Gamkaskloof

Coordinates: 33°20′29″S 21°52′36″E / 33.3415°S 21.8768°E / -33.3415; 21.8768

The Gamkaskloof Afrikaans pronunciation: [xɐm·kɐs·klʊəf] (also known as 'Die Hel') is a narrow isolated valley about 20 miles long with a maximum of 600 feet wide located in the Swartberg mountain range.

History

The Gamkaskloof was discovered in the early 19th century by farmers, but the first permanent settler was Peter Swanepoel, who settled in the valley in the 1830s. Later, the Marais, Cordier and Joubert Nel Mostert families settled in the valley, growing to a community of around 160 individuals. The residents used horses to cross the Swartberg mountains to reach Prince Albert and Calitzdorp. Later a school was established, with the teacher also leading the Sunday church.

They farmed grain, vegetables, fruits, tea and tobacco, along with distilling witblits and brewing beer made from wild honey.

The residents had petitioned the government for many years to build a road into the valley. Eventually in 1962 a road was completed which led to the depopulation of the community. The children attended high schools in the nearby villages and most of them did not return to the subsistence life in the valley. The elderly retired to retirement villages outside the valley and the number of residents diminished until all but one person sold their homes to the Western Cape Nature Conservation Board in 1991.

Hell

In many mythological, folklore and religious traditions, hell is a place of torment and punishment in an afterlife. It is viewed by most Abrahamic traditions as punishment.Religions with a linear divine history often depict hells as eternal destinations. Religions with a cyclic history often depict a hell as an intermediary period between incarnations. Typically these traditions locate hell in another dimension or under the Earth's surface and often include entrances to Hell from the land of the living. Other afterlife destinations include Heaven, Purgatory, Paradise, and Limbo.

Other traditions, which do not conceive of the afterlife as a place of punishment or reward, merely describe hell as an abode of the dead, the grave, a neutral place located under the surface of Earth (for example, see sheol and Hades). Hell is sometimes portrayed as populated with demons who torment those dwelling there. Many are ruled by a death god such as Nergal, Hades, Hel, Enma or the Devil.

Etymology and Germanic mythology

Suffering

Suffering, or pain in a broad sense, may be an experience of unpleasantness and aversion associated with the perception of harm or threat of harm in an individual. Suffering is the basic element that makes up the negative valence of affective phenomena. The opposite of suffering is pleasure, or happiness.

Suffering is often categorized as physical or mental. It may come in all degrees of intensity, from mild to intolerable. Factors of duration and frequency of occurrence usually compound that of intensity. Attitudes toward suffering may vary widely, in the sufferer or other people, according to how much it is regarded as avoidable or unavoidable, useful or useless, deserved or undeserved.

Suffering occurs in the lives of sentient beings in numerous manners, and often dramatically. As a result, many fields of human activity are concerned with some aspects of suffering. These aspects may include the nature of suffering, its processes, its origin and causes, its meaning and significance, its related personal, social, and cultural behaviors, its remedies, management, and uses.

Tank

A tank is a large, heavily armoured fighting vehicle with tracks and a large tank gun that is designed for front-line combat. Modern tanks are mobile land weapon platforms, mounting a large-calibre cannon in a rotating gun turret. They combine this with heavy vehicle armour which provides protection for the crew, the vehicle's weapons, and its propulsion systems, and operational mobility, due to its use of tracks rather than wheels, which allows the tank to move over rugged terrain and be positioned on the battlefield in advantageous locations. These features enable the tank to perform well in a tactical situation: the combination of powerful weapons fire from their tank gun and their ability to resist enemy fire means the tank can take hold of and control an area and prevent other enemy vehicles from advancing. In both offensive and defensive roles, they are powerful units able to perform key primary tasks required of armoured units on the battlefield. The modern tank was the result of a century of development from the first primitive armoured vehicles, due to improvements in technology such as the internal combustion engine, which allowed the rapid movement of heavy armoured vehicles. As a result of these advances, tanks underwent tremendous shifts in capability during the World Wars of the 20th century.