From page 17
ran his ship on to a subtime: sail south for a further
merged rock which we now
day, then turn hard a'port at
know as Anvil Rock.
Cape Point and sail up the
With a few of her hull timbers
other side of the spit of land
stove in by the collision, Capt
that separates the Atlantic
Morris ordered members of
from the Indian Ocean, to the the Colebrooke's company
shelter of Simon's Bay and its below deck to man the
inviting (even in those days)
pumps, which they successlittle maritime settlement.
fully did, while he set a
Sadly for Capt Morris, he
course for Simonstown.
turned a little too early, and
However, after an hour, he
received word from below
that the battle was being lost,
particularly as further timbers
had given way.
Realising his peril, Capt
Morris abandoned his attempt
to reach Simonstown and
rather set off with a following
wind diagonally across False
Bay towards Gordon's Bay.
When this, too, appeared a
“bridge too far” he turned to
starboard and headed directly
towards an inviting strip of
white sand that he could
make out through his
telescope, just north of
present-day Betty's Bay. Here,
five hours after hitting Anvil
Rock, the Colebrooke hit the
Descendents of the pigs washed ashore from the Colebrooke? These
Kolbroek piglets were bred by Smallholder reader Sally Giebelmann
on Zenzele Farm, Hartbeespoort.
19
www.sasmallholder.co.za
HISTORY
reef 200m offshore that
protects the beach, and broke
up in heavy seas six days later.
While only seven members of
the ship's complement
drowned while attempting to
reach the shore, a number of
the consignment of pigs also
made it ashore and, presumably relieved at the ending of
their ordeal confined for three
months aboard ship, and then
being shipwrecked, made
their escape into the nearby
mountains. Legend has it that
here, over the ensuing
centuries, they mated with
local porkers to produce a
small, strong, mottled,
Continued on page 20