Chapter 1: Devil's Peak
Oompa, the Baboon, lived in the wetlands where lakes, swamps and deep rivers, habitats for crocodiles and snakes, meander through the African topography. The monsters of the deep, forever fighting for their food and dominance, had seen the likes of Oompa and his friends. Oompa and his kind found safety and security in the trees of the forests to escape conflict with their enemies: humans, lions, snakes, dogs, tigers, to name a few. Within their itinerant lifestyles, they’d found ways of seeking redress from violent environments of hurricanes, humans, and other predators.
Territorial ways had never been the nature of baboons. Their boundaries were defined by the deep rivers of Africa. As was the nature of the baboon, he and his kind were fearful of deep water. They didn’t venture north of the Orange River. They’d traveled the forests that spread from Cape Town where Table Mountain and Devil’s Peak loomed majestically. They dwelt in the vast territory where sea breezes swept from the west and the south ends of the tip of Africa. Oompa didn’t let the wild nature of his habitat get the best of him.
Food was foremost in Oompa’s thoughts and actions. The forests had offered plenty to satisfy his appetites, but the forests didn’t yield what he desired most: the abundant yields of white farmers. His lust for their crops spurned him from his society, the consequence of his quest for their food. Through his clever tactics, he did rise above his shame and restored his good name.
The cloud formations coming from Table Mountain inspired folklore. In his nomadic wanderings, Oompa could see the mountain. He saw clouds that appeared like smoke stretching into the unknown and robbing the sky of blue. The “smoke” sent messages to the villages that the mountain was not to be disturbed; the devil and Mr. Van Hunks lived there…
One of the wealthy farmers in the early colony of Cape Town was a gentleman of leisure named Jan Van Hunks. Many slaves worked in Van Hunks’s fields, bossed about by an overseer. They raised the very best of tobacco. The slaves grew, cultivated, and cured the pick of the crop to be given specifically to their old master. Van Hunks had day and night to devote to his favorite occupation: smoking his pipe. He could out-smoke anyone in Africa. He dubbed himself to be the champion smoker of the world.
Van Hunks’s wife was a thrifty, clean, and spry little woman whose chief delight was to keep her house clean. She made the old man carry on his addictive smoking out of doors. The shady old oak tree that his grandfather had planted was his favorite spot. He had a slave boy keep the pipes filled. A glowing coal was always ready for his master.
On stormy occasions, old smoker Van Hunks would retire to the wine cellar, always a cool place with an appealing odor. It was an adobe building with a grass roof smeared with patches of moss. Two huge doors were large enough for carts full of grapes to be thrown into a large oaken tub inside. The servant girls got in the tub and smashed the grapes to a pulp with their bare feet extracting juices from the grapes, the pulp discarded and the juice placed in 500 gallon barrels. There it would age and ferment for ten to thirty years before going to the market.
The wine cellar was the favorite haunt for old Van Hunks and his smoker friends. The old farmer had furnished the abode with comfortable handmade chairs for when he had guests. They’d sit before the open door, sip wine, and spin tales as they enjoyed Van Hunks’s prized tobacco. Among them all, the old man was the champion pipe-puffer of them all.
The old man’s farm was nestled against one of the peaks of Table Mountain, a mountain located near Cape Town. Because of Van Hunks’s wine, hospitality, and quality tobacco, his place became one of the preferred gathering places for socializing. During the rainy season, visiting had become nearly impossible because of the sticky mud and swollen streams. During these rainy days, the farmers kept very near their own houses.
It rained and thundered with lightning. The elements were doing their best to make the day miserable. Van Hunks, the master smoker, and his servant boy were in his wine cellar. He’d been quietly and contentedly smoking his favorite pipe. Van Hunks stared at a vacant chair when a strange dense fog formed and surrounded it. Outside, the thunder and the lightning ceased and the sun came out. When the rays of the sun brightened the wine cellar, he saw the devil seated in his guest chair facing him and puffing away at a large pipe full of tobacco.
The old farmer started the conversation by telling him it was an ugly day out, and he hoped it would clear so he could have his friends over to enjoy a smoking contest. At that, the devil became interested. Perhaps this was a man he could challenge. Smoking became the subject of conversation.
Van Hunks and his guest became increasingly friendly with each other. They exchanged tobacco, each trying the others. The slave boy was ordered to fill their pipes with the two tobaccos. The devil and Van Hunks sat down to out-smoke each other. Van Hunks’s tobacco was too mild for the devil, and the devil’s tobacco was too strong for Van Hunks. The young slave was kept busy fetching tobacco, wine, and more tobacco.
Back at the house, Mrs. Van Hunks prepared a tasty feast for her pipe-loving husband. She placed roasted wild guinea hen and mealy meal on the table. A pot of hot bush tea and vegetables fresh from the garden permeated the air. She called to her husband to come to dinner. Van Hunks was too busy to answer.
His good wife found him at the wine cellar in a smoking contest with the devil! She promptly threw her worthless husband and the devil off the place. She had her anger worked up to a great pitch.
Mr. Van Hunks took his good-for-nothing tobacco and his young servant with him. A contest was a contest, and it must continue. He and the devil decided to find a spot where they could carry on, undisturbed by anyone. The devil, Mr. Van Hunks, and the servant boy went out on the peak above the farm. They found a pleasant place sheltered from the wind and rain. Soon they were back in the contest going strong, with smoke flying in all directions.
Van Hunks had found his match. He and the devil are still there smoking their pipes. When the wind blows down from Table Mountain, it brings little whiffs of the light tobacco smoke. When the people see these little fluffy clouds that are formed above Devil’s Peak named for the legendary tale, they nod to each other and say, “Well, the devil and old Van Hunks are still at their smoking contest.”
