Engraved map of the eastern Cape Colony showing the Great Karroo, the Black Mountains and the district of George - the Traka drawn as a head of the Olifants River
map · an original record · consulted 2026-08-17
- Type
- map
- Repository
- Supplied by Frans as a screenshot [TO VERIFY] The sheet is not identified: the engraving, the hachured relief, the district lettering and the spellings are consistent with an Arrowsmith or S.D.U.K. Cape sheet of about 1834-1850, but no title, imprint or date is visible in the crop and none has been established here. Do not cite it as Arrowsmith. What can be said is that it is a printed map of the period this project is about.
- Reference
- NO CITABLE REFERENCE, AND IT IS NOT INVENTED. The sheet arrived as a screenshot with no title, imprint, publisher, date or sheet number visible in the crop, so there is nothing here a reader could order. What a reader CAN check is the content described in the notes - Olifants R. along the south foot of the Black Mountains, Traka R. among the mountains as one of its heads, and GEORGE lettered across the valley - against any Cape sheet of the 1830s-1840s. Identifying the sheet is itself an open task; until then this source is used to corroborate SRC-460 and never as sole authority.
- Consulted
- 2026-08-17
The citation as it was given
CONSULTED 17 Aug 2026 against the question "look here. there is a olifants rivier. traka seems to flow into it". HE IS READING IT RIGHT, AND IT IS A PERIOD SOURCE FOR WHAT SRC-460 GIVES FROM A MODERN ONE. | WHAT THE SHEET SHOWS. Along the south foot of the BLACK MOUNTAINS - the Swartberg - a river labelled OLIFANTS R. runs east to west, past Rietval, Stompe Drift, Armoed and Welbedagt, and joins the Gamka near Gamtows Hill to become the Gouritz. Feeding it from the east are Kraus Riv., Jagers Riv. and Schoongezigt, and above them, drawn among the mountains themselves, TRAKA R. Around that head of the valley: Hot Sp. (a hot spring, almost certainly the Toorwater at the poort), Keurefontyn, Zaureberg, Goedehoop, Leeuw Gr., Jover W., Antonys Hill. To the south the Kammanassie R. and the Kammanassie Hills; to the north the GREAT KARROO, with the Gamka or Gr. Lion R. and the Dwyka coming down through the range at Holdrift, Kudu's Kop and Remhoogte. | AND THE DISTRICT LETTERING RUNS G E O R G E STRAIGHT ACROSS THAT VALLEY. | WHY IT MATTERS. The George opgaafrol of 1816 (SRC-459) has a veldcornetcy called BOVEN OLYPHANTSRIVIER, and until this map the phrase could be read two ways. This is a printed map of the period saying, in the district's own name, that the upper Olifants is George's and that the TRAKA IS ONE OF ITS HEADS. The Traka is this project's own river - PLC-000042, the water Rondabel lies on, the field cornetcy the Vrolykheid diagram names, the place the 1818 baptism was held "aan onder Traca". | SO THE 1816 ENROLMENT AND THE 1818 BAPTISM MAY BE ONE COUNTRY, NOT TWO. An earlier note had the family reaching the north side of the Swartberg "by way of the south". That reading was drawn before this map and it may be too elaborate: a household enrolled in George's upper Olifants in 1816 and baptising at onder Traka in 1818 has not necessarily moved at all. Softened on LEAD-0221 rather than kept. | WHAT IT DOES NOT DO IS FIND A MODDER FONTEIN. No farm of that name is legible anywhere on the sheet. It makes a George Modder fontyn geographically possible; the 152 in the distance-from-the-drostdy column of the roll still argues the other way, because 152 of anything is not a farm down the valley. Both readings stay on LEAD-0220 and one cell on image 46 decides between them. | 5 IS THE REASON TO USE A MAP OF THIS DATE AT ALL. Frans's own caution, the same week: "careful of river names - we have seen on the maps that some terms change over time." A modern gazetteer tells you what a river is called now. This one tells you what it was called while these people were being enrolled under its name. | NO SCAN IS HELD. Arrived as a screenshot; the sheet should be identified and a copy obtained, which would also date the naming precisely.
Kept verbatim. This project contradicts published genealogies and corrects a family's own oral tradition, so every claim has to be checkable by someone who was not in the room.
Nothing in the model cites this source yet.