Durban

The beach front of Durban is a pleasure-seeker's paradise. An imposing line of hotels stands on the western side of the Marine Parade. East of this road is a 3-kilometre long strip where the visitor can find amusement parks, an aquarium, a mini-town, an aerial cableway, a snake park, bowling greens, children's pulls, a swimming bath, a sunken garden, tea-rooms and fair- ground rides.
The fun strip is separated from the beach by the Lower Marine Parade. The sands slope steeply into the warm waters of the Indian Ocean, and three fishing piers project seawards, seeming never to lack fishermen-night or day, storm or shine.
At the Durban Aquarium and Dolphinarium, now located at the end of the Point in uShaka Marine World theme park, turtles, sharks, marine shells, crayfish, octopus, corals, seals and dolphins are displayed in large tanks. Spectators look in through glass observation portholes. At meal times scuba divers in the tank feed many of the fish by hand.
At the northern end of the beachfront, the Fitzsimons Snake Park exhibits about 80 of the 140 species of snakes in South Africa and a variety of other reptiles. Natal snakes, such as black and green mambas are well represented. The name Fitzsimons is associated with the study of snakes and the production of serum. Frederick Fitzsimons established the Port Elizabeth snake park and throughout his life was involved in research on snakes. His book, Snakes of South Africa, was a classic on the subject for years. His son, Dr. Vivian Fitzsimons, director of the Transvaal Museum in Pretoria, wrote the standard modern work, also called Snakes of South Africa. Another son, Desmond, started the Fitzsimons Snake Park in Durban in 1939. The park sells the standard Fitzsimons antisnake-bite outfit produced by the South African Medical Institute in Johannesburg.
The Amphitheatre garden is also on the beach front. This is a sunken garden with pools, fountains, lawns, flower beds, bridges, crazy paving and thatch summer-houses. Illuminated by night, the garden is a sheltered contrast to the boisterous amusement parks. Concerts and other open-air entertainments are held occasionally in the amphitheatre.

City of Durban

The great natural harbour of Port Natal, on whose shores stands the city of Durban, was considered by the Portuguese navigators of the 15th. century to be a lagoon at the mouth of a large river which flowed down from the interior. They called the harbour Rio de Natal ('Christmas river') for it lay on the coast discovered on Christmas Day 1497 by Vasco da Gama.
The entrance was narrow and shallow, but once inside a ship could anchor in safety. A number of minor streams flowed into what seemed to be a lagoon but was really a land-locked bay.
Dense coastal forest surrounded the bay, with mangrove swamps growing on the mud banks and over a small island in its centre. Hippos, pelicans and other birds lived in and on the water, and elephants and other big game wandered through the dark forests of the shore.
Pirates and slave traders, merchants and shipwrecked crews all landed on the shores of Port Natal in search of food, water, trade or sanctuary. A few stayed. One colourful character, a penitent pirate, lived as a recluse here at the end of the 17th. century, and at different times several renegades used the place as a hideaway.
In November 1823 a party of traders from the Cape found their way to the harbour and liked it so much that the next year they returned and, led by Henry Francis Fynn, built a settlement in the bush where the railway station now stands. It was the beginning of the city which, 11 years afterwards, on 23 June 1835, was named in honour of Sir Benjamin D'Urban, the governor of the Cape.
The settlement in these days was a primitive little place which grew quite spontaneously and without any support from the British government, which officially disowned it. It lacked planning and administration. Individuals cut clearing in the bush and built rough shacks and store- rooms for their trade goods and ivory. Refugees from tribal disturbances all over Natal found sanctuary here, attaching themselves to different traders or hunters until each settler ended up with something of the fiefdom of a white chief with his own devoted following.
Life was always precarious; the boundaries of the Zulu country were fewer than 100 kilometres to the north and the Zulus regarded the whole of Natal as their raiding ground.
The settlement at Port Natal was simply tolerated by the Zulus because they found it convenient to trade there. The land was ceded to the traders but a Zulu garrison was established nearby in a military stronghold pointedly named uKangel' amaNkengana ('watch the vagabonds'). The traders had to live with the uncomfortable feeling of being watched.
The Voortrekkers arrived in 1838. The traders welcomed them; they were people of their own kind, and, after the massacres at Mgungundlovu and Weenen (see feature, pages 310-313), the traders took up arms against the Zulus. Sixteen traders and about 600 of their African followers died in a clash with the Zulus on 17 April 1838 at Ndondakusuka. The rest either fled from Durban or took refuge on an islet in the harbour (Salisbury Island), where the Zulus, who had no boats, could not follow them.
News of these disturbances at last brought the British government to Port Natal. On 3 December 1838 a British force landed at the harbour and found about 25 Voortrekkers and a few traders living there; the traders who had not fled had joined the Voortrekkers in the Battle of Blood River and fought against the Zulus on 16 December 1838 in retribution for the massacres.
When the area had settled down, the British withdrew their force but renewed disturbances brought them back again in May 1842, and this time they built what is known as the Old Fort as a permanent stronghold. It was this fort which the Voortrekkers besieged for 34 days, and from there Dick King left on his celebrated 1000-kilometre ride, reaching Grahamstown in ten days with a plea for reinforcements (see box, page 323). The fort was relieved on 26 June 1842.

After some indecision on the part of the British, they eventually annexed Natal to the Cape Colony on 31 May 1844. The Voortrekkers withdrew from the area and made their homes in the Transvaal and Orange Free State. Natal was open to British settlers and free to develop into a separate colony and, ultimately, a province of South Africa. From its romantic beginning Durban grew to become a municipality in 1854 and a city in 1935. It is the principal cargo port on the continent of Africa, a centre of industry and a major holiday resort. It is a bustling, sub-tropical city, with a warm, sometimes sultry and hot climate, abundant trees and luxuriant gardens.

Mayhew, V. (ed) 1978. Illustrated Guide to Southern Africa. Cape Town: Reader's Digest.

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