"Bain's Kloof Pass: Gateway to the North"
Review of "Bain's Kloof Pass: Gateway to the North", by Sandra
Steytler and Hans Nieuwmeyer. Published by the authors in association with
Martin Wells of Summit Publishing, Cape Town, August 2003.
The authors have packed a lot of careful research into seventy A5 pages.
Mountain Club members both, they were for twenty years responsible for the
Club's property in Bain's Kloof, and travelled through the Pass on an almost
weekly basis. Their passion for the Pass permeates the book. More than that, it
drives it right from the very first words: "We have watched with
consternation the environmental deterioration" and "We have noted the
deterioration of Bain's dry stonework - not his foundations, which are superb -
but the severe damage to the bridges and other features, and to the kerbstones
which are being overturned by big commercial vehicles whose drivers deliberately
disobey the signage. The Pass is in a state of disrepair and neglect."
Neither is a civil engineer (although Nieuwmeyer is a retired mechanical and
chemical engineer, now tutoring and teaching at UCT), yet the book is written
with appreciation for the construction difficulties. They ask how was it
possible to have built retaining walls and bridges, using blocks of stone
weighing up to 8 tons each, without machinery? The answer, they conclude, was
the superb management of Andrew Geddes Bain.
Statistics are carefully selected: for example we read that in total 15 tons
of gunpowder were employed to blast the rocks, at an average of half a pound per
hole. Holes were made by driving (by sledgehammer) forged iron
"jumpers" into the rock.
Not the least interesting sections of the book deal with the convicts (on
average approximately 270 present in the Pass at any one time). While most were
unskilled labour, many were trained on the job to do the drilling and blasting,
or as stonemasons. The book describes the personality clashes between the
Superintendent of the Convict Station, "on the whole a useful and correct
officer, but (prone to) ride the high horse" (wrote Bain), and Bain, who on
occasions gave "hasty but imperative orders, and persisted in having his
orders obeyed" (wrote the Superintendent) with respect to the convicts but
without reference to the Superintendent, although the latter was personally
responsible to the Colonial Office for them.
It would seem that the convicts were very humanely treated. There was no
discrimination between the races in the way they were treated, nor how they were
fed and housed nor what work they were given. The emphasis was on rehabilitation
- while working on the Pass they were given literacy lessons, learnt a trade and
received a certificate of expertise - jobs were found for them on their release.
Very few former convicts committed further crimes.
Sadly, the authors conclude, "the Pass is in a sorry state and there
seem to be no funds to fix it". They have however been leading lights in
the formation of a group of "Friends of Bain's Kloof", and proceeds
from the sale of the book will go towards the repair and maintenance of the
Pass.
The bibliography is extensive.
A strongly recommended purchase.
Review by Kevin Wall
More information:
Copies may be purchased from:
Sandra Steytler, Tel 021-797-8289, 405 Maynardville Court, Wellington Avenue,
Wynberg, 7800 - R50 plus R5 for postage. Cheques to be made out to Sandra
Steytler.
Or from:
Wellington Museum,
P.O.Box 166, Wellington, 7655 Tel 021-873-4710 R50
Mountain Club
97 Hatfield St, Cape Town, 8001. Tel 021-465-3412 R50
Kirstenbosch bookshops
Tel 021-762-1621 R70
Wildlife Society
PO Box 30145, Tokai, 7966 Tel 021-701-1397 R50
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