The Lost City

INTRODUCTION

Over the Christmas season, my wife watched the latest season of Virgin River. It's not really my cup of tea. I prefer series like The Midnight Club and Monk. So while she relaxed on our one couch watching the show, I relaxed on our other paging through a large non-fiction book called Unsolved Mysteries of Southern Africa. I settled on a chapter called The Lost City of the Kalahari.

William Leonard Hunt was a 19th-century tightrope walker and showman. He was obsessed with "pygmies and dwarf earthmen" – the black and brown races of the western half of southern Africa – who he could exhibit like animals. In 1885, he and his son Samuel travelled chiefly in what we now know as the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park. In a speech to the Royal Geographical Society of London the following year, as well as in his book Through the Kalahari Desert, he claimed to have come across the remains of a lost city.

I'd heard of Hunt before, but that was the first time I'd got into actual information about him. So, over the past few weeks, I decided to get into more info about him to see what I thought of him and his claim.

THE INFO TRAIL

Cape Town author Rob Marsh explains, in the chapter The Lost City of the Kalahari, that Gert Louw and Dirk Philander, Kalahari residents, served as the trip's guides and translators, accompanied by a handful of hunters. Marsh points out discrepancies in Hunt's expedition account as a whole – routes, dates, stories – and to the fact that King Solomon's Mines was published in 1885. If you read a summary of King Solomon's Mines, it is indeed similar to parts of Hunt's book of 1886.

The last page of Marsh's chapter references Professor AJ Clement – founder of the Kalahari Research Committee of the University of the Witwatersrand and member of the South African Archaeological Society. Clement wrote an article called Farini's Lost City of the Kalahari, which can now be found online. It explains that the walls that Farini came across, in a place now known as Eierdop Koppies, look the way they do due to the decomposition of pyroxene and the effects of weathering on labradorite. Clement also wrote a book called The Kalahari and its Lost City which debunks Hunt's lies and claims.

Some of Samuel's photographs of the trip are stored in the National Archives UK and can be found online at Flickr. Of note is a photograph called Ki Ki Rapids. While the photo is great and real, Hunt has made up a name for that part of the Orange River. In his book, he references two different places for a mountain called Ki Ki Mountain, as if it's close to the ruins of the lost city, and then says that the mountain closest to the ruins in fact had no name. Further, his initial reference to it is Ki Ki Mountains, plural. Seventy pages later it's simply Ki Ki Mountain, singular. Of note too in Flickr is the photograph of Derek Veelander. In fact, his name was Dirk Philander. Samuel never bothered to spell the community leader's name correctly. Hunt himself, other than completely fictitious place names, made spelling errors throughout his book, names and places, including Kert Louw, who was in fact Gert Louw. 

And then lastly, Panaroma of Scenery – the ruins of the lost city in what we now know as Eierdop Koppies. If you came across that, granted it's just a portion of the area – the rocks continue onwards in actuality – would you think it's the remains of a city, especially after seeing rocks piled on top of each other in neighbouring places you'd recently been? And then maintain that belief after seeing further interesting rock formations in and around the Orange River?

I then read chapters 12-14 of Hunt's book, which focuses on the Balala tribe and their chief, Mapaar. Hunt doesn't seem to know if it's the rainy season or the dry season. He says that Mapaar's garden is flourishing, that the area has a good marsh with ducks, that there is a pan of water in which one can bathe, that the trees and long grass make the one spot look like an English park, and that a wonderful spring never runs dry. Yet, in those same pages, Mapaar is very worried because everything is so devastatingly dry. Hunt expects the reader to believe that the Balala did not understand that rain followed black clouds and that they didn't understand the weather patterns of their own land in general. He also expects the reader to believe that an old woman begged him to sleep with her daughter so that she could bear the son of the "Great London Captain". Hunt tells the Balala that he is the Great Queen's witchdoctor (Queen Victoria) as well as a rain-doctor.

Hunt looks down on Mapaar and the Balala no matter how hospitable they are. He says that he never slept with the woman in question, and hardly attempted to pronounce her name, but did pat her on her head one night after she made him supper.

An old Strand magazine states that Hunt was in southern Africa in the hope of finding diamonds, hence his trip starting in earnest in Kimberley. A summary of Hunt's book on the SANparks website states that Hunt enjoyed taking the mickey out of an "oracle" using sleight of hand. A Chicago Daily Tribune article has Hunt telling the reporter that Mapaar gave him 120 miles of land on which to build a ranch, while Hunt states in his book that the chief's own garden was only an acre big.

Further, in his book, Hunt states: "He [Mapaar] undertook to grant me facilities for acquiring land in his territory whenever I might be ready to return and carry out my scheme."

But, just eight pages later, changes things to: "His promise to grant me some of his land for my cattle ranche (sic)."

And then, on page 278, he asks Dirk Philander if he can buy land from him.

In Google Images, posters display a deformed seven-year-old girl with hypertrichosis. Hunt paid an anthropologist and an explorer to abduct her from a Laos jungle to display her as evolution's missing link, pretending he had adopted her and saved her from a worse life. Her real father died during the trafficking ordeal, and the mother got left behind. A poster displays The Friendly Zulus. Hunt displayed Zulu people during the Anglo-Zulu War after buying their contract, without their consent, from another showman, after which one of his managers seized their belongings until they ceased legal action against him and Hunt. Hunt went on to display a Zulu baby zoo-like. A poster displays Pygmies or Dwarf Earthmen. Khoisan people. Hunt's obsession with the "little people" of southern Africa never ended. Little people equalled big money.

Hunt to his son: "Never mind, my boy; if you come diamond-hunting you must make the best of it. But make yourself happy; though I'm satisfied there are diamonds here, it is another matter to prove that they are in paying quantities; we can't prove it by digging holes, so the best thing for us to do is to go on for the little people, look out for the cattle ranche (sic), and return by way of Upington, and get our claim to the land acknowledged by Mr. Scott, the Commissioner."

He tells the reader much later in the book: "Now that confidence was fully established between us, it was time to open the question whether any of these interesting little people would be willing to come back with us to Europe."

He tells them he'll pay them – the M'Kabba (sic) – with food, clothes, and guns.

Other than all of this, Hunt claimed that his cruel mother used to stitch up his sleeves and collar every morning after he got dressed – something that would have in fact cut off his blood and breathing and killed him, or caused him to pass out. He also claimed to have had secret meetings with Abraham Lincoln and been a spy during the American Civil War. He also told audiences that his new act, Lulu, had replaced his acrobatic son, Samuel, only for Dublin audiences to find out by literal accident that Lulu was Samuel – Hunt had invented the character to compete with the famous female and male-and-female acts of the day.

Hunt also referred to Jan Abrahams, one of the mixed-race guides, as a bastard after the latter said he missed his wife and that the remains of the lost city were just old rocks and stones. The header of the page reads: The Bastards won't Dig.

MY OPINION

While I have no doubt that Hunt and his son went to Kimberley and through the pointy part of what we now know as the Western Cape – Hunt's book and Samuel's photographs and sketches are there for all to see – that Hunt embellished and fabricated portions of his trip.

In the introduction to his book, Hunt states: "Diamonds and cattle-ranches (sic) thus became the motive of my journey and the basis of this book."

Having found no diamonds and, in reality, no ranch land, he turned to his other and more habitual fixation – "little people" – a few of whom agreed to go back to England with him; where they'd eat, which they would have done anyway, while he scooped all the money from putting them on display.

Hunt's hope of creating a ranch for himself in the area of the Balala would have been fulfilled if Mapaar had truly given him a huge stretch of land on which to build. If he had received a 120-mile gift, he would not have asked Dirk Philander if he could buy land from him.

Further, in the speech read out at the Royal Geographical Society of London on his behalf, Hunt stated that he wished the Cape Colony government would build ranches up there; possibly Hunt's disguised plan C at trying to get himself a ranch there.

Hunt's claim to be the first white guy on the planet to take on the Kalahari and survive was also bunk. There were white guys already living in the area, according to Clement. And Marsh provides a lovely brown-and-blue map that illustrates trade routes that were in existence long before Hunt came along.

As for the remains of the lost city, the mixed-race community who guided Hunt and his son on that portion of his trip lived in what we now know as Rietfontein and often headed the way of Eierdop Koppies – they had passed those rock formations before.

Now Hunt might then have claimed to be the first Canadian or resident of Britain to see the remains, or the person to bring it to the attention of the world, and that would have been interesting. However, the formation is obviously not part of a city.

Further, he should have nevertheless still credited the locals or their forefathers as being the original discoverers, whether they felt the wall was natural or had been built.

Now one might then say that Hunt's view was racist – he, who knew nothing about the geology or history of the area, knew for certain these walls were part of a lost city, while these mixed-race guys who lived in the area didn't know what they were looking at.

While I think this to be both partly and definitely true, I think that, on the whole, Hunt was simply a seasoned liar.

Think of the photo titled Panaroma of Scenery. Nobody would think that was a lost city, then or now.

In my research, I came across a photograph of other rocks from that area. They look like huge pieces of charcoal. Interesting, but certainly not the remains of a wall of a lost city.

IN CONCLUSION

What grated me throughout my research was coming across videos and articles about Hunt which either act as if the immorality of all of the above never happened or allude to these aspects as if they were just one of those things. From reading portions of Hunt's biography, I found that his biographer did the same thing. If your neighbour or someone you knew did or said the things Hunt did and said, they'd be imprisoned or shunned. Fraudulent book, for one thing.

Further, the true believer takes Hunt's claims at face value, even though some have no other source other than Hunt. And never comment on him doing things like patting a grown woman on the head and referencing her as Black Beauty after complaining how much she stank. Or putting a little child on display as The Missing Link. Would Hunt's biographer like that done to his child?

There are many historical figures that can be given the benefit of the doubt in context, or whose good points far overshadow their bad characteristics. This is not the case with Hunt. I cannot go against my faculties or reason and see Hunt as some great guy simply because he invented or tweaked a couple of things later in life.

Incidentally, Hunt did not invent the folding theatre seat; Aaron Allen did, back in 1854. And Hunt did not invent the modern-day parachute either; that honour goes to Park Van Tassel, who invented the first folding parachute, and co-inventor Thomas Scott Baldwin, who then used it for the first time in 1887. One wonders how Hunt's watering can for begonias differed from other watering cans of the day.

In short, I found William Hunt, the Great Farini deplorable. In his twenties, he was a superb and interesting tightrope walker. But after that, a more appropriate name for him would have been The Amazing Scuzzbucket or The Evident Con Artist.

Canada has a long and interesting history with individuals far greater than Mr. Hunt.

PERSONAL NOTE

On a lighter note, I wouldn't mind seeing Eierdop Koppies in person, and I'd love to go to the Palace of the Lost City in the North West Province.

But if my wife puts on Virgin River in our hotel room, I'll escape this time into the very real Valley of Waves!