A cape cart is a two-wheeled four-seater

carriage A carriage is a two- or four-wheeled horse-drawn vehicle for passengers. In Europe they were a common mode of transport for the wealthy during the Roman Empire, and then again from around 1600 until they were replaced by the motor car around 1 ...

drawn by two horses and formerly used in

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...

. Equipped with a bowed canvas or leather hood, it was used to carry passengers and mail in the days before

railway Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport using wheeled vehicles running in railway track, tracks, which usually consist of two parallel steel railway track, rails. Rail transport is one of the two primary means of ...

s and was one of the fastest means of transport available in the region. Cape carts were developed during the

Boer War The Second Boer War (, , 11 October 189931 May 1902), also known as the Boer War, Transvaal War, Anglo–Boer War, or South African War, was a conflict fought between the British Empire and the two Boer republics (the South African Republic an ...

as a safe way to travel across even rough terrain. The name comes from the

Cape of Good Hope The Cape of Good Hope ( ) is a rocky headland on the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic coast of the Cape Peninsula in South Africa. A List of common misconceptions#Geography, common misconception is that the Cape of Good Hope is the southern tip of Afri ...

. Known in Afrikaans from before the 1820s as a ''kapkar'' (a cart with a hood) its name was mistakenly rendered by English-speaking people as Cape cart.Dictionary of South African English
online accessed 10 March 2021

References

Carriages {{Vehicle-stub

See also

References