So we recovered our ponies from the woodcutter, who told us he had cut wood round 'Paradise' for over thirty years, and followed the red-brick slave-road which brought us to the middle of the Newlands Avenue. 'Paradise,' with its shy ghosts, its decay, its charm, and its memories of Anne, we placed at the back of our minds like little sacred hidden temples, and the essence of it all burnt like incense in their shrines.
CHAPTER V
THE LIESBEEK RIVER
We traced one day the old boundary-line, the Liesbeek River, from its mouth near the Salt River to its sources in the woods of Paradise and Bishopscourt.
In some of the old record-books I found this entry, which will do as a prologue to the chapter:
'Cabo de Bonne Esperance,
'September, 1652.
'Riebeek and the Carpenter proceed' (it was proceeding with some great care and danger in those days) 'to the back of Table Mountain' (a vague term for everything which was not visible from the fort). 'Here to examine, whether there are any forests other than already mentioned on the Lion Mountain, as the timber from home has been much spoilt, and is too light for the dwellings, in consequence of the heavy winds from the mountain we dare not leave our heaviest houses without supports. We found in the kloofs fine, thick, fairly strong trees, somewhat like the ash and beech, heavy and difficult to be transported. We found on some trees the dates 1604, 1620, and 1622, but did not know who carved them. Astonished that so many East India voyagers have maintained that there is no wood here. Found also fine soil, intersected by countless rivulets, the biggest as broad as the Amstel (Liesbeek), and running into the Salt River.'
This well-watered ground round Bishopscourt and Newlands became the Company's forest lands.
In 1656, when the Commander went on another tree-hunting expedition, there is another entry:
'August 31, 1656.
'The Commander proceeds to the cornland, has some tobacco sown, and proceeds behind Table Mountain, where the forests are. He found very many sorts of trees similar to pine, but no real pines, and not one higher than 6, 7, or 8 feet.'