Professor C. J. Barnard presented the main lecture for the evening - "The Five Swimmers - The Escape of Willie Steyn and Four Fellow P.O.W. s from Ceylon, 1901".

This lecture dealt with the story of the escape of 5 Boers from the British and is the subject of his forthcoming book.

Willie Steyn and Piet Botha were captured at Heuningkoppies, near Heilbron, on 11th June 1900, following the successful Boer attack on Rooiwal. They were moved to Cape Town where, after an initial period in the Castle, they were imprisoned in the camp at the Greenpoint cycle track. After 4 unsuccessful escape attempts Steyn and Botha embarked, with 600 other P.O.W.s, on the "Catalonia" for Ceylon.

As the "Catalonia" entered Colombo harbour the Boers noticed tha t they were greeted by a sympathetic Russian vessel. Not relishing the prospect of a lengthy sojourn in Dyatalawa Camp, Steyn, Botha and three others, namely, George and Louw Steytler and Ernst Hausner, resolved to escape. Although the "Catalonia" was guarded by sentries and guard boats the 5 seized their chance. Aided by the opportune distraction of a shipload of orphan girls, they slipped over the side and swam towards what they hoped were friendly vessels. The five eventually met on the Russian ship the "Gerson" where they were very hospitably received. After many interesting adventures they eventually made their way back to the Cape Colony via a circuitous route through Russia and Europe and returned to commando just over a year after being captured. ColoneI Deon Fourie proposed the vote of thanks for this superbly presented and meticulously reseached lecture.

The M.G.H. (Metro Goldwyn Hall) Short dealt with The Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst. Major Hall treated the audience to an excellently illustrated synopsis of the history and traditions of the R.M.A., made all the more interesting by the inclusion of personal material from his time at the Academy.

Future Meetings. Johannesburg - December 11th - The B.B.C. video film "The Day We Won the War", preceded by M.G.H.'s "Sunday Outing".

Shaka Zulu.

SB Bourquin's comments on the most recent TV episodes follow below:

'SHAKA ZULU' UNDER REVIEW

The FIFTH serial continues with the undocumented early life of Shaka and, thus again, fact and fiction merge. Nandi's association with Gendayana is glossed over although she is reputed to have married him and, in fact had a son, Ngwadi, by him. By then Shaka was about 15 years old and should have been shown as finding refuge among the Mthethwas, developing his military talents in the Mthethwa army. Instead the film story takes a giant leap over 13 years to Gendeyana's kraal in 1815. This is just one year before Senzangakhona's actual death and Shaka's succession to the Zulu chieftainship. This brief one-year period is packed with events which chronologically seem out of place. Shaka is shown as saving Dingiswayo's life, who has been wounded in an ambush. This is pure fiction. Shaka himself is hunted by his father's henchmen. He is severely wounded; found lying in a stream and nursed by a girl, Pampatha. This is fiction. Pampatha, "the beloved of king Shaka" has been written about by B.A.Ritter and P.J.Schoeman, but had no real existence.
- Eventually Shaka meets Dingiswayo, they embrace like old friends, but in fact would have met for the first time. In any case, Zulu men do not embrace each other.

The SIXTH episode is full of eerie magic as the broad-bladed-assegai is forged. The confrontations between Shaka and his general are overdone, because Dingiswayo, a very enlightened ruler, had already introduced many novel changes in his army, which stimulated young Shaka's thoughts and provided a starting point for his own brilliant ideas.

The generally accepted year of Senzangakhona's death is 1816, not 1817. The dramatic arrival of Shaka at 'the exact moment of his halfbrother, Sigujana's enthronement as king' is fiction, so is the murder by Sigujana of Mudli, on orders from Shaka, and also the subsequent murder of Sigujana by Shaka himself. The facts are that Sigujana was assassinated by Shaka' shalf-brother NgWadi (son of Gendeyana and Nandi) and Mudli had his neck broken by Shaka's henchmen.

The SEVENTH episode commences with a massive dance scene in which Shaka is stabbed. This is where the true facts end. Tradition has it that men sent by king Zwide of the Ndwandwes, Shaka's arch-enemy, attempted his assassination. If the film suggests that Mnyakabayi and Dingane instigated it, that in fact came four years later, when Shaka was assassinated in 1828. If Shaka really had had any suspicions neither Mnyakabayi nor Dingane would have been allowed to live for long, nor would they have waited another four years before repeating the attempt. Only Fynn was present when Shaka was wounded. Farewell and the rest of the party had in actual fact returned to Port Natal. The film version of Farewell's role in urging Fynn to save Shaka and his hocus-pocus with Rowland's Macassar Hair Oil is therefore a fiction. Shaka did in later years developed an obsession concerning this hair oil; but its introduction at this stage seemed pointless, as also was the unreal scene in which Pampatha, "Shaka's beloved", sings, while Fynn, the 'doctor of medicine', now turned ladies' hairdresser, treats Nandi's hair with macassar! As ndlovukazi (queen-mother) and a married woman Nandi would have worn the traditional top-knot.

At the Cape Town castle a Scots bagpipe band parades some decades before any Scottish regiment was stationed tbere, while Lord Somerset continues to masquerade as a rude, cantankerous and ill-informed old man, who is a discredit to the colonial service. If Col Cloete could obtain information of the attempt on Shaka's life within a week of it happening, he should have known also about the arrival of Farewell at Shaka's royal kraal.
- Shaka was illiterate; his skilled way of handling Fynn's Bible and identifying details in the woodcut of Christ's crucifiction, as also printing his name on the deed of cession lack credibility.

'SB'

STEWART STILES.