SOUTH AFKICAN I'LAt, K-NAMKS. 44I 



'rn>lloi)c ("South Africa.'" 1872, i., ]>. 133) says: 



"The name Ceres has been .triveii to the valley in a spirit of pniphecy 

 which has yet to be fulhllcd Tlio soil no donl)t is fertile, but the cereal 

 produce is not yet large. 



The suggestion of the name has passed into fact. 



In 1839. one year after Retief and his companions were 

 so treacherously slaughtered hy the Zulu chief, Dingaan, the 

 Voortrekkers of Natal had laid out a township, which is still 

 the chief town of the Province. The name Ptetermaritzburg 

 is generally regarded as Ijeing a compound of Picfcr (Retief and 

 Gert) Marits, two of the Voortrekker leaders. The name 

 appears, however, as early as 1840, in the form Pietermaritz- 

 burg: 



" January iSth, 1840. — " Er werd dan gevolelyk een expresse met 

 Veld-Kornet Bester naar den Landdrost van Pietermauritzburg', gezon- 

 den.'' — " Expeditie of Dagverhaal van de Expeditie der Emigranten te 

 Port Xatal," Kaapstad. Gedukt ten Kantoor van " De Zuid Afrikaan," 

 p. 3. 1840. 



Preller (" Piet Retief," iqi2, p. 29=;) reproduces a letter 

 written by Retief's widow to Gideon Retief, her brother-in-law. 

 dated : 



"Op de Kolonie van Port Xatal. genaamt Pieter Mouritz ?ktrg.'' den 7 

 July, 1840." 



In 1851 Freeman ("A Tour in South Africa," 1851. p. 349) 

 spells the name Pietermauritzburg. 



Referring to this spelling of the name, Professor Cachet 

 r" De Worstelstrijd der Transvalers " 1822. p. 210. n.) says that 

 " oude voortrekkers " had told him that that was the correct 

 spelling. He was assured that the original intention was to 

 name the trwn after Pieter Mauritz Retief only. But, unfortu- 

 natelv for this latter statement, Mauritz does not appear to have 

 been any part of Retief's name, as appears from a certified copy 

 of the entry of Pieter Retief's baptism, which is renroduced by 

 Preller ("Piet Retief," 1912, p. 2). Maurits and Mouritz seem 

 to be simply variants of ^laritz. 



The conspicuous features of the city's coat of arms are an 

 elephant and the Zulu word Umgungundhlovu, meaning " the 

 place of the elephant." This was the name of the " great place " 

 of the Zulu leaders Chaka and Dingaan. Chaka was styled by 

 his people "The Elephant" (Z. in Dhlovu), a title which Din- 

 gaan, his brother, murderer, and successor, assumed. Later, this 

 name was transferred by the natives of Natal to Pietermaritz- 

 burg as being the seat of Government and the capital of the 

 Colony (now Province) ; hence its appearance with the elephant 

 on the city's coat of arms. 



A small township on the Little Marico River. Western 

 Transvaal, founded in 1868, and made into a magistracy in 1871, 

 is named Zeerust, a name the form of which suggests a deriva- 

 tion very different from its real one. How there could be 

 Z^(7-rust so many hundreds of miles from the shore of ei^^^C/O* 



UJ i L I B R A R Y 



