AN INTERESTING RELIC.

Auckland Star, Volume XLIV, Issue 28, 1 February 1913, Page 5

AN INTERESTING RELIC.

CAPETOWN REQUEST FOR HISTORI

CAL STONE

An interesting incident in the life of Sir George Grey. while Governor of Cape Colony, has been revived by the receipt of a letter by the Auckland Art Gallery Coiiunittee from the director of the Capetown Museum. The letter requests the City Council to be good enough to make a gift to the trustees of Uie Capetown Museum of a curio presented to the great Pro-Consul when in South Africa. The relic consists of a portion of the pillar erected near Capetown by the Portuguese navigator of the fifteenth century. Bartholomew Diaz, to commemorate his successful attempt to sail round the southern extremity of the African continent, in his effort to reach India by way of the Atlantic. Diaz, owing to tempestuous and baffling conditons experienced in rounding the Cape of Storms, named it the Cape of Bad Hope, but this name was afterwards altered by -he King of Portugal to Good Hope, and Diaz was superseded by Vasco di Gama, who ultimately opened the way to India and the East by the Cape route. Of the pillar erected by Diaz near the Cape practically nothing remains on the site, but four small portions are extant, two of which are in Europe. The location of the third is at present unknown, but the fourth portion was presented to Sir George Grey while Governor of the colony, and is now in the Grey collection at the Auckland Art Gallery. The letter came before the Art Gallery Committee yesterday, .but the committee decided to reply expressing regret that it was unable to accede to the request, as it considered the relic should be preserved in Auckland in company with the remainder of the Grey collection.