This article is taken from the Rhodes Centenary Supplement published by the Chronicle in Bulawayo on the 3rd of July 1953 and was written by Bertha Goudvis.
In the late autumn of 1894, my mother, Victoria Cinamon, instructed by her husband Jacob, arranged with an elderly Boer transport rider to take us from Johannesburg to Bulawayo.
He had a covered wagon and team of oxen with which he said he could make the journey in six or seven weeks as he would travel by an old hunter’s road through Bechuanaland [now Botswana] which he had already traversed several times.
After many difficulties encountered on the road we actually arrived in Bulawayo after only seven weeks, whereas many trekkers spent three months on the journey.
Mother had her six children with her. I was the eldest. Next came my sister and then four small brothers.
The new town was beginning to take shape by the time we arrived, although only a few buildings here and there indicated the broad streets and avenues to come. Most of the buildings were of corrugated iron, but some were of brick, including our own house in Rhodes Street. My father, who had preceded us by nearly a year, had bought this stand at the auction held in the old township on the site of Lobengula's kraal [Umvutcha] before the move to the new township was made.
Our nearest neighbour was the Argus Company, whose plant for the Chronicle had only recently arrived. The Matabele Times was still set up in cyclostyle as was the Bulawayo Sketch, a weekly gossipy journal with amusing drawings interspersing the letterpress.
People now speak of the ‘Naughty Nineties’ but in manners and behaviour we were models of decorum when compared with the young people of today.
Even in this early Rhodesian days we tried to keep up with the fashion. We wore long skirts which trailed the ground and balloon sleeves which looked extremely funny with our pinched-in waists. The men wore moustaches, but beards and whiskers were seldom seen, although the Prince of Wales. (afterwards King Edward VII) favoured both and Marlborough House was then social centre of London. Bulawayo beaux were greatly worried when the Queen's Club issued invitations for a New Year's Eve Ball and formal evening dress was decreed by the committee. The men made frantic efforts to get their dress suits by post. They had to hurry for the post arrived only once a week in a stage coach drawn by trotting oxen. There were numerous relays on the road but still the pace was slow and the journey from the Rand took eight days or longer.
My father was persuaded to let us go to the ball and we had a wonderful time for girls were scarce in those days. I was only eighteen and my sister Clarice nearly four years younger, but she was a good dancer and much in demand.
Other balls followed and then came the first bazaar. This was in aid of the Anglican Church and the stalls were to represent different nations. Mrs Verey (wife of the Town Engineer) enlisted my sister and me as helpers at her Swiss stall and we had many working parties at her house. It was then a Rhodesian social custom for the men to drop in for morning tea and lively talk was general.
If the Nineties were not so very naughty, they were certainly gay. We danced the polka, schottische and barn dances as well as the waltz, but jolliest of all was the lancers. When the music for the last was a medley of popular tunes the men sang as they danced and sometimes the women joined in. These were happy days, but they were too good to last.
Our troubles began with the rinderpest scourge, which killed nearly all the cattle [90-97% being destroyed - Marquardt 2005] and this was soon followed by the Jameson Raid. [29 December 1895 – 2 January 1896] One night the Chronicle’s plant could be heard clanging at an unusual hour for no paper was due next morning. Soon afterwards a native came round with leaflets. I opened the door to his knock and read the amazing news that Jameson had crossed the border. The excitement in the town that night was like madness, soon to be followed by chagrin and grief when news came of the failure of the Raid and Doctor Jameson's arrest.
A few months later there were rumours that the Matabele were going to rise against us. These were not taken seriously till we heard of farmers and prospectors being murdered in outlying districts. A punitive expedition set out and I saw the start of the patrol [probably Gifford’s Patrol to Insiza on 24 March 1896 that resulted in the defence of Cumming’s store]
ILLUSTRATION ABOVE
The ’96 Reports sketch by Melton Prior of ‘The Matabele insurrection – a false alarm in Bulawayo: Townspeople rushing for the laager’
Before they could return we were all rushed one night to the half-completed premises of the Bulawayo club. Women and children were crowded into rooms still littered with ladders and pails of whitewash. The men stood on guard outside. The few guns left in the town were found and distributed and a cry of relief went up when someone shouted: “The Maxims are here.” These famous machine-guns, so dreaded by the natives, were rusty from disuse, but the fear they inspired probably saved a few scattered communities in laager throughout the country.
Next morning a stronger lager was built on the Market Square and farmers coming into Bulawayo for refuge lined their wagons round the square after the old Boer fashion. Volunteer corps were formed; the Afrikaners had their own for they preferred to fight under their own leaders. One of the most celebrated corps was known as the ‘Guineafowls’ led by Sir Percy Girouad. On returning from a patrol the men shot some guinea fowls and stuck the feathers in their hats.
We were allowed to return to our homes in the morning after spending the night in laager but were warned to hurry back if the bell on the Watch Tower toiled a warning. This tower had been erected by Tom Verey, the Town Engineer and was soon known as ‘Verey’s Folly.’
One afternoon our favourite visitor, Bishop Gaul of Mashonaland, had dropped in for tea. Also a young mother who had wheeled her baby in its pram from her cottage nearby. We were having a gay time for the little bishop, one of the finest men I have ever known, was always good company. Suddenly the bell began toiling. The bishop and the lady set off at once, their steps hampered by the Prem which the bishop was wheeling, but it proved to be a false alarm caused by the approach of a party of ‘friendlies’ as we called the loyal chiefs and their tribesmen.
I need not tell of the arrival of Plumer’s Column and later of Cecil Rhodes himself, who held indabas with the chiefs and soon stopped the rebellion. I saw the great man several times. He dressed badly and was not an imposing figure on horseback, but he looked splendid in evening dress when he opened the ball with the Honourable Mrs Arthur Lawley (afterwards Lady Wenlock) at the fancy dress dance held in honour of Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee [officially celebrated on 22 June 1897 to mark the 60th anniversary of Queen Victoria's accession to the throne on 20 June 1837] Bishop Gaul in purple three-quarter coat and knee breeches with a gold cross dangling from a black ribbon on his chest, danced in the same set of lancers. I was in the next set but could hardly mind my steps because of my interest in these fascinating neighbours. Mrs Lawley was a real English beauty and in those days ‘nature did it all.’
PHOTO ABOVE
The ’96 Reports noted the ‘plucky behaviour of the women and the unselfish services gratuitously given by them in the Bulawayo laager hospital’
I could fill columns with tales of those early days when new mines were discovered every week. (most of them were soon abandoned) but my space is limited.
I must, however, mention a few more of the outstanding personalities of the time. Mrs Colenbrander, wife of the famous scout, was one of them. A handsome brunette who frequently accompanied her husband and Cecil Rhodes to their indabas with the Matabele, she was an excellent horsewoman. When she died, while still a young woman, her horse ‘Bonny Morn’ was led in the procession which followed her coffin.
There was much musical and dramatic talent in that early Bulawayo, but I have only space to mention Mrs Verey, a fine contralto, whose brother Harry Neale was an equally good baritone, Mrs Loewenstark, a soprano and Mr Lowinger, the Editor of the Matabele Times, who sang operatic arias and knew something about production, for he arranged an evening of tableaux vivants [a static scene with one or more actors or models who are stationary and silent, usually in costumes carefully posed] which were very beautiful. In one of those tableaux he was Svengali hypnotising my sister who represented Trilby {George du Maurier’s 1894 novel Trilby features a sinister hypnotist Svengali who attempts to transform a young orphan girl Trilby O’Ferrall into a famous singer through hypnotism]
Most talented of all was ‘Little Pinkstone’ as he was usually called who gave character sketches in the style of Dan Leno. He was so good that people thought he must have been a professional but he was actually a metallurgist in the employ of one of the big mining houses. I never saw Doctor Jim but my fiancé who had come to Rhodesia representing an insurance company, knew him well and insured him for what was then considered a big sum. This was before the Rebellion for the company sent a cable stopping all insurance immediately after the outbreak.
After my marriage to this young Hollander we went to Gwelo where our eldest son was born but financial losses caused us to seek fresh pastures. My family remained in Rhodesia [now Zimbabwe] but moved to Umtali [now Mutare] and later to Penhalonga where they were well-known. In later years, my brother David was manager of the Beatrice Mine for some time. His widow and son now live in Salisbury and my sister’s daughter has settled with her husband in Bulawayo so that she and I, the sole survivors of that early pioneering family, still have family links with Rhodes’ fair country.
Who was Bertha Goudvis? (1876 – 1966)
Despite these early and later hurdles, Bertha has been described as “an intrepid woman in the mould of Olive Schreiner, being a pioneering feminist in spirit and a lifelong writer and observer of South Africa.” Her autobiography reveals the life of a woman in the early days of the gold rush at both Barberton and Johannesburg, Bulawayo and the Matabele Rebellion in Rhodesia, early days at Gweru, time spent in Lourenço Marques, Durban and Louwsberg in KwaZulu before moving back to Johannesburg.
Born in in Barrow-in-Furness, England on 6 April 1876; her maiden name was Bertha Cinamon and the family came to South Africa in 1881. Her father Jacob is described as a ‘smous,’ a historical term from Dutch and Yiddish in 19th-century South Africa, that describes a travelling peddler or trader, and she spent her youth trekking by ox-wagon with her family across the country from one small mining town to another.
Kathy Munro describes them as “a growing family that lived a hand to mouth existence wandering between various South African towns… Bertha adored her mother but was both terrified and exasperated by her father, a dreamer and inventor who ruled as a small time autocrat. He was a dreamer who always bet on the next big opportunity but his gambles seldom came off and the family struggled.”
Although largely self-educated with little formal schooling, Bertha read and wrote widely from a young age, was extremely observant and had a good memory. Her life became the basis for the book South African Odyssey: The Autobiography of Bertha Goudvis edited by Marcia Leveson.
The book contains a good account of life in Barberton; gold had been discovered in de Kaap Valley in 1874 and her father was probably drawn by this discovery. At one point her father held gold mining shares that might have made his fortune, but held on too long, and the dream faded.
Following the gold discoveries on the Witwatersrand in 1886 she moved to the new town of Johannesburg between 1893 – 1894 and her autobiography contains good descriptions of the Market Square, the shopping centre around Pritchard Street and the three theatres that provided most of the entertainment.
In 1894 the family, excepting Jacob who had left a year earlier, travelled by ox-wagon to Rhodesia taking seven weeks. Bertha as the eldest must have been a great help to her mother with five other children to care for. This period of her life is covered in her article above. She describes early Bulawayo, the Jameson Raid that began on 29 December 1895 and life in the Bulawayo laager during the 1896 Matabele Rebellion (Umvukela) as a young woman of twenty-years. She also had her first newspaper account published by the Daily Graphic during this time.
1892 photo of Market Square, Johannesburg (Above)
Bertha married young in 1896 to a Dutch Jew, Lucas Samuel Goudvis (26 July 1865 – 17 October 1930) known as Lee; they had two sons, one was killed in a motor accident, and a daughter. She lived and worked in both the English and Afrikaans communities, but never felt integrated as she was Jewish, but she was in a unique position to record early colonial attitudes.
The young couple became hoteliers in Gwelo, now Gweru before moving to Lourenço Marques, now Maputo, although they were not successful ventures. She records Paul Kruger, President of the South African Republic (Transvaal), leaving South Africa from Lourenço Marques on the Dutch warship Gelderland for exile in Europe in September 1900 as the British forces advanced during the Second Boer War. Clearly her sympathies were with the Boers.
At the end of the Boer War in May 1902, Bertha and Lee moved to Durban and she began a new career as a newspaper correspondent and columnist. She loved the theatre and many of her articles include interviews with the leading actors and actresses.
In 1906 the family moved to Vryheid in the northern part of Natal (now KwaZulu) and then to nearby Louwsberg where they were inn-keeping between 1906 – 11. In 1906 the Bambatha uprising broke out in Natal. Farmers had difficulty in recruiting black labour due to better wages being paid by the Witwatersrand gold mines and the local government introduced a poll tax of £1 in addition to the existing hut tax to force more Africans into the labour market. The suppression of the rebellion led to the deaths of 3,000 – 4,000 Zulus and 36 colonial soldiers. Bertha interviewed prominent characters such as Louis Botha, later the first Prime Minister of the Union of South Africa, during this crisis.
During 1911 the Goudvis family moved back to Johannesburg where Lee was hired to run a bioscope, an obsolete term for a movie theatre, in Braamfontein and Bertha became a theatre fanatic, a journalist for Johannesburg’s The Star and a correspondent for The Natal Mercury.
South African Odyssey details the life of Bertha and her family through the two world wars and her interviews with many people, famous and infamous in politics, literature and theatre and ends in 1964.
During her lifetime Bertha published a novel Little Eden, about life in a little village in the backveld of Natal or the Transvaal and a collection of short stories The Mistress of Mooiplaas in 1956. Also a number of one-act plays, including the extremely popular A Husband for Rachel (first performed in 1917) and The Way the Money Goes, a one-act play about a man named Dick who is a compulsive gambler and the consequences he suffers as a result of his addiction. They first appeared (with The Sergeant-in-Charge and Patriot
s) in the collection The Way the Money Goes and other plays in 1925 and were widely published afterwards. The Aliens followed in 1936, which won second prize in an international competition organised by the Jewish Drama League in London. Bertha wrote the libretto for a musical, Sunshine Land. In the 1970’s the SABC also broadcast a TV version of A Husband for Rachel.
Bertha Goudvis (née Cinamon) died on 3 September 1966.
References
Bertha Goudvis. Bulawayo in the 90’s The Chronicle. 3 July 1953. Rhodes Centennial Supplement.
Kathy Munro. 31 July 2017. Review of 'South African Odyssey: The Autobiography of Bertha Goudvis.' The Heritage Portal. https://www.theheritageportal.
co.za/review/review-south- african-odyssey-autobiography- bertha-goudvis ESAT. https://esat.sun.ac.za/index.
php/Bertha_Goudvis Bertha Goudvis. South African Odyssey, The autobiography of Bertha Goudvis. Picador (Pan Macmillan, SA) edited by Marcia Leveson
The ’96 Rebellions: The British South Africa Company Reports on the Native Disturbances in Rhodesia, 1896-7. Books of Rhodesia, Bulawayo 1975
