‘Earth has not anything to show more fair.’ One can admire the view from Westminster Bridge and feel near the epicentre of a great civilisation, but still believe that Wordsworth was exaggerating. His line came to mind when I was thinking about Christmases past, two of which I was fortunate enough to spend in the Cape. That scenery really is hard to rival.
In the 1980s, the Cape offered five of life’s greatest pleasures. Landscape, politics, shooting, wine — and about 120 miles from Cape Town, there is an enchanting village called Arniston, or Waenhuiskrans, not far from Cape Agulhas, the southernmost point of Africa. Its inhabitants are Cape Coloured fishermen, living in charming white cottages and speaking only Afrikaans. My companion could translate. She told me that these simple and pious folk spoke in a biblical cadence: ‘From the sea, we have always got our bread.’
They were alarmed at the thought that they might be displaced by a missile range. In those days, there were rumours that the South Africans, the Israelis and the Taiwanese would collaborate to produce missiles; South Africa had thousands of miles of empty ocean as a testing ground. I also suggested that they should cooperate to produce a new warplane, perhaps called the pariah. As for the testing-ground for rocketry, South Africa was changing — fortunately — and Arniston was spared, which it might not have been ten years earlier.
Meanwhile, we could dine on a terrace, as darkness gradually enfolded a turquoise sea. Below the starlit heavens, little points of light appeared. The fishermen were catching tomorrow night’s meal. A flask of wine and thou: a pastoral enchantment.
On the way from Cape Town, there is a sleepy little coastal town called Hermanus, which is famous for two reasons.
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