How the Mountain got its Tablecloth

In Cape Town long ago there lived a retired pirate by the name of Ort van Hunks. Having made enough money from his roguery on which to turn honest, he had settled in Cape Town, the Tavern of the Seas, the place in which he thought he would be socially most acceptable. He bought land just above the great company garden and lived there well enough, with fine, strong slaves to do the work for him while he watched things grow and indulged his weaknesses, like sitting smoking and thinking of his past deeds.

The trouble with Van Hunks was his wife, a great, fat vrou with extra petticoats swelling her out until she could hardly pass through a doorway. He had married her thinking it would be nice to have so much to be close to during cold winter nights. But her tonnage had gone to extremes. She was a hard housewife besides, always nagging at her slave-girls to polish this and rub that, and elbowing Van Hunks out of his own hearth and home for fear his tobacco ash would fall on the fine yellowwood floors. So Van Hunks, in self defense, found a hideaway.

High up on the saddle of land connecting Table Mountain to Devil's Peak there is a clump of trees. Amongst them, in the shade, is a giant rock called Breakfast Rock, shaped like a semi-circular couch with a low, flat rock in the centre. It is the kind of place, indeed, which seems to say: 'Stay and rest a little while.' And Van Hunks, having found it, was content. Here no one would disturb him, for the burghers thought anybody who went toiling up the slopes of Table Mountain to be a madman. At times, sitting on their verandas in the evening, watching the blue shadow of the mountain creeping off across the sand flats, they would say: 'Well, yes. Perhaps another day we'll climb up to the top and have a look around.' Then the vrous would say: 'Ach, yes. It would be nice, but you must wait, yes, until its cooler.' So they waited, and in Cape Town long ago you could spend a lifetime doing that and never notice it.

So Van Hunks had things to himself and spent his time up there in contented dreaming, with his pipe in his mouth and a heap of strong rum and tobacco on the rock before him. Beneath him lay the romantic Cape in all its calm serenity. Through the glittering silver trees he could see the tiny, whitewashed houses of Cape Town, gathered snugly around the castle, all speckled with green-blue oak-leaf shadows and the golden sunbeams in between.

In the bay the sloops and the wealthy Indiamen lay resting on the tide, while their crews plied backwards and forwards to the beach with long strings of water caskets and loads of meat and greens.

Thus it was, on a day when the sea was laughing and as blue as the sky above, that Van Hunks went puffing up the mountain. Reaching the saddle he lay down for a while on his fat belly and drank deeply of the brown, peat-stained mountain streamlet, bubbling up close to the rock on its first joyous bid for life. He drank slowly, in great, greedy mouthfuls, swallowing loudly and then waiting a little while to feel the crisp coldness go twisting all the way down until even the laziest little toe, secure in the biggest boot, would feel like turning over and saying, 'Dh Huh!'

A visitor for Van Hunks

Then he got up with a heavy sigh and after muttering: 'Ach. Thunder. It's a long way,' which he always did at this point, he sat down on the rock, unpacked his tobacco and crook-pipe and set the two working harmoniously with a pleasant, acrid smell. He leant back, closed his eyes and started to daydream of the wealth of the ships in the bay below him. Suddenly he was rudely aroused.

'Morning mynheer!' said an irritatingly chirpy voice. 'And a very good morning it is to be sure.'

Van Hunks cleared the smoke and the dreams from his eyes in consternation. Before him he found a plump little man, stylishly attired in a black cocked hat with an ivory buckle, a red waistcoat, black pantaloons with a green stripe, and hose and shoes to match. Van Hunks grunted his astonishment: 'Who the thunder are you?'

The little man smiled and doffed his hat with an exaggerated gesture. 'Some call me good old Nick, others well, other things. I at times come up for air and a pipe.'

He nodded behind him at Devil's Peak and readjusted his wig, which had come a bit loose with his bow. 'Van Hunks is your name I believe. I have heard of you. I have your old partner, Captain Roelof Boons, with me, together with his company.' Van Hunks looked at him skeptically and the little man turned round. 'Look!' he said, 'If you have any doubts as to who I am.' He undid a fastener in the back of his pantaloons and out shot a tail, which he proceeded to twist into an elegant pitchfork shape.

'It doesn't take a tail to make a devil,' said Van Hunks, accepting the matter with resignation and picking up his pipe again: 'You should meet my old woman.'

'Of her I have also heard,' said the little man, sitting down with a great sweep of his coat-tails. Van Hunks motioned him towards the tobacco. The devil loaded up a business-like iron pipe. Van Hunks looked at him appraisingly. 'What's on your mind?' he asked. 'Feel like a game?' He produced his dice set and rattled it.

'Wouldn't mind,' said the little man, 'let's see your money.' He dumped a bag of gold on the rock. Van Hunks sorted out from his pocket a collection of ducatoons, reals and a few diamond rings, some still with fingers in them, which he kept as souvenirs of his pirate days. 'I didn't expect this,' he said, 'so I haven't got too much on me, but it shall be seen, yes, it shall be seen, whether I shall lose what is mine now.' He caressed his dice lovingly for they were well loaded. The devil smiled. 'All right,' he said. 'I'll always give you credit on your soul.'

They made themselves comfortable, but just as they were about to start the little man looked up suddenly and said in surprise: 'Why, bless me! If it isn't St Peter.' Van Hunks turned round in astonishment. 'What! Someone else up here?' The little man leant forward and whispered urgently, 'You say "down here" to him - "up here" to me.' 'Yes,' said the newcomer, 'I have come to warn you.'

'Belay there!' said Van Hunks sharply, mistrusting the tone. 'I trudge up this mountain for no lectures. Those I get at home, yes.'

'Hold your anchors, Peter,' chimed in the little man. 'How would you like to come in on a game?' Peter looked upwards cautiously. 'Well, to tell the truth, I wouldn't mind. Things are quiet lately. How's business with you?'

'Middling,' said the little man, 'enough for the pot, but it's warm work. You don't need tobacco to make you smoke there you know.' He winked at Van Hunks cunningly.

The game begins

So they started the game, and Van Hunks produced a reserve of tobacco and dumped it before the table and an extra pipe as well.

They played and they smoked and smoked and played and smoked, smoked, smoked and smoked. They knocked the pipes out, refilled, cursed their luck and changed notes and wondered where they could get more change and smoked, smoked, smoked and smoked.

The air grew thicker and thicker and the smoke billowed out of the trees, filled the saddle and covered Devil's Peak, and spread to the top of Table Mountain itself.

The dassies choked and ran for their holes and the lizards blinked, and even the fat cobras slid back into their cast-off skins to save their new ones from getting sooty. St Peter started to flap his wings. 'Glory-be! It's getting dark,' he said, coughing a bit. 'I can't see the numbers on the dice.' He put his wings into low pitch and flapped up a breeze to blow the smoke away, and the more they played and smoked the more he flapped and the harder the breeze.

Down below, in Cape Town, the burghers said: 'We should all be comfortably in bed with our vrous in weather such as this, for it surely is the worst south-easter ever.' So they went inside and locked the doors and shutters, and peeped out at the mountain through the peep-holes their vrous had made to see what the neighbor vrous were doing. But all they could see for their pains was an ever-thickening haze.

In the bay the blue waters churned up into greens and grays, like a ruffled field with white sheep grazing. The fishing smacks scampered in like startled birds and the great Indiamen dropped their spare anchors while their captains rowed back post-haste from the taverns on the shore.

The game went on, and the pipes were lit and lit again, and it was wonderful how that great cloud grew. It spread until it covered the mountain top with an undulating cloth as white as snow. It boiled and twisted and waved, and bubbled and coiled and turned in and out of the crevices. It rose and it fell and it went tumbling over the edge as though it was going to engulf the little town down below. But it never reached there, for Peter's breeze came sweeping down the nek and went booming up Platteklip Gorge like great guns firing. It swept the smoke up and moulded it and patted it, shaped it and modeled it into a great helpless lump which went willy-nilly wherever pushed.

Winner takes all

In the end, Van Hunks stood up and stretched himself. 'Well, gentlemen,' said he, 'it appears I have your money and your halo and your tail besides for surety.' He looked at Peter and Nick inquiringly and they nodded glumly. 'It's been a great game and fine knowing you, but home I must go for it is late and the old woman, yes, the old woman, she awaits, yes, with cudgels she awaits.' He gathered up his winnings, his pipes and his tobacco, put the halo and the tail in his knapsack and went striding off down the zigzag mountain path.

Nick and St Peter looked at each other. 'It appears we've been trimmed,' said Nick. 'Appears so,' agreed Peter, thinking a bit, with his tongue in his cheek, 'but it was a grand game. I could do with more.' 'That's so,' agreed Nick. Going to the edge of the saddle, he shouted down. 'Ahoy there Van Hunks!' And when Van Hunks answered with a faint 'Halloa?' he shouted, 'We'd like another game, as between friends some time. How about it?'

'You can go to blazes,' answered Van Hunks, thinking they might discover his tricks. 'I'm going in any case,' said Nick, 'but come on man, be a sport and maybe we'll come to some arrangement about that vrou of yours, and there's always the matter of your soul.' 'Well,' said Van Hunks slowly. 'I'll consider it, on a nice day mind you. I can't come in winter for I get rheumatism.'

The great cloud of smoke lingered for a while. From their homes the people of Cape Town watched it, full of wonder at what they saw. 'Table Mountain has spread its cloth for tea,' they said. And ever since, this spectacle has reappeared each summer day whenever the great game has been resumed.

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