Page:The Library, volume 5, series 3.djvu/50

38 BIRTH OF PRINTING This poem, ' De Maan,' was issued in four parts during the years 1802-3. The undertaking was no more profitable than was poor Ritter's Almanac, for Mr. Borcherd's son records in his ' Memoirs ' that the sale of copies did not bring in sufficient to defray the cost of the paper on which it was printed. In 1805 there appeared a sort of com- bined ' Crockford,' Army List and Civil List, under the title of c Lijst van alle de Collegien.' To this succeeded in 1807 the c African Court Calendar/ which made its annual appearance under different titles until quite recent times. This ' Calendar ' was quite the South African ' Whitaker's Almanac,' and from the year 1810 onwards included a street direftory within its scope of usefulness. Before leaving Cape Town printing, it may be as well to record that the first productions of a public press were ' The South African Commercial Advertiser,' and a Latin Grammar of some ninety pages issued in 1824. The last-named was pub- lished by George Grieg, but printed by Bridekirk, the Government printer, whether on the Govern- ment press is uncertain. Bethelsdorp, a settlement of the London Mis- sionary Society in the district of Uitenhage, not far from Port Elizabeth, was the second place in South Africa to possess a printing press. The date at which this press was set up is a matter of great uncertainty. Dr. Bleek catalogues an item ' Tzitzika Thuickwedi mika Khwekhwenama ' (' Principles of the Word of God for the Hottentot Nation'), printed at Bethelsdorp in 1805 or 1806. He describes the work as a catechism in the