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This strip of river mouths, unspoilt beaches, sheltered coves, small inlets and rocky outcrops is untamed rather than undeveloped, and features waves and currents and tides once capable of humbling the sturdiest of vessels. The untimely demise of a seafarer has named a stretch of coastline and hinterland unique to South Africa. The area today called the Wild Coast stretches from Port Edward in the north to Kei Mouth in the south, and the regional district stretches in land as far as Mount Fletcher, where the hinterland becomes the highlands. The warm Mozambique current flanking the terrier coastline provides a sultry climate, turning the Wild Coast into a place almost of the colonial cliché, a place about which the stuffy interiors of some foreign Gentlemen's Club might enthuse and obsess, where the tip of the pith helmet and the throaty "it's hell in the tropics" came out of a place not designed for expansion and development, but for harmony with nature, even such a nature so less forgiving than others. Today's visitor will instead enthuse about the idyllic eco-paradise and atmosphere of a true African coastline that awaits. Tall tales and great journeys mark todays Wild Coast. Journeys of ancient San and Khoi-Khoi, who hunted hippopotami and adorned the sufaces of caves and rock shelters with their unique artwork, were among the first by humans here, followed by Nguni tribes from the north, among them Mpondo and Mpondomise Xhosa tribes. Umtata, former capital of the 'independent' state of Transkei is the centre of Xhosa culture and it is in a village near here that Nelson Mandela, one of the most revered people of the Twentieth Century, was born. Later journeymen were inevitably European seafarers, who worked hard to make the coastline navigable of the land hospitable. Like the areas further south, it was habitable despite the settlers initially meeting with an absence of natural harbours and strong Xhosa resistance. The coastal town of Port St John's, the scene of a dramatic dredging and land reclamation project, is a fascinating living example of European endeavour, a colonial town in dramatic, subtropical surroundings. The Wild Coast is a rich, fertile place, with many farmers indulging in the well-fed soil of the valleys of the series of rivers cutting their paths relentlessly to the Indian Ocean. All that is left is stories. From the roads that wind through the emerald hills to the villages and farms of the millions of Xhosa inhabitants, tales are spun by the generations whose antecedents made up the unmatchable history of South Africa's most disaffected stretch of land.
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