Page 76 - Bulletin 19 2015

73

mountains. (D. Stuart-Findlay, KBHA Bulletin No. 14.)

The ‘Aghter de Steenbergh’ Buitepos (1672 - 1691)

Dan Sleigh, in his mammoth book Die Buiteposte, describes how the DEIC occupied and

organized the territory surrounding Table Bay (ie. the Peninsula, Tyberberg, Hottentots

Holland foothills and farther afield) to support the Company’s objective of operating a
refreshment station there. Buiteposte were manned, decentralised, support centres that served

as collection points for meat, vegetables, fruit, fish, wood, and more, and as military / signal

stations. (Fig. 2.3.) Three, in particular, had significance for the Silvermine Valley.

In 1672 two buiteposte were established: one was a cattle station at ‘Aan de Steenbergh’ that
operated until 1683 and then became Zwaanswijk (now Steenberg Farm), the first farm to be

granted in the Tokai Valley; the other was a cattle and signal post at ‘Aghter de Steenbergh’
at a site that has never been located precisely. It operated between 1672 - 1691. It would have

had to have been situated on a spot from which lookouts could keep track of any vessels in

both Fish Hoek Bay and the stretch of coastline between Noordhoek and Kommetjie.

Competition for control of the Cape sea route was intensifying from both the English and the
French, so the lookout point was set up with two purposes in mind: firstly, to ensure that no

foreign ships could land soldiers in the South Peninsula to attack the Cape settlement from
behind, and secondly to warn Dutch ships to stay away from the Cape settlement if it had

been taken over by foreign powers. The lookout point was manned by three men who shared

the responsibility for also protecting the sheep and some 200 cattle belonging to the
Company. Some of the sheep were killed by a ‘lion’, and one winter a number of calves were

washed away during a cloudburst, whilst the soldiers had to save themselves by climbing

trees, some of which were then uprooted by the floodwaters.

The Silvermine River appears to be the only river substantial enough to have created a flood
of this magnitude, so the sheep and cattle were likely to have been herded in the Silvermine

Valley. This suggests that the ‘Aghter de Steenbergh’ lookout point was on the nearby
mountainside. One of the only points from which both the Fish Hoek bay and the full length

of Kommetjie beach can be viewed is on the slope above the Noordhoek Manor Retirement