436 KAHLY HISTORY OF THE CAPE PROVINCE. 



of the 18th century. It was then an outpost of the Dutch East 

 India Compan}-, and Sergeant Muys, as he was then, was at one 

 time placed in charge of the mihtarj' there. The records of 1744 

 refer to this ontpost as Muijsenberg and a few years later as 

 Muysenburg. Formerly the mountain close by and the post itself 

 were known as Steenberg. Kalk Bay or Lime Bay is marked as 

 such on a chart of 1687, at which time there was a lime kiln. 

 The narnes of shipwrecked vessels are commemorated along the 

 coast line. For instance, Oude Schip, to the north of Hout Bay, 

 recalls the wreck of a Dutch East Indiainan, and Schoonherg 

 Bay, near Cape Agulhas, is named after an Indiaman of that 

 name which went ashore there in 1722. Near this part of the 

 coast is a place Zoetendals VUi, which was named after the ship 

 Zoetendal 'wrecked in 1673 on the coast near by. Mossel Bay 

 was called so by Paulus van Caerden in 1601 because he could get 

 no refreshments here except mussels. It had been named 

 Agoada de Sao Bras by Vasco da Gama in 1497. The same 

 Dutchman gave the names to Vlees Baai and Vis Baai, now 

 translated into English as Flesh and Fish Bays respectively. The 

 first was so named because the voyagers were able to. procure 

 from the natives for pieces of iron as much horned cattle and 

 sheep as they could consume or could preserve. At Fish Bay he 

 and his companions caught an abundance of fine fish and thus 

 gave the place its name. 



A great number of river names were given by the early Dutch, 

 but several have been Anglicised. In 1760 a farmer, Jacobus 

 Coetsee, Jan's son, Hved near Piquetberg and obtained permission 

 from the Government to hunt elephants. He set out with a 

 wagon and twelve Hottentots, and passing through Namaqualand 

 arrived at the Groot or Great River called by the natives Eyn, 

 and at first by the Dutch Vigiti Magna. It was believed that this 

 river had never been forded by Europeans before. In 1779 

 Colonel Bobert Jacob Gordon, in the service of the Dutch East 

 India Company, called this river the Orange River in honour of 

 the Prince of Orange, a name it has since retained. In 1657 an 

 exploring party sent out by van Eiebeeck named the Berg or 

 Mountain Biver because when they came upon it after passing 

 Klapmuts they saw it running northward along the base of an 

 aliTiost impossible chain of mountains. Ten years later another 

 party found on the banks of a river a Hottentot tribe called the 

 Gouriqua and called it the Gourits River, which name it has 

 retained. As the Dutch East India Company extended their 

 possessions at the Cape they afhxed beacons or baahens to denote 

 the boundaries. At the mouth, of the Baahens River, near Port 

 Elizabeth, they erected such a mark, hence the name of the river. 

 The derivation of many place names is evident from their meaning, 

 and especially when we know the surroundings in which such 

 places are situated. Breede Rivier or Broad Biver explains itself. 

 Kromuic Rivier deserves the name as its course is full of bends 

 and curves. In 1660 Dutch explorers to the north-west of the 

 Colony came to a river in which they saw a herd of two to three 



