Their white-washed, gabled fronts are ornamented
with pilasters and decorative plaster-work, and these dignified,
perfectly proportioned buildings seem in absolute harmony with their
surroundings. Still I cannot understand how they got erected, or why
the original Dutch pioneers chose to house themselves in such lordly
fashion. At Groot Constantia, which still retains its original
furniture, the rooms are paved with black and white marble, and
contain a wealth of great cabinets of the familiar Dutch type, of
ebony mounted with silver, of stinkwood and brass, of oak and steel;
one might be gazing at a Dutch interior by Jan Van de Meer, or by
Peter de Hoogh, instead of at a room looking on to the Indian Ocean,
and only eight miles distant from the Cape of Good Hope. How did these
elaborate works of art come there? The local legend is that they were
copied by slave labour from imported Dutch models, but I cannot
believe that untrained Hottentots can ever have developed the
craftsmanship and skill necessary to produce these fine pieces of
furniture. I think it far more likely to be due to the influx of
French Huguenot refugees in 1689, the Edict of Nantes having been
revoked in 1685, the same year in which Simon Van der Stel began to
build Groot Constantia.
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