THE TUSSLE OVER THE CANAL: PART 1

ONE of the more fanciful proposals to receive serious consideration during the first decade of European settlement at the Cape was the plan to turn the Peninsula into an island by cutting a canal from Table Bay to False Bay.

This was first mooted by Jan van Riebeeck in response to an incident in October 1653 when the Dutch lad who tended the livestock was murdered by disgruntled Khoikhoi while the armed guard was fetching food from the cook.

The rustlers achieved complete surprise and 42 of the Company’s precious cattle and draught oxen were driven off towards Hout Bay, aggravating tensions between the interlopers and the locals.

Van Riebeeck began to think about physical boundaries and systems of defence, questions that would occupy his mind for several years.

He first raised the possibly of digging a canal in April 1654. Canals were common features in the Dutch landscape and the idea was favourably received by the Lords Seventeen. Visiting commissioner Rijckloff van Goens, sr, (1619-1682) ordered Van Riebeeck to plot a route and measure the distance when he visited the Cape briefly a year later.

However, the commander’s enthusiasm had cooled by then and he wrote to Batavia outlining his I READ somewhere recently that the world was now more that $70trillion in debt. Somebody added the logical comment – if the world owes all that money, who does it owe it to? Planet Zog? I suspect the Earth’s debt could be described as a “circular debt”, and it is perfectly illustrated in this very old story from the Karoo. I don’t care if you’ve heard it before. Here it is again. A traveller arrives in a little Karoo dorp one morning and books a room at the local hotel for that night.

He pays the proprietor a R200 deposit and explains that he must call on some local businesses and will be back for dinner. The proprietor is happy with that and takes the R200 round to the local butcher saying, “Here’s the two hundred bucks I owe you for that boerewors I bought.”

The butcher takes the R200 round to the mechanic and says, “Here’s the R200 I owe you for fixing my car.” The mechanic is delighted and

Canals were common features in the Dutch landscape and the idea was favourably received by the Lords Seventeen