COBISS: 1.04
POSTOJNSKA JAMA IN SLOVENIA, THE SÜDBAHN AND THE
VISIT Of JOHN CHARLES MOLTENO: THEIR INfLUENCE ON
THE DEVELOPMENT Of RAILWAyS IN SOUTH AfRICA
POSTOJNSKA JAMA, JUŽNA ŽELEZNICA IN OBISK JOHNA CHARLESA MOLTENA V SLOVENIJI: NJIHOV VPLIV NA RAZVOJ
ŽELEZNIC V JUŽNI AfRIKI
Stephen A. CRAVEN1
Abstract                            UDC 551.44(497.4 Postojna)(091)
Stephen A. Craven: Postojnska Jama in Slovenia, the Südbahn and the Visit of John Charles Molteno: Teir Infuence on the Development ofRailways in South Africa.
In November 1871 a successful businessman and politician from South Africa toured Europe with his daughters. Tey arrived at Postojnska jama by train from Vienna. He wrote to the gover-nor that it would be very desirable that the engineers should visit the Südbahn which crosses a rugged terrain comparable to that of the Cape mountains where technical problems and increased construction costs slowed the advance. Te discovery of diamonds inland was eventually responsible for the exten-sion of the railway to Beaufort West and beyond. key words: history, Molteno, Southern railway, Slovenia, South Africa.
Izvleček                             UDK 551.44(497.4 Postojna)(091)
Stephen A. Craven: Postojnska jama, Južna železnica in obisk Johna Charlesa Moltena v Sloveniji: njihov vpliv na razvoj železnic v Južni Afriki
Novembra 1871 je uspešni poslovnež in politik iz Južne Afrike potoval s svojima hčerama po Evropi. Obiskali so tudi Postojnsko jamo, kamor so prispeli z vlakom z Dunaja. Pisal je guvernerju, naj si inženirji ogledajo južno železnico, ki poteka po še bolj razgibanem terenu kot so gore v Kaplandiji, kjer se je gradnja upočasnila zaradi tehničnih problemov in dviga stroškov. Vendar je odkritje diamantov pospešilo dokončanje železniške proge v notranjost do Beaufort Westa. ključne besede: zgodovina, Molteno, Južna železnica, Slovenija, Južna Afrika.
INTRODUCTION
for three centuries the spectacular Postojna Cave in Slovenia (Habe 1986) has attracted the great, the good and lesser mortals. Until the collapse of the Austro-Hungari-an empire in 1918 the cave was known as the Adelsberger Grotte. fortunately for the historian since 1819 the early visitors were required to sign the visitors’ books which have survived, and which are kept at the Karst Research Institute in Postojna. Most of the visitors came from Europe, but also from the Americas and from Asia (Shaw 2000; Shaw & Čuk 2002). Tere were very few visitors from Africa.
Tere are two reasons for the paucity of South African visitors. Tere were, compared with the northern hemisphere, very few people with the necessary fnancial and temporal resources. Te Cave was difcult of ac-cess from the Cape. Te Union-Castle Mail Steamship Company and its predecessors operated fast mailships from Cape Town via Las Palmas to Southampton in Eng-land. Tere were also intermediate ships which served Cape Town and the east African ports. Te much slower round-Africa ships sailed through the Suez canal and the Mediterranean, calling at Naples, Genoa and Mar-
1 7 Amhurst Avenue, Newlands 7700, South Africa, e-mail: sacraven@mweb.co.za Received / Prejeto: 26.08.2006
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STEPHEN A. CRAVEN
seille before docking in England (Harris & Ingpen 1994). Trieste, the port of access for Postojna, is situated at the north-easterly limit of the Adriatic Sea. Ships plying the South African trade did not call there because there was insufcient demand for a diversion from the standard routes to a port which ofered very little South African business.
Trieste was a busy and important port, being the most convenient maritime access which was controlled by the Austro-Hungarian empire. Te Government in Vienna in 1841 decided to build the Southern Railway (or Südbahn). Te tracks reached Postojna in 1856 and Trieste in the following year (Enciklopedija Slovenije, 1990). Tis railway greatly facilitated visitors’ access to Postojna and the Cave.
Tree such visitors were John Charles Molteno and his two eldest daughters, Caroline and Elizabeth Maria (Betty), on 10 November 1871 during their European tour (fig. 1). Molteno was born in London on 5 June 1814 and emigrated in 1831 to the Cape where he soon pros-
pered in business, and in sheep farming at Nelspoort near Beaufort West. He became a wealthy and infuential man (Harrington 1972). In 1854 he was elected Member of the Legislative Assembly for Beaufort West (Cape of Good Hope Almanac 1855). following the achievement of in-ternal self-government in 1872 he was re-elected Member for Beaufort West (General Directory and Guide Book to the Cape of Good Hope 1872), and was appointed Prime Minister on 1 December 1872 (Kilpin 1938).
During their tour of Europe Molteno and his daughters wrote letters to their family and friends (University of Cape Town Archives and Manuscripts Department BC 330: Molteno - Murray Papers). On 6 November 1871 Betty Molteno wrote from Vienna to her brothers Char-lie, Percy and frank announcing her intention to visit the Adelsberger Grotte. On 18 November 1871 her father wrote from Venice to his wife confrming the visit:
“I write [sic] you last from linz in Austria. Since we have visited several places, vienna, Adelsberg grotto, trieste &c and reached this on the 15th. but as usual I must leave the girls to tell you all this … T e Adelsberg grotto which we were in for near three hours is a truly wonderful sight a large (river) runs up to the hill where you enter the grotto and entering (the) cave entirely disappears and the water comes out again some 20 or 30 miles of.”
Te daughters were not impressed with Postojna and its Cave. Bettys next letter, dated 21 November 1871 and written from Brindisi to her step-mother, made no mention of the Cave. Her diary is similarly silent. Caro-
Fig. 2: Sir John Charles molteno in 1882, aged 68 years (molteno 1900).
line likewise wrote no letter between Graz and the east coast of Italy, and overlooked the Cave.
Although Molteno was prompted to write a couple of sentences about the Cave, his mind was clearly on other things including the inter-related Cape politics and Cape railways. Indeed, he had always been an en-thusiastic supporter of railways in the Colony Te Cape Town Railway and Dock Company had been foated in London in 1853 and had reached Wellington, 96 railway
Fig. 1: Te entries of molteno and his daughters in the Postojna Cave visitors’ book, 10 November 1871.
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km. (Durrant, Jorgensen & Lewis 1981) from Cape Town over easy country, on 4 November 1863 (Cape Argus 1863). Tis slow rate of construction is explained in part by the sparsely populated countryside and lack of indus-try (Houghton 1978). Te 1865 census reported a popu-lation of 236,300 in the Western Division, of which only 16% were economically active, and a low population den-sity of 3.25 per square mile (1.25 per square km.) (Cape of Good Hope 1866; Colony of the Cape of Good Hope, 1866). To proceed beyond Wellington into the hinterland the railway had to cross the Cape mountains. Tis led to technical problems and increased construction costs per kilometre, a possible solution to which occurred to Mol-teno as he travelled on the Südbahn across the mountains from Vienna (Wien) through Graz (Gratz), Maribor (Marburg) and Ljubljana (Laibach) to Postojna (Adels-berg) and Trieste (Te Times Atlas 1898). A visitor to Slovenia in 1845 during the construction of the Südbahn well summarised its signifcance for Molteno:
“Until marburg you ride along the [route of the] mir-acle railway under construction from graz to trieste. tun-nels several hundred metres in length, viaducts, and stone-walled cuttings will make this railroad one of the greatest.” (Windisch-Graetz 1908).
A later advertisement for the Cape Government Railways did not exaggerate:
“Te Pioneers of railway construction were faced with apparently insurmountable difculties in climbing over and winding round Nature’s great upheavals before the tracks could be laid which were to connect the coastal towns with the interior.” (Te Mountain Club Annual 1908).
Accordingly Molteno wrote to the Governor, Sir Henry Barkly, from Suez on 8 December 1871. Afer discussing the Egyptian railways which had been con-structed over easy, fat, country he waxed eloquent about the Südbahn:
“But of all the railways I have yet seen, that from vienna to trieste is the most difcult, and is acknowl-edged to exhibit the greatest amount of engineering bold-ness and skill, and the similarity of some of the mountain gorges and other difculties which will have to be over-come if railways extend very much at the Cape, would, I should imagine, render it very desirable that the engi-neers who have to plan and construct these should visit this line; it is 365 miles in length, and would in itself re-
pay all the trouble and expense of a visit from the Cape for those who take an interest in such undertakings. But on the whole I fnd that what we shall have to contend with in constructing lines from the two ends of the Colony inland traversing the more level parts, especially say from the Wellington terminus towards the Diamond Fields, is small comparatively speaking, and looking to the changed condition of things consequent upon the Diamond Fields and extension of the Colony in every way I think that even those who are inclined to be most cautious in com-mitting the Colony to large and expensive undertakings, must admit that things which might have fairly been looked upon as tasks a few years ago, may be viewed in a very dif T erent light now.” (Molteno 1900).
ere is no record that an engineer was sent to in-spect the Südbahn. Indeed, there would have been insuf-fcient time between receipt of the letter by the Governor and the appointment of the Select Committee in May 1872.
Molteno returned from his European tour on the R.M.S. Northam from Southampton on 18 April 1872 (Cape Argus 1872), and resumed his political activities. Te railway problem had become more urgent with the discovery of diamonds near what became Kimberley in the northern Cape, and with the subsequent expansion of that industry in 1868 (Rosenthal 1964). On 10 May 1872 the House of Assembly appointed a Select Committee to report on the Cape Town Railway and Dock Company which was tabled the following month. Molteno attended every meeting. Te Committee confned its enquiry to the fnancial implications of exercising the Government s option to buy the railway Tere was no discussion about its extension beyond Wellington (Cape of Good Hope Report 1872). Te problem was solved by the purchase of the railway company by the Cape Colonial Government at midnight on 31 December 1872 (Cape Archives Depot), and by reducing the gauge from 4 f. 81 ins. (1.435 m.) to 3f. 6 ins. (1.067 m.).
Sir John Charles Molteno retired in 1883 (Molteno 1900), and died in Cape Town on 1 September 1886 (Cape Argus 1886). He was doubtless content in the knowledge that the railway which he had encouraged throughout his political career had eventually crossed the Cape mountains, and had reached his adopted Beaufort West on 6 february 1880 (Cape Argus 1880).
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ACKNOWLEDGMENT
Dr. Trevor Shaw of the Karst Research Institute in Postojna spotted the “Cape of Good Hope” entry in the visitors’ book, and kindly supplied the author with a photocopy.
I am grateful to Mrs. Maja Kranjc, Librarian at the Karst Research Institute in Postojna, for the reference from Enciklopedija Slovenije.
NOTES AND REfERENCES
Cape Archives Depot A2324 p. 26 & PWD 2/411 pp. 43 & 44.
Cape Argus 05 Nov. 1863 p. 3.
Cape Argus 18 April 1872 p. 4.
Cape Argus 07 feb. 1880 p. 3.
Cape Argus 03 Sep. 1886 pp. 2 – 3.
Cape of Good Hope, 1866: Census of the Colony of the Cape of Good Hope 1865 [G.20-’66] (Cape Town: Saul Solomon).
Cape of Good Hope Almanac, 1855: p. 113 (Cape Town: Van de Sandt de Villiers).
Cape of Good Hope Report of the Select Committee ap-pointed to consider and report on railway purchase. June 1872 [A2-’72], (Cape Town: Saul Solomon).
Colony of the Cape of Good Hope 1865 (Blue Book), 1866: pp. V2 – V3 (Cape Town; Saul Solomon).
Durrant A.E. & Jorgensen A.A. & Lewis C.P., 1981: Steam in Africa.- p. 179 (Cape Town: Struik).
Enciklopedija Slovenije, 1990: 4 - Hac-Kare, Mladinska knjiga, pp. 363 – 364, Ljubljana.
General Directory and Guide Book to the Cape of Good Hope … 1872: pp. 181 – 182 (Cape Town: Saul Solo-mon).
Habe f., 1986: Te Postojna Caves and other Tourist Caves in Slovenia. (Postojna).
H[arrington] A.L., 1972: Dictionary of South African Biography. Vol. 2 pp. 482 – 485 (Cape Town: Tafel-berg).
Harris C.J. & Ingpen B.D., 1994: Mailships of the Union-Castle Line. p. 23 (Vlaeberg: fernwood Press).
Houghton D.H., 1978: p. 19 in Wilson M. & Tompson L. (eds.) Te Oxford History of South Africa (OUP).
Kilpin R., 1938: Te Parliament of the Cape of Good Hope. p. 165 (London: Longmans, Green & Co.).
Molteno P.A., 1900: Te Life and Times of Sir John Mol-teno K.C.M.G., first Premier of the Cape Colony. Vol. I., pp. 176 – 178 (London: Smith Elder & Co.). Te original letter was not found in the Cape Ar-chives Depot; Vol. II frontispiece & p. 463.
Rosenthal E., 1964: Encyclopaedia of Southern Africa. p. 141 (London: frederick Warne).
Shaw T.R., 2000: foreign Travellers in the Slovene Karst 1537 – 1900. Založba ZRC, Karst Research Institute, 244 pp., Ljubljana.
Shaw T.R. & Čuk A., 2002: Royal and other noble visi-tors to Postojnska jama 1819-1945. Kralji in drugi plemeniti obiskovalci v Postojnski jami 1819-1945.-Acta carsologica, vol. 31, 1, Supplementum 1, 107 pp., Ljubljana.
Te Mountain Club Annual,1908: (12).
“Te Times” Atlas (1898) maps 49 – 50 (London: Print-ing House Square).
Windisch-Graetz L., 1908: Kindheit und Jugendzeit 1839 – 1850 iii. opp. p. 86 (Wien: Seidel). Cited by Shaw T.R., 2000: foreign Travellers in the Slovene Karst 1537 – 1900, p. 163; Založba ZRC, Karst Research Institute, 244 pp., Ljubljana.
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