Journey: August 8, 1854 – November 11, 1854

The James Lycett Journal describes a “Journey to Namaqualand from Cape Town, commenced on Tuesday August 8th, 1854 in company with J. Calvert Esq., Coachman John Southgate, and Daangie, a Hottentot” (p.1) Another man named March, described as a “Hottentot boy,” also travelled with them. The Journal ends on November 11, 1854, with Lycett alone in Hondeklip Bay.

The Lycett party was part of the Namaqualand copper boom of 1854, and crossed paths with other prospectors, local farmers, and some government officials, including Charles Davidson Bell, Surveyor General, and Dr. William Guybon Atherstone, who later reported on the geology of the region to the Government. Atherstone kept three notebooks of his 1854 trip to Namaqualand, which describe similar struggles of travel but offer a different perspective on the people he met - including John Calvert.

The Atherstone notebooks are held in the Albany Museum in Grahamstown (Makhanda) in the Section that used to be the Settler Museum. My thanks to Dr. Elizabeth van Heyningen, Honorary Research Associate [HRA], History Department, University of Stellenbosch, for this information.

The sketch book includes drawings of the Malays of Cape Town, Khoisan of Algoa Bay and Swellendam, Fingoes of Algoa Bay and Zulus of Natal. Also scenes such as an ox wagon on trek; Wynberg Church and the Botanical Garden, 1852; Umlass Lake, Natal; cartoons of M. Jourdan of Mauritius, 1868 and a flower painting of sparaxis.

Sealed letter written in King Williams town to Faku, Chief of the Pondo, condemning Faku's behavior 'You did most wrongly ... your conduct has been bad. Now I call upon you ... to fall on Kreli'.

Kept by Sophy Gray, the wife of Robert Gray, first Bishop of Cape Town, this volume contains the chronicle of the Province, together with an index. The entries were done in fine calligraphy.

In her diary she describes social activities in India and at the Cape of Good Hope. 44 pages relate to the Cape, where she was married on 19 April 1836, and where she and her husband stayed for two periods from 22 April to the 22 September 1836 and again from 9 February 1839 to the 17 September 1840.

Paramount chief of the Pondos

Statement in Zulu, to the government of Natal, signed with Faku's mark.

The notebook contains observations made by De la Caille at the Cape and elsewhere; a list of expenses in connection with his observatory at St. Martin (Paris); and details of the mathematical basis for his calculations, including lists of formulae and trigonometrical proofs, used as an aide-memoire during his travels. There are calculations of some star coordinates, apparently made at the Cape, and, most important of all, a calculation of the difference in latitude between the Cape and Klipfontein for his determination of an arc of the meridian.

'Red Rand: drama in three acts', typescripts, 44 pages

"The literary works of the foreign missionaries of the Moravian Church", by The Rev. G.Th. Reichelt, of Herrnhut, Saxony.

Translated and annotated by Bishop Edmund de Schweinitz.

Lists printed works of the Moravian Mission in South Africa, mainly produced at the Mission's printing press in Genadendal, „Genadendalse Drukkery“, one of the first printing presses publishing in Afrikaans.

Ratified deed, with the signatures of W.W. Jones, Bp. of Cape Town and Metropolitan, N.J. Merriman, Bp. of Grahamstown, and others.