CAPE ARGUS – 1939, January 3
Stellenbosch was the favourite child of Simon van der Stel.
He loved it for its beauty, its fertility, and the pleasing contours of its
hills and valleys. He gave its name to the embryo village, and he granted land
to several of his friends in the Ida’s Valley, most lovely of all the valleys,
under the shadow of his own Simonsberg.
Several of the old homesteads still survive. Time has dealt
with them kindly. One of these is RUSTENBERG, on the land granted to the
Landdrost Peter Robbertz, who came to the Cape in 1696. The house is H-shaped,
with white-washed walls, large, low windows, simple gables and a thatched roof.
The curved steps leading up to the flagged stoep are made of tiny Batavian
bricks, brought over by the Dutch East India Company at the command of the first
owner. A grant of land nearby was made to the Huguenot exile,
Francois Villon, of Clermont, in 1692; and he probably lived in an earlier house,
traces of which may still be seen, near the present homestead of Ida’s Valley. The
neighbouring farm of Schoongezicht, for long the property of John X Merriman,
also has a charming house, built rather high up, with a view of the
Stellenbosch valley.
RUNNING WATER
Every homestead in the valley has white-washed walls and a
thatched roof, and is surrounded by oak trees and running water.
There sluits of water round the house are a tradition
surviving from the old days when, in the summer-time, the slaves used to lay
the dust around the house by scooping water out of the sluits with a tin
dipper, and sprinkling it liberally over the road.
This is not the only thread left from the tapestry of past
years. Everywhere are to be found signs of earlier settlers, and of their
customs and way of life. At Schoongezicht wine is still made in the gabled wine
cellar, and the grapes are still pressed out by human feet. At Rustenberg, the slave
hole under the house is now used for the more prosaic purpose of storing logs
of wood, but it is still very dark and mysterious. In the loft under the thatch
apples and pears are spread out on straw to keep for the winter months. Thrifty
Dutch housewives of a century or more ago kept their stores in much the same
way, in the days before cold storage was though of, and they hung their bunches
of herbs and their home-cured hams on the same broad rafters.
The old homesteads in the valley were built for coolness, with
high ceilings, thatched roofs and large windows. All the rooms are large and
rather draughty. Fireplaces are scarce, and it would need a roaring fire to
warm those huge, airy rooms. It is supposed that earlier tenants just retired
to bed with a large, copper warming-pan when winter frosts set in. Present
owners installed fireplaces and plenty of electric heaters.
MODERN HOMES
Besides the old Dutch homesteads of Ida’s Valley, Schoongezicht
and Rustenberg, there are some charming new houses in the valley, which have
been built on bits of land cut off from the three original farms. One of these
is Kelsey Farm, built on a hilltop above Rustenberg – a low-eaved thatched
house with a peerless view and surrounded by vineyards. Another is the House in
the Woods, built among the poplar trees on a piece of Ida’s Valley. Numerous other
cottages have sprung up as more and more people have realized what a delightful
part of the world this is in which to live. All are comely, with their thatched
roofs and white-washed walls, and are in keeping with the spirit of the valley.
The grey curves of Simonsberg rise above the valley, which
is watered by springs from its ravines. Among the rocks near the summit live a
troop of baboons, which raids the upper farms for fruit and mealies when roots
get scarce on the mountainside. On the very top is an old Hottentot cave,
supposed to have been the refuge of runaway slaves. But one cannot help feeling
that only a very foolish or very frightened slave would leave the comfortable
life of the valley for the inhospitable mountain heights.
THE FAMOUS OAKS
If you read through the dispatches of Simon van der Stel,
you will come across this letter the Landdrost, Ditmars, of Stellenbosch, dated
July 13, 1701. “We send you, for the benefit of the Stellenbosch community, a
wagon laden with young oak trees, which with the co-operation of the Reverend
Hercules van Loon, are to be planted – wherever possible. They are at once to
be put into the ground, lest they perish through delay.”
This accounts, in part, for the beautiful old trees to be
found everywhere in the valley. It was part of the governor van der Stel’s
policy to plant plenty of oak trees, and he guessed how well they would
flourish in this fertile soil. At Rustenberg is a giant oak tree filled with
stones and cement to hold it up, as its core has long since rotted. Yet it still
produces its crown of green leaves every summer, and gives every indication of
robust life. It must be more than a hundred years old, and many generations
must have sheltered beneath its gnarled branches.
TREES OF MANY KINDS
Besides oak trees, there are poplar woods, delicate and
silvery; tall rows of Lombardy poplars to shelter the orchards, which in autumn
are a golden delight; avenues of plane trees and flowering gums; a silver tree
plantation; Spanish chestnuts in sheltered gullies; wild olives and fir forests
on the mountain slopes. At Schoongezicht a giant mulberry tree bears its yearly
crop of crimson berries. At Rustenberg weeping willows droop delicately over
the swimming pool, until they nearly touch the blue water-lilies below; and on
their branches, weaver birds build their nests.
So far, I have not even mentioned the fruit trees – in Ida’s
Valley one takes them for granted. Since the business of the valley is fruit,
every bud is watched with care, every south-easter dreaded once the fruit has
formed, and all market prices studied with apprehension. The busiest time of the ear is the fruit season, starting in
December and ending in March or April, when the last pears and apples have been
placed in their wood-wool nests in the fruit boxes and consigned to foreign
ports or home markets, according to their size, quality and degree of ripeness.
The summer months mean constant toil to the fruit farmer as his merchandise is
perishable. It must be picked and packed at an exact stage of ripeness, and
like time and tide, it waits for no man.
Yet it would be impossible to get any real sense of hustle
in this valley of green trees and cooling streams. One feels that land may be
bought and sold, men may come and go, and farmers may sweat to wrest a living
from the soil; but the tranquility of the year will remain in Ida’s Valley – a snare
for settlers, a benediction to the world-weary, and a constant tribute to the
good taste of Governor van der Stel. – The Hon. Yvonne de Villiers
