ORIGIN OF CERTAIN SOUTH AFRICAN PLACE NAMES. l6l 



I can find nothing anywhere to substantiate the statement 

 that the present site of Bloemfontein was at any time the head- 

 quaters of the outlaw Jan Blom, and can, from the above data, 

 come to no other conclusion than that Jan Blom's Fontein and 

 Bloemfontein are two quite different localities. 



Then, with reference to the name Bloemfontein, we have 

 the ex])licit statement made in a letter written by Mr. G. H. 

 Warden (son of the Major Warden who was British Resident 

 in the Orange River Sovereignty), and published in the Bloem- 

 fontein Friend in May or June, 1912, that his father bought 

 the farm in 1846 from one Jan Britz, and 



gave it the name of Bloemfontein, owing to there heing so much wild 

 clover; the valley above the fountain was covered with wild clover. 



The above facts appear to be conclusive, and to prove that 

 the name Bloemfontein is " redolent of flowers and springs," 

 and is in no way connected with the marauder and inurderer, 

 Jan Blom. 



(It may be observed here that there was a place called 



Bloemsfontein near the Tanqua River, in the northern part of 



what is now the Ceres district. Borcherd,* who was a member 



of an expedition which left Cape Town for the interior on 



October ist, 1801, tells us in his itinerary that on the loth 



October they proceeded from 



Tanquas passing barren country and the Gousldoemsfontein, Bloems- 

 fontein, Windheuvel, and Moddcrfontein.f 



There is also a Bloemfontein, marked on the map of South 

 Africa in the Times Atlas, to the north-west of Upington.) 



Another name of interest is Walvis Bay. The recent 

 Government announcement that the bay, which w;is retained by 

 Gieat Britain when Great Namaqualand was handed over 

 to Germany, was to be known henceforth as Walvis Bay. 

 gave rise to no little discussion in the public Press and elsewhere. 

 Tt was contended by some that it should have been Walwich 

 Bay. I remember reading somewhere — I regret that I failed 

 to make a note at the time, but I believe it was in an early 

 volume of the first series of the Cape Monthly Magazine — that 

 this bay had been called Walwich Bay after the captain of a 

 whaler which frequented the bay. But I am satisfied now that 

 the earliest form of the name was Walvisch Baai. Just how 

 the corruption Walwich came into existence I have not been able 

 to ascertain ; it appears, however, to be due to the sailor. 



The name Walwich seems to have been applied to this 

 bay over a century ago. Certainly in Owen's '' Narrative of 

 Voyages,":]: two forms of the name appear on the same page ; 

 in the text the name is spelt Walfisch, while at the head of the 

 page it is spelt W^alwich ; this is indicative of the confusion 

 which then existed. But the latter name, Walwich, seeins to 



*" Auto-Biographical Memoir" (1S61), 4. 



t The traveller Thomson also mentions this Bloem Fontein (1827). 

 218. 



t2 (1833), 228. 



