Old Cape Highways - Dr. E. E. Mossop
FOREWORD
It may well be that in all patriotism there lies an element of parochialism, yet to every man it has been given to feel that the history of his homeland is the most interesting of all, and part of each country's history is the story that her highways can tell. A South African may follow the Hudson and the Mohawk Gap, cross the Brenner where the Cimbri and the Teutones came, or journey on the old Roman roads that go by Chester and by York, but these, for him, will he the pastimes of an exile.
He will return to a homeland whose routes, if not her roads, are as aged, if not as old, as these. Hers is a tale of wandering Bushmen, of nomadic cattle-owning Hottentot clans, of explorers who ventured into the unknown. The Company's cattle trader and the farmer followed the explorer along routes that had awaited man's coming since the dawn time. There followed the road-maker and the bridge-builder whom mankind will bless until the airways come.
Only a small portion of their story is told here. No living feet have trod the paths that led to Camdeboo, and the early tracks that took men to the Tyen are lost, but can by searching yet be found. The tale is almost unknown and untold. But some unskilled hand must first turn the rough soil before there can be a garden. If from a reading of these pages the impulse is conveyed to some South African, perhaps as yet unborn, to tell the story of South Africa's highways as it must yet be told, then the rough but loving labour spent on them will not have been in vain.
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Photo plates and foldout maps supplements the story of old South African roads, including Table Valley, Tulbagh Kloof, Hottentots Holland Pass, Bain's Kloof, Swellendam, Piekenier's Kloof, Olifant's River, Namaqualand and the Forgotten Highway.
Condition: Good. DJ covered with plastic and in decent condition. Binding solid. Foxing (brown spots) on text block and on many inner pages. Name and address written tidily on inside of cover.
Format: Hardcover with DJ
Published: 1927 (Maskew Miller)
Pages: 202
ISBN: -
