<P> The area known today as Cape Town has no written history before it was first mentioned by Portuguese explorer Bartholomeu Dias in 1488 . Oral history passed from generation to generation of khoisan people show the original name to be "/ / Hui! Gaeb," a Khoisan word meaning "where clouds gather ." All knowledge of the previous inhabitants of the region was derived from fossil evidence and from rock art in the area . </P> <P> The first Europeans to discover the Cape were the Portuguese . Bartholomeu Dias arrived in 1488 after journeying south along the west coast of Africa . The next recorded European sighting of the Cape was by Vasco da Gama in 1497 while he was searching for a route that would lead directly from Europe to Asia . </P> <P> Table Mountain was given its name in 1503 by António de Saldanha, a Portuguese admiral and explorer . He called it Taboa da caba ("table of the cape"). The name given to the mountain by the Khoi inhabitants was Hoeri' kwaggo ("sea mountain"). </P> <P> The area fell out of regular contact with Europeans until 1652, when Jan van Riebeeck and other employees of the Dutch East India Company (Dutch: Vereenigde Oost - Indische Compagnie, or simply VOC) were sent to the Cape to establish a halfway station to provide fresh water, vegetables, and meat for passing ships travelling to and from Asia . Van Riebeeck's party of three vessels landed at the cape on 6 April 1652 . The Cape was under Dutch rule from 1652 to 1695 and again from 1803 to 1806 . The group quickly erected shelters and laid out vegetable gardens and orchards, and are preserved in the Company Gardens . Water from the Fresh River, which descended from Table Mountain, was channelled into canals to provide irrigation . The settlers bartered with the native Khoisan for their sheep and cattle . Forests in Hout Bay and the southern and eastern flanks of Table Mountain provided timber for ships and houses . At this point, the VOC had a monopoly on trade and prohibited any private trade . The Dutch gave their own names to the native inhabitants that they encountered, calling the pastoralists "Hottentots", those that lived on the coast and subsisted on shellfishing "Strandlopers", and those who were hunter - gatherers were named "Bushmen". </P>

When the dutch began arriving in 1652 the inhabitants of the area were