This is still a work in progress and far from a completed book. Don't embarrass yourself by copying my work because I am not a native English speaker and there might still be many mistakes that I am not even aware of. Visit our website or sign up for the newsletter on the progress that I am making in writing old Coenraad's story.
www.camelthorngiants.co.za
Structure of the “Camelthorn Giants” trilogy
This giant story can best be told in three parts:
In the first part I would like to present the evidence and subtle clues that Coenraad de Buys and his friends came across during their travel to the area around the Zoutpansberg. This part is called EXPLORE because that is really what they did that winter of 1796. For about six months they travelled mostly on horse-back into the unknown areas North of the Gariep River. During this adventure, Coenraad fell in love with the country around the Zoutpansberg and realized that age-old trade routes might lead him to untold riches.
Coenraad packed up all his belongings and a substantial family, to cross the great Gariep River and lead them into the wild unknown of Southern Africa. The second part could be called EXODUS because it became an epic journey where he systematically searched the interior of South Africa for these ancient trade routes that would lead him to the elusive land of Ophir. In the process he got involved with some shady characters and fell foul of the law and mostly the English government in the Cape. His travels also took him to some exotic and out of the way places, very few people knew about. He discovered the ruins of mighty African kingdoms covered under sand or hidden in the bush and learned about trade with far away places that has been going on for thousands of years.
When he stood at the threshold of his biggest discovery and just when he was about to connect the final dots in this monumental puzzle; the bottom dropped out of his world. His wife and soul-mate died of Malaria as they reached the foothills of Blouberg. This giant of a man was reduced to a crying baby. The evening after her funeral he gave the big family bible to his favorite sons and told them to settle there on the southern slopes of the Zoutpansberg and wait for him. That night he disappeared never to be seen again. Part three could therefore be called EXTRAPOLATE, where we follow him into the night and learn how he decided to continue his quest without putting his whole family at risk. He could move much faster now but was he taking too much of a risk to get to the gold?
Warning
In the virgin bush of southern Africa something as big as an elephant can disappear in the wink of an eye, never to be seen again. Sometimes all that remain are the spoor, faint imprints in the soil, that are left behind as they lightly impact on their environment. Wind, rain and the hooves of other animals, immediately begin to wipe away the little evidence that was left behind. A few days later only the expert eye of Bushman tracker will be able to tell what animal passed there and in what direction it was heading.
Mighty African kingdoms disappeared and blended back into the bush without a trace. The absence of these bustling trade centres and glittering capitals reminds one of the Bushmen legend of Kaggan, the mantis (known in Afrikaans as Hottentotsgot, meaning Hottentot god). It is said of Kaggan living in the camelthorn tree, that just because you can't see him doesn't mean that he is not there. Knowledge of these cities now resides in the murky realms of myth and fables, surviving in stories told within the hypnotic circle of a camp fire deep in the bush. Because they had no written history the local peoples of Southern Africa developed the uncanny ability to stick very accurately to the detail of their oral history and ancestry. A thousand years later even that became heavily mottled by the passage of time.
Analysing these faint and flimsy bits of evidence, with the aid of satellite imaging (compliments of Google Earth), a fuzzy picture slowly started appearing in my mind. Throw in a few lucky coincidences, like a newspaper clipping from my mother and a holiday to Mapungubwe and the story takes on a life of its own. The next few years was the nice part for me – slowly gathering evidence wherever I could find it, old Dutch travel manuscripts, Portuguese seafarer accounts, Afrikaans history. I read an analysed everything that I could lay my hands and eyes on. Then I noticed that no matter where I turn, one name kept coming up, almost like he was trying to get my attention. Coenraad de Buys left such a huge impression on the South African landscape that it became impossible to ignore his presence. The reason why I kept bumping into him was because we were basically travelling in the same direction. I was just a little bit late, by about 200 years.
Once Coenraad hijacked my project things started moving to fast to keep up. There was no way in which I could keep track of all the references to give this account any historical credibility. Just as well because what transpired became even hard for me to accept. That is why my daughter insisted that this story carry the following warning: Please be warned that this is a fictional account of the quest of Coenraad de Buys to find the lost cities of gold in the African interior. The maps and evidence given in the course of this story are made up to support his adventure. Many names of places and people are drawn from the historical context but was changed and moved around to suit the storyline. Historians please don't be fooled into believing that this story is true and if you read on you might be horrified by my disregard for facts, references and the truth in general. Coenraad's spoor has gone cold in the historical context but sometimes late at night, I thought I felt his huge hand on my shoulder as he guided me on this quest.
My heart is filled with admiration and love towards my soul-mate and wife Suzette, for her unwavering support and involvement in the research and recording of this story. Thanks for driving thousands of kilometres with me and doing the “Groot Trek” in reverse. Thank you for crawling into all sorts of nooks and crannies to make credible drawings of the Bushman artworks scattered all over southern Africa. Thank you for listening to all these stories over and over again, every time I told them to a different audience and thank you most of all, for still believing in me.
The grey haired lady living on the southern foothills of the Zoutpansberg in the Limpopo province of South Africa, thank you for being my mother and my biggest fan. Thank you Moeks for all the research, the books and the encouragement to start writing. That newspaper clipping of the Lemba people opened my eyes to the importance of time and trade on the back of the Indian Ocean monsoon. Thanks to you and my dad, there will always be a curiosity inside me trying to dig a little deeper and to look just beyond the obvious to the incredible that waits to be discovered by an open mind and a generous heart.
My youngest brother Buks, helped a lot through his travels and knowledge of the rural areas south of the Limpopo. His love for rocks and stone artefacts helped me to understand how the ancients worked with nature in achieving the amazing things that they did, thousands of years ago. His keen interest in the local people and his knowledge of local geology helped make sense of this wonderful place we call home.
Lasea and Bertus are my two children that need some form of apology for all the times that they were left alone without proper explanation. I am sorry about those times that you needed me and I wasn't there. Sorry about the times that I borrowed your mother to go with, it just made it so much better if she was there with me. Maybe one day as a small consolation you can read some of these stories to your children and tell them about your crazy parents and how much fun they had digging up the detail of this adventure.
Many other people both living and those that have passed on helped to shape and write this story. Family, colleagues, friends all the peoples, animals and places
that helped to mould and record this story deserves the credit. In a way I feel Coenraad made a mistake to pick me to tell this incredible tale, an amateur lacking the richness in words to paint a truthful picture. The keen observer might want to follow his journey as illustrated through the accompanying hyprlinks, pictures, drawings and maps and look at some of the staggering evidence that I was confronted with during my research.
This is still a work in progress and is offered free of charge to interested readers in the hope that they will help me to improve the language and grammar to make it easy to read and understand. I trust that, whatever my descriptions lack in clarity, or literary skill, may in a way be compensated for by the novelty of this African experience. In addition I would love to get feed-back about how I might improve the detail and characters in the story. I am even open to suggestions and improvements in the story itself to make it more interesting and believable. Any pictures or drawings to better illustrate the story will be more than welcome and due recognition will be given to anyone that contributes to the improvement of this, my first attempt at writing a historic novel.