he arrived after seven
days journey. He made his camp on the banks of the limpid Tonguela
and then set off for Port Natal (17 October 1837) where he was
courteously welcomed by a few Englishmen (original settlers) to
whom he confided his intention of requesting an interview with
Dingaan to discover his attitude towards the new immigrants. 16
Deux Ans cl Natal I have before me all the authentic papers
concerning the long and disastrous pilgrimage, and 1 regret that 1
can give here only a short resume of them: the letters of Retief to
Dingaan, the replies of the latter, with a cross instead of a
signature etc. 1 shall quote only, in translation, the address of
the English residents of Port Natal to Pieter Retief: We, the
undersigned inhabitants (original settlers) of Port Natal, hail
with sincere pleasure the arrival of the deputation of emigrant
farmers under Pieter Retief, their governor. We beg that they will
present our good wishes to their constituents, and assure them of
our desire to meet them as friends and eventually as neighbours,
and of our wish that a mutual good understanding may at all times
prevail between us. (Followed by 14 signatures). This paper like
all the others proved that the greatest harmony reigned at that
time between the Boers and the English settlers at Port Natal. On 8
November Retief wrote to Dingaan from Port Natal to thank him for
cattle taken back from Massilicatzi after his defeat. 'That which
has befallen Massilicatzi', he said, 'makes me believe that God
Almighty, who knows all things, will not permit him to live much
longer. God's great book teaches us that kings who behave as he has
done, are severely punished and are not permitted to live and to
reign for long. In friendship, I must tell you the great truth that
all, black or white, who will not hear and believe the word of God,
shall be wretched.' These are certainly good and fine words which,
frankly addressed to a barbarian king, have the charm of
old-fashioned simplicity, and give a good impression of their
author. The postscriptum of this letter deserves to be transcribed
in its entirety. It will give an idea of the kind of war waged by
the Cafres against their neighbours, and of the profit they derive
from it even when they are defeated and driven back with losses. 'I
enclose', adds Retief, at the end of his letter to Dingaan, 'for
the information of the king, an account of those assassinated and
of the cattle stolen by Massilicatzi: 20 white and 26 coloured
persons massacred, including 9 women and 5 children; livestock
stolen from 27 owners; 51 saddle horses, 15 young raising horses,
945 milk cows, 3726 stock cattle, 50745 sheep and goats, 9 guns and
4 wagons.' Retief set off immediately to find Dingaan at
Ungunklunklove, arriving there after five days' journey. Dingaan
would only give him audience on the third day after his arrival.
And when the leader of the immigrants had expressed the wish to
settle south of the Tonguela, Dingaan found a thousand pretexts for
delaying his reply: a great number of his cattle had been stolen
and he was obliged to suspect the Boers as foreigners, etc. But
when Retief promised (a promise which he fulfilled) to bring back
the cattle stolen by others, the king of the Zoulas agreed to sign
the act of cession. Accordingly on 3 February 1838 Retief appeared
for the second time before Dingaan who, the next day, signed the
act of cession with his royal cross in his own hand. On Monday 5th
(a day of mourning for the poor immigrants), Dingaan, who seemed
much preoccupied, came and sat in his great armchair (in the upper
part of the mouzi) with his two principal regiments lined up to
left and right. At the invitation of the chief, Retief entered the
enclosure with his companions who numbered 59, all of them unarmed
as a token of peace. The 17 Deux Ans cl Natal king ordered his
troops to entertain the guests with singing and dancing. Barely a
quarter of an hour later, Dingaan arose, entoning a chant which the
Boers did not understand: it was the sentence of death. On hearing
the chief's voice, the Zoulas fell upon the Boers, bound them, and
dragged them to a hillside close by, where they were tortured and
put to death. The heart and the liver of Retief, wrapped in a piece
of cloth, were carried to Dingaan according to his commands.
Thirsting for blood, these barbarians set off for the wagon
encampment where Retief had left the wives and children of his
unfortunate companions. There the carnage began again with renewed
fury. It is estimated that 347 women and children perished in this
horrible massacre. On 16 December 1838, the Boers under the command
of Pretorius, took a terrible revenge on the barbarians near a
river which has since been named Bloed Rivier (river of blood).
More than 3000 dead were left on the field of battle. On 20th, the
victorious Boers arrived at Dingaan's capital which was a smoking
ruin. The king had fled the day before, leaving the town in flames.
The Boers made their camp on the hill where Retief and his
companions had been massacred. They claim that in a wallet lying
beside the skeleton of their unfortunate leader, they found the act
of cession of Natal to the Boers, with the signatures of the king
and six of his counsellors. Was it to nullify the act of cession,
which he appeared to regret, or simply for the barbarous pleasure
of spilling blood that the king of the Zoulas had, in so cowardly a
manner, assassinated the cream of the immigrants? Nobody knows. Be
that as it may, to conclude the story of the cruel despot: in
January 1840, the Boers undertook a last expedition against him,
which drove him beyond the boundaries of his territory where he was
killed by his neighbours and natural enemies, the Ama-Souazis. Over
and above the death of the tyrant, the prize of this victory was
40000 head of cattle. Panda, his brother, with whom he had long
dealings of bloody strife, was then chosen to assume the royal
heritage and supreme power over all the Zoula tribe, men and
beasts. Panda, according to the Cafres, had incontestable rights to
the succession. Dingaan, who had assassinated one of his brothers,
Djacka, in order to become king, wished also to be rid of Panda,
who bore him a grudge. The latter lived in princely fashion near
the Omatagoulou river, not far to the north of the Tonguela.
Dingaan sent for him. Panda refused to obey, and sought refuge in
the territory of the Boers, requesting their assistance against
Dingaan: he preached to the converted. In May 1842, following a
vain attempt three years earlier, the Governor of the Cape, with
the intention of bringing about an end to the hostilities between
the Boers and the Cafres, sent to Natal 250 troops with 60 wagons
drawn by 600 oxen, and accompanied by 250 Cafre servants under the
command of Captain Smith, who took the title of Commander of Natal
in the n3Jlle of Queen Victoria. The Boer leader, Pretorius,
refused to recognise him and, strengthened by fresh reinforcements,
he called on Captain Smith to leave Natal with his troops and to
abandon arms and ammunition. In reply, Captain Smith prepared to
begin hostilities. Soon afterwards, a few canon shots were fired by
each side, and several skirmishes took place between the English
troops and the Boers, without any decisive result, until the day
(25 June) when the English frigate, the Southampton, cast anchor at
Port Natal. 18 Deux Ans aNatal The disembarkation was effected in
twenty minutes, and LieutenantColonel Cloete had no difficulty in
meeting up with the forces of Captain Smith, whose position was
beginning to give cause for anxiety. The Boers, who numbered 600,
saw that all was lost, and abandoned their camp the same day. They
withdrew six leagues from Port Natal, from which position they
began negotiations with Lieutenant-Colonel Cloete. On 15 July, the
Boers signed the act of submission, which is here literally
translated: Pietersmaritzburg, 15th July 1842. We, the undersigned,
duly authorised by the immigrant farmers of Pietersmaritzburg,
Natal, and the adjoining land, present on their behalf our solemn
declaration of submission to Her Majesty the Queen of England, and,
in addition, we accept the following conditions which have been
imposed on us: 1. The immediate return of all military and civil
prisoners. 2. The surrender of all canons under our command. 3. The
restitution of all property, public or private, in our possession,
confiscated by us for our profit. (Followed by the signatures ofthe
President and members ofthe Council.) In consequence, a general
amnesty was granted to the Boers, with the exception of four of the
principal leaders who had a price put on their heads (1 000). But
none of them suffered the fate of Joseph who was betrayed by his
brothers. This, then, is a short account of the history of the
colony of Natal up until the day of the Proclamation of the
apprehension ofpersons exempted from the amnesty by Sir George
Thomas Napier. From that time, the Boers, determined in their
resolution to remove themselves from the domination of the English
authorities at the Cape, withdrew further into the interior, where
their numbers increased due to the arrival of great numbers of
Dutch immigrants and where, free and independent, they led the
patriarchal and quasi-phalangist life which they had won by so much
sacrifice. (To be continued) 19 The Natal Society Annual Lecture
Wednesday, 10 A ugust 1988 Alan Paton: Often Admired, Sometimes
Criticized, Usually Misunderstood My title may seem a little
aggressive, perhaps even rather arrogant. Who am I to say whether
Alan Paton has been misunderstood or not? Who indeed is anybody to
make statements on this matter? Until a few months ago one could
find out something about the real aims and views of Alan Paton by
asking the man himself. Of course literary and social critics are
always a little wary of the views of writers about their own works,
especially when those works were written some years previously.
Writers (like other people) sometimes forget what was in their
minds when they wrote something, or perhaps their views and
attitudes change and they deny that they meant this or that, or -
subtlest of all, but not uncommonfor one reason or another they
weren't fully aware even at the time of the implications of what
they were saying. Indeed there are some contemporary critics who
would regard a writer's views of his or her own works as being
significant only because they provide a pointer towards the
writer's lack of self-knowledge, and (the argument goes) it is that
area - that area of blindness, of tell-tale revelation -that
criticism can most usefully focus on. Whatever use one would wish
to make of a writer's statements, however whether paradoxical or
not - the sad fact is that we can no longer consult Alan Paton when
we are thinking either of his life or of his works. He has gone
from us. We are left on our own. In fact one could say of Alan
Paton what W.H. Auden said in his poem on the death of the great
poet W. B. Yeats: But for him it was his last afternoon as himself,
An afternoon of nurses and rumours; The provinces of his body
revolted, The squares of his mind were empty, Silence invaded the
suburbs, The current of his feeling failed; he became his admirers.
Now he is scattered among a hundred cities And wholly given over to
unfamiliar affections, To find his happiness in another kind of
wood And be punished under a foreign code of conscience. The words
of a dead man Are modified in the guts of the living. 20 AlanPaton
Perhaps one needs to adjust Auden's statements a little. When a
writer dies he becomes not only his admirers, but also his critics,
his detractors - and those who find themselves somewhere in
between. But on the other hand certainly in the case of Paton - if
his words are 'modified in the guts of the living' (as of course
they must be), at least he doesn't yet need to be 'wholly given
over to unfamiliar affections'. Many of those who respond to him
and to his work are the sort of people he knew quite well; some of
them, indeed, are people he knew personally. What is happening now,
then, inevitably, is that - whether they realize it or not -
different people, different groups of people, are creating their
own Paton, their own image of Paton, while insisting of course, as
must always happen, that their Paton, their image of the man and
his works, is the authentic one. And what I intend to do in this
address is to join in this process, recognising (at least to some
extent) what I am doing. I shall offer some features of my Paton,
my image of Paton, and I shall criticize some of the views held by
others. Of course I believe my image to be the true one, or at
least a true one, or I wouldn't be speaking at all. But at the same
time I must concede that my view can't help being my own. And since
my view can't help being my own, I think it would be reasonable for
me to say just a little about myself and my relationship with Alan
Paton if only to put you on your guard! No, not just for that
reason: I hope any snatch of the Paton life-story, told from a
slightly different angle, is of some interest. Like so many other
people, I was bowled over by Cry, the Beloved Country when I first
read it, as a schoolboy. I think I later joined the Liberal Party
in response quite as much to the main thrust of Paton's novel as to
the slightly dry abstract principles of the Party. And it was
through the Liberal Party, in the early 1960s, that I got to know
him. A little later, a group of us from Maritzburg (one of whom was
Edgar Brookes, another was Marie Dyer) used to drive down along the
single carriageway road to monthly committee meetings at Alan
Paton's house, which was then in Kloof. I remember particularly the
dark days from 1963 and 1964 onwards, when so many members of the
Party had been banned: Peter Brown, Elliot Mngadi, Christopher
Tshabalala, John Aitchison, almost all the notable members. Alan
himself would certainly have been banned if he hadn't been so
eminent (his passport had been taken away). So probably would
Edgar. At our meetings Alan's sharpness, his wisdom and his wit
helped to keep us going. In 1968 the Liberal Party was forced out
of existence by the piece of legislation with the fantastic name of
the Improper Interference Act. But the intellectual life of the
Party continued, to some extent, in the journal Reality -which is
still going strong, I may add, and has just a few days ago brought
out Vol. 20 No. 4, which consists of a series of articles on Alan
Paton. Alan and I were members of the founding editorial board. As
the months went by, different members of the board reacted in
slightly different ways - as was inevitable - to new developments
in political thinking and strategy; and in 1972 several members, of
whom I was one, felt that, in order to keep in the mainstream of
current opposition thinking, the subtitle of Reality should be
changed from 'A Journal of Liberal Opinion' to 'A Journal of
Liberal and Radical Opinion'. Alan who was the chairman of the
editorial board, was not very happy with this proposal; but our
view prevailed. I wrote the editorial for 21 AlanPaton the
following number, the one for November 1972, and among other things
I said: The editorial board hopes that each issue will bring out
many of the ways in which liberalism and radicalism coincide or
merge into one another. The board is also aware, however, that
there are some tensions between liberal and radical viewpoints: we
hope that the journal will reflect these in an honest and fruitful
manner . Any valid political attitude needs to be constantly
evolving in order to meet a changing situation, and at the same
time constantly in touch with the past and with its underlying
values . Alan Paton usually produced a dour expression for
photographers. Not this time! (Photograph: Natal Witness) 22
AlanPaton Alan remained humorously a bit sceptical, and was from
that moment convinced, I think, that Gardner and a few others had
dangerously left-wing tendencies. In the following issue of
Reality, however, there appeared a little poem, signed A.P., which
went like this: Sometimes I was a glad lib Sometimes I was a sad
lib No more I'll be a bad lib For now I am a rad lib. I never was a
mad rad I would have made a bad rad Although I hate the glib rad
Myself! am now a lib rad. Lib now takes its sabbatical But I'll not
be fanatical I shall remain pragmatical Though I am now a radical.
No more I'll lie and fiberal Nor talk a lot of gibberal Nor will I
quake and quibberal I now am a rad liberal. I really now have had
lib Now I am a rad lib I pledge to the new REALITY My firm and true
feality. It was a humorous conclusion, but a gracious one too. I
don't want to give the impression that Alan Paton was suspicious of
me: he invited me to edit his collected shorter works, which came
out in 1975, and I gave one of the celebratory lectures in Cape
Town on the occasion of his eightieth birthday. Mind you, that may
all have been partly because I was a Professor of English, and
Professors of English are meant to be used to doing that sort of
thing. (I must record here that Alan, as a person happily removed
from the trials and the pretensions of the academic life, had a
wonderfully ironical and almost scornful way of pronouncing the
word 'professor'.) But he and I were on good terms, and he must
have known that, though as the years went by our political
positions diverged to some extent, I had a profound respect for him
and for his writing. If he were looking down on us now, however and
I have little doubt that he is - he would probably say: 'Humph!
Professor Gardner! I suppose he will make me look like a spokesman
for the left wing'. I must now switch from the narrative mode to
what I suppose might be called the literary-and-social-critical
mode. And as I am going to attempt an assessment of Alan Paton as a
writer and as a person (though, as I've suggested, the image that I
offer can't help being my own), I shall move, soberly, from saying
'Alan' to saying 'Paton'. My bold subtitle for this address was
(you'll remember) 'often admired, sometimes criticized, usually
misunderstood'. It's clear that I'm going to offer some criticisms,
both of many of those who admire Paton and of many of those who
criticize him. This will mean that what I want to say - or the
remainder of 23 AlanPaton what I want to say - will fall roughly
into two parts. I hope however that these two parts will be held
together by one or two common themes. Let me turn my attention
first to those who have been critical of Paton. This group of
people, too, ohviously falls into two sections. There are those who
have criticized Paton because he is too liberal, too far to the
left, and those who have criticized him for the opposite reason,
because his liberalism is too timid, too conservative, analytically
inaccurate, or just plain ineffective. When Cry, the Beloved
Country was first published, a large number of white South Africans
situated themselves in the first of those two categories. Paton
died a respected figure, a figure indeed (as I shall argue)
shrouded rather too voluminously in that kind of public esteem
which tends (maybe halfdeliberately) to mask a person's real views
and achievements. But we must not forget that for about twenty-five
years of his life - from 1948 well into the 1970s - he was regarded
by many of his fellow whites with a curious mixture of horror and
awe. A few previously fairly close friends avoided having much to
do with him for fear that they too might he suspected of heing
communists. For many years the security police watched him
constantly, and from time to time they raided his home. On one
occasion his car's windscreen was smashed. But in spite of this
massive history of hostility and (at a fairly rudimentary level) of
intellectual disagreement, in 1988 it seems impossible to take this
whole area of opinion seriously. The view that Paton was a
dangerous' character is simply absurd; the notion that it is
sacrilegious to want to change the traditional white South African
way of life has evaporated in the minds of all those whose thought
is in any way coherent and reputahle; and Msimangu's fear 'that one
day when they are turned to loving, they will find we are turned to
hating' has long since become a classic articulation of the anxiety
of very many South Africans of all races. Far more important, far
more worthy of our consideration, are the criticisms from the left.
There may be some people who doubt this. I think such doubt can
only be based on ignorance. The liberal movement, most of which
locates itself somewhere between the left and the centre of the
political spectrum, is obviously of great significance in South
Africa; it has been so in the past, and it will continue to be in
the future. But the left is clearly not only important but powerful
too, and it has been especially so in the last ten or fifteen
years. Not only (I would guess) are the majority of blacks to be
found on the left, particularly the intellectuals and the community
leaders, but many very thoughtful and dedicated whites,
particularly young ones, are radicals of one kind or another. I
have to say that I am in many respects a radical myself. It
wouldn't be easy or sensible to try to make a catalogue of all the
left-wing criticisms that have been launched over the years at Cry,
the Beloved Country, Paton's best-known and most controversial
work, and at liberalism and the Liberal Party (which Paton
describes and celebrates in Ah. But Your Land is Beautiful), and at
the views of Paton in his last years. (It may seem rash to bracket
all these items together; but in fact they are all subtly
interrelated: those who admire Paton and those who criticize him
agree that the man and his work - the ideas, the actions, the
writings - make up almost a seamless garment - not of course that
either liberalism or the Liberal Party were wholly Paton's own
work.) Many of the criticisms could be said to focus on points of
historical or socio-political detail, or matters of personal or
political strategy. Of course different critics have varying views
of the magnitude or significance of these points of disagreement;
some would regard them as so 24 AlanPaton important that they would
amount to a rejection of Paton's whole literary and political
thrust. Let me give some examples of these criticisms. Cry, the
Beloved Country is thought of as offering, in the two Kumalos, an
inadequate picture of black socio-political consciousness: the
Reverend Stephen Kumalo is too simply rural, too naive, too
passive, whereas John, his brother, the urban activist, is treated
largely unsympathetically. Johannesburg is presented rather too
simply as a place of sin, as a corrupt alternative to tribal
tradition or pastoral reconstruction, instead of as the place
where, to a large extent, the future South African society will be
built. Then, related to this, there is a tendency in the novel, and
in Paton's other literary and political works, and in traditional
South African liberalism, to place too strong a stress on the
emotions, and on the notion of a voluntary, personal, religious or
quasi-religious change-ofheart, rather than on those aspects of
political reality which a radical would tend to highlight: the need
for structural analysis of the overall situation in terms of
classes and of interest groups, and the necessity then for
organization and mobilization (of the kind witnessed in recent
years in COSATU and the UDF) so that real and ultimately
irresistible pressure can be brought to bear on the political
rulers. I think most of the radical criticisms of Paton and of his
works fall roughly within the scope of the points that I have
sketched. A typical radical critique of his prose style, for
example - with its stark insistences, its resonant haunting
phrases, its occasional hints of the biblicalwould be that, in its
brooding poetic intensity, it tends to turn the mind inwards,
towards the feelings and the conscience, rather than outwards, to
the difficult realities of a complex socio-political situation.
Similarly the Liberal Party, with its fine ideals and its real
generosity of spirit - that Party which, as Paton tells us in his
second autobiography, Donald Molteno accused him of regarding as a
church - this Party never came near to devising a political
strategy which would bring it any real power. Again - it is perhaps
a related point - in his later years he took his own path, and went
against (and therefore arguably partly undermined) the broader
liberation movement by opting not for a unitary state but for
federalism and by seeing the NatallKwaZulu Indaba as a possible
move in that direction. What can one say about all this? Well
obviously different people would respond in different ways. What do
I say about it all, since it is I who am creating for you my own
image of Paton? I must honestly assert that everyone of those
criticisms seems to me to have a certain degree of cogency; I don't
myself think that any of them can be simply refuted or swept aside.
But I have to add, firstly, that Cry, the Beloved Country, and
indeed the Liberal Party, need to be seen in historical
perspective. Considering the way socio-political facts change, even
under a Nationalist Government wedded to the ideal of granite
fixity, it is remarkable how many of the human and social elements
of the 1948 novel have retained a real currency. The Liberal Party,
too, has to be seen in realistic historical terms. It may seem to
have achieved very little in terms of the immediacies of power
politics; but in the 1950s some valid and significant alliances and
friendships were formed; and as for the 1960s, the opposition was
having a rough time on every front. No other group achieved much.
But my further response to the radical criticisms - which, I repeat
I recognize as having a real and often important validity - is that
they miss something central. And this is what I mean when I talk of
a misunderstanding. 25 AlanPaton I concede that both Paton's
writings and the Liberal Party offer a vision of the strategies for
liberation which is in some ways a limited one. But what they do
represent at their best is something which is, I would argue, at
the very core of all valid and strong political opposition in South
Africa - and of course elsewhere. That is a certain spirit, a
restlessness, a determination to remove injustice and tyranny and
to establish harmony among individuals and in the larger society, a
courageous willingness to put oneself on the line, a refusal to
acquiesce in the mediocrity of thoughtless and selfish social
conformism, a recognition that any humane society must be based on
co-operation between equals and upon a broad compassion. 'Ah, but,'
Oonald Molteno might say if he were here, 'this is again the idea
of liberalism as a religion.' Perhaps it is, partly. My point is
that at the root of all lively human action, within the individual
and within a group, there lies a commitment, an emotion, an
enthusiasm, an impulse, which is in some sense religious or is akin
to what one associates with religion. That impulse may express
itself in various tactics and strategies. But the impulse is the
starting-point. It is that impulse, I believe, that animates the
range of opposition groupings in South Africa. And it is that
impulse which is powerfully expressed in Paton's writings and
which, in a thousand subtle ways, has been fed by those writings.
That impulse was expressed in the Liberal Party too, and has now
transferred itself to many opposition groups - the PFP, the
Christian Institute (till that too was blotted out), the NOM, the
trade unions, the UOF. To suppose that socio-political activity of
a vigorous and creative kind can take place without such an impulse
is, I think, simply wrong. Indeed, in his powerful articulating and
promoting of that impulse towards justice and a true human
community, Paton has to be seen as, in the fullest sense ofthe
word, radical. By no means all radicals, of course, have failed to
realize this. Here, for example, are some of the words of Eddie
Oaniels, who spoke at the Memorial Service for Paton in St.
George's Cathedral, Cape Town. (Oaniels had spent fifteen years on
Robben Island.) I feel honoured and humble to have been asked to
pay tribute to the memory of Or Alan Paton. I can assure you that
if Mr Nelson Mandela was free he too would be paying tribute to the
memory of this great South African. Now I want to move on, more
briefly, to what may perhaps be considered the more surprising part
of my analysis: the ways in which some or many of those who admire
Paton seem to me partly to misunderstand him. I have already
suggested that in his last years he was in some danger of being
shrouded or swaddled in a sort of wet blanket of reputation and
reputability. As a fairly old friend of his, I must confess that I
watched the spread of his popularity among white South Africans
with some alarm. (I hope I wasn't motivated by envy.) I am not
suggesting that his popularity was bogus. Clearly (as I have
already implied) the thinking of many white South Africans has
moved some way in the last ten or twenty years, and equally clearly
Paton's writing has played an important role in pushing that
thought forward. But - after the bitter wilderness years of the
1940s, 50s and 60s - there was apt to be something a little too
easy and glib about the admiration of the 1970s and 80s. On the
whole people admired him for the right things. There wasn't much
misunderstanding in terms of simple comprehension. They respected
his love 26 AlanPaton of justice and fair play, his compassion, his
humanity, his probing insight and irony. But what they missed often
and still miss, I think, is the depth of emotion and commitment,
the capacity and willingness to transform one's thinking and one's
living. Can I show a little more exactly what I mean by this? I
want to read a part of his account of the memorial service for
Edith Rheinallt Jones, who died over forty years ago. Mrs Jones was
a person who, though she had been warned by her doctor not to exert
herself, had decided that she did not wish to abandon her various
benevolent activities, one of which was to travel to black areas
all over South Africa inspecting and encouraging certain self-help
projects. The vision of a future South Africa which Edith Jones
had, and which no doubt Paton shared at the time, was no doubt in
various ways imprecise and unstructured. There may even have been,
for all I know, in the manner of those days, a slight element of
the patronising in Edith Jones's attitudes. But for all that there
is no gainsaying the reality and the importance of the experience
that Paton describes. He was writing in 1968. They had a farewell
service for her in St. George's Presbyterian Church, Johannesburg.
That was my deep experience. Black man, White man, Coloured man,
European and African and Asian, Jew and Christian and Hindu and
Moslem, all had come to honour her memory - their hates and their
fears, their prides and their prejudices, all for this moment
forgotten. The lump in the throat was not only for the great woman
who was dead, not only because all South Africa was reconciled
under the roof of this church, but also because it was unreal as a
dream, and no one knew how many years must pass and how many lives
be spent and how much suffering be undergone, before it all came
true. And when it all came true, only those who were steeped in the
past would have any understanding of the greatness of the present.
As for me, I was overwhelmed. I was seeing a vision, which was
never to leave me, illuminating the darkness of the days through
which we live now. To speak in raw terms, there was some terrible
pain in the pit of my stomach. I could not control it. I had a
feeling of unspeakable sorrow and unspeakable joy. What life had
failed to give so many of these people, this woman had given them -
an assurance that their work was known and of good report, that
they were not nameless or meaningless. And man has no hunger like
this one. Had they all come, no church would have held them all;
the vast, voiceless multitude of Africa, nameless and obscure,
moving with painful ascent to that self-fulfilment no human being
may with justice be denied, encouraged and sustained by this woman
who withheld nothing from them, who gave her money, her comfort,
her gifts, her home, and finally her life, not with the appearance
of prodigality nor with fine-sounding words, but with a naturalness
that concealed all evidence of the steep moral climb by which alone
such eminence is attained. In that church one was able to see,
beyond any possibility of doubt, that what this woman had striven
for was the highest and best kind of thing to strive for in a
country like South Africa. I knew then I would never again be able
to think in terms of race and nationality. I was no longer a White
person but a member of the human race. I came to this, 27 AlanPaton
as a result of many experiences, but this one I have related to you
was the deepest of them all. When in his later years Paton was
interviewed on television by people who knew nothing about that
sort of experience, and would have been scared off it if they had
known; when he was revered as a Grand Old Man by people many of
whom had no idea what he had been through or what his true
grandness consisted of; when one realised that white South Africans
with almost nothing of Edith Jones in them were signing up for the
Paton fan club and that even the Nationalist establishment was
prepared to try to co-opt Paton and his past (in rather the same
sort of way as the SADF has recently tried to co-opt the Allied
victory over Hitler) - I sometimes felt that the old lion was in
danger of being turned into a Chipperfields Lion Park lion, that
the Old Testament prophet was being converted into a respectable
old codger whom everyone loves and can feel comfortable with. Of
course the process that I complain of is to some extent inevitable.
No doubt fame is always a bit like this. I have already quoted
Auden's lines: The words of a dead man Are modified in the guts of
the living. And perhaps one could add that the words of the old are
modified in the guts of the young, and the words of the experienced
are modified in the guts of the inexperienced. But still, I believe
one has to try to keep alive what one sees as the truth of the man.
The fact is that if all those white South Africans who claim to
admire Paton had in them much of the true Paton fire and feeling,
the deep Paton conviction and commitment, that essential impulse
towards justice and community, South Africa would perhaps by now be
a totally transformed country. But maybe there's one more question
that I as a radical liberal- a lib rad or a rad lib - need to put.
Had his views in his post-Liberal Party days softened? Had he
perhaps - from my point of view - actually become a bit more
conservative and a bit more comfortable? Was there in fact a slight
resonance of the Lion Park in his later roars? To some small
extent, perhaps yes. It isn't easy for an old man to maintain his
earlier militancy or to keep up with every new thought. But on the
whole. no. And I speak as a person who disagreed with him about
federalism and about the Indaba and about sanctions. I think
Paton's later positions were essentially compatible with his
earlier ones; and indeed I take it upon myself to suggest that his
disagreements with the broad liberation movement were largely on
points of strategy. I think Paton himself might well have preferred
a unitary South Africa, but he opted for a federal concept because
he thought that was in the long run more likely to work. (He
perhaps became more of a strategist as he grew older.) The UDF
insists on a unitary state. because that is what it wants and
believes in; but who is to say for sure what might happen when the
real negotiations start? And in similar ways one might analyse the
other points of disagreement. Paton accepts the Indaba as a step in
the right direction. The UDF rejects it - inevitably - as being not
properly representative, and as anyhow inappropriate at the moment
when so many crucial people are exiled, detained, imprisoned or
banned. But in the long run of course, the Indaba, if it ever
produces anything, may possibly prove of some value in future
planning. 28 AlanPaton I am drawing towards a close, and I am
conscious that I have dealt with only a few aspects of the great
Paton phenomenon. In fact I hear Alan calling from above:
'Professor Gardner! Must you always be so damned serious?' And I
remember of course his words about obsession, spoken on several
occasions but most recently at a Speech Day last year: I want to
say a few special words to those of you who take the problems of
life and the world too much to heart. Beware of doing that. It is
good to care for the life and happiness of others, but care for
your own too. Your life wasn't given to you to be spent in
suffering. It was given to be enjoyed. It is good to fight against
injustice, but don't become obsessed by it, for such an obsession -
indeed any obsession - will eat away your life. I know, because
I've seen it happen. Well, that is the other side of the coin. Or
perhaps I might call it - in humility - the point at which I, the
lib rad speaker, have been in real danger of misunderstanding
Paton. He had a very wide range of interests. His knowledge of
birds and plants was astonishing. He loved ajoke. He loved a drink.
He loved people. I'd like to conclude with an anecdote told by his
son 10nathan. (Like one or two of the other things I've quoted,
it's in the latest Reality.) 10nathan says that many people have
had many important contacts with his father, but 'not one of these
people can claim to have spent as many hours in a motor car with
him as I have'. And he recounts a number of amusing motor-car
stories. Here is one of them: And then after 1948 and Cry, the
Beloved Country there would be Journeys with an American Visitor.
The Visitor would sit in front and hold forth in a loud American
accent: 'Well, Alan, it seems to me that the funnermental
difference between our constitootion and yours is ... ' My father's
voice would suddenly intervene: 'What's that bird, Jonno?' - and
the car would draw to a dramatic halt. Little did the visitor know
that my father had been paying no attention to him whatsoever for
the previous twenty minutes. Out would come the binoculars as Mr P.
peered up into a maroela tree. 'Yellow beak' he would say,
clutching his nose. 'And red breast.' Rubbing his chest. And for
the rest of the journey the American Visitor said not a word, the
'constitootion' having been thrown out of the window. And perhaps,
in the end, that should be the fate of my speech ... COLIN GARDNER
29 Alan Patan ALANPATON Select Bibliography NOVELS Cry, the beloved
country. London: Cape. 1948; New York: Scribner, 1948. Too late the
Phalarope. London: Cape, 1953; New York: Scribner, 1953. Ah, but
your land is beautiful. Cape Town: Philip, 1981. SHORT STORIES
Debbie go home. London: Cape, 1961. As Tales from a troubled land.
New York: Scribner, 1961. BIOGRAPHIES Hofm!,yr. Cape Town: O.U.P..
1904; London: O.U.P., 1965. A South African tragedy; the life and
times ofJan Hofmeyr (abridged edition). New York: Scribner, 1965.
Apartheid and the Archbishop; the life and times of Geoffrey
Clayton, Archbishop of Cape Town. Cape Town: Philip, 1973; London:
Cape, 1974; New York: Scribner, 1974. AUTOBIOGRAPHIES Towards the
mountain; an autobiography. New York: Scrihner, 1980; London:
O.U.P., 1981; Cape Town: Philip, 1981. Journey continued. Cape
Town: Philip, 1988. OTHER WRITINGS Meditation for a young boy
confirmed. London: National Society/S.P.C.K., 1944; Cincinnati,
1954. . Freedom as a reformatory instrument. Pretoria; Penal Reform
League ofS.A., 1948. Christian Unity; a South African view.
Grahamstown: Rhodes University, 1951. South Africa today. New York:
Public Affairs Committee, 1951; London: Lutterworth Press, 1953.
Salute to my great-great grandchildren. Johanneshurg: St Benedict's
House, 1954. The land and people of South Africa. Philadelphia:
Lippincott, 1955. As South Africa and her people. London:
Lutterworth, 1957. South Africa in transition. New York: Scrihner,
1956. Hopefor South Africa. London: Pall Mall, 1958; New York:
Praeger, 1959. The people wept. Privately printed: Kloof, 1959. The
Charlestownstorv. Pietermaritzhurg: Liberal Party of South Africa,
1960. Sponono; a play in three acts by Alan Paton and Krishna Shah,
based on three stories by Alan Paton from the collection Tales from
a troubled land. New York: Scribner, 1965. Civil rights and present
wrongs, Johannesburg: South African Institute of Race Relations,
1968, Instrument of Thv Peace; the prayer of St Frands. New York:
Seabury, 1968; London: Collins, 1970. Kontakion for you departed.
London: Cape, 1969. As For vou departed. New York: Scribner, 1969.
Towards racial justice; will there be a change of heart? (35th
Hoernle Memorial Lecture), Johannesburg: South African Institute of
Race Relations, 1979, Federation or desolation, (37th Hoernle
Memorial Lecture.) Johannesburg: South African Institute of Race
Relations, 1985. (With acknowledgements to Reality) 30 Petrus
Lafras Uys Her Majesty's Loyal and Devoted Trekker Leader: Petrus
Lafras Uys Voortrekker history, as taught at schools, was largely
based on Gustav Preller's Voortrekkermense. Having married Piet
Retief's great-granddaughter, Preller tended to favour Retief.
Members of the Uys family wrote to him, but to no avail. I The
clash between the Voortrekker leadership was referred to by Senator
1.1. Uys, son ofWessel and nephewofPetrus Uys, when he wrote: The
Commission returned with great joy to their homes, which they
reached in the year 1835. They handed in a report