South African Eden by James Stevenson-Hamilton

Author:James Stevenson-Hamilton
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Zoology, Science, Life Sciences, General
ISBN: 9780143529538
Publisher: Penguin
Published: 2012-09-30T14:00:00+00:00

The author (right) with Harry Wolhuter (1902-1946) at the tree where he escaped from a lion in 1903

The railway trolley and Skukuza

Rest-camp by 1940

The railway halt in the 1920s and later the Skukuza pont for motorists

C T Astley Maberly’s portrait of Ranger-sergeant Njinja Ndlovu who served 1910-45

8

1923 to 1924

It was mentioned in the last chapter that the Pretoria meeting at which the Sabi Game Reserve was theoretically rent in pieces, was in fact the herald of a new era; its outcome proved the truth of the adage that it is always darkest before dawn. I had several satisfactory interviews with Colonel Reitz, one result of which was that he agreed to pay a visit to the reserve during the coming dry season, and to see things for himself.

Accordingly, in August 1923 he duly arrived in his official capacity, attended by Sommerville, the Secretary of the Lands Department, and his private secretary, Neser. Apprised of the intended visit, some members of the Executive Committee of the Provincial Council thought they also would enjoy the trip, and Dr Hjalmar Reitz (Colonel Reitz’s brother), Messrs Stoffberg and Kretschmar with Mr van Velden, the Provincial Secretary, accompanied the Minister, the party being made up by Dr Haagner, then chairman of the Wild Life Protection Society. This was the first time since 1903 that the reserve had been visited officially by any members of the government or provincial administration. But Cinderella was now coming into her own!

I met the party at Komatipoort and travelled up with them in their private coach to Reserve Siding, just across the Sabie, where they spent the night. All the way up in the train, some of the members were excitedly commenting on such game as they could see on either side of the line and discussing the sport they expected to have on the following day! I then discovered that before leaving Pretoria the members of the executive had passed a resolution giving themselves special permission to shoot in the reserve!

This would never do, it might have all kinds of repercussions; so I lost no time in surreptitiously enlisting the remainder of the party to combat so exceedingly dangerous a precedent. I believe a heated argument round the campfire went on far into the night and that opinions were about equally divided for and against the shooting plan. The deciding factor, I understand, was the discovery that a great deal of the land we were going to travel over was the property of private owners, by whose consent it had been included in the reserve, and that these would certainly not tacitly permit members of the Provincial Council to exercise privileges denied to them as owners. Moreover, with a council election brewing, it was realised that the violation of the reserve’s sanctity by the very people who had, or were supposed to have, the task of protecting it, would be made full use of by political opponents.

I had of course put our side wise to the fact that, only

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