The lion’s share of the floral kingdom

Lion’s Head is situated within the Cape Floral Kingdom, the smallest Floral Kingdom in the world (0.04% of the world’s land surface area) but the richest in terms of species, as it boasts over 9000, of which two thirds are endemic to the Cape. The floral wealth of this area was recognised by the English naturalistWilliam Burchell, who, after visiting Lion’s Head in 1810, compared what he saw to a “botanic garden, neglected and left to grow into a state of nature; so great was the variety everywhere to be met with”.

A lot of the plant life around you as you walk up Lion’s Head is of a vegetation type known as fynbos. Perhaps the best-known example of fynbos is the King Protea, the national flower of South Africa. The pride of Lion’s Head, however, is probably the Silver Tree, the tallest species in the Protea family. Its name derives from its silver leaves which shimmer in the sun (the silvery sheen is thought to protect the tree from heat by reflecting sunlight.) On your walk up from the car park, you will see groves on both sides of the path.These trees are on the endangered list and have, at times, come close to being lost. One of the things that has nearly destroyed the Silver Tree is also what preserves it:fire.Like all fynbos,these plants need fire at the right time and right temperature for the seeds to germinate. If fire occurs too frequently or infrequently, the plants will die. However, the groves on Lion’s Head have managed to flourish in the last few years and groves on Devil’s Peak and Vlakkenberg have been cultivated, so the risk of extinction has diminished. On Signal Hill another vegetation type, Renosterveld, can also be seen.

Here be lions

Thousands of years before humankind set eyes on it, Lion’s Head was the domain of animals. From the first written records by visitors to the Cape and the early European settlers, we know that all the big animals like elephants, hippos, lions, hyenas and leopards were present around Cape Town in the late 1600s. The records also tell us that the last wild lion on Lion’s Head was shot in 1802 and the last leopard in the 1820s. Caracal, and the extremely rareAfrican wild cat, have managed to survive. Today, besides the rock agama, black girdled lizard, dassies and porcupines, not much else can be seen. Hopefully one day the national parks will introduce the elusive little klipspringer that once roamed these slopes.

The arrival of people

The first people to set eyes on Lion’s Head, and more than likely climb its summit, were the Stone Age people who had made the Cape Peninsula their home, followed by the San and later the Khoi-Khoi, who were around more than 2000 years before the first Europeans.A sketch of Table Bay by Peter Kolbe (first astronomer at the Cape from 1705-1713) shows two large Khoi-Khoi kraals situated on the slopes of

Lion’s Head.

The first written records began with the coming of the Europeans. Bartholomeu Dias recorded seeing Table Mountain, as well as Lion’s Head, in 1488. We do not know who the first European man to climb Lion’s Head was, but it is recorded that in 1682 the wife of Ryklof van Goens (the Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies) climbed it with Simon van der Stel, Governor of the Cape.

To commemorate the event, a two- metre-high brick pyramid was erected, but this has long since disappeared. In the true spirit of colonisation, Lion’s Head would be claimed, named, mapped, probed, dug into and built upon.The first to leave their mark were the Portuguese; instead of erecting their traditional stone cross on the summit, they hacked a large cross-shaped fissure into a rockface near the summit.This cross can still be seen today, but most believe it is natural and the story is but a legend.

What’s in a name?

Disregarding any local name given to these places, the English, on 3 July 1620, supplied their own names for Lion’s Head and Signal Hill. The background to this naming is quite interesting: it was part of a show of pretence to keep the Dutch from thinking they could occupy Table Baywithout the English putting up some form of resistance.Two high-ranking

English naval officers, Humphrey Fitzherbert and Andrew Shillinge, issued a proclamation annexing Table Bay in the name of King James I, and stating “... and for a memorial hereafter we have made a heap of stones on a hill lying west-south-west from the road in the said bay, and call it by the name ‘King James His Mount’ “.Thus Lion’s Head was briefly known as “King James Mount” while Signal Hill was named “Ye Sugar Loaf”. The annexation by the English was never confirmed and the Dutch subsequently took control of Table Bay and the Cape, providing the names “Leeuwen Kop” (Lion’s Head) and “Leeuwen Staart” (Lion’s Tail), which later became Signal Hill.

Signals from the summit

The first official use of Lion’s Head was in 1673 when a permanent watch station was placed on the summit. This station was manned by up to three men with a small signal cannon and a flag. The cannon would be fired whenever a ship was spotted, thus informing the castle down below. By the early 1700s, a hut had been built on Kloof Nek, then known as Vlaggeman’s Kloof (Flagman’s Ravine), for the use of those who manned the station.

When the old mud fort of Van Riebeeck was to be replaced by the Castle of Good Hope, Signal Hill was one of the proposed sites. As we know, the fort did not move to Signal Hill, but part of Signal Hill moved to the Castle in the form of stone cut for its foundation.

Under British occupation, a signalling station was built on Signal Hill in 1815, replacing the old Dutch cannon on the top of Lion’s Head.The old method of cannon fire as a signal was also replaced with a new system of a series of variously shaped flags, accompanied by a varying number of balls hoisted to the top of a flagstaff, indicating what kind of ship had been seen and where it was from.

In 1902, once again a cannon was hauled up the mountain, but this time to a lower position on Signal Hill. This large cannon gave the ships in the bay accurate time for setting their chronometers for navigational purposes; in addition, the people of Cape Town set their watches by it. The cue for the cannon to be fired was sent via a flare shot off at the Royal Observatory in Mowbray; this ritual of firing a cannon for time-keeping had started at the Castle in 1833. Today, at 12 midday, you will still hear the Noon Gun, as it is now called, booming across the city from the slopes of Signal Hill. This is the oldest continuing tradition in Cape Town and two of the oldest working cannons in the world are still used.

A place to live, die and be buried

Cape Town was virtually built on slavery like all colonial outposts. It is estimated that in 1834 there were over 35 000 slaves in the Cape. As Cape Town expanded, a small community of ex-slaves, artisans, political exiles (scholars and religious leaders) and people of mixed parentage established a home on the slopes of Signal Hill in an area which was known as the Malay Quarter, now home mainly to the descendants of the original inhabitants. (The word ‘Malay’ was used as a blanket term for

anyone who came from the East, especially the Indonesian archipelagos.) Now known as the Bo-Kaap, with its interesting streets, traditions and unique culture, the area is well worth a visit. One of the Bo-Kaap’s biggest influences was the establishment of the Islamic faith on the southern tip of Africa by one of its own, known as Tuan Guru, who is buried in the Bo-Kaap. (Islam was first introduced to the Cape at a farm in Constantia by Sheikh Abdurahman Matebe Shah in 1668.)

The Bo-Kaap is also home to the oldest mosque in the country, the Auwal mosque (1798).