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Source SRC-534

John Barrow, 'An Account of Travels into the Interior of Southern Africa, in the years 1797 and 1798' (London, 1801) - the Olifants River division, its hot springs, and a farmer of it placed in SWELLENDAM

travel account · an original record · consulted 2026-08-20

Type
travel account
Repository
Internet Archive, full text (accountoftravels11801barr). Published 1801; long out of copyright.
Reference
https://archive.org/stream/accountoftravels11801barr/accountoftravels11801barr_djvu.txt ; pages 334-336 for the Olifants division, p.319 for van der Walt, p.99-102 for the Zwarteberg and the Traka. OCR of a long-s printing: 'f' for 's' throughout, so quotations are normalised silently for the s and nothing else.
Consulted
2026-08-20

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The citation as it was given

Supplied by , to see whether it sheds light on the expansion to the Olifants at present-day De Rust. IT DOES, and on three separate points. Barrow travelled in 1797 and 1798, EIGHT YEARS BEFORE the 1805 roll and eleven before Ockert died. | *** 1. HE PUTS A FARMER OF THE OLIFANTS RIVER IN THE SWELLENDAM DISTRICT, IN HIS OWN WORDS. *** Page 319: 'Zjardt Van der Walt, of OLIFANT'S RIVER IN ZWELLENDAM, in company with his brother, saw, near the same place, an animal...'. THIS IS INDEPENDENT OF EVERY DOCUMENT THIS PROJECT HAS USED and it settles by ordinary usage what the rolls settle administratively: in the 1790s the Olifants River meant, to a traveller writing for a London publisher, a place in SWELLENDAM. The Boland Olifants was Stellenbosch's and then Tulbagh's and never Swellendam's, so this cannot be that river. | *** 2. HE DESCRIBES THE COUNTRY AND THE ROUTE, AND IT IS DE RUST. *** Pages 334-336: he encamps 'near the banks of the Olifant's river'; notes that drought had 'completely deprived the Olifant's river of its waters, and the face of the country was nearly as barren and parched as the KARROO ON THE OPPOSITE SIDE OF THE BLACK MOUNTAINS' - the Swartberg, with the Koup behind it; and then leaves: 'TURNING OFF TO THE SOUTHWARD FROM THE OLIFANT'S RIVER, AND PASSING ROUND A HIGH DETACHED MOUNTAIN CALLED THE KAMNAASSIEBERG, we crossed a range of hills, and descended into LANGE KLOOF'. Swartberg on one side, Kammanassie to the south, Langkloof beyond. That is the upper Olifants at De Rust and Uniondale and nowhere else. | HE ALSO CALLS IT 'THE DIVISION OF OLIFANT'S RIVER' - an administrative unit, in 1797-98, thirteen years before George existed. That is the veldkornetskap the J 91 roll names (SRC-525), under an earlier drostdy. | *** 3. THE HOT SPRINGS, WHICH CORROBORATE THE 1802 DIAGRAM FIVE YEARS EARLY. *** On the Olifants he found 'several HOT SPRINGS issued out of a bog, consisting of a brownish oxyd of iron', the water chalybeate, 'four principal wells, all rising out of the same bog'. SRC-531, the diagram of Nietgenaamd of 1802, marks a HOT SPRING and a Cold Spr. under the TOWER WATER MOUNTAIN - Toorwater. A traveller in 1797 and a surveyor in 1802 describe the same water, and neither knew of the other. | *** AND A NAME WORTH FOLLOWING: TJAART VAN DER WALT. *** WIT-0324 in this model is a 'Tjaart van der Walt' standing witness at Graaff-Reinet in September 1799 - on the SAME OPENING as the baptism of Roelof Oosthuizen, Ockert Jacobus's son (SRC-515). Barrow's 'Zjardt Van der Walt of Olifant's River in Zwellendam' is the same name in the same years. NOT AN IDENTIFICATION: van der Walt is a common frontier surname and a Tjaart van der Walt of some note was killed on the eastern frontier in 1802. But a man described as being OF THE OLIFANTS RIVER IN SWELLENDAM standing at the same font, on the same page, as this family is worth chasing. LEAD-0220. | BARROW WAS ALSO IN OUR OWN DISTRICT: pages 99-102 have him skirting 'the banks of the TRAKA about ten miles', passing the Ghowka or Boor's river 'perfectly dried up', and reaching a kloof in the ZWARTEBERG 'in the very mouth of which was said to be a farm-house, and several others behind the mountains', all belonging to the district of GRAAFF REYNET. Which kloof is not named and should not be guessed.

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.

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