Land of the thirst king by Steenkamp, Willem
Land of the thirst king by Steenkamp, Willem
Hardcover, ISBN 9780869781203
Publisher: Howard Timmins, 1975
Used - Very Good +.Protected with Cellophane cover.
Rich in legend, few people know much about Namaqualand and Willem Steenkamp whose forefathers have lived in that amazing country for 150 years brings to life a part of the world that will surely fascinate all those who enjoy reading of far away places. A country full of legend and unusual characters.
He takes you on forgotten byways like the “Messelpad” along which the tough muleteers dragged their cargoes of rich copper-ore to the coast a century ago, a road haunted by the shades of those who died in some long-forgotten tragedy, to the Bushmanland where once enormous herds of gemsbok stretched to the horizon and into the vastness of the Kamiesberg where few outsiders go and the old stories are told in the slow musical Afrikaans that is spoken nowhere else in South Africa.
He introduces you to a startling and well-nigh unbelievable array of strange and exotic characters. The title is taken from W. C. Sculley’s writings, a man who loved the country. “Thirst King” is of course the droughts that periodically devastate the North-West Cape but to think of this land as a place of thirst and dust is to rob the armchair traveller of a fascinating story.
There are many wells from which to drink in Namaqualand. It is easy to endeavour to liken a new author to a famous one, but the publishers believe they have found one who is really comparable to the one and only Lawrence Green. Steenkamp, like Green, has obtained his material by personal research and not from other people’s experiences. A writer in whom we have very considerable faith.
Land of the thirst king demands to be read.
