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1839: James Backhouse
[8 October 1839]

Some Bushmen were lately destroyed by a party of Griquas, in this neighbourhood, under the following circumstances. The Griquas foresaw, at the beginning of the winter, that from the state of the country, the Bushmen would be pressed by hunger; they invited them to come to Griqua Town, and share the trial of scarcity with themselves. This the Bushmen declined; in the time of trial, they stole and killed cattle belonging to the Griquas, who became exasperated, and were desirous of going out against the depredators. Andries Waterboer and Peter Wright were at this time in Cape Town. Isaac Hughes used all his influence to prevent the expedition; when he could no longer hinder it, he set before the parties, the responsibility of taking human life. This, the temporary captain, acting on behalf of Waterboer, in his absence, promised to avoid; but in the time of excitement, when a party of Bushmen, who had taken refuge in a cave, refused to surrender, they were destroyed by setting on fire, fuel collected at the cave’s mouth.

1844: Henry H. Methuen
[July 4th, 1844]—A hired span, or team, of fat oxen conveyed us quickly along towards Kuruman, which is two long days’ journey from Daniel’s-kuil….

(5th.)—Learning from the Griquas that there were two caves near us, into one of which the Bushmen formerly drove two hundred stolen oxen, and where the marauders were discovered and slain, after first killing all the cattle, I rode with Bain and a native guide to examine one of them. We at length found it situated in the side of a range of hills, immediately at the base of a conical one, and were well repaid for our trouble. Some bushes, that gave the air a delicious fragrance, drooped over the entrance, the height of which could not have been less than fifteen, and its breadth forty feet. An immense stalagmite, twelve feet high, of very rugged outline, arrested the eye on first entering, as if it were the guardian genius of the cavern. Through the whole extent an enormous arch expanded over our heads…of solid rock. Bees hummed around us, and we saw marks where their combs had been fastened…. Many hieroglyphical drawings in different coloured chalks, representing game animals in the rudest manner conceivable, garnished the walls…. We could just discern among them the ostrich, elephant, giraffe, and other creatures, some of them now extinct in the neighbourhood…. Our guide having collected some wood, we ignited several piles of it, and thus penetrated the innermost recesses of this Bushman-palace. From the entrance, which faced the north, and commanded a very extensive view of the country, the cavern preserved a straight course for one hundred and four yards, and then took an abrupt turn of fifty yards to the south-east: the average breadth might be twenty, and the height varying from five feet to thirty. The blazing fire threw a strong red light into the most secret penetralia: an owl, alarmed by this strange phenomenon in his usually dark and silent haunts…dashed hastily into the open air. Porcupine’s quills lay on the ground, and marks of the rock-rabbit were frequent.

1844: map
A cave thought likely to be Wonderwerk in indicated on a map, Cape of Good Hope, published in 1844 in The London Atlas of Universal Geography, J. Arrowsmith. London

1844: Henry H. Methuen
In the 19th century, the cave was described by European travelers, among them Henry H. Methuen, who in 1844 wrote: "July...(5th.) ...situated in the side of a range of hills, immediately at the base of a conical one... Some bushes...drooped over the entrance, the height of which could not have been less than fifteen, and its breadth forty feet. An immense stalagmite, twelve feet high, of very rugged outline, arrested the eye on first entering... Through the whole extent an enormous arch expanded over our heads...of solid rock... Many hieroglyphical drawings in different coloured chalks, representing game animals in the rudest manner conceivable, garnished the walls... We could just discern among them the ostrich, elephant, giraffe, and other creatures, some of them now extinct in the neighbourhood... From the entrance, which faced the north, and commanded a very extensive view of the country, the cavern preserved a straight course for one hundred and four yards, and then took an abrupt turn of fifty yards to the south-east: the average breadth might be twenty, and the height varying from five feet to thirty. ...an owl, ...dashed hastily into the open air. Porcupine’s quills lay on the ground, and marks of the rock-rabbit were frequent."

1909: P. E. Bosman
Between 1909 and 1911, the cave was inhabited by the farm owners, the Bosman family, who initially lived in the cave while their farmhouse was being built and subsequently used the cave as a cart-house and winter sheep shelter until the early 1930s.

1921: Maria Wilman
Kuruman District Wonderwerk Cave: In this cave in the Kuruman Hills, Maria Wilman copied, it is presumed, all paintings there in 1921. They include in addition to game animals 5 patterns: double ladder in red (Fig. 12) short horizontal line with 2 strokes downward and 4 strokes upward (Fig. 13) in red, 3 short parallel vertical lines and grid in red (Fig. 14)...

massacre has not yet been found in the cave.

Maria Wilman, a previous director of the McGregor Museum, traced some of the rock paintings during 1921.

1937: E. E. Buttner
A newspaper article from 1937 documented a visit to Wonderwerk Cave by E.E. Buttner, a water inspector, who remarked on the immense size of the cave

E. E. Buttner, Daily Dispatch, East London. (South Africa), 17 July 1937

Buttner, E.E. (1937). African cave dwellers. Daily Dispatch, East London (newspaper). July 17, 1937.

A newspaper article from 1937 documented a visit to Wonderwerk Cave by E. E. Buttner, a water inspector, who remarked onthe immense size of the cave, the presence of a thick layer of bat guano on the cave floor, and the presence of "some Bushman flint axes" which he recovered from a hole, several feet deep, that he dug into the cave floor. He presciently noted "Systematic excavation might yet bring some very interesting relics of past civilisations to light" (Buttner 1937). During the Second World War, the organic deposits of the cave (from ca. 30 m in from the cave entrance to the back of the cave) were exploited commercially by the farmer’s family.