Souvenir Saturday: Landing by basket at Durban

Basket used for landing passengers at Durban

before the wharf was built. This original basket can

be seen at the Maritime Museum in Durban (Victoria Embankment).

Passenger emerging from (or entering?) the basket
at Durban

Disembarking troops at Port Natal

Disembarking relatively small groups of passengers at Natal's port was difficult enough. Landing entire regiments as well as horses, arms, ammunition and other supplies in time of war was a nightmare. During the years and months immediately preceding the Zulu War of 1879, the Bar across the harbour entrance was an obstacle to larger ships. Every soldier, every horse and all the accoutrements of a great military force had to come ashore in small vessels (lighters or tenders of various descriptions). While waiting in the outer anchorage, ships were always in danger from changes in wind and weather, with the real possibility of a vessel being dashed on to the rocks below the Bluff - as had happened two decades earlier in the case of the former East Indiaman, Minerva, in 1850, and other subsequent wrecks.

At the port there were no wharves as we understand the term today. Lighters carrying troops and equipment would be beached on the shore. Sometimes floating gangplanks would be used. Horses and other animals were winched up in a body-sling and transferred from the large vessel to the lighter: that can't have been as easy as it sounds, particularly not for animals which had already endured months of shipboard conditions.
Referring to the Anglo-Boer War of 1899-1902, The Times History of the War mentions that 13 000 horses died at sea and many times that number perished because they were put into the field before they had time to recover from the effects of the sea voyage. About 2 000 mules died at sea on the way to South Africa. (The Remount Department, in Britain and South Africa, during the Anglo-Boer War supplied 520 000 horses and 150 000 mules: cost, 15 million pounds.)

Early in 1880, with the conclusion of the Zulu War and the battles of Isandhlwana, Rorke's Drift, Ulundi and others passing into history, the task of re-embarkation would begin. No sooner had that been achieved, than the outbreak of the First Boer War (or Transvaal War of Independence) required the landing of further troops and the usual stores and equipment. Durban had become an extremely busy port.

From 1899, if your British ancestor served in the Anglo-Boer War, he may well have been loaded into the notorious basket contraption and lowered over the side of a ship into a waiting lighter.

Anglo-Boer War 1899-1902

Troops landing by basket

at Durban

Footnote: a comment from someone in Michigan that this 'strange device' reminds him of cages used by fishermen to catch lobsters in Alaska. I'll bet they don't catch many wearing pith helmets, as seen above. 

Landing at Natal by basket

In 1882 Donald Currie's Castle Line began regular mail services as far as Durban (i.e. not terminating at Cape Town) and by 1887 both the rival companies, Union and Castle, were providing this service from England to Durban.

 

These mail ships still had to anchor outside the port in the 'roads' or 'roadstead'. This was due to the existence of the Bar, a sandbank across the entrance to the Bay of Natal, and a significant obstacle in the way of development of the harbour. It was a matter of vital concern because without a port the Colony could not have continued its existence - trade, immigration etc would be impossible.

 

The depth of water over the Bar depended on certain factors - the quantity of sand or silt built up, onshore winds, currents, tidal scour. During the history of the port, several harbour engineers were employed to remedy the situation, with varying degrees of success. 

 

For passengers, it meant that at the end of a long voyage and with Natal in sight from the deck of their ship, they could have a long wait before they disembarked on dry land. Not only that, but the process of disembarkation was far from easy. It took place in the outer anchorage - by basket. This contraption was made of wicker, with a door in the side through which the passengers would enter. The door would be secured on the outside and the basket winched up then lowered to the deck of the waiting tender (small ship for ferrying passengers in and out of the port). When the passengers emerged from the basket, it would go back for another group. Approximately eight to ten people could be carried each journey, depending on their size.

 

It wasn't an exercise for the squeamish, particularly in a strong wind and with a choppy sea causing the tender to bob up and down, not necessarily synchronised with the movements of the larger incoming vessel.

 

 

 

Passengers entering the basket at Durban, postcard 1901