I took another journey back in time last night after settling into bed with my book, “Life at the Cape 100 years ago”. As I have read more and more of it, I find myself smiling and almost beginning to think in the Lady’s 1860 terminology. I read with interest her description of travelling from Wynberg to Somerset West in 1862.
STARTS
“In three hours you can reach Eerste River by cart from our place, though the new railway soon promises to do it in one, but it takes you a good hour’s drive further before you reach Somerset West. This is a very pretty and wealthy little village on the high road to the wool districts, and owes much to its charming position, and the admirable management of its interests by its founder – old Simon Van der Stell. The country all about is cut up into large farms, but the chief of these -both for wood and water – is the splendid farm of old Mr. Theunissen, formerly the summer palace of the famous Dutch Govenor, Van der Stell, and built upon a scale of magnificence that has rarely been equalled elsewhere at the Cape. Mr. T_ was kind enough to show us a book printed in 1712, wherein is marked a full plan of the house as it existed in Van der Stell’s time. The mansion, which stands in the middle, was then surrounded by a belt of defences of which nothing now remains but the central building. The park-like meadows and gardens are admirably kept and well irrigated, and the sea itself is plainly visible about three miles off, so that it is a residence fit for a prince, with plenty of fishing, shooting and sea air to please all tastes. A little further on and the road takes you up Sir Lowry Pass, which is a magnificent mountain road, with frightful precipices on one side, leading to the Caledon district. The view from the top of this Pass is very lovely and is grander and more extensive, if possible, than from the Kloof road. It embraces a range almost as great as from the top of Table Mountain and, like that, is very weird and weather beaten on the summit, dwarfing even the Lion’s Head.
As there is a capital little inn at Somerset West, we stopped here a few days last week, and greatly enjoyed our bathing on the ‘Strand’. Here we found a number of Cape farmers, with their wagons and tents set up on the sands, camping out as coolly as if they belonged to the sea, and accompanied by their families from Stellenbosch and the surrounding districts. The matrons and boer servant girls wore the funniest head dresses and sun-shades conceivable, while the men sprawled about under the lee of their wagons, just as boatmen would creep under their boats at Broadstairs and Deal. As the sands are very fine and the beach shelving, it is a thousand pities nobody has been enterprising enough to start a dozen of bathing machines, so as to improve its great natural capacities as a watering place. I am sure they would take everybody’s fancy here when once started.
ENDS
Immediately, I wondered what on earth are ‘bathing machines.’ Googling it found me the answer. They were Victorian machines – boxes on wheels – that a lady would enter and be able to change into her swimwear. When ready, the machine would be pushed into the water, so the lady could disembark out of view of the other bathers and enter the water directly.
Photo from Pintrest.com
When she had had enough, she would enter the box and be able to discreetly change once again.
It got me thinking. If 153 years ago, this was what was happening, what will be happening on earth in 150 years time. Perhaps I should be writing more about getting in my car and reversing it out of my garage and driving the few minutes to the shopping mall to do my shopping. A century or more from now, readers would read with amusement and perhaps say something like, “I can’t believe they didn’t have gyrocopters,” and “Wow, they used to leave their homes to go buy food – I can’t imagine doing that!”
If The Lady who wrote this book had to be able to revisit the Strand or Somerset West, she would be astonished by the changes. And the same goes for us, if we were to visit our homes in 150 years time. What would we see, I wonder.
One thing we know for sure, we won’t be here on earth. And I think I will be altogether content with where I am….
1 Corinthians 2:9
However, as it is written: “What no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, and what no human mind has conceived” — the things God has prepared for those who love Him–
I look forward to that revelation!
These are the days.
Keep the smile going.
God bless you!
In His Grip,
Helga xx 🙂