Episode 188 - Hymns echo in the Waterkloof ravines as Khoekhoe snipers take aim at British officers

History of South Africa podcast

We’re into an extremely tough time in our past, 1851, and about to hear about the struggle for control of an area of the Amatolas that the Boers had named Waterkloof - better known by local amaXhosa as Mtontsi. It was a case of jungle warfare as you’re going to hear.
The area of operation was only 40 square kilometers and yet it remained out of Britains control for most of the 8th Frontier War.
If you have an old steam driven hard copy map of the area, or can fire up your trusty digital device of choice, go to Google maps and focus on the area between the Kat and Koenap Rivers, to the west of the town of kwaMaqoma which used to be known as Fort Beaufort. Just to add a bit of post-modern spice here, nearby Cookhouse wind Farm is one of the largest in South Africa on the high ridge east of the Great Fish River.
The Waterkloof itself is a deep, narrow valley, six kilometres long, bounded by the Kroomie Heights to the south and to the north by a second series of majestic ridges falling away to a rolling plateau. Running roughly south-east and open at its western side, it comes to a head in a high, grassy tableland fringed with bushes and gigantic trees. To the east, this tableland falls away into another deep, heavily-forested gorge, known as Fuller's Hoek.
It was in this gorge, in a gigantic overhanging cave of a type that proliferates in the area, that amaNqika chief Maqoma had his headquarters.
The plateau is linked to the Kroomie by a narrow ridge and where this joins the plateau is a 'horseshoe-shaped flat', approximately a square kilometre in area and fringed by towering forests. In due course it would be named 'Mount Misery' by the British troops who fought in or near there.
In the mountain fastnesses above, there are two reserves today - Mpofu and Fort Fordyce. Here you’ll still find the Chacma baboon, black wildebeest on the escarpment, blue duiker, mountain reedbuck. If you’re lucky you’ll spot the Cape Parrot, and eagles, while the playful Knysna Loeries abound. The Caracal is the largest predator there these days, but in the past leopards would stalk here - eating a snack of rock dassie.
By February 1851 the bitterness of the 8th Frontier War was becoming more evident with descriptions of British troops being captured and tortured to death by the amaXhosa. Settlers and regular troops marched through the Thyumie valley in February in revenge, burning everything and carrying a flag which had the word “Extermination” emblazoned for all the see.
Governor Sir Harry Smith had advocated extermination of the amaXhosa and the Khoekhoe in letters and conversations - he was panikcing besieged in King Williams Town and chaos was the order of the day - the governor was lashing out. No quarter was being given by either side - man against man.
Somerset was stung into action. On 7th September he sent a large patrol into the Waterkloof, 600 men from the 74th Highland Regiment under Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Fordyce.
The man who was to give both his name and his life to these mountains.