Basutoland to Bulawayo with 500 Horses
THE TER CAPE GUN’ refers to a double-barrelled side-by-s combination rifle and shotgun. A collector friend, Ralph Stevens, was examining my new Cape gun acquisition when commented that I had rarely encountered one of these particular fir ms that wasn’t cracked at the hand-grip. We examined others in the family collection, and the various methods that had been used to repair them. One, though in otherwise good condition, is crudely repaired and Ralph asked me why I had not attempted to restore it to its former glory. I told him the piece had been my great-grandfather’s and it came with a story.
My great-grandfather, Charles Barrett, born 9 September 1872, was educated in Queenstown and later at Taunton College, Somerset, England. After matriculating, he returned to South Africa to work in a bank in Port Elizabeth, but soon went on to enter a
