FORTRESS PLANNED.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 188, 10 August 1936, Page 5

FORTRESS PLANNED.

S. AFRICAN SCHEME. A SECOND SINGAPORE? ONCE A LEPER STATION. I (By Telegraph—Own Correspondent.) | WELLINGTON, this day. ! i Interesting reference to Robben ' Island, which, it was recently reported, i the South African Government intends , to fortify intensively as part of a | scheme to make Table Bay a second ! Singapore, is contained in a letter j received by Mrs. F. A. Smuts Kennedy, I I of Wellington, from her sister, Mrs. L. | | Smuts, of Capetown. j I "Robben Island, for centuries an j island of exile and suffering, shipwreck | and strange drama, is now to become J • the Heligoland of the South Atlantic," j [ writes Mrs. Smuts. "The reservation j of the island for military purposes has I just been gazetted, and permits are j now necessary to land there. Soon the ■ island will be a fortress with batteries | commanding the whole sea approach to j Capetown, and searchlights sweeping I the sky for hostile aircraft. Robben | Island (Island of Seals), lies only j seven miles from Capetown's pier—a 1 low island often covered with fog—two ' miles and only a mile broad, an J hour's sail from Capetown, yet the I island might belong to a different j world. The lepers were all removed i in 1931, and since then it has been a j deserted village. I "Twenty years asro it was a happy I place in spite of its purposes as a leper, I lunatic and convict station. I knew it then, and occasionally visited the | island. Healthv-lookinir nurses walked I the streets, and there was hospitality in | the mansion of the Commissioner.dances in the club and in all the home-.! 011 thp island, aiid picnics in fields of lilies. Many years must pass before j > u. 'rr-VispT can restore thej:

vanished neatness and comfort of the Robben Island settlement, if indeed they attempt the task. Gone Are the Flowers.

"I visited the island only last week with some friends, and what an appalj ling sight met the eye! To-day the grass grows quickly over everything—the gardens once bright with dahlias and carnations are desolate now. The houses and cultivated lands are dropj ping back to the wild appearance of I uninhabitation. The club has been | gutted. Life in this leper island was I not the sheer misery one might imagine jin the twentieth century. They enteri tained their friends from the mainland, i Matty of them suffered no pain or dis--1 figurement for years. They had their I own cinema, and if life was not excitI ing for the 1500 inhabitants the island | held, it was free from many of the pro- ' >blems of the city. There are homes j there for nearly 2000 people, yet birds are nesting in the broken windmills and rabbits scuttle out of the power station j which once lit up the whole island. Sea I duikers have found shelter in the pretty summer houses and bathing boxes 011 the shore. j "The cost of the upkeep of the island I establishment became too high and the | lepers were removed to the Central i Hospital, Pretoria; and the only people j left on the island were the lighthouse ] keepers and their families. There has ! been a light on Robben Island since 1657 when Van Riebuk erected an iron platform on which a fire was kept I burning whenever ships of the comj pariv were sighted off the port, j "There are many stumps of masts j and boilers of wrecks to be seen off the j rock-fringed shore. It is said that a j lot of treasure lies deep down around i the island, and 710 doubt the garrison | will think of the lost hoard as they 1 polish their guns 011 Robben Island in i the future." 1