George Thompson, Travels and Adventures in Southern Africa, 2 vols (London: Henry Colburn, 1827) - Jakhal's-Fonteyn on the Dwyka, 4 July 1823
published travel account · an original record · consulted 2026-09-16
- Type
- published travel account
- Repository
- Internet Archive, 'travelsadventure01thom' (full text)
- Reference
- Vol. I, printed pages 274-275 (running head DWYKA RIVER) for the entry of 4 July 1823; p. 275-276 the Cango Caves Botha of 1822; p. 282 the return from Jakhals-Fonteyn; vol. I p. 264-265 the springbok migration in the Nieuwveld, June 1823; vol. I p. 272 Beaufort village; vol. I p. 273 the commando (EVT-000327); vol. II pp. 118-121 a wedding party's 'vrolykheid', 1822; vol. II pp. 152-158 a quoted account of land grants and 'request' places; vol. II pp. 208-209 farm taxes in Uitenhage; vol. II p. 383 De Clercq and the lion (LEAD-0351)
- Consulted
- 2026-09-16
The citation as it was given
[16 Sep 2026] Read in the Internet Archive's OCR text. Page numbers are the book's running heads as they appear in that text. Entry for the 4th (July 1823): reached Jakhal's-Fonteyn, the residence of Botha, 'one of my companions', near the foot of the Zwartberg on the Dwyka or Rhinoceros River. 1,100 sheep and many cattle lost in fourteen months of drought. Botha about forty-four, father of nineteen children by one wife of about his own age. NO FIRST NAME is given anywhere. The day before, he outspanned at a pool in the channel of the Gamka, having left the Beaufort drostdy on the 2nd. The Cango digression: a DIFFERENT Botha, 'a farmer of the name of Botha, in the district of George', living a few miles from the caves, guided him there in 1822 with three of his sons. Thompson introduces him as a new man, and says the caves lie directly across the Zwartberg from Jakhals-Fonteyn. The return (p. 282): after refreshment at Jakhals-Fonteyn he rode on with horses and a guide, 'crossed the Dwyka and Bloed Rivers', and reached Hartebeest-Fonteyn about midnight, then went on westward to veldcornet Olivier's near the Buffalo River and the Hex River. Riding west and crossing the Dwyka AFTER leaving puts Jakhals-Fonteyn on the EAST side of the Dwyka. That is Thompson's sequence, not a survey. [TO VERIFY] A second, unrelated Jakhal's-Fonteyn in this volume is 'the first request place' in the Winterveld, toward the Nieuwveld. [16 Sep 2026] VOLUME II READ AS WELL, for this project's places and families. Neither volume names an Oosthuizen, a Marincowitz, Klaarstroom or the Koup. *** 'REQUEST PLACE', AND HOW A FARM WAS TAKEN UP (vol. II pp. 152-158). *** THIS IS A QUOTATION: Thompson prints, in quotation marks, an unnamed writer's argument about the Albany settlers' disadvantage against the Dutch farmers. It describes the procedure: a farmer who found water on enough unoccupied land sent through his district secretary 'what he terms a "request" for a place', a memorial asking for about 6,000 acres, and would hardly pay for measuring less than 4,000; the landdrost reported, and without local objection the land was granted as a matter of course; inspection and measuring cost 300 to 600 rixdollars and the quitrent, fixed at the inspection, was generally 30 to 50 rixdollars a year, about one per cent of the estimated value. Residence and cultivation were required on paper but not enforced: occupation counted if he paid the quitrent and, 'by removing his cattle to it for part of the year', kept more stock and paid a larger opgaaf. That explains Thompson's own phrase 'the first request place' for the Winterveld Jakhal's-Fonteyn (vol. I p. 261), and it is the practice that lets a household live part of the year away from the place it is enrolled on. *** FARM TAXES (vol. II pp. 208-209), stated for the DISTRICT OF UITENHAGE: *** quitrent 15 to 200 rixdollars a year; 1 skilling a horse; 2 stivers a head of cattle; 4 skillings a hundred sheep; 2 stivers a muid of grain harvested; 2 rixdollars 2 skillings church money; and 'an addition of twenty-five and sometimes of fifty per cent' on the livestock at times for extraordinary expenses. These are the heads the opgaafrol columns count. Other districts' rates are not given. *** 'VROLYKHEID' (vol. II pp. 118-121). *** Returning from the Cango in 1822, Thompson stayed at the house of a newly married corn and wine farmer 'not 100 miles from Cape Town' during a wedding ball; the guests 'continued their vrolykheid (as they call it) without intermission till morning'. A contemporary witness to the everyday sense of the word: merrymaking, festivity. PAR-000014, LEAD-0010. *** ALSO: *** the commando reported by a Beaufort farmer, vol. I p. 273 (EVT-000327); De Clercq and the lion, vol. II p. 383 (LEAD-0351); the springbok migration of June 1823 and Beaufort without rain for three years (EVT-000277).
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.