Stripy carriage teams
INFORMATION comes in about the stripy carriage teams of yesteryear. Earlier this week we had a reader's query about zebras drawing a carriage in an old photograph from just before the turn of the 19th century. Today we are able to publish a photograph of zebras harnessed to a trap about the same era, though the exact setting is not known.
Professor David Walker (Physics, UKZN) has the photograph in an album compiled by his grandmother, Kate Walker (born Cumming), grand-daughter of the missionary John Forbes, whose exploits are described in his (David Walker's) recently published book, Pawns in a Larger Game.
Her elder brother, Jack, left home for the diamond fields in the late 19th century and later was in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). The album's pictures are not labelled so David has no idea of where the photograph was taken.
"I understand that, at the time, attempts were made to domesticate zebra in the tsetse fly infested parts of the country where horses could not survive. I believe these were unsuccessful but the photograph suggests that my great-uncle (whom I never met) might have been involved. Any of the mustachioed gentlemen might be him."
Stripy set
MEANWHILE, it seems zebras in harness were the equivalent in those days of today's Lamborghini or Ferrari. A flamboyant Johannesburg socialite named José Dale Lace used to be driven about in a cart drawn by four zebras.
When she went shopping it would be signalled by a servant sounding a bugle as she left Northwards, the Herbert Baker stately home in Parktown, which is today a national monument.
Jose also took milk baths in a marble tub and, while an actress in London, had been mistress to King Edward VII as well as to Ernest Beckett, Baron Grimthorpe, who she bore a son (though she always claimed Edward VII was the father).
She had in fact been born Josephine Cornelia Brink at Richmond in the Karoo. It is believed she was proposed to by Cecil John Rhodes, prime minister of the Cape, before she set out for England.
José was a flighty lass. She married her eventual husband, Colonel John Dale Lace, twice.
The first time she refused to consummate the marriage because she wanted to finish the play she was acting in. She still loved Ernest so John, at her request, divorced her. The second time, on the rebound after Ernest refused to marry her, she and John married again in Cape Town and John – a wealthy mining magnate - adopted her son. They never had children of their own.
Yep, the stripy set/the Ferrari set – not that much has changed.
Close, magical
READERS have mentioned close and magical encounters with nyala up in Zululand. Now another says he had a similar experience in the Drakensberg.
"In the middle '60s I was walking a high trail above the Lotheni camp when in the bush, just to the left of the path, stood a kudu. He didn't stir; nor did I. I could almost have touched him. I continued softly on my way as he remained browsing. An old bull separated from the herd perhaps?"
But could this really have been a kudu? These are creature of the bushveld, not the mountains. Was it not perhaps an eland? Or have kudu been known to wander into the high country?
Monkeys
VERVETS of the world, unite! Carole Wood, of Glenashley, takes a quote from this column last week, "A dreadful species is homo sapiens" – relating to the persecution of tiny turtles off Indonesia – and links it to a quotation elsewhere in the same issue of the Mercury from Joaquim Phoenix: "It takes nothing away from a human to be kind to an animal."
She says both relate to vervet monkeys and throws in a bit of Mahatma Gandhi's philosophy: "The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated."
"For anyone who takes the time to witness it, the vervets' social system could teach homo sapiens a thing or two."
Tailpiece
"I used to pick up only good-looking girls."
"Why 'used to'? What happened?"
"It almost cost me my job as a bus driver."
Last word
I'm worried that the universe will soon need replacing. It's not holding a charge.
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