Saartji Baartman from Southern Africa was cruelly exploited in Europe. She became known as the "Hottentot Venus". Her body was displayed like an animal and mutilated after death to examine and differentiate the white and black races.

Isak Dinesen (otherwise known as Karen Blixen at her house in Kenya (Out of Africa)

Castle of Good Hope the oldest surviving building in South Africa. Built between 1666 and 1679, this pentagonal fortification replaced a small clay and timber fort built by Commander Jan van Riebeeck in 1652 upon establishing a maritime replanishment station art the Cape of Good Hope for the Dutch East India Company, better known as the VOC (Verenigde Oos-Indische Compagnie).

This lighthouse was undergoing maintenance during my visit, as I mentioned in an earlier post. Francesco Guerrini the owner of Viacom (the maintenance contractor) accompanied us on the trip. The maintenance work has since been completed and he has kindly sent me the following photographs. Thank you, Francesco. Firstly, two members of his staff, suspended precariously from the top of the lighthouse tower, painting the exterior. Secondly, the lighthouse in its final bright livery, red and…

Old bank notes with Jan Van Riebeeck on them (The Dutchman that found Cape Town)

Simon van der Stel, goewerneur van die Kaap en eerste eienaar van Groot Constantia. Hy word dikwels gesien as die Vader van wynbou in Suid-Afrika.

Plaisir de Merle dates to 1687 when the French Huguenot, Charles Marais and his family were granted the land by Governor Simon van der Stel. They named the farm Le Plessis Marly after the small village from which they had come in France. Over time, the pronunciation changed.

Top: Lord and Lady Erroll in Kenya Highlands residence, 1925 with Scottish Deerhound; bottom, 1930s stylin' in Kenya on the Lake Navaisha shores of the "Djinn Palace" making "white mischief" with a Borzoi, ?, soon to be murdered Lord Erroll and even sooner to be overdosed next wife Mary...

Simon's Town. Simon's Town (also widely but incorrectly referred to as Simonstown; Afrikaans: Simonstad) is a village and a naval base in South Africa, near Cape Town. It is located on the shores of False Bay, on the eastern side of the Cape Peninsula. For more than two centuries it has been an important naval base and harbour (first for the Royal Navy and now the South African Navy). The town is named after Simon van der Stel, an early governor of the Cape Colony. The land rises steeply…

Keerwerder - The farm was the very first to be allotted to a European in the Franschhoek Valley by the Dutch East India Company. It was granted to Henrich Mòllern in 1692 by Simon van der Stel. Mòllern came from Basle in Switzerland.

Cecil John Rhodes (1853–1902) was the man who envisioned a British colonial presence in Africa from "Cape to Cairo." A staunch racist and imperialist, he was prime minister of the colony of South Africa and founded and gave his name to Rhodesia, which became North and South Rhodesia and finally Zambia and Zimbabwe after independence. Rhodes established the De Beers Consolidated Mines for diamonds in 1888 and the Rhodes Scholarship.

Boy Long, the Prince of Wales, Lord Delamere

Statue of Cecil John Rhodes founder of University of Cape Town. Removed 2015. [Founder of UCT? HOW PEOPLE EASILY DISTORT HISTORY]