NATIONAL BOTANIC GARDENS 
AN OLD CAPE FRONTIER 
By E. A. WALKER, M.A. 
Cape Colony has had her fair share of variety in frontiers. True, she 
has never sheltered herself behind the rigid magnificence of a great wall, nor 
was the canal which was to sever the Peninsula from Africa ever dug ; but 
apart from these alternatives, she has run through the list from wire fences 
to lines of latitude, and from shallow rivers to belts of neutral territory. The 
earliest and perhaps the most interesting boundary line was the hedge of 
wild almonds and thorn bushes with which van Riebeeck sought to enclose 
“ the whole settlement, with its agriculture and forests... as in a half-moon 1 .” 
Part of this old frontier is still marked by a high almond hedge which 
runs from the banks of the Liesbeeck in the National Botanic Gardens to 
the Hen and Chickens rocks. Thence it once turned northward and ran 
towards the mouth of Salt River. Possibly scattered fragments remain in 
suburban gardens, but as a hedge, the frontier survives only on its southern 
side. In its early stages again it is much broken and throughout its main 
course it is overrun with trees and undergrowth. As an ancient landmark in 
Cape history it is worthy of a better fate. 
The hedge formed van Riebeeck’s attempt to solve the apparently 
insoluble. On the one hand he was ordered to keep on good terms with 
the Hottentots with a view to the cattle trade ; on the other he had to 
protect the Company’s cattle and the farms of the Free Burghers, which in 
1659 stretched along both banks of the Liesbeeck as far as the Commander’s 
own vineyard and cornlands “ lying on the farthest frontier ” on the slopes of 
the Bosheurd 2 , that hill “which has a view over the whole flat between False 
and Table Bays 3 .” Weary of calling out the burghers to assist the troops 
against “ dull, stupid, lazy and stinking natives ” who yet contrived to escape 
1 Van Riebeeck’s Journal, Part in. p. Ill, translated by J. C. V. Leitbrandt. 
2 The high ground running eastwards from Kirstenbosch towards Wynberg Hill. Van Riebeeck’s 
estate was also called Bosheurd, afterwards Protea and now Bishop’s Court. Cp. Theal, History 
of S. A. before 1795 (ed. 1909), ii. 87, hi. 498. 
3 Journal, hi. 15. 
