THE QUEEN’S ROAD

The catastrophic destruction of the 6^th Frontier War 1834 -1835 had proven the Xhosa a far more formidable foe than previously anticipated and the nature of warfare with the tribes was changing as many swopped their assegaais for guns. Acting Governor of the Cape, Sir Benjamin D’Urban ordered the construction of strong fortifications in the border regions.

Sir Benjamin D’Urban had ordered military roads to be established to link the series of forts funning through Albany and far into Xhosa territory . Most importantly D’Urban ordered the building of a road by the British Military from headquarters at Grahamstown to Fort Beaufort . This road of the earliest built in the Cape Colony the vast majority wagon trails and old elephant tracks . It was to be known as The Queen’s Road .

Later in 1835 due to the relentless petitioning of Boer leader Piet Retief , veld kornet in the remote Winterberg , Governor D’Urban agreed to extend the Queen’s Road to reach Post Retief , the most Northerly of all the military fortifications in the Lewis Line of Fortifications. Major Charles Selwyn presented a map for this extended road to Post Retief in June 1836.

 

The route via the treacherous Ecca Pass crosses the Great Fish River Valley and gave the British forces a quick link with the troubled Xhosa frontier. The new bridge to be built over the Kat River would be a vital link in this chain of command  allowing the Kat River to be crossed in all weather conditions and thus 

Much credit is also customarily given to Selwyn’s assistant Andrew Geddes Bain however to quote Denis Walters author of the impressive book The Bridging of the Eastern Cape – the life and works of Joseph Newey   “ I have a copy of Walpole RE report. If one reads his report it will become very clear that building a stone arch bridge is rather complicated Andrew Geddes Bain has been given too much credit, in my opinion, for lots of exotic works. Its one thing eye-balling a roadway through the bush, It is a totally different undertaking building a stone arch bridge!”

 Andrew Geddes Bain was born in Thurso on the northern coast of Scotland in 1797. At the age of nineteen he accompanied a relative , Lieut.Colo. William Geddes , to South Africa .

Two years later he married Miss M.E. von Backstrom in the Groote Kerk in Cape Town and in 1822 he set up business as a harness-maker in Graaf-Reinet. He was granted a licence to trade beyond the boundaries of the Colony. In 1825 he made a journey to Kuruman; in 1829 he paid a second visit to that region , reaching the Molopo River and in 1834 he travelled to the Umzimvubu.

He kept faithful records of these journeys and left interesting accounts of them.

 

Bain gradually became a fairly prosperous inhabitant of Graaf-Reinet and built himself a fine house in Napier Street. He took an active interest in public affairs and it was this that brought  his natural talent as a road-engineer to light . First he helped a group of people to build the Onderberg Pass at their own expense , and then voluntarily supervised the construction of the Van Ryneveld Pass. These works established Bain’s reputation as a road-builder , 

In  April of 1836 Bain was granted a farm ‘Blockdrift’ close to Fort Thomson (where the town of Alice was later built).  Scarcely a year later he and others were deprived of their grants by Andries Stockenstrom in a change of policy, and they were obliged to run their interests elsewhere.  Bain enlisted in the Royal Engineers under Selwyn in April 1837, and received his early training from that officer in a career that was ultimately to bring great achievements and to turn him into an outstanding road engineer, geologist and expert on fossils. Major Charles Selwyn’s construction gangs were supervised by Bain.

The first section of road to be constructed was that from Grahamstown to Hermanus Kraal (soon to be known as Fort Brown, since the military post of Fort Brown had been erected during the 1834/5 war, and was named after Lieutenant Brown of the 75th Regiment);  here Geddes Bain worked as an assistant engineer, living on the Ecca Pass from 1837 to 1840.  He obtained his formative tuition under the skilled tutorship of Selwyn himself.  Bain named the heights and the pass after the Ecca River, a Fish River tributary, which is believed to mean “salty” or “brackish” in the local Khoikhoi language.

 

The most difficult part of this road traversed the Ecca heights just north of Grahamstown , so he built himself a house there. The Cairn that has was in later years erected in honour of Andrew Geddes Bain on the summit of the Ecca Pass is but a few hundred metres from where his early dwelling stood.  It was while he was living upon this site that he began studying and describing the geological formations which he observed, and reporting upon the fossils he found preserved in the rock layers exposed by excavations.  So it can fairly be said that Selwyn was responsible for guiding him along the paths that eventually won him fame.

 

In 1839 the construction for the road from Grahamstown to Fort Brown was progressing well under the able superintendence of Bain, and the Governor Sir George Napier issued a Military Order stipulating that this road should be designated ‘The Queen’s Road’ in honour of Queen Victoria’s accession to the throne. The work upon the Queen’s Road continued satisfactorily during 1840/1, the road extending from Grahamstown as far as the Koonap Heights.  It was described as “the most splendid public work which has yet been executed in this part of the colony.”  In many placed the Engineers worked indefatigably to cut the road through solid rock.

After its completion in about 1842 , the road was the first major highway in the Cape Colony.

The hill became known as the Ecca Heights and the pass as Ecca Pass , taking the name from the Ecca River which flowed just to the north of the Heights. Unfortunately these names fell into disuse and were forgotten. The Ecca River became known as the Brak River and the Ecca Pass as the Queen’s Pass. But the name Ecca , in spite of its origin as the name of an unimportant little stream , achieved international currency as a geological term. This too , we owe to Andrew Geddes Bain.  The names Victoria Heights and Queen’s Pass were in the 20th century changed back to Ecca Heights and Ecca Pass in honour of the early San name “Ecca”(sic) for the area.

During the very year that Bain was appointed as superintendant of Military Road Construction , he acquired a copy of Charles Lyell’s classic work Principles of Geology . The young science of geology immediately captured his interest , and his work afforded him wonderful opportunities to exercise it. He recognised the successive geological formations or stratigraphy from the Ecca Heights to the Katberg and described their composition.

He named the blue shales and mudstones which he found at the bottom of the pass the Ecca Series and this became known throughout the world as the great coal-bearing deposit of South Africa. At the same time , he discovered a series of Karoo fossils not previously known to science and thus revealed  the vast palaeontological wealth of the Karoo System.

Bain discovered many fossil remains, including the herbivorous mammal-like reptile dicynodon Oudenodon bainii Owen, which was excavated from the Karoo Beds on the farm Mildenhall south of Fort Beaufort and described by Sir Richard Owen.

 Among the specimens sent to Owen was the so-called Blinkwater monster, Pareiasaurus serridens as well as a variety of mammal-like reptiles.

 

While investigating an exposed bone poling out of the rock, he discovered additional bones and ev While investigating an exposed bone poling out of the rock, he discovered additional bones and eventually a skull with a very impressive jaw filled with teeth. Bain designated it the name “Blinkwater Monster” as it was found at “a beautiful spot called Blinkwater”. News of the find spread rapidly amongst local folk and the find was also reported in the local newspaper with a sketch, made by Bain, of the fossil. The original sketch is presently on display in the Fort Beaufort Museum.

 

Bain’s fossil was later sent to the Geological Society of London. The fossil was housed at the British Museum (Natural History) in London and, just to make the story interesting, the skull was at some stage thrown away by a cleaning lady who mistook it for an insignificant rock. Fortunately a number of casts were made of the skull before it disappeared, a copy of which is presently in the Albany Museum in Grahams town.”entually a skull with a very impressive jaw filled with teeth. Bain designated it the name “Blinkwater Monster” as it was found at “a beautiful spot called Blinkwater”. News of the find spread rapidly amongst local folk and the find was also reported in the local newspaper with a sketch, made by Bain, of the fossil. The original sketch is presently on display in the Fort Beaufort Museum.

 

Bain’s fossil was later sent to the Geological Society of London. The fossil was housed at the British Museum (Natural History) in London and, just to make the story interesting, the skull was at some stage thrown away by a cleaning lady who mistook it for an insignificant rock. Fortunately a number of casts were made of the skull before it disappeared, a copy of which is presently in the Albany Museum in Grahams town.” While investigating an exposed bone poling out of the rock, he discovered additional bones and eventually a skull with a very impressive jaw filled with teeth. Bain designated it the name “Blinkwater Monster” as it was found at “a beautiful spot called Blinkwater”. News of the find spread rapidly amongst local folk and the find was also reported in the local newspaper with a sketch, made by Bain, of the fossil. The original sketch is presently on display in the Fort Beaufort Museum.

 

Bain’s fossil was later sent to the Geological Society of London. The fossil was housed at the British Museum (Natural History) in London and, just to make the story interesting, the skull was at some stage thrown away by a cleaning lady who mistook it for an insignificant rock. Fortunately a number of casts were made of the skull before it disappeared, a copy of which is presently in the Albany Museum in Grahams town.”

Bain’s road-building in the border area kept him occupied until 1845 , when he was appointed as Inspector of Roads for the Central Roads Board and began to build the Michell’s Pass over the Hex River Mountains to Ceres. Two years later he completed the Bain’s Kloof Pass over the Klein Drakenstein Range near Wellington .