Page 72 - KBHA Bulletin 14

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After having taken some refreshment, we followed the road which leads north into the
country, leaving the vineyards of Constantia, and some other farms and country-seats, which lie
here in an extensive hollow between the mountains, on the leftside, and the sandhills, which are
interspersed over a large plain of several leagues in extent, producing nothing but some
brushwood, and a few insignificant thickets, on the right side. We, however, met, at intervals,
with a few rivulets, running down from the hills, out of which we let our horses drink.
About half past five o’clock in the evening, we reached Capetown.”

Stavorinus, vol. II, pp. 50-54.

Significantly, Wallace had studied Stavorinus’ account but referred only to the journey from

Simon’s Town towards Muizenberg, drawing attention to the treacherous quicksands at Fish
Hoek, and failed to concede that the rest of the description proved that this section of road was

part of the main road to Table Bay.

 William Hickey, in 1777, described the road he took with a cart and horses as “rocky and

abominable”, and stated that he stopped at the “half-way house” for refreshments (but
without naming it). Burman concluded that he was referring not to Klein Plaats on top of

the Steenberg but to Muizenberg where so many other travellers rested. De Jong, in 1792,
must also have travelled the coast road as he mentioned specifically the Elsjes River, the

quicksands, the post at Muizenberg, and observed: “no road in Spain was as bad as this,

the only road to Cape Town …..”

 Finally, John Barrow, as part of his two-volume survey of the Cape of Good Hope for the

British Government published in 1806, included a military appraisal of the Cape in which
he stated categorically that there was only one road from Simon’s Bay to Cape Town:

“As to Simon’s Bay, which lies on the eastern side of the peninsula, in the great bay of False, and
is the usual resort of shipping for five months in the year, it should seem the Dutch had no idea of
their colony being attacked from that quarter, as there are only two small batteries mounting four
or five guns each, to which ships of the line may approach within 500 yards; and the strong
ground at Muisenberg was entirely unoccupied before the British expedition appeared in the bay;
the few works and batteries, with which they attempted to defend this ground, were constructed
between the time of its arrival in the bay and the day the troops marched for the Cape. But though
the Dutch at that time suffered themselves to be easily driven out of this pass, they are now too
well acquainted with its strength and importance to abandon it so speedily, should an enemy