Kuruman and the Eye

A Dolomitic Spring Delivering Something Like Twenty Million Litres A Day In A Landscape That Gets Under Four Hundred Millimetres Of Rain A Year, Which Is Why There Is A Town Here At All With The Moffat Mission Beside It Where Robert Moffat Translated The Bible Into Setswana Over Thirty Years And Where David Livingstone Married His Daughter Mary In 1845 · Kuruman, Northern Cape

Kuruman exists because of a hole in the ground that will not stop producing water. The Eye of Kuruman is a dolomitic spring delivering something like twenty million litres a day in a landscape that gets under four hundred millimetres of rain a year, and it has never been recorded dry - which in this part of the Northern Cape is the difference between a town and nothing. The spring sits in a fenced municipal enclosure in the middle of town with fish in the pool, which is a modest setting for a geological fact of that size. A few kilometres out is the Moffat Mission, where Robert Moffat spent some thirty years translating the entire Bible into Setswana - the first complete translation into any southern African language - and where David Livingstone married Moffat's daughter Mary in 1845 under a tree that is still standing. It is malaria-free, on the N14 between Kimberley and Upington, and almost nobody ever stops.

On the N14 in the Northern Cape, 230 km north-west of Kimberley and 260 east of Upington, Kuruman, Northern Cape, South Africa

THE EYE IS IN A FENCED MUNICIPAL ENCLOSURE in the middle of town with daylight hours and a small fee, which surprises visitors who expect open ground. THE MOFFAT MISSION A FEW KILOMETRES OUT IS RUN BY A TRUST with its own daylight hours, a small entry, the restored mission church, the Moffat house and the almond tree Livingstone and Mary Moffat married under - it closes on some days, so confirm locally. The Wonderwerk Cave south of town, one of the longest continuously occupied sites on earth, has its own arrangements and is worth asking about. Kuruman is on the N14 two hundred and thirty kilometres from Kimberley and two hundred and sixty from Upington, with fuel, shops and basic accommodation - it is the practical stop on that run. It is MALARIA-FREE and very hot in summer.

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