ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses how knowledge on Cape of Good Hope formed an important part of transnational information networks between Europe, Asia and Africa. In 1719 German astronomer Peter Kolb published, in Nuremberg, a major work about the Cape entitled Caput Bona Spei Hodiernum, or The Cape of Good Hope Today. His trip to Cape was enabled by the patronage of one of the directors of the Dutch East Indies Company (VOC), Nicolas Witsen, Mayor of Amsterdam, and a man renowned for his scientific curiosity and extensive contacts with men of learning. Kolb himself referred to his work as a history but his instincts are clearly encyclopaedic and parts of his book organise information in accordance with this venerable genre. This is especially true of Part One, which deals with natural history. Although Kolb became most famous for what he wrote in second part of the book, on the Khoikhoi, it is important not to neglect his observations on natural history.
