page_title: Postage stamps and postal history of the Cape of Good Hope
hierarchical_section_title: Postage stamps and postal history of the Cape of Good Hope
caption_attribution_description: English: Table Bay and The City Bowl from the summit of Table Mountain in Cape Town, South Africa.
context_page_description: This is a survey of the postage stamps and postal history of Cape of Good Hope.
  The Portuguese were the first Europeans to reach the Cape of Good Hope in 1488, led by the explorer Bartolomeu Dias. Table Bay, for over one hundred years known as Saldanha, became a convenient harbor on the long, hard and dangerous sea voyage to the East. Here letters were left and exchanged with ships sailing back to Europe. Frequently, packets of letters were left under postal stones inscribed in French, Dutch and Danish, which became the first, unmanned, post offices of the Cape. The earliest of these, dated 1619, was inscribed in English. A supply camp was established by the Dutch East India Company in 1652 in the area which later became Cape Town. It was first occupied by British Forces in 1795. Since 1814 it was a British Colony until it was incorporated into the Union of South Africa, as the Cape Province, on 31 May 1910.
context_section_description: This is a survey of the postage stamps and postal history of Cape of Good Hope.
  The Portuguese were the first Europeans to reach the Cape of Good Hope in 1488, led by the explorer Bartolomeu Dias. Table Bay, for over one hundred years known as Saldanha (named after one of Albuquerque's sea captains), became a convenient harbor on the long, hard and dangerous sea voyage to the East.  Here letters were left and exchanged with ships sailing back to Europe.  Frequently, packets of letters were left under postal stones inscribed in French, Dutch and Danish, which became the first, unmanned, post offices of the Cape.  The earliest of these, dated 1619, was inscribed in English.  A supply camp was established by the Dutch East India Company in 1652 in the area which later became Cape Town. It was first occupied by British Forces in 1795. Since 1814 it was a British Colony until it was incorporated into the Union of South Africa, as the Cape Province, on 31 May 1910.
caption: Table Bay, just north of Cape Town, was known as Saldanha Bay until 1601.
  Here, sailors exchanged packets of letters left under postal stones.
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