l68 ORIGIN OF CERTAIN SOUTH AFRICAN PLACE NAMES. 



1 can find nothing anywhere to suggest that the name 

 refers to the rough character of the country, though reference 

 »s made to that feature by more than one of the early traveUers. 



There is a very general idea abroad that the ill-omened 

 name '' Slachters Nek " had its origin in the terrible execution 

 of the men who were condemned to death because of their ])arti- 

 cipation in what is known as the Bezuidenhout Rebellion. But 

 the place had been thus named several years before these men 

 were executed. Originally, it was known as Doom Nek or 

 Van Aardt's Poort ; it lies not far from tlie main road between 

 Cookhouse and Somerset East. This was the locality in 1811 

 of the murder by the Kaffirs of Mr. Stockenstrom, the Land- 

 drost of GraalT-Reinet, who. with eight farmers forming his 

 escort, was treacherously killed by the Kaffirs during an inter- 

 view with them, in which he was endeavouring to dissuade 

 them from war. Information being brought to the Kaffirs, \vhile 

 the discussion was in progress, that hostilities hail already com- 

 menced, and that blood had been shed, they fell upon the Land- 

 drost and his escort and murdered them all. It was on accoimt 

 of these murders that the place was given the name " Slachters 

 Nek." 



When this place was made the scene of the execution of 

 those who were condemned to death for their participation in 

 the Bezuidenhout Rebellion. 18 15, it gave to the name Slachters 

 Nek a still more sinister significance, and the hatred of the 

 Dutch against British rule, intensified by these executions, 

 became deep and lasting, and found constant expression in the 

 mere repetition of the name. 



In spite of the utmost carefulness one d(^es not always 

 escape the pitfalls that lie in the path of the student of Place- 

 Names ; as a result he finds it necessary sometimes to revise his 

 conclusions, and learns by experience that it is safest never to 

 take the current explanation of a name for granted. Finding 

 the name Kowie i)rinted in some fairly early missionary and 

 other works with an initial C *. it appeared to corroborate a 

 statement made to me 35 years ago, by a resident of the 

 place, that the name was derived from a Dr. Cowie, who, in the 

 early days of the Settlement, was the District Surgeon of Lower 

 Albany, and who, with liis comi)anion. Mr. Benjamin Green, 

 succumbed to fever on their return from an exploring expedi- 

 tion to Delagoa Bay in 1828. This date should have been suffi- 

 cient to put one on his guard, and have given one to see the 

 necessity of looking elsewhere for the derivation of the Place- 

 Name. The fact is, the name Kowie was in use long before Dr. 

 Cowie had arrived on the scene; for in 1812 Lieutenant-Colonel 

 J. Gfaham, writing to the Colonial Secretary, speaks of " the 

 source of the Kowie River " ; then, in 1819, Earl Bathurst sent 

 lengthy instructions out to the Cape as to the territory to be 



* ]\Ietlnien : "Life in the Wilderness" (1848), 31. Smitli : "South Africa 

 Delineated" (1850), ^8. 39. 



