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stories for teachers & students 2013
The Geography of (European)
Emotions: Good Hope and
Good Health
Supporting Resources
South Africa, Far from Home
stories by winthrop professor susan broomhall
On either side of the equator lies an area known as the
Intertropical Convergence Zone (ICTZ), or more commonly as the
doldrums. Here, low pressure and solar heating forces air to rise
and cause immense rain, making the area one of the wettest in
the world. With the air rising upwards rather than horizontally, the
area has made tough work for sailors trying to catch the wind in
the sails. In the age of sails, all they could do was wait, hope and
pray for favourable winds to continue on their journey. On the
voyage that brought Dirk Hartog to Australian shores, for example,
Hartog lost six weeks in the Gulf of Guinea near Cape Lopez.
Adding to the distress, currents in the water could move vessels
considerably off course so that when the winds did pick up, they
had even further to go to reach their destinations.
It’s hard to say whether this experience caused the dull, listless
and depressed mood that we now associate with that term, or
was the reason that the area has long held this name amongst
mariners.
Whichever is the case, the doldrums was a feared part of the
passage to and from South Africa. During these delays in passing
through this area, crews used up their supplies of fruit and
vegetables and began to lose many aboard to illness. On board,
scurvy resulted in many deaths. When the Zuytdorp arrived in the
Cape in April 1712, it had lost 112 of its 286 crew in the sevenmonth
journey from Wielingen. This was quite a remarkable loss,
some two-fifths of the crew. Arent Blankert, master surgeon of
the Unie which was in Table Bay at the same time recorded the
Zuytdorp’s arrival and deaths ‘by scurvy, hot diseases, and raging
fevers. The chief-surgeon and both his mates had jumped
overboard in their delirium and ragings, notwithstanding all
conceivable precautions.’ By the time they arrived at the Cape,
crews were in severe need of fresh food and water. The Vergulde
Draeck’s provisions loaded in Cape Town included 7 cows, 10
sheep and cabbages, carrots, radishes, melons and
watermelons, as well as ‘good, fresh, healthy people’.
The Dutch were not the first to see the value in the Cape area as
a place to stop and restock their ships. It was a Portuguese
explorer, Bartholomeu Dias, who two centuries earlier first
recorded rounding the Cape in 1488. Dias was guided by texts
and maps from ancient times, especially Ptolemy’s Geography.
This told of another passage around the African continent, to
Asia. At that time, the Portuguese were seeking a passage
around Africa by which they could reach the Indies and Far East
where they believed vast riches were to be found. This would
mean they could avoid travelling overland through the Middle
East. Two previous voyages by Diogo Cão had preceded Dias,
each snaking their way further down Africa’s west coast. Dias
however made it to the very bottom of the continent. He went as
far around Southern Africa as Kwaaihoek. At this point, his crew
became afraid and begged him to turn back now that they had
discovered enough to show that there was a way around. Dias
was forced to give in to their fears. On his way back west, he
discovered the Cape itself, which he named the ‘Cabo das
Tormentas’ (Cape of Storms), from the rough winds and seas he
experienced in the area.
King John II of Portugal gave the Cape the name Good Hope by
which we know it today, encouraged by the possibilities of
establishing a global trading empire. Duarte Pacheco Pereira,
writing in his 1508 Esmeraldo de Situ Orbis, wrote that ‘the coast
here turns northwards and northeastwards … giving great hope
of the discovery of India.’ In this endeavour, the Cape was a
halfway point. By the time sailors reached the Cape, they could
have good hope of reaching their destinations – whether back
home to Portugal, or onwards to the Indies. In his 1552
publication, Décedas da Asia, João de Barros celebrated ‘that
great and notable Cape, hidden for so many hundreds of years
and which when it is seen, not only reveals itself, but opens up an
entire new world of countries.’ Hope was in the air.
It was a name that the Dutch maintained, and one that tells us
much about European hopes and dreams about their voyages to
the southern oceans.
FAR FROM HOME: ADVENTURES, TREKS, EXILES & MIGRATION
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