Layton Alldredge

The Fairest Cape in All the World Layton Alldredge

When the Himalayas and the Rockies were mere foothills, Table Mountain looked down in lofty majesty on a world we cannot comprehend. From its rocky viewpoint it gazed down on prehistoric animals whose descendants still roam much of Africa. It watched the wanderings of Australopithicus and Homo habilis. It stood silently as the San people and the related Khoikhoi hunted and eventually domesticated livestock to become hunter/herders. It watched as the sails of early Portuguese navigators appeared above the horizon, to be followed by Dutch, French and English. It was impassive when Francis Drake dubbed it "the fairest cape in all the world". It watched the Trek-boers leave and the arrival of the Nguni and the Sotho. It has looked down without judgement on Jan van Riebeeck's fort, Nelson Mandela's imprisonment on Robben Island and Christiaan Barnard's historic heart transplant. Ahh, the stories it could tell if it could only talk.