Stephen Gray: Unspoilt places
Thomas Pynchon’s new novel about those=20 geologists, Mason and Dixon, reminds us:=20 lines conquer. And where they conquered=20 most was in the Cape. Compasses and=20 theodolites, as much as the force of arms,=20 subdue nature, demarcate control. Once the=20 horizon has shifted in from the glassy=20 yonder where springbok migrated, and the=20 inheritors of the unending landscape have=20 been stopped at the boundary fence, tenure=20 has set in. More frontier towns in South=20 Africa are named after surveyors (Warden,=20 Stanger) than after army chiefs. By them,=20 infinity got wrapped up in title deeds.=20 Hell on nomads.
On the deck at Noupoort Farm – the perfect=20 vantage point for recent Hale-Bop watchers=20 – this kind of battle-line becomes almost=20 palpable. The blinking radar station=20 opposite, on top of Engelsman’s Beacon, is=20 manned 24 hours a day, staying in charge.=20 Near Aurora, just below, is one of those=20 monuments – La Caille’s North Terminal -=20 that shows how the land was pinned down.
Nicholas de la Caille, the theologian=20 turned genius mathematician at the Paris=20 Observatory in the 1750s, had two=20 scientific puzzles to pose that could be=20 solved only with the co-operation of some=20 officials in the southern hemisphere. He=20 chose France’s allies, the Dutch.=20
The first problem was: if it was known, for=20 example, precisely where Cape Town actually=20 was (latitude, longitude), the bulk of the=20 earth could become established. Using a web=20 of trigonometrical axes, stretching from=20 his laboratory in Strand Street all the way=20 up to the Aurora point, he attempted to=20 measure an “arc of the meridian”.
By 1873, over a century later, this=20 measuring of arcs was still such an=20 unresolved issue that his fellow=20 countryman, Jules Verne, in one of his=20 rollicking romances, moved the repeat=20 experiment to the flatter Kalahari Desert.=20 There, true to his left-wing view of=20 things, Verne made the unfashionable point=20 that new scientific know-how should not=20 serve to humiliate, but rather to ennoble=20 all. Ask the San about that one.
La Caille found the Hottentots kept=20 dismantling his cairn, and his results were=20 hopelessly compromised. His calculations=20 were pied anyway, with a plumbline tugged=20 aside by the field of Table Mountain. He=20 erroneously deduced the planet to be=20 prolate ellipsoidal (pear-shaped).
Nowadays, of course, everyone knows what=20 the earth we share looks like: a frothy=20 cocktail of blue ice, after all.
La Caille’s other task of mapping the=20 southern constellations was more=20 successfully accomplished. With his small=20 telescope he plotted just short of 10 000=20 new stars. At Noupoort Farm these days, at=20 the push of a button, up-to-date star=20 charts are printed out for gawping=20 overnighters. There is magic in finding=20 one’s way about the universe.
Be happy to become an ephemerist there,=20 studying the nightly movements of the=20 planets. Or just listen to the owls=20 coughing. Or, once sunrise has come up like=20 a pink gin, see the kloof fade into focus=20 about a remote shepherd’s cottage. Or just=20 spot an eagle come out of the blue,=20 depleting the dassies one by one …=20 ascending pursued by protesting crows.=20 Getting away with it.
This Noupoort Guest Farm and Conference=20 Centre is an actual place located in the=20 real world and, unlike la Caille, one no=20 longer needs an armed guard to get there.=20 It is 90 minutes north of Cape Town, on the=20 plateau atop the Piketberg range, which=20 divides the Swartland from the Sandveld.
Neo-nomads are supplied with trail guides=20 to the fynbos – king protea, red rexes,=20 yellow pincushions, climber’s friend, erica=20 that is all slowly rehabilitating with the=20 removal of aliens. Bird lists, too: the=20 returning sunbirds alone are worth the=20 scratchy scramble.
The whole gorgeous valley, facing west all=20 the way down to St Helena bay, has an air=20 of recovering from the draining days of=20 growing fruit and tobacco. This industry=20 had all to be maintained by a military=20 outpost on picket duty (hence one version=20 of the name Piketberg).=20
To warn the farmers they used to fire a=20 cannon: it meant either ships were ready=20 for victualling down in Table Bay or the=20 Gonjemans beyond the pale were again=20 mobilising to plunder, in reprisal for=20 being edged off their ancestral grounds.=20 The Berg River was the first lie drawn=20 against them, then the Olifants, and then,=20 at last, the Orange, to settle the=20 business.
Above it all, at Noupoort Farm, arum lilies=20 tumble down to the sauna. A chamber music=20 workshop is on, or Camilla Waldman is=20 looking for an early audience (or so is Guy=20 Willoughby, Peter Hayes, Claire Berlein,=20 Pieter-Dirk Uys …).
To join the mailing list contact Peggy=20 Lipinski or Brent Meersman at (0261) 5754