The main attraction for living near the coast for both groups was the easily available shellfish. They were skilled in making fish hooks as well as in making fish traps and stone weirs for catching fish at high spring tides, but from the small proportion of fish bones in the shell middens, they could not have managed to catch enough fish for it to be anything but an occasional treat on their menus.

They visited the caves seasonally and their staple diet when they were there seemed to have been shellfish - mussels, limpets, whelks and the occasional crayfish, probably collected by the women. Where oysters were found, they were prised off the rocks with worked bone ribs. Seals and marine birds were also collected from the beaches. Occasionally the men would bring back some buck, mole rat, porcupine or tortoise to add variety to their diet.

Excavations by Poggenpoel and Robertshaw of a cave at Smitswinkel Bay near Cape Point show that the people who had lived there between 1 420 and 1 175 years ago kept sheep and caught seal, hottentot, poenskop, galjoen, white stumpneus and white steenbras. Their neighbours who lived in a cave at Hout Bay (Buchanan 1977), caught in addition to these many haarders and kob. They had sheep and pottery - these were introduced to the South Western Cape about two thousand years ago. About a thousand years ago cattle appeared in the Cape in significant numbers. Their possession of cattle, and the desire of the passing sailors and the early colonists to acquire these, was later to have a significant effect on their subsequent history.

Both the hunting and the herding societies seemed to have been able to continue their separate existences until well after the European settlement. There were various patriarchal clans spread throughout the West and South Western Cape each with an hereditary leader. The ample rainfall of the Western Cape with its rivers and pastures was ideal for their herds of cattle. The Goringhaiqua camped between Table Bay ( Cape Town) and Muizenberg, the Goringhaikona or Strandlopers gathered seafood washed up on the shore, the Kochoqua or Saldanhamen lived between Malmesbury and Saldanha Bay and were the strongest of the local groups and the Chainoqua, the most numerous clan, lived beyond the Hottentots Holland mountains with their large herds. Bartering between the tribes was common, and included dagga, ostrich shells, pottery and Namaqua copper, and cattle raiding frequently occurred.

When the Portuguese and Dutch sailors first came across these people, they called the Khoikhoi (meaning men of men) herders ‘Hottentot’, because of the sound of their language, and the Khoisan hunters ‘Bushmen’, and they sent home ignorant and uncomplimentary descriptions of their behaviour and way of life. Van Riebeeck estimated in 1652 that there were 300 Goringhaiqua and 600 - 700 Kochoqua men possessing about 3 000 cattle and 2 000 sheep. Life started to change for these indigenous inhabitants during the 16th and 17th Centuries and there must have been between four to eight thousand Khoikhoi when the Dutch landed with their measles, TB and smallpox, and started to settle and farm across the Khoikhoi’s traditional pasturage, preventing the uncomprehending people from having access to the land in their seasonal moves across the peninsula with their animals.

WRITTEN HISTORY SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES

The availability of food influenced the lives of people in Europe as well. When the Crusaders returned to insular Europe fresh with reports of the exotic foods they had sampled in the Middle East, the recognition that food is good but spices are nicer brought new wants into the kitchen. The poor found that spices preserved the dried meat that fed them through the winter, the rich found that spices made their dishes tastier and more palatable.

Prices for spices - pepper, cloves, nutmeg - ruled the market in the Middle Ages and this market was controlled by the Venetians and the Arab middlemen. The Portuguese under Prince Henry the Navigator determined to break this monopoly by finding another route to the spice islands. Their ships set out to explore the unknown world below the bulge of Africa. Bartholomew Dias was the first to sail past Camps Bay and on his way home to Lisbon he and his men stopped off in Cape Town, and were reputed to have climbed up Lion’s Hill ( in Camps Bay) and chipped a horizontal bar across a vertical fissure on the granite shoulder, turning it into another cross. Whether this is true or not, that cross is still plainly visible above the end of Regent Road ( in Camps Bay). Dias brought back a chart of South Africa showing its bays and anchorage.

Vasco da Gama went right round Africa in 1497 and found the path to the East Indies. The following year Rio D’Infante, the Portuguese Admiral landed at the Cape and recommended a settlement, but the expedition failed. In 1501 another expedition went around the Cape, followed in 1503 by De Saldanha who put in at Table Bay, climbed Table Mountain ( Cape Town) and bought a cow and two sheep from the Hottentots he found there. De Almeida in 1509 tried to barter with the herders for cattle, got into a fight, launched a punitive expedition, was attacked on Woodstock beach and was killed along with sixty-five of his men. After that the Portuguese avoided the Cape.

The Dutch had better luck. They visited the Cape in 1595 under Houtman and managed to trade successfully with the Khoisan, as did Paulus van Caerden in 1601, Joris van Spilbergen and the commanders of many other ships. In 1620 the British landed under Humphrey Fitzherbert and Andrew Shillinge. Ignoring the fact that the Khoikhoi had been living here for centuries, they took possession of the Cape in the name of King James and raised a flag on Signal Hill which they named St James’ Mount. They reported that a serviceable plantation could be formed in Table Bay ( Cape Town) requiring only a few men for its upkeep, that its soil was fruitful and its climate pleasant, that the natives were willing and likely to become servants of God, that whale-fishing would be a source of profit and lastly What did these early settlers or travellers think about Camps Bay? Their main interest was in Table Bay ( Cape Town) and its security or promise of exploitation, not in Camps Bay. Few would have known of its existence, let alone had any interest in it. It had limited strategic value. Access was difficult. It was not suitable for a harbour. Windswept and riverless, it was not suitable for agriculture. It is unlikely that many of these early travellers would have risked confrontation with unknown savages by venturing too far over the Kloof ( Camps Bay).

We have an idea of what the environment of Camps Bay must have been like from the descriptions left by inquisitive travellers for whom a climb up Table Mountain ( Cape Town) became an essential and exciting expedition for anyone with ambitions of publishing a subsequent best selling travel journal, a climb rewarded by the sight of unusual flora, fauna and fabulous views, with the added spice of a brush with wild animals. In 1654 Johan Nieuhof wrote that: “At the head of Lion’s Hill ( Camps Bay) there dwell very large baboons, which are so bold that they often chase away those inquisitive who climb this hill with stones which they throw pretty well, as if they were half-men.”

Two years later Volquardt Iversen complained about the wind. “The worst and most dangerous thing here is that often heavy storms and great tempests arise, with such a terrible roar that one must be astonished thereat and as suddenly as if a wind were shaken out of a bag so that one can scarcely guard against it. There is a tall hill here which they call the Table Mountain ( Cape Town) because it is quite flat and even on top, and on both sides goes steeply down, and thus looks like a table. Near this hill is another called the Lion Hill ( in Camps Bay), because from far off it well resembles a lion lying down on its belly, with its head towards the Table Mountain ( Cape Town) and its tail towards the sea. When it is seen that the clouds approach over the Table Mountain ( Cape Town) one can be sure that a great storm is coming; and it is therefore a common saying ‘The Tablecloth is spread, we shall soon be served with ill-cooked food”.

In 1658 Wouter Schouten had his pleasure in the abundant plants and animals cut short by the sight of a lion on Lion Hill ( in Camps Bay). “I climbed up the Lion Hill (in Camps Bay). Along our way as also above on the hill, we found it set with pleasant herbs, long grass and many sweet smelling flowers, but with few trees. After this in the green valley (Kloof Nek, Camps Bay)) sloping down between the Lion ( Camps Bay) and Table-Hill we took great pleasure in watching the agile leaping and clambering of the roebucks, little steenbok and such wild animals, which well knew how to make their way upwards by leaping among the steep cliffs and rocks. But our pleasure here did not last long, since in the middle of our close examination we saw a lion not far from us, which, coming into sight from behind the stones and rocks, at once hid itself again in the undergrowth and scrub. This we did not at all regret, since truly the sight scared us.”

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