Page 12 - Bulletin 12 2008

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winter by quagmires of mud and driving rain, meant that, eventually, the railway would
offer a better option at a much reduced cost.

In 1860 Canon John Whiddicombe gave an account of a typical post-cart that was used

on the Kalk Bay-Simon’s Town route. He described it as a vehicle which looked like a

square water-tank on two wheels with an iron rail around it. Inside this tank the mail
was stowed and when the mail was heavy and the tank full, as was often the case, the

remaining bags were piled on top of the tank. The cart had no ‘tent’ or other covering
and was supposed to carry three passengers as well as the mails, one in front, who sat

with the driver, and two behind who sat with their backs to the driver and their feet
resting on the tailboard. He described the road, for the most part, as vile and the horses

as often untrained. The drivers required much skill. They were mainly Malays or

coloured men and were accomplished in using the whip. The post-carts were strongly
built of the toughest colonial wood, had extra long springs, and could stand an immense

amount of wear and tear.

A graphic description of the ‘joys’ of omnibus travel is presented in the following

account (in Coates, 1976: 34-35):

“The first thing that strikes the unfortunate individual who enters the gloomy box
which is palmed off upon an inexperienced public as a travelling conveyance
suitable for human beings, is an odour of fustiness, mustiness, and dustiness that is
utterly bewildering in its intensity of anti-olfactory power ….. Left to himself, the
stranger is able to observe at leisure the horrors of the dungeon-like compartment in
which he is so luckless as to be located. He marks the roof – a few deal boards,
supported by slender cross-bars, which bend and quiver with the superincumbent
weight of passengers and parcels, and depending therefrom a few tattered strips of
oil-cloth attached by some rusty nails. Detached masses of what, when the omnibus
was new, might perhaps have been padding, sway in fungus-like patches on the
sides, while the thin pieces of wood composing the inner panelling gape in their
joints and start and crackle curiously. In the floor are sundry rifts and chasms,
which have often proved fatal to the happiness of such thoughtless passengers as
have incautiously deposited their parcels beneath the seats: and through which a
cheerful view of the road over which one is passing can be obtained ……”

The fate of the omnibus to Kalk Bay and the southern suburbs was sealed, once and for

all, when the railway reached Simon's Town in 1890 as it offered a faster and more