This volume, A Pole under the Southern Cross, offers a compelling account of the travels and scientific observations of Antoni Rehman, a Polish botanist and geographer who journeyed through South Africa during the 1870s, a period of profound political and social change. His memoir, originally published in Polish and here presented in an abridged English translation, records both his scientific pursuits and his reflections on the colonial societies he encountered.
Antoni Rehman soon after his return from South Africa, c 1881
First Journey (1875–1877)
Rehman landed in Cape Town in 1875 and travelled extensively through the Cape Colony, passing through Mossel Bay, Knysna, the Montagu’s Pass on his way to Beaufort West.
His route then took him northward to Kimberley, across the interior to Bloemfontein, and over the Drakensberg into Natal. This first journey, lasting more than a year, allowed him to observe the varied landscapes of the south and interior firsthand.
A “Knobkierie”. One of the cultural artefacts collected by Rehman in South Africa
Rehman’s botanical collections, many of which now reside in museums and herbaria in Poland, Switzerland, and Ukraine, testify to the scientific value of his travels. His writings offer rare contemporaneous insights into the natural environment of South Africa in the 1870s and the social worlds of British settlers, Boer communities, and indigenous groups.
As one of very few Polish scientists to record such a journey during this period, his work enriches global historical and scientific understanding of nineteenth-century southern Africa.
Rehman was a respected academic from Krakow who in 1882 became a professor at Lvov University, specializing in botany and geography. His work there became known in Polish and Eastern European scientific circles. Before his arrival in South Africa, he had already travelled widely through southern Russia, the Caucasus, and Crimea, collecting plant specimens and studying regional climates. His journey to the Cape was motivated chiefly by scientific curiosity. Drawn to the extraordinary biodiversity of southern Africa, he sought to expand his botanical collections, to develop pioneering work in phytogeography, and to significantly advance the scholarly understanding of the subcontinent’s flora.
A photograph of rock paintings in a cave in the Hex River Valley as seen and described by Rehman in 1875
Second Journey (1879–1880)
Rehman returned to South Africa a few years later. Beginning in Port Shepstone, he travelled through Pietermaritzburg and Durban before heading inland to Pretoria and the Orange Free State. His explorations continued into Lesotho, across Giant’s Castle, and again through the Drakensberg region.
During both journeys he collected hundreds of plant specimens, documented landscapes through sketches and photographs, and recorded the everyday lives of the people he encountered—settlers, traders, indigenous communities, and colonial officials.
A traditional Sotho snuffbox collected by Rehman
Although primarily a scientist, Rehman was also a perceptive commentator on society. He often criticised British colonial supremacy and was at times sympathetic to Boer concerns about cultural dominance. His observations reflect a deep unease at the erosion of indigenous identities, which he described as being gradually “annihilated” under colonial rule. Throughout his travels he documented distinctive customs, social hierarchies, and the rhythms of everyday life among the diverse communities he encountered. These reflections give his memoirs a human dimension that complements their scientific value.
EXTRACT FROM THE TEXT
Worcester and the Area beyond the Mountains (page 34)
This area must have been once densely populated by the Bushmen because you can still find many traces of their presence. My host gave me a piece of information that I found exceptionally important: in the gorge not far from where he lived, you could still see rock paintings that they used to decorate their homes; he himself had never seen them but his younger son knew the place perfectly well and promised to take me there the following day. While digging the garden, Axell had found in the sand several round stones with holes; they added weight to the rods which were used to dig for edible roots. Not knowing the significance of these stones, he dismissed them as unimportant and so all of them have been lost except for the one that I found myself in the stream near the house and still have in my possession. Once, after fierce rains, the swollen stream had brought a wooden vessel down from the mountains, which, one beautiful evening, the hostess chopped up and burned due to the absence of firewood.
The next day, I immediately went out with young Axell to explore the area. This valley forms a basin encircled by wild, high mountains with three deep gorges. My host, despite having lived here for twelve years, has only been to one of them because it is the most accessible one and provides the shortest way to the town of Ceres which is located between the mountains; and since he described the town as extremely interesting and the Bushmen’s settlement could be visited on the way, I gladly headed in that direction. The entire valley has sandy soil, some places covered with piles of small stones deposited by streams. In springtime, the veld in the valley is covered with countless flowers but at present, the spring vegetation has gone and the flowers have disappeared except for a few geraniums and syngenesious plants. Moreover, open spaces were probably formed solely by fires because the entire valley is covered with tall bushes among which the most abundant is the brabejum stellatifolium of the sugarbush family. The colonists commonly call them wild almonds due to their fruits which, at this time of year, were hanging in bunches on the tips of the branches and did in fact resemble almonds with their size, appearance and hairiness. This fruit has toxic properties but settlers use it as a substitute for coffee anyway; in order to remove the toxins from the pit, they throw them for a moment into boiling water and then dry, burn and grind them. Baboons eat this fruit, according to Axell, raw with no negative effects.
It was not easy to find the path among the dense thickets but my young guide knew this place well because he had followed herds gone astray on numerous occasions. Once we forded several streams we were nearing the end of the gorge and my guide pointed out a group of hanging rocks on the right as our destination. The rocks here were so inconspicuous and covered so completely with dense thickets that it would be difficult to find a safer hideout. Forcing myself through the bushes, I found myself below the rocks. On a broad rocky base with smooth and inaccessible sides stood an enormous shapeless boulder which formed a wide crevice on one side; it had served as a shelter but must have been abandoned by people long ago because the crevices abounded with fresh droppings of a small animal called by the colonists a klipdassie which lives in colonies in such places. It was difficult to get inside the crevice. It was so low that not only was it impossible to stand but even to sit comfortably; one nook was black from fires and the top wall had several well-preserved paintings.
They were all painted with the same paint, the colour of dirty cinnabar, and depicted six small animals of the antelope species which, according to Axell, colonists call a reebok; another drawing showed a thin Bushman and another one was probably a picture of a shield. Three pictures were smeared over with the same paint. A bit lower on the vertical wall was another set of drawings depicting six antelope of the same kind. It must have been extraordinarily challenging to paint those because my arms became so numb while copying them that I had to take many breaks.
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EDITOR
Edited by Michał Lesniewski
Translated and co-edited by Weronika Muller
Weronika Muller She completed her Master’s in History at the University of Warsaw in 2016. In 2022 Muller was awarded her PhD degree by the University of South Africa. She specializes in 20th century South African History and has published academic articles in both Poland and South Africa. Muller sits on the board of directors of the Association of the Siberian Deportees in Southeast Africa.
Michał Leśniewski, is a Professor of History at the Faculty of History at the University of Warsaw. He completed his MA in 1990 and Ph.D. in1997 (Dissertation: ‘The Role of South Africa in Shaping Concepts of British Imperial Policy, 1899-1914’); Postdoctoral Degree in 2010 (Dissertation: ‘Africans, Boers and British. A Study in Relations, 1795-1854’). He specializes in 19th and 20th Century History, especially the history of the European colonialism, British Empire in 19th and 20th Century, History of South Africa in the 19th and 20th Centuries.
He is an author of several few dozen articles concerning British Imperial and South African History, and several books, among them two published in English: Klip River Affair of 1847, AMU Press, Poznań 2018; The Zulu-Boer War 1837–1840, Brill, Leiden, Boston 2021.