Notes

Stones Passes - perhaps named after Ronald Stone, who farmed Castle View farm from 1944 until it was purchased by the Property Development Company (circa 1975-1976).  See Valley of the Eland, p112.

Hodgson's Peaks - named after Thomas Hodgon (who is variously reported as being either a farmer from the Dargle area or a trooper in the Natal Carbineers).  He was a member of a joint military and farmer expedition under Captain Proudfoot which set out from Dargle to recover cattle and horses stolen by Bushmen from the farm of James Speirs in 1862.  Hodgson was accidentally shot in the thigh by one of his own party while pursuing a lone Bushman on horseback in the vicinity of the peaks.  Hodgson died of his wound and was buried under a cairn of stones on the mountain whose distinctive peaks now bear his name.  The Bushman was captured but later died of tuberculosis.  His body was eventually donated to the Edinburgh Medical School in England where it remains to this day.  The U-shaped hollow between the peaks was named the Giant's Cup by Captain Gardener, but is know to the Zulus in the area as Kahlamba meaning "upward pointing spears" or "a rough and bony object". This is also the name by which the Drakensberg mountains in general are known.  (See Valley of the Eland, p105).

Garden Castle - Inxoxowa - perhaps of Bushman origin, meaning "Superlative".  Originally named Giant's Castle in 1835 by Captain Allen Francis Gardiner who likened the mountain to Edinburgh Castle.  In 1862 the Surveyor General of Natal, Dr Peter Sutherland, renamed the mountain Garden Castle in memory of his mother whose maiden name was Garden, and he transferred the name Giant's Castle to the feature in the central Drakensberg known by this name today.  (See Valley of the Eland, p102 - 104)

Umzimkulu (River) - meaning "the Big River"

Mlambonja (River) - meaning "the hungry dog", a description of the river's instability and tendency to change its course during flooding

Big Bamboo Mountain - Mvuleni - meaning "In the Rain", or "Place of Rain".  Little Bamboo Mountain - Mvulanyana - meaning the "Place of Lesser Rain". Both mountains experience very high summer rainfall.  Little Bamboo Mountain is both larger and higher than Big Bamboo.  The only bamboo on the mountains can be found in the south-facing gorges and is of the dwarf berg variety (See Valley of the Eland, p103)

The Rhino - Ntaba Ai-Konjwa - meaning "The mountain that must not be pointed at directly with the finger".  Stock theft by Basutho raiders was rife in the early 1900s.  A platoon of Cape Mounted Rifles stationed near the headwaters of the Umzimkulu River ambushed and annihilated a large gang of rustlers as they attempted to make their way up the pass into what is now called Lesotho.  Their bodies were left where they fell to act as a warning to other rustlers.  According to African custom a body must be buried or burned, otherwise the dead do not rest, and to point a finger at where they died will bring disaster upon you.

The Little Rhino (a small replica of the Rhino facing towards the larger version) - Ntaba Ncobo - named after a Zulu hunter who was mauled and maimed by the last leopard to be killed in the Garden Castle valley in 1920.  The wounded leopard was finally dispatched by a 12-year old coloured boy named Brian Booth, who was born in the valley in 1908 and was grandson of the evangelist William Booth, founder of the Salvation Army.  (See Valley of the Eland, p148 - 150)

Thabana Ntelenyana (also Thaba Nthlanyana) - meaning "pretty looking little hill" - 11 425 ft

Swiman - named after a German trader, whose main business was animal hides.  Swiman's homestead was located where the Garden Castle office now stands.  The land was named Swiman after being surveyed as a farm, and was first granted to George Edward Francis in 1917.  Francis had already bought Castle End farm in 1911, and was the first official landowner in the Garden Castle valley.   The farm had three further owners before it was sold to the Union Government in 1961.  (See Valley of the Eland, p113 - 114, 162)

Castle View Farm - The farm was first granted to Kenneth Houston in January 1920, but he then sold it to John C. Devino in February 1920.  Devino apparently did not do any farming himself, but probably let his land to other farmers in the valley.  The farm became the property of John and Phyllis Durno in 1926.  It was registered in Phyllis's name.  John C. Durno died the same year, and within a week or so, Phyllis remarried to a Sergeant Pine, who resigned as policeman in charge of the Bushman's Nek Police Post.  Phyllis's son, John C. Durno junior, born in 1918, was just 8 years old at the time of his father's death.  He died in May 1933 at the age of 15, and father and son lie buried next to each other in the wattle grove a short distance behind the farm house.  The cause of their deaths is no longer known.  John junior's headstone mentions his mother and sister, but not his step father, although the Pines lived there until 1939.  (See Valley of the Eland, p127, 161)

Brian Wilson - laid the foundations for the Drakensberg Gardens hotel in 1935 and supervised its construction for the original owner, Stanley Stiebel.  In 1938 Wilson left the valley to take up a position as manager of the Hilton College farm and grounds.  Wilson's Peak, which is a few kilometres south of the Rhino, is also named after Brian Wilson.  It is uncertain whether Wilson named the peak himself, or whether someone else did so in his honour.

Last modified on 2011/11/10