ORIGIN OF C1-;RTAIX SOl'T!! A !■ K I (A X I'l.ACI". XAMKS. 167 



Diab," or Devil's Cape. Unfortunately, I have not had access 

 to Humboldt's woi-ks, hut in juta's " The Ca])e Peninsula "* the 

 following passage occurs : — 



We clinil)ed liislicr and were soon in the shadow (it the Devil's Peak 

 or Doves' Peak. Tlie name " Devil " mnst have drifted from the " Cape " 

 to Wind Mountain. " Windherti " was the ordinary name for tlie Peak, 

 and " Devil's Cape " was the name given to the Cape many years before 

 Diaz's ship was driven round into the Indian Ocean. Humboldt, the 

 German traveller, has interesting information about this name. He 

 says that on Fra Mauro's chart, pul)lished between 1457 and 14S9, the 

 Cape of Good Hope is marked " Capo Di Diab.'' 



Mr. Scullyt says :— 



This name ("the Devil's Peak'') used then to cause great scandal to the 

 Dutch colonists — the term being an unconscious perversion by the l-Lnglish 

 of the original name of " Duiven's " or " Doves ' Peak. 



But this statement does not appear to be borne out by the facts, 

 the name Duivelsberg having been used of this mountain three 

 parts of a century, at least, before the Cape passed into the 

 possession of ( Ireat Britain. By the English the Devil's Peak 

 was first called Charles Mountain, as the Lion's Hill was called 

 James Mountain, but as we know the Dutch name in each case 

 prevailed, and Duivelsberg became in English the Devil's Peak. 



The name Roggeveld, as api)lied to a considerable tract of 

 countr}- in the Western Province, intersected by a chain of 

 mountains known as the Roggeveld Bergen, has generally been 

 regarded as embodying the Dutch word ror/, rye ; but a friend 

 writing to me some time ago questions this, and says: " Rogge- 

 veld means. T am sure, ' rough country.' Rye will not thrive 

 there." That rye will not thrive there appears to be perfectly 

 true, but that does not make Roggeveld mean " rough country." 

 The fact is. as I have subsequently found, the reference of the 

 name is not to the cultivated Rye at all, but to a plant which, 

 in suitable seasons, is said to grow there in some profusion, and 

 is known to the Dutch as "Wilde Rog " (Secale africannui). as 

 appears from the following passage from Thunberg, who visited 

 the locality in 1774 : — 



llere the country was called the Lowermost Roggeveld, not l)ecause it 

 lies lower than the other Roggevelds (Ryetields). but because it lies 

 farthest from the Cape, 'i'hese as well as the others have been so named 

 from a kind of rye wbicli grows wild licre in abundance near the bushes. — 

 Thunberg.t 



Lichtenstein, whose visit to the Cape extended from 1803 to 

 1806, who also travelled through the Roggeveld, writing of the 

 district, says : — 



Rye ( roggen or rockeiD is not cultivated here, though the name of 

 the district might lead to the supposition that it was a principal object of 

 'cultivation ; but the truth is, that the name is taken from a species of 

 grass which grows very much among the clefts, resembling rye, and which 

 the colonists call wild rye.§ 



■■■ (1910), 43. 



t"A Vendetta of the Desert" (t8c)8), ()j. 



t2_( 1796), t68, 



§ Lichtenstein, 1 (hSij). 100. 



