The land of angora goats, ostriches and windpumps
Mohair and more in the railway station settlement of Mount Stewart in the Eastern Cape Karoo
On New Year’s Day in 1879, an incredible thing happened in the Mount Stewart area: the railway line from Port Elizabeth reached the farming community of mostly Cawoods. A month later, the line extended to Aberdeen Road and by August the whole Midland Line to GraaffReinet was launched.
This brought a measure of wealth to the farming families living in the vicinity. They could now easily transport their fleece clip of sheep’s wool or mohair and produce to the city. They could also send their children to boarding school without having to cart them off and leave the farm.
Cawood’s, the Mount Stewart shop that was established in 1937, made a lot of sense back in those days.
People gathered here regularly and retail business was, presumably, quite brisk. There was never a problem stocking up, either – the station stands scant metres from the shop.
“But when trains ceased to carry passengers and farm produce, and when more and more farmers and their labourers left the land to find work in the cities, it was no longer viable,” says author-historian Bartle Logie in Traveller’s Joy.
“One day the shutters went up and stayed up.”
Cawood land
Your route between Steytlerville and Jansenville takes you past a railway station settlement called Mount Stewart.
To your left is the church. Down a dirt road, on the right, stands Cawood’s trading store – long closed. You’re in the heart of seven generations of one of the oldest clans in the Eastern Cape Karoo.
Sock puppets of the veld
A family book is something one writes after a life well lived, and is a perfect legacy for the remaining members of the clan. A memory, well told, is often as good as money in the bank. So it is with Twinks Savage’s Wings over the Noorsveld & Other Karoo Stories.
Twinks (her maiden name is Cawood) tells of the feather boom days on Angora farm in the Mount Stewart area. When it came to plucking time, the free-ranging ostriches had to be caught, which involved a series of intricate moves on horseback through the dense vegetation.
And then, once the birds were in the kraal, each one would have a sock put over its head so it could stand quiet and still for the plucking.
“After the feather market crashed, a few surviving ostriches remained on Angora and one of these lived in a camp near the tennis court,” writes Twinks.
“My father told me that when a ball was hit out of the court, a player ran like a hare to fetch it because, should the ostrich arrive on the scene first, it would swallow the ball. When this happened play was stopped until the ostrich was caught and the ball slowly forced back up the long neck.”
Mohair country
Jansenville is the warm, fluffy heart of the mohair universe. This fact is celebrated at the Mohair Muse
um on the main road. At almost every padstal (farm stall) in the Eastern Cape Karoo there’s a fine selection of scarves, booties, travelling blankets, jerseys, socks, gloves and beanies, all made from the fleece of the Angora goat.
Mohair is also popular in the form of a heatholding lightweight blazer in the High Street of London under the prestigious Alfred Dunhill Camdeboo Mohair label.
South Africa supplies international and local markets with about 60% of the world’s mohair.
Catch the wind
If you’re ever on a lonely road in the Eastern Cape Karoo at the day’s ending, find the nearest roadside windpump and stop beside it.
You will hear, in the distance, the call of the blue crane. In the middle distance is the raucous sunset bark of the baboon. Right here, next to you, fresh water gurgles out of a pipe and into a cement dam.
Although windpumps look romantic and appear to be low-maintenance, Karoo farmers will tell you it takes hard hands and a mechanical brain to keep those blades flashing, year in and year out.
“I’ve got one or two men who know how to handle a windpump,” says farmer JP Steynberg.
“To me, keeping a windpump turning is one of the most difficult challenges of farming. So when one of them needs fixing, I leave it up to the experts and go off to town for the day…”
This is an excerpt from Road Tripper: Eastern Cape Karoo by Chris Marais and Julienne du Toit (Julie@ karoospace.co.za).