Eastern Cape Provincial Article - South African Vacations

History Museum: This museum preserves the records and family trees of the
1820 Settlers and other memorabilia from the Settler period. Other collections
include an Egyptian mummy and an ethnographic collection of the culture of
the Xhosa people.
JLB Smith Institute of Ichthyology: The institute houses the National Collection
of Fish, the largest in the Southern Hemisphere. In 1952 the second
coelacanth to be caught in the world, was caught off the Comoro Islands and
brought to the Institute to be studied. The coelacanth is a primitive marine fish
with fleshy, limb-like pectoral fins. It was thought to be extinct until the first
living fish was caught off the coast of East Africa in 1938. The second
specimen is now an important exhibit at the Institute.
National English Literary Museum: This museum was set up to promote
reading and the appreciation of English literature. One of the museum’s
proudest possessions is the personal archive of Sir Percy Fitzpatrick.
Natural Sciences Museum: The museum features a fascinating reconstruction
of a Stegosaurus, the first dinosaur fossil found in South Africa, over two
million species of plants and animals, as well as material from the late Stone
Age to the early Iron Age.
Observatory Museum: Once a fairy-tale style Victorian house with a magic
mirror, this museum has the only Victorian camera obscura in the Southern
Hemisphere. Once the house of a former jeweller, Henry Galpin, the
Observatory is also one of the country’s most beautiful buildings. It is also the
place where, in 1867, Dr WG Atherstone identified the first diamond found in
South Africa.
Oldest Post Box in South Africa: This post box is situated at the corner of
Somerset and Worcester Streets. Mail a letter to a friend and it will be franked
with a special postmark.
Piet Retief’s Trading Store: View this historical trading store, opened in 1819
and belonging to one of the leaders of the “Great Trek”, the migration of
hundreds of disillusioned and demoralised Cape Dutch settlers and farmers,
from the Eastern Cape frontier area northwards to the interior.
Rhodes University Classics Museum: The University Museum features objects
originating from the ancient worlds of the Etruscans and Egyptians.
South African Library for the Blind: The library provides a service to the entire
country with its excellent collection of Braille books and multimedia sources.
Victorian and Georgian architecture: Grahamstown is an architectural treasure
trove of mainly Victorian and Georgian styles. The City Hall and some
- 52 -