THE RUINED CITIES
                                  OF
                              MASHONALAND

                           BEING A RECORD OF
                   EXCAVATION AND EXPLORATION IN 1891


                                  BY
                   J. THEODORE BENT, F.S.A. F.R.G.S.
   AUTHOR OF ‘THE CYCLADES, OR LIFE AMONGST THE INSULAR GREEKS’ ETC.

                         WITH A CHAPTER ON THE
               ORIENTATION AND MENSURATION OF THE TEMPLES
                            BY R. M. W. SWAN

                              NEW EDITION

                                 LONDON
                        LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.
                   AND NEW YORK: 15 EAST 16th STREET
                                  1895

                          All rights reserved








                         BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE.

        First Edition, 8vo. November 1892; New and Cheaper Edition,
        with additional Appendix, crown 8vo. August 1893; Reprinted,
        with additions, January 1895.








PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION


Since the appearance of the second edition of this book I have received
many communications about the Mashonaland ruins, considerable
additional work in excavation has been done, and many more ruins have
come to light as the country has been opened out. Of this material I
have set down the chief points of interest.

Professor D. H. Müller.—Professor D. H. Müller, of Vienna, the great
Austrian authority on Southern Arabian archæology, wrote to me on the
subject, and kindly drew my attention to passages in his work on the
towers and castles of South Arabia which bore on the question, and from
which I now quote. Marib, the Mariaba of Greek and Roman geographers,
was the capital of the old Sabæan kingdom of Southern Arabia, and
celebrated more especially for its gigantic dam and irrigation system,
the ruin of which was practically the ruin of the country.
East-north-east of Marib, half an hour’s ride brings one to the great
ruin called by the Arabs the Haram of Bilkis or the Queen of Sheba. It
is an elliptical building with a circuit of 300 feet, and the plan
given by the French traveller, M. Arnaud, shows a remarkable likeness
to the great circular temple at Zimbabwe.

Again, the long inscription on this building is in two rows, and runs
round a fourth of its circumference; this corresponds to the position
of the two rows of chevron pattern which run round a fourth part of the
temple at Zimbabwe. Furthermore, one half of the elliptical wall on the
side of the inscription is well built and well preserved, whereas that
on the opposite side is badly built and partly ruined. This is also the
case in the Zimbabwe ruin, where all the care possible has been
lavished on the side where the pattern and the round tower are, and the
other portion has been either more roughly finished or constructed
later by inferior workmen.

From the inscriptions on the building at Marib we learn that it was a
temple dedicated to the goddess Almaqah. Professor Müller writes as
follows:—


    There is absolutely no doubt that the Haram of Bilkis is an old
    temple in which sacred inscriptions to the deities were set up on
    stylæ. The elliptically formed wall appears to have been always
    used in temple buildings; also at Sirwah, the Almaqah temple, which
    is decidedly very much older than the Haram of Bilkis, was also
    built in an oval form. Also these temples, as the inscriptions
    show, were dedicated to Almaqah. Arabian archæologists also
    identify Bilkis with Almaqah, and, therefore, make the temple of
    Almaqah into a female apartment (haram).


From Hamdani, the Arabian geographer, we learn that Ialmaqah was the
star Venus; for the star Venus is called in the Himyaritic tongue
Ialmaqah or Almaq, ‘illuminating,’ and hence we see the curious
connection arising between the original female goddess of the earlier
star-worshipping Sabæans and the later myth of the wonderful Queen
Bilkis, who was supposed to have constructed these buildings.

It seems to me highly probable that in the temple of Zimbabwe we have a
Sabæan Almaqah temple; the points of comparison are so very strong, and
there is furthermore a strong connection between the star-worshipping
Sabæans and the temple with its points orientated to the sun, and built
on such definite mathematical principles.

Professor Sayce called my attention to the fact that the elliptical
form of temple and the construction on a system of curves is further
paralleled by the curious temples at Malta, which all seemed to have
been constructed on the same principle.

Mr. W. St. Chad Boscawen’s interesting communication to the preface of
the second edition receives confirmation from details concerning the
worship of Sopt at Saft-el-Henneh, published by Herr Brugsch in the
Proceedings of Biblical Archæology. Sopt, he tells us, was the feudal
god of the Arabian nome, the nome of Sopt. At Saft-el-Henneh this god
is described upon the monuments as ‘Sopt the Spirit of the East, the
Hawk, the Horus of the East’ (Naville’s ‘Goshen,’ p. 10), and as also
connected with Tum, the rising and setting sun (p. 13). M. Naville
believes that this bird represents not the rising sun, but one of the
planets, Venus, the morning star; that is to say, that Sopt was the
herald of the sun, not the sun itself. Herr Brugsch, however, believes
that it was really the god of the zodiacal light, the previous and the
after glow. If M. Naville’s theory is correct, we have at once a strong
connection between Almaqah, the Venus star of the Sabæans, and the
goddess worshipped at Marib and probably at Zimbabwe, and the hawk of
Sopt, the feudal god of the Arabian nome, which was closely connected
with the worship of Hathor, ‘the queen of heaven and earth.’

Sir John Willoughby conducted further excavations at Zimbabwe, which
lasted over a period of five weeks. He brought to light a great number
of miscellaneous articles, but unfortunately none of the finds are
different from those which we discovered. He obtained a number of
crucibles, phalli, and bits of excellent pottery, fragments of
soapstone bowls. One object only may be of interest, which he thus
describes:—


    This was a piece of copper about six inches in length, a quarter of
    an inch wide, and an eighth of an inch thick, covered with a green
    substance (whether enamel, paint, or lacquer, I am unable to
    determine), and inlaid with one of the triangular Zimbabwe designs.
    It was buried some five feet below the surface, almost in contact
    with the east side of the wall itself.


Sir John also found some very fine pieces of pottery which would not
disgrace a classical period in Greece or Egypt. Furthermore, he made it
abundantly clear that the buildings are of many different periods, for
they show more recent walls superposed on older ones.

Mr. R. W. M. Swan, who was with us on our expedition as cartographer
and surveyor, has this year returned to Mashonaland, and has visited
and taken the plans of no less than thirteen sets of ruins of minor
importance, but of the same period as Zimbabwe, on his way up from the
Limpopo river to Fort Victoria. The results of these investigations
have been eminently satisfactory, and in every case confirming the
theory of the construction of the great Zimbabwe temple.

At the junction of the Lotsani river with the Limpopo he found two sets
of ruins and several shapeless masses of stones, not far from a
well-known spot where the Limpopo is fordable. Both of these are of the
same workmanship as the Zimbabwe buildings, though not quite so
carefully constructed as the big temple; the courses are regular, and
the battering back of each successive course and the rounding of the
ends of the walls are very cleverly done. The walls are built of the
same kind of granite and with holes at the doorways for stakes as at
Zimbabwe. But what is most important, Mr. Swan ascertained that the
length of the radius of the curves of which they are built is equal to
the diameter of the Lundi temple or the circumference of the great
round tower at Zimbabwe. He then proceeded to orientate the temple, and
as the sun was nearly setting he sat on the centre of the arc, and was
delighted to find that the sun descended nearly in a line with the main
doorway; and as it was only seventeen days past the winter solstice, on
allowing for the difference in the sun’s declination for that time, he
found that a line from the centre of the arc through the middle of the
doorway pointed exactly to the sun’s centre when it set at the winter
solstice. The orientation of the other ruin he found was also to the
setting sun. ‘This,’ writes Mr. Swan, ‘places our theories regarding
orientation and geometrical construction beyond a doubt.’

Continuing his journey northwards, Mr. Swan found two sets of ruins in
the Lipokole hills, four near Semalali, and one actually 300 yards from
the mess-room of the Bechuanaland Border Police at Macloutsie camp.
Owing to stress of time Mr. Swan was not able to visit all the ruins
that he heard of in this locality, but he was able to fix the radii of
two curves at the Macloutsie ruin, and four curves at those near
Semalali, and he found them all constructed on the system used at
Zimbabwe. The two ruins on the Lipokole hills he found to be fortresses
only, and not built on the plan of the temples. The temples consist
generally of two curves only, and are of half-moon shape, and seem
never to have been complete enclosures; they are all built of rough
stone, for no good stone is obtainable, yet the curves are extremely
well executed, and are generally true in their whole length to within
one or two inches.

Further up country, on the ’Msingwani river, Mr. Swan found seven sets
of ruins, three of which were built during the best period of Zimbabwe
work. He measured three of the curves here, and found them to agree
precisely with the curve system used in the construction of the round
temple at Zimbabwe, and all of them were laid off with wonderful
accuracy.

Another important piece of work done by Mr. Swan on his way up to Fort
Victoria was to take accurate measurements of the small circular temple
about 200 yards from the Lundi river. This we had visited on our way
up; but as we had not then formed any theory with regard to the
construction of these buildings, we did not measure the building with
sufficient accuracy to be quite sure of our data.

With regard to this ruin, Mr. Swan writes:—


    One door is to the north and the other 128° and a fraction from it;
    so that the line from the centre to the sun rising at mid-winter
    bisects the arc between the doorways. If one could measure the
    circumference of this arc with sufficient accuracy, we could deduce
    the obliquity of the ecliptic when the temple was built. I made an
    attempt, and arrived at about 2000 B.C.; but really it is
    impossible to measure with sufficient accuracy to arrive at
    anything definite by this method, although from it we may get
    useful corroborative evidence.


From this mass of fresh evidence as to the curves and orientation of
the Mashonaland ruins we may safely consider that the builders of these
mysterious structures were well versed in geometry, and studied
carefully the heavens. Beyond this nothing, of course, can really be
proved until an enormous amount of careful study has been devoted to
the subject. It is, however, very valuable confirmatory evidence when
taken with the other points, that the builders were of a Semitic race
and of Arabian origin, and quite excludes the possibility of any
negroid race having had more to do with their construction than as the
slaves of a race of higher cultivation; for it is a well-accepted fact
that the negroid brain never could be capable of taking the initiative
in work of such intricate nature.

Mr. Cecil Rhodes also had another excavation done outside the walls of
the great circular ruin, and the soil carefully sifted. In it were
discovered a large number of gold beads, gold in thin sheets, and 2½
ounces of small and beautifully made gold tacks; also a fragment of
wood about the tenth of an inch square, covered with a brown colouring
matter and a gilt herring-bone pattern.

Mr. Swan thus describes these finds:—


    Very many gold beads have been found; also leaf gold and
    wedge-shaped tacks of gold for fixing it on wood. Finely twisted
    gold wire and bits of gilt pottery, also some silver. The pottery
    is the most interesting; it is very thin, only about one-fifteenth
    of an inch thick, and had been coated with some pigment, on which
    the gilt is laid. On the last fragment found the gilding is in
    waving lines, but on a former piece there is a herring-bone
    pattern. The work is so fine that to see it easily one has to use a
    magnifying glass. The most remarkable point about the gold
    ornaments is the quantity in which they are found. Almost every
    panful of stuff taken from anywhere about the ruins will show some
    gold. Just at the fountain the ground is particularly rich. I have
    tested some of the things from Zimbabwe, and, in addition to gold,
    find alloy of silver and copper, and gold and silver.


One of the most interesting of the later finds in Mashonaland is a
wooden platter found in a cave about 10 miles distant from Zimbabwe, a
reproduction of which forms the frontispiece to this edition. Mr.
Noble, clerk of the Cape Houses of Parliament, to whom I am indebted
for the photograph of this object, thus describes it:—


    In the centre of the dish, which is about 38 inches in
    circumference, there is carved the figure of a crocodile (which was
    probably regarded as a sacred animal) or an Egyptian turtle, and on
    the rim of the plate is a very primitive representation of the
    zodiacal characters, such as Aquarius, Pisces, Cancer, Sagittarius,
    Gemini, as well as Taurus and Scorpio. Besides these there occur
    the figures of the sun and moon, a group of three stars, a
    triangle, and four slabs with triangular punctures (two of them
    being in reversed positions), all carved in relief, and displaying
    the same rude style of art which marked the decorated bowl found by
    Mr. Bent in the temple at Zimbabwe. A portion of the rim of the
    plate has been eroded by insects, probably from resting on damp
    ground. Altogether, the relic presents to the eye an unquestionable
    specimen of rare archaism, which has been remarkably preserved
    through many centuries, probably dating back even before the
    Christian era. Previous observation and measurements of Zimbabwe,
    by Mr. R. Swan, established the presumption that the builders of it
    used astronomical methods and observed the zodiacal and other
    stars; and this plate shows that the ancient people, whether
    Phœnician, Sabæan, or Mineans—all of Arabian origin—were familiar
    with the stellar grouping and signs said to have been first
    developed by the Chaldeans and dwellers in Mesopotamia.


Another interesting find in connection with this early civilisation is
a Roman coin of the Emperor Antoninus Pius (A.D. 138); it was found in
an ancient shaft near Umtali at a depth of 70 feet, and forms a
valuable link in the chain of evidence as to the antiquity of the gold
mines in Mashonaland.

Concerning the more recent ruins discovered in Matabeleland, north of
Buluwayo, we have not much definite detail to hand at present. Mr. Swan
writes that he has seen photographs of them, and that ‘many of the
ruins are of great size. One can clearly see that in most cases the
mason work is at least as good as that at Zimbabwe, and the decorations
on the wall are at least as well constructed and are more lavishly
used. In one ruin you have the chevron, the herring-bone, and the
chessboard patterns.’


    J. THEODORE BENT

                                             13 Great Cumberland Place:
                                                      October 31, 1894.








PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION


In looking over this work for a second edition, I find little to add to
the material as it appeared in the first, and next to nothing to alter.
Sir John Willoughby has kindly supplied me with details concerning five
weeks’ excavation which he carried on the summer following the one
which we spent there, the results of which, however, appear only to
have produced additional specimens of the objects we found—namely,
crucibles with traces of gold, fragments of decorated bowls, phalli,
&c.—but no further object to assist us in unravelling the mystery of
the primitive race which built the ruins.

No one of the many reviewers of my work has criticised adversely my
archæological standpoint with regard to these South African remains: on
the contrary, I continue to have letters on the subject from all sides
which make me more than ever convinced that the authors of these ruins
were a northern race coming from Arabia—a race which spread more
extensively over the world than we have at present any conception of, a
race closely akin to the Phœnician and the Egyptian, strongly
commercial, and eventually developing into the more civilised races of
the ancient world.

Professor D. H. Müller, of Vienna, endorses our statements concerning
the form and nature of the buildings themselves in his work ‘Burgen und
Schlösser’ (ii. 20), to which he kindly called my attention; and Mr. W.
St. Chad Boscawen has also favoured me with the following remarks on
certain analogous points that have struck him during an archæological
tour in Egypt this last winter:—


    The Hawks Gods over the Mines in Mashonaland.

    A curious parallel and possible explanation to the birds found in
    Mashonaland over the works at Zimbabwe seems to me to be afforded
    by the study of the mines and quarries of the ancient Egyptians.
    During my explorations in Egypt this winter I visited a large
    number of quarries, and was much struck by noticing that in those
    of an early period the hawk nearly always occurs as a guardian
    emblem.

    Of this we have several examples.

    In the Wady Magharah, the mines of which were worked for copper and
    turquoise by the ancient Egyptians of the period of the Third and
    Fourth Dynasties, especially by Senefru, Kufu, and Kephren, the
    figure of the hawk is found sculptured upon the rocks as the
    special emblem of the god of the mines. Another striking example of
    this connection of the hawk with the mines is afforded by a quarry
    worked for alabaster, which I visited in February of this year. The
    quarry is situated in the Gebel-Kiawleh, to the east of the Siut
    road. It is a large natural cave, which has been worked into a
    quarry yielding a rich yellow alabaster, such as was used for
    making vases and toilet vessels. Over the door were sculptured the
    cartouches of Teta, the first king of the Sixth Dynasty, but, as
    may be seen from the accompanying sketch, in the centre of the
    lintel was a panel on which is sculptured the figure of a hawk.
    This quarry was only worked during the Sixth and Twelfth Dynasties,
    as in the interior were found inscriptions of Amen-em-hat II. and
    Usortesen III. A third example of this association of the hawk and
    the mines is afforded by a quarry of the period of the Eighteenth
    Dynasty. In the mountains at the back of the plain of Tel-el-Amarna
    is a large limestone quarry. On one pillar of this great excavation
    extending far into the hill is sculptured the cartouche of Queen
    Tii. On another column we have the hawk and emblems of the goddess
    Hathor, to whom all mines were sacred. This seems to show that
    the hawk was the emblem of the goddess Hathor, to whom all
    mines were sacred, as we know from the inscription at Denderah,
    where the king says, ‘I bestow upon thee the mountains, to produce
    for thee the stones to be a delight to see.’ And it must be
    remembered that the region of Sinai was especially sacred to the
    goddess Hathor. This association of mines with Hathor especially
    explains the birds, as, according to Sinaitic inscriptions, she was
    in this region particularly worshipped. Here were temples to her
    where she was worshipped as ‘the sublime Hathor, queen of heaven
    and earth and the dark depths below’; and here she was also
    associated with the sparrow-hawk of Supt, ‘the lord of the East.’
    This association with Sinai, and also with Arabia and Punt, which
    is attached to the goddess Hathor, and her connection with the
    mines in Egypt, seems to me to be most important in connection with
    the emblem of the hawk in the mines at Zimbabwe.

    According to the oldest traditions of the Egyptians there was a
    close association between Hathor, the goddess of Ta-Netu, ‘the Holy
    Land,’ and Punt. She was called the ‘Queen and Ruler of Punt.’ Now,
    Punt was the Somali coast, the Ophir of the Egyptians; but, at the
    same time, there was undoubtedly a close association between it and
    Arabia, and indeed, as Brugsch remarks, there is no need to limit
    it to Somali land, but to embrace in it the coasts of Yemen and
    Hydramaut. ‘Here in these regions,’ he says (‘Hist. Eg.’ p. 117),
    ‘we ought to seek, as it appears to us, for those mysterious places
    which in the fore ages of all history the wonder-loving Cushite
    races, like swarms of locusts, left in passing from Arabia and
    across the sea to set foot on the rich and blessed Punt and the
    “Holy Land,” and to continue their wanderings into the interior in
    a northerly and western direction. We may also bring this
    connection between Punt, Sinai, and Egypt more close in the time of
    the Eighteenth Dynasty, when we see on a rock-cut tablet at Sinai,
    in the Wady Magharah, the dual inscription of Hatsepsu and Thothmes
    III., who present their offerings to the “lord of the East, the
    sparrow-hawk Supt, and the heavenly Hathor.”’

    With all these facts before us there seems little doubt that the
    association between the hawks and the mines and miners is a very
    ancient one, and may be attributed to either ancient Egyptian, or
    rather, I think, to very ancient Arabian times; for, as we know
    from the inscriptions of Senefru, the builder of the Pyramid of
    Medum, the mines in Sinai were worked by ‘foreigners,’ who may have
    been Chaldeans or ancient Arabians.

    Another point which seems to me to throw some additional light upon
    this subject, and again imply a possible Arabian connection, is the
    remarkable ingot mould discovered at Zimbabwe. The shape is exactly
    that of the curious objects, possibly ingots of some kind, which
    are represented as being brought by the Amu in the tomb of
    Khemmhotep at Beni Hasan, an event which took place in the ninth
    year of the reign of King Usortesen II., of the Twelfth Dynasty.
    The shape is very interesting, as it has evidently been chosen for
    the purposes of being tied on to donkeys or carried by slaves. The
    curious phalli found at Zimbabwe may also resemble the same emblems
    found in large numbers near the Speos Artemidos, the shrine of
    Pasht, near to Beni Hasan, and may have been associated with the
    goddess Hathor. There are many other features which seem to me to
    bear out a distinctly Arabo-Egyptian theory as to the working of
    this ancient gold-field, and future study will no doubt bring these
    in greater prominence.

        W. St. C. Boscawen.


Certain critics from South Africa have attacked my derivations of
words. I admit that the subject is open to criticism; almost anyone
could state a derivation for such words as Zimbabwe, Makalanga,
Mashona, and they would all have about the same degree of plausibility.
Some people write and tell me that they are quite sure I am right;
others, again, write and tell me that they are quite sure I am wrong.
Such being the case, I prefer to let the derivations stand as I
originally put them until positive proof be brought before me, and for
that I feel sure I shall have to wait a long time.


    J. THEODORE BENT.

                                             13 Great Cumberland Place:
                                                          May 26, 1893.








CONTENTS


PART I

ON THE ROAD TO THE RUINS

    CHAP.                                                          PAGE

    I.        The Journey up by the Kalahari Desert Route             3
    II.       First Impressions of Mashonaland                       31
    III.      Camp Life and Work at Zimbabwe                         60


PART II

DEVOTED TO THE ARCHÆOLOGY OF THE RUINED CITIES

    IV.       Description of the various Ruins                       95
    V.        On the Orientation and Measurements of Zimbabwe
              Ruins, by R. M. W. Swan                               141
    VI.       The Finds at the Great Zimbabwe Ruins                 179
    VII.      The Geography and Ethnology of the Mashonaland Ruins  223


PART III

EXPLORATION JOURNEYS IN MASHONALAND

    VIII.     Down to the Sabi River and Matindela Ruins              247
    IX.       Fort Salisbury and the Old Workings and Ruins of the
              Mazoe Valley                                            279
    X.        Our Embassy to the Chief ’Mtoko                         301
    XI.       The Ruined Cities in Mangwendi’s, Chipunza’s, and
              Makoni’s Countries                                      336
    XII.      The Journey to the Coast                                361


APPENDICES

    A.        Notes on the Geography and Meteorology of Mashonaland,
              by R. M. W. Swan                                        389
    B.        List of Stations in Mashonaland Astronomically
              Observed, with Altitudes, by R. M. W. Swan              398
    C.        Addenda to Chapter V., by R. M. W. Swan                 401
    D.        Progress in Mashonaland summarised from November 1891
              to May 1893                                             405


INDEX                                                                 413








ILLUSTRATIONS


                                                                   PAGE
    Wooden Platter found in a Cave about Ten Miles
      from Zimbabwe                                        Frontispiece
    Mr. Theodore Bent                                                 3
    Making Thongs of Ox-hide                                         19
    Wooden Pillow                                                    36
    Ancient Egyptian Pillow in the British Museum                    37
    Wooden Dollasses or Divining Tablets                             38
    Bone Dollasses                                                   39
    Gourds for Baling Water                                          40
    Wooden Mortar, Bowl, and Porridge Bowl                           41
    Woman’s Girdle, with Cartridge Cases, Skin-scrapers, and
      Medicine Phials attached                                       44
    Wooden Hair Comb, Chibi’s Country                                45
    Granary Decorated with Breast and Furrow Pattern                 46
    Wooden Pillow representing Human Form                            47
    Iron Skin-scraper, and Needles in Cases                          48
    Mrs. Theodore Bent                                               61
    Umgabe and his Indunas                                           67
    Hatchet                                                          70
    Carved Knives                                                    71
    Bone Ornaments                                                   72
    Wooden Snuff-boxes                                               74
    Boy beating Drum                                                 77
    Drum Decorated with ‘Breast and Furrow’ Pattern, and Plain Drum  78
    Playing the Piano                                                80
    Makalanga Piano                                                  81
    Hut at Umgabe’s Kraal with Euphorbia behind                      89
    At Cherumbila’s Kraal                                            91
    Ruin on the Lundi River                                          97
    General View of Zimbabwe                                        101
    Main Entrance of Circular Ruin at Zimbabwe                      106
    Large Circular Ruin, Zimbabwe                                   107
    Pattern on Large Circular Ruin at Zimbabwe                      109
    Large Round Tower in Circular Ruin, Zimbabwe                    113
    Round Tower and Monolith Decoration on the Fortress at Zimbabwe 123
    Approach to the Acropolis                                       125
    The Platform with Monoliths, etc., on the Fortress at Zimbabwe  127
    Approach to the Fortress by the Cleft, Zimbabwe                 133
    Baobab Tree in Matindela Ruins                                  136
    Walled-up Entrance and Pattern on Matindela Ruins               137
    Map of Zimbabwe District                                        143
    The two Towers                                                  149
    Coin of Byblos showing the Round Tower                          150
    The Triple Walls at Zimbabwe                                    153
    Within the Double Walls, Zimbabwe                               171
    Soapstone Bird on Pedestal                                      180
    Soapstone Birds on Pedestals                                    181
    Front and Back of a Broken Soapstone Bird on Pedestal           183
    Bird on Pedestal                                                184
    Bird on Pedestal from the Zodiac of Denderah                    185
    Miniature Birds on Pedestals                                    187
    Ornate Phallus, Zimbabwe; and Phœnician Column in the Louvre    188
    Long Decorated Soapstone Beam in two Pieces                     190
    Decorated Soapstone Beams                                  191, 192
    Collection of Strange Stones                                    193
    Fragment of Bowl with Procession of Bulls                       194
    Fragment of Bowl with Hunting Scene                             195
    Bowl with Zebras                                                196
    Fragment of Soapstone Bowl with Procession                      197
    Fragments of Soapstone Bowls with Ear of Corn and Lettering     198
    Letters from Proto-Arabian Alphabet                             199
    Letters on a Rock in Bechuanaland, copied by Mr. A. A. Anderson 199
    Soapstone Bowls                                            200, 201
    Fragment of Bowl with Knobs                                     202
    Soapstone Cylinder from Zimbabwe                                202
    Object from Temple of Paphos, Cyprus                            203
    Glass Beads, Celadon Pottery, Persian Pottery, and Arabian
      Glass                                                         205
    Fragment of Bowl of Glazed Pottery                              206
    Fragments of Pottery                                            207
    Top of Pottery Bowl, Pottery Sow, and Whorls               208, 209
    Weapons                                                         210
    Iron Bells and Bronze Spear-head                           211, 212
    Battle-axes and Arrows                                     213, 214
    Gilt Spear-head                                                 216
    Tools                                                           217
    Ancient Spade                                                   218
    Soapstone Ingot Mould, Zimbabwe                                 218
    Ingot of Tin found in Falmouth Harbour                          219
    Soapstone Object                                                219
    Bevelled Edge of Gold smelting Furnace                          220
    Crucibles for Smelting Gold found at Zimbabwe                   221
    Fragments of Pottery Blow-pipes from Furnace                    222
    Metzwandira                                                     249
    Chief’s Iron Sceptre, and Iron Razor                            253
    Rock near Makori Post Station                                   254
    Knitted Bag                                                     255
    Larder Tree                                                     256
    Reed Snuff-boxes and Grease-holder                              257
    Decorated Hut Door                                              259
    Straw Hat                                                       260
    Decorated Heads                                                 262
    Chief’s Tomb                                                    271
    Interior of a Hut                                               274
    Household Store for Grain, with Native Drawings                 275
    Native Drawings                                                 276
    Native Bowl from the Mazoe Valley                               286
    Ruin in Mazoe Valley                                            293
    Three Venetian Beads; one Copper Bead; three old White
      Venetian Beads; Bone Whorl, Medicine Phials, and Bone
      Ornaments                                                     297
    Tattooed Women from Chibi’s, Gambidji’s, and Kunzi’s Countries  304
    Wooden Bowl from Musungaikwa’s Kraal                            305
    Makalanga Iron Smelting Furnace                                 308
    Goatskin Bellows and Blow-pipe for Iron Smelting                309
    Woman’s Dress of Woven Bark Fibre                               310
    Bracelets                                                       313
    Wooden Platter from Lutzi                                       316
    Earring, Stud for the Lip, and Battle-axe                       320
    Powder-horn                                                     321
    A Collection of Combs                                           322
    Wooden Spoon. Lutzi                                             328
    Bushman Drawings near ’Mtoko’s Kraal                       332, 333
    Mangwendi’s Kraal                                               338
    Bushman Drawings from Nyanger Rock                              345
    Chipunza’s Kraal                                                349
    Decorated Post                                                  358










PART I

ON THE ROAD TO THE RUINS


CHAPTER I

THE JOURNEY UP BY THE KALAHARI DESERT ROUTE


In a volume devoted to the ruined cities of Mashonaland I am loth to
introduce remarks in narrative form relating how we got to them and how
we got away. Still, however, the incidents of our journeyings to and
fro offer certain features which may be interesting from an
anthropological point of view. The study of the natives and their
customs occupied our leisure moments when not digging at Zimbabwe or
travelling too fast, and a record of what we saw amongst them, comes
legitimately, I think, within the scope of our expedition.

For the absence of narrative of sport in these pages I feel it hardly
necessary to apologise. So much has been done in this line by the
colossal Nimrods who have visited South Africa that any trifling
experiences we may have had in this direction are not worth the
telling. My narrative is, therefore, entirely confined to the ruins and
the people; on other South African subjects I do not pretend to speak
with any authority whatsoever.

Three societies subscribed liberally to our expedition—namely, the
Royal Geographical Society, the British Chartered Company of South
Africa, and the British Association for the Advancement of
Science—without which aid I could never have undertaken a journey of
such proportions; and to the officers of the Chartered Company, with
whom we naturally came much in contact, I cannot tender thanks
commensurate with their kindness; to their assistance, especially in
the latter part of our journey, when we had parted company with our
waggons and our comforts, we owe the fact that we were able to
penetrate into unexplored parts of the country without let or
hindrance, and without more discomforts than naturally arise from
incidents of travel.

Serious doubts as to the advisability of a lady undertaking such a
journey were frequently brought before us at the outset; fortified,
however, by previous experience in Persia, Asia Minor, and the Greek
Islands, we hardly gave these doubts more than a passing thought, and
the event proved that they were wholly unnecessary. My wife was the
only one of our party who escaped fever, never having a day’s illness
during the whole year that we were away from home. She was able to take
a good many photographs under circumstances of exceptional difficulty,
and instead of being, as was prophesied, a burden to the expedition,
she furthered its interests and contributed to its ultimate success in
more ways than one.

Mr. Robert McNair Wilson Swan accompanied us in the capacity of
cartographer; to him I owe not only the plans which illustrate this
volume, but also much kindly assistance in all times of difficulty.

We three left England at the end of January 1891, and returned to it
again at the end of January 1892, having accomplished a record rare in
African travel, and of which we are justly proud—namely, that no root
of bitterness sprang up amongst us.

We bought two waggons, thirty-six oxen, and heaps of tinned provisions
at Kimberley. These we conveyed by train to Vryberg, in Bechuanaland,
which place we left on March 6. An uninteresting and uneventful ‘trek’
of a week brought us to Mafeking, where we had to wait some time, owing
to a deluge of rain, and from this point I propose to commence the
narrative of my observations.

Bechuanaland is about as big as France, and a country which has been
gradually coming under the sphere of British influence since Sir
Charles Warren’s campaign, and which in a very few years must of
necessity be absorbed into the embryo empire which Mr. Cecil Rhodes
hopes to build up from the Lakes to Cape Town. At present there are
three degrees of intensity of British influence in Bechuanaland in
proportion to the proximity to headquarters—firstly, the Crown colony
to the south, with its railway, its well-to-do settlements at Taungs,
Vryberg, and Mafeking, and with its native chiefs confined within
certain limits; secondly, the British protectorate to the north of this
over such chiefs as Batuen, Pilan, Linchwe, and Sechele, extending
vaguely to the west into the Kalahari Desert, and bounded by the
Limpopo River and the Dutchmen on the east; thirdly, the independent
dominions of the native chief Khama, who rules over a vast territory to
the north, and whose interests are entirely British, for with their
assistance only can he hope to resist the attacks of his inveterate foe
King Lobengula of Matabeleland.

Two roads through Bechuanaland to Mashonaland were open to us from
Mafeking: the shorter one is by the river, which, after the rains, is
muddy and fever-stricken; the other is longer and less frequented; it
passes through a corner of the Kalahari Desert, and had the additional
attraction of taking us through the capitals of all the principal
chiefs: consequently, we unhesitatingly chose it, and it is this which
I now propose to describe.

We may dismiss the Crown colony of Bechuanaland with a few words. It
differs little from any other such colony in South Africa, and the
natives and their chiefs have little or no identity left to them. Even
the once famous Montsoia, chief of the Ba-rolongs of Mafeking, has sunk
into the lowest depths of servile submission; he receives a monthly
pension of 25l., which said sum he always puts under his pillow and
sleeps upon; he is avaricious in his old age, and dropsical, and
surrounded by women who delight to wrap their swarthy frames in gaudy
garments from Europe. He is nominally a Christian, and has been made an
F.O.S., or Friend of Ally Sloper, and, as the latter title is more in
accordance with his tastes, he points with pride to the diploma which
hangs on the walls of his hut.

From Mafeking to Kanya, the capital of Batuen, chief of the
Ba-Ngwatetse tribe, is about eighty miles. At first the road is
treeless, until the area is reached where terminates the cutting down
of timber for the support of the diamond mines at Kimberley, a process
which has denuded all southern Bechuanaland of trees, and is gradually
creeping north. The rains were not over when we started, and we found
the road saturated with moisture; and in two days, near the Ramatlabama
River, our progress was just one mile, in which distance our waggons
had to be unloaded and dug out six times. But Bechuanaland dries
quickly, and in a fortnight after this we had nothing to drink but
concentrated mud, which made our tea and coffee so similar that it was
impossible to tell the difference.

On one occasion during our midday halt we had all our oxen inoculated
with the virus of the lung sickness, for this fatal malady was then
raging in Khama’s country. Our waggons were placed side by side, and
with an ingenious contrivance of thongs our conductor and driver
managed to fasten the plunging animals by the horns, whilst a string
steeped in the virus was passed with a needle through their tails.
Sometimes after this process the tails swell and fall off; and up
country a tailless ox has a value peculiarly his own. It is always
rather a sickly time for the poor beasts, but as we only lost two out
of thirty-six from this disease we voted inoculation successful.

I think Kanya is the first place where one realises that one is in
savage Africa. Though it is under British protection it is only
nominally so, to prevent the Boers from appropriating it. Batuen, the
chief, is still supreme, and, like his father, Gasetsive, he is greatly
under missionary influence. He has stuck up a notice on the roadside at
the entrance to the town in Sechuana, the language of the country,
Dutch, and English, which runs as follows: ‘I, Batuen, chief of
Ba-Ngwatetse, hereby give notice to my people, and all other people,
that no waggons shall enter or leave Kanya on Sunday. Signed, September
28th, 1889.’ If any one transgresses this law Batuen takes an ox from
each span, a transaction in which piety and profit go conveniently hand
in hand.

Kanya is pleasantly situated amongst low hills well clad with trees. It
is a collection of huts divided into circular kraals hedged in with
palisades, four to ten huts being contained in each enclosure. These
are again contained in larger enclosures, forming separate communities,
each governed by its hereditary sub-chief, with its kotla or parliament
circle in its midst. On the summit of the hill many acres are covered
with these huts, and there are also many in the valley below. Certain
roughly-constructed walls run round the hill, erected when the Boers
threatened an invasion; but now these little difficulties are past, and
Batuen limits his warlike tendencies to quarrelling with his neighbours
on the question of a border line, a subject which never entered their
heads before the British influence came upon them.

All ordinary matters of government and justice are discussed in the
large kotla before the chief’s own hut; but big questions, such as the
border question, are discussed at large tribal gatherings in the open
veldt. There was to be one of these gatherings of Batuen’s tribe near
Kanya on the following Monday, and we regretted not being able to stop
and witness so interesting a ceremony.

The town is quite one of the largest in Bechuanaland, and presents a
curious appearance on the summit of the hill. The kotla is about 200
feet in diameter, with shady trees in it, beneath which the monarch
sits to dispense justice. We passed an idle afternoon therein, watching
with interest the women of Batuen’s household, naked save for a skin
loosely thrown around them, lying on rugs before the palace, and
teaching the children to dance to the sound of their weird music, and
making the air ring with their merry laughter. In one corner Batuen’s
slaves were busy filling his granaries with maize just harvested. His
soldiers paraded in front of his house, and kept their suspicious eyes
upon us as we sat; many of them were quaintly dressed in red coats,
which once had been worn by British troops, and soft hats with ostrich
feathers in them, whilst their black legs were bare.

Ma-Batuen, the chief’s mother, received us somewhat coldly when we
penetrated into her hut; she is the chief widow of old Gasetsive,
Batuen’s father, a noted warrior in his day. The Sechuana tribes have
very funny ideas about death, and never, if possible, let a man die
inside his hut; if he does accidentally behave so indiscreetly they
pull down the wall at the back to take the corpse out, as it must never
go out by the ordinary door, and the hut is usually abandoned.
Gasetsive died in his own house, so the wall had to be pulled down, and
it has never been repaired, and is abandoned. Batuen built himself a
new palace, with a hut for his chief wife on his right, and a hut for
his mother on the left. His father’s funeral was a grand affair; all
the tribe assembled to lament the loss of their warrior chief, and he
was laid to rest in a lead coffin in the midst of his kotla. The
superstitious of the tribe did not approve of the coffin, and imagine
that the soul may still be there making frantic efforts to escape.

All the Ba-Ngwatetse are soldiers, and belong to certain regiments or
years. When a lot of the youths are initiated together into the tribal
mysteries generally the son of a chief is amongst them, and he takes
the command of the regiment. In the old ostrich-feather days Kanya was
an important trading station, but now there is none of this, and
inasmuch as it is off the main road north, it is not a place of much
importance from a white man’s point of view, and boasts only of one
storekeeper and one missionary, both men of great importance in the
place.

After Kanya the character of the scenery alters, and you enter an
undulating country thickly wooded, and studded here and there with red
granite kopjes, or gigantic boulders set in rich green vegetation,
looking for all the world like pre-Raphaelite Italian pictures. Beneath
a long kopje, sixteen miles from Kanya, nestles Masoupa, the capital of
a young chief, the son of Pilan, who was an important man in his day,
and broke off from his own chief Linchwe, bringing his followers with
him to settle in the Ba-Ngwatetse country as a sort of sub-chief with
nominal independence; it is a conglomeration of bee-hive huts, many of
them overgrown with gourds, difficult to distinguish from the mass of
boulders around them. When we arrived at Masoupa a dance was going on—a
native Sechuana dance—in consequence of the full moon and the
rejoicings incident on an abundant harvest. In the kotla some forty or
more men had formed a circle, and were jumping round and round to the
sound of music. Evidently it was an old war dance degenerated; the
sugar-cane took the place of the assegai, many black legs were clothed
in trousers, and many black shoulders now wore coats; but there are
still left as relics of the past the ostrich feather in the hat, the
fly whisk of horse, jackal, or other tail, the iron skin-scraper round
the neck, which represents the pocket-handkerchief amongst the Kaffirs
with which to remove perspiration; the flute with one or two holes, out
of which each man seems to produce a different sound; and around the
group of dancing men old women still circulate, as of yore, clapping
their withered hands and encouraging festivity. It was a sight of
considerable picturesqueness amid the bee-hive huts and tall
overhanging rocks.

Masoupa was once the residence of a missionary, but the church is now
abandoned and falling into ruins, because when asked to repair the
edifice at their own expense the men of Masoupa waxed wroth, and
replied irreverently that God might repair His own house; and one old
man who received a blanket for his reward for attending divine service
is reported to have remarked, when the dole was stopped, ‘No more
blanket, no more hallelujah.’ I fear me the men of Masoupa are wedded
to heathendom.

The accession of Pilan to the chiefdom of Masoupa is a curious instance
of the Sechuana marriage laws. A former chief’s heir was affianced
young; he died at the age of eight, before succeeding his father, and,
according to custom, the next brother, Moshulilla, married the woman;
their son was Pilan, who, on coming of age, turned out his own father,
being, as he said, the rightful heir of the boy of eight, for whom he,
Moshulilla, the younger brother, had been instrumental in raising up
seed. There is a distinct touch of Hebraic, probably Semitic, law in
this, as there is in many another Sechuana custom.

The so-called purchase of a wife is curious enough in Bechuanaland. The
intending husband brings with him the number of bullocks he thinks the
girl is worth; wisely, he does not offer all his stock at once, leaving
two or more, as the case may be, at a little distance, for he knows the
father will haggle and ask for an equivalent for the girl’s keep during
childhood, whereupon he will send for another bullock; then the mother
will come forward and demand something for lactation and other maternal
offices, and another bullock will have to be produced before the
contract can be ratified. In reality this apparent purchase of the wife
is not so barefaced a thing as it seems, for she is not a negotiable
article and cannot again be sold; in case of divorce her value has to
be paid back, and her children, if the purchase is not made, belong to
her own family. Hence a woman who is not properly bought is in the
condition of a slave, whereas her purchased sister has rights which
assure her a social standing.

From Pilan’s the northward road becomes hideous again, and may
henceforward be said to be in the desert region of the Kalahari. This
desert is not the waste of sand and rock we are accustomed to imagine a
desert should be, but a vast undulating expanse of country covered with
timber—the mimosa, or camel thorn, the mapani bush, and others which
reach the water with their roots, though there are no ostensible water
sources above ground.

The Kalahari is inhabited sparsely by a wild tribe known as the
Ba-kalahari, of kindred origin to the bushmen, whom the Dutch term
Vaal-pens, or ‘Fallow-paunches,’ to distinguish them from the darker
races. Their great skill is in finding water, and in dry seasons they
obtain it by suction through a reed inserted into the ground, the
results being spat into a gourd and handed to the thirsty traveller to
drink. Khama, Sechele, and Batuen divide this vast desert between them;
how far west it goes is unknown; wild animals rapidly becoming extinct
elsewhere abound therein. It is a vast limbo of uncertainty, which will
necessarily become British property when Bechuanaland is definitely
annexed; possibly with a system of artesian wells the water supply may
be found adequate, and it may yet have a future before it when the rest
of the world is filled to overflowing.

We saw a few of these children of the desert in our progress
northwards; they are timid and diffident in the extreme, always
avoiding the haunts of the white man, and always wandering hither and
thither where rain and water may be found. On their shoulders they
carry a bark quiver filled with poisoned arrows to kill their game.
They produce fire by dexterously rubbing two sticks together to make a
spark. At nightfall they cut grass and branches to make a shelter from
the wind; they eat snakes, tortoises, and roots which they dig up with
sharp bits of wood, and the contents of their food bags is revolting to
behold. They pay tribute in kind to the above-mentioned chiefs—skins,
feathers, tusks, or the mahatla berries used for making beer—and if
these things are not forthcoming they take a fine-grown boy and present
him to the chief as his slave.

Sechele is the chief of the Ba-quaina, or children of the quaina, or
crocodile. Their siboko, or tribal object of veneration, is the
crocodile, which animal they will not kill or touch under any
provocation whatsoever. The Ba-quaina are one of the most powerful of
the Bechuanaland feud tribes, and it often occurred to me, Can the name
Bechuanaland, for which nobody can give a satisfactory derivation, and
of which the natives themselves are entirely ignorant, be a corruption
of this name? There have been worse corruptions perpetrated by Dutch
and English pioneers in savage lands, and Ba-quainaland would have a
derivation, whereas Bechuanaland has none.

Sechele’s capital is on the hills above the river Molopolole, quite a
flourishing place, or rather group of places, on a high hill, with a
curious valley or kloof beneath it, where the missionary settlement is
by the river banks. Many villages of daub huts are scattered over the
hills amongst the red boulders and green vegetation. In the largest, in
quite a European-looking house, Sechele lives. Once this house was
fitted up for him in European style; it contained a glass chandelier, a
sideboard, a gazogene, and a table. In those days Sechele was a good
man, and was led by his wife to church; but, alas! this good lady died,
and her place was supplied by a rank heathen, who would have none of
her predecessor’s innovations. Now Sechele is very old and very
crippled, and he lies amid the wreck of all his European grandeur;
chandelier, sideboard, gazogene, are all in ruins like himself, and he
is as big a heathen and as big a sinner as ever wore a crown. So much
for the influence of women over their husbands, even when they are
black.

Sebele, the heir apparent, does all the executive work of the country
now, and the old man is left at home to chew his sugar-cane and smoke
his pipe. Around the villages and in the hollow below the native
gardens or fields are very fertile; maize, kaffir corn, sugar-cane,
grow here in abundance, and out of the tall reeds black women came
running to look at us as we passed by, whose daily duty it is at this
season of the year to act as scarecrows, and save their crops from the
birds. Beneath the corn and mealies they grow gourds and beans, and
thereby thoroughly exhaust the soil, which, after a season or two, is
left fallow for a while; and if the ground becomes too bad around a
town they think nothing of moving their abodes elsewhere, a town being
rarely established in one place for more than fifty years.

From Sechele’s town to Khama’s old capital, Shoshong, is a weary
journey of over a hundred and thirty miles through the Kalahari Desert,
and through that everlasting bush of mimosa thorn, which rose like
impenetrable walls on either side of us. Along this road there is
hardly any rising ground; hence it is impossible to see anything for
more than a few yards around one, unless one is willing to brave the
dangers of penetrating the bush, returning to the camp with tattered
garments and ruffled temper, if return you can, for when only a few
yards from camp it is quite possible to become hopelessly lost, and
many are the stories of deaths and disappearances in this way, and of
days of misery spent by travellers in this bush without food or
shelter, unable to retrace their steps. The impenetrableness of this
jungle in some places is almost unbelievable: the bushes of
‘wait-a-bit’ thorn are absolutely impossible to get through; every tree
of every description about here seems armed by nature with its own
defence, and lurking in the grass is the ‘grapple plant,’ the
Harpagophytum procumbens, whose crablike claws tear the skin in a most
painfully subtle way. The mimosas of many different species which form
the bulk of the trees in this bush are also terribly thorny; the Dutch
call them camel thorns, because the giraffes, or, as they call them,
the camel leopards, feed thereon. Why the Dutch should be so perverse
in the naming of animals I never can discover; to them the hyæna is the
wolf, the leopard is the tiger, the kori-bustard is the peacock, and
many similar anomalies occur.

The botanist or the naturalist might here enjoy every hour of his day.
The flowers are lovely, and animal life is here seen in many
unaccustomed forms, there are the quaint, spire-like ant-hills tapering
to pinnacles of fifteen feet in height; the clustered nests of the
‘family bird,’ where hundreds live together in a sort of exaggerated
honeycomb; the huge yellow and black spiders, which weave their webs
from tree to tree of material like the fresh silk of the silkworm,
which, with the dew and the morning sun upon it, looks like a gauze
curtain suspended in the air. There are, too, the deadly puff adders,
the night adders, and things creeping innumerable, the green tree snake
stealthily moving like a coil of fresh-cut grass; and wherever there is
a rocky kopje you are sure to hear at nightfall the hideous screams of
the baboons, coupled with the laugh of the jackal. But if you are not a
naturalist these things pall upon you after the sensation has been oft
repeated, and this was the case with us.

The monotony of the journey would now and again be relieved by a cattle
station, where the servants of Sechele or Khama rear cattle for their
chiefs; and these always occur in the proximity of water, which we
hailed with delight, even if it was only a muddy vley, or pond,
trampled by the hoofs of many oxen. These cattle stations are generally
large circular enclosures surrounded by a palisade, with a tree in the
middle, beneath which the inhabitants sit stitching at their carosses,
or skin rugs, in splendid nudity. All manner of skins hang around;
hunks of meat in process of drying; hide thongs are fastened from
branch to branch like spiders’ webs, which they stretch on the branches
to make ‘reims’ for waggon harness; consequently the air is not too
fragrant, and the flies an insupportable nuisance.

One evening we reached one of these kraals after dark, and a weird and
picturesque sight it was. Having penetrated through the outer hedge,
where the cattle were housed for the night, we reached inner enclosures
occupied by the families and their huts. They sat crouching over their
fires, eating their evening meal of porridge, thrusting long sticks
into the pot, and transferring the stiff paste to their mouths. In
spite of the chilliness of the evening, they were naked, save for a
loin-cloth and their charms and amulets. A man stood near, playing on
an instrument like a bow with one string, with a gourd attached to
bring out the sound. He played it with a bit of wood, and the strains
were plaintive, if not sweet.

Another night we reached a pond called Selynia, famed all the country
round, and a great point of rendezvous for hunters who are about to
penetrate the desert. In this pond we intended to do great things in
the washing line, and tarry a whole day for this purpose; but it was
another disappointment to add to the many we had experienced on this
road, for it was nothing but a muddy puddle trampled by oxen, from
which we had difficulty in extracting enough liquid to fill our
barrels. Needless to say, we did not stay for our proposed washing day,
but hurried on.

It was a great relief to reach the hills of Shoshong, the larger trees,
the cactus-like euphorbia, and the richer vegetation, after the long
flat stretch of waterless bush-covered desert, and we were just now
within the tropic of Capricorn. The group of hills is considerable,
reaching an elevation of about 800 feet, and with interesting views
from the summits. In a deep ravine amongst these hills lie the ruins of
the town of Shoshong, the quondam capital of the chief Khama and the
Ba-mangwato tribe. It is an interesting illustration of the migratory
spirit of the race. The question of moving had long been discussed by
Khama and his head men, but the European traders and missionaries at
Shoshong thought it would never take place. They built themselves
houses and stores, and lived contentedly.

Suddenly, one day, now three years ago, without any prefatory warning,
Khama gave orders for the move, and the exodus commenced on the
following morning. The rich were exhorted to lend their waggons and
their beasts of burden to the poor. Each man helped his neighbour, and,
in two months, 15,000 individuals were located in their new home at
Palapwe, about sixty miles away, where water is plentiful and the soil
exceedingly rich. Thus was Shoshong abandoned. Scarcity of water was
the immediate cause of the migration, for there was only one slender
stream to water the whole community, and whole rows of women with their
jars would stand for hours awaiting their turn to fill them from the
source up the valley, which in the dry season barely trickled.

Everything was arranged by Khama in the most beautiful manner. He and
his head men had been over at Palapwe for some time, and had arranged
the allotments, so that every one on his arrival went straight to the
spot appointed, built his hut, and surrounded it with a palisade. Not a
murmur or a dispute arose amongst them. In reality it was the knowledge
of British support which enabled Khama to carry out this plan.
Shoshong, in its rocky ravine, is admirably situated for protection
from the Matabele raids. When a rumour of the enemy’s approach was
received, the women and children were hurried off with provisions to
the caves above the town, whilst Khama and his soldiers protected the
entrance to the ravine. Palapwe, on the contrary, is open and
indefensible, and would be at once exposed to the raids of Lobengula
were it not for the camp of the Bechuanaland Border Police at
Macloutsie, and the openly avowed support of Great Britain.

The desolate aspect of the ruined town, as seen to-day, is exceedingly
odd. The compounds or enclosures are all thickly overgrown with the
castor-oil plant. The huts have, in most cases, tumbled in; some show
only walls, with the chequered and diaper patterns still on them so
beloved by the inhabitants of Bechuanaland; others are mere skeleton
huts, with only the framework left. The poles which shut in the cattle
kraals have, in many instances, sprouted, and present the appearance of
curious circular groves dedicated to some deity. The brick houses of
European origin are the most lasting, the old stores and abodes of
traders, but even these can now hardly be approached by reason of the
thick thorn bushes which, in so short a space of time, have grown up
around them. Far up the ravine is the missionary’s house, itself a ruin
overlooking the ruined town. Baboons, and owls, and vicious wasps now
inhabit the rooms where Moffat lived and Livingstone stayed. There is
not a vestige of human life now to be seen within miles of Shoshong,
which was, three years ago, the capital of one of the most enlightened
chiefs of South Africa.

I must say I looked forward with great interest to seeing a man with so
wide a reputation for integrity and enlightenment as Khama has in South
Africa. Somehow, one’s spirit of scepticism is on the alert on such
occasions, especially when a negro is the case in point; and I candidly
admit that I advanced towards Palapwe fully prepared to find the chief
of the Ba-mangwato a rascal and a hypocrite, and that I left his
capital, after a week’s stay there, one of his most fervent admirers.

Not only has Khama himself established his reputation for honesty, but
he is supposed to have inoculated all his people with the same virtue.
No one is supposed to steal in Khama’s country. He regulates the price
of the goat you buy; and the milk vendor dare not ask more than the
regulation price, nor can you get it for less. One evening, on our
journey from Shoshong to Palapwe, we passed a loaded waggon by the
roadside with no one to guard it save a dog; and surely, we thought,
such confidence as this implies a security for property rare enough in
South Africa.

The aspect of Palapwe is very pleasant. Fine timber covers the hill
slopes. A large grassy square, shaded by trees, and with a stream
running through it, has been devoted to the outspanning of the many
waggons which pass through here. There are as yet but few of those
detestable corrugated-iron houses, for the Europeans have wisely
elected to dwell in daub huts, like the natives. Scattered far and wide
are the clusters of huts in their own enclosures, governed by their
respective indunas.

High up on the hillside Khama has allotted the choicest spot of all to
his spiritual and political adviser, Mr. Hepburn, the missionary. From
here a lovely view extends over mountain and plain, over granite kopje
and the meandering river-bed, far away into the blue distance and the
Kalahari. Behind the mission house is a deep ravine, thick set with
tropical vegetation, through which a stream runs, called Fotofoto,
which at the head of the gorge leaps over steep rocks, and forms a
lovely cascade of well-nigh a hundred feet; behind the ravine, on the
rocky heights, baboons and other wild animals still linger, perturbed
in mind, no doubt, at this recent occupation of their paradise.

Everything in Khama’s town is conducted with the rigour—one might
almost say bigotry—of religious enthusiasm. The chief conducts in
person native services, twice every Sunday, in his large round kotla,
at which he expects a large attendance. He stands beneath the
traditional tree of justice, and the canopy of heaven, quite in a
patriarchal style. He has a system of espionage by which he learns the
names of those who do not keep Sunday properly, and he punishes them
accordingly. He has already collected 3,000l. for a church which is to
be built at Palapwe.

The two acts, however, which more than anything else display the power
of the man, and perhaps his intolerance, are these. Firstly, he forbids
all his subjects to make or drink beer. Any one who knows the love of a
Kaffir for his porridge-like beer, and his occasional orgies, will
realise what a power one man must have to stop this in a whole tribe.
Even the missionaries have remonstrated with him on this point,
representing the measure as too strong; but he replies, ‘Beer is the
source of all quarrels and disputes. I will stop it.’ Secondly, he has
put a stop altogether to the existence of witch doctors and their craft
throughout all the Ba-mangwato—another instance of his force of will,
when one considers that the national religion of the Sechuana is merely
a belief in the existence of good and bad spirits which haunt them and
act on their lives. All members of other neighbouring tribes are
uncomfortable if they are not charmed by their witch doctor every two
or three days.

Like the other Bechuana tribes, the Ba-mangwato have a totem which they
once revered. Theirs is the duyker, a sort of roebuck; and Khama’s
father, old Sikkome, would not so much as step on a duyker-skin. Khama
will now publicly eat a steak of that animal to encourage his men to
shake off their belief. In manner the chief is essentially a gentleman,
courteous and dignified. He rides a good deal, and prides himself on
his stud. On one occasion he did what I doubt if every English
gentleman would do. He sold a horse for a high price, which died a few
days afterwards, whereupon Khama returned the purchase money,
considering that the illness had been acquired previous to the purchase
taking place. On his waggons he has painted in English, ‘Khama, Chief
of the Ba-mangwato.’ They say he understands a great deal of our
tongue, but he never trusts himself to speak it, always using an
interpreter.

An instance of Khama’s system of discipline came under our notice
during our stay at Palapwe. Attracted by the sound of bugles, I
repaired very early one morning to the kotla, and there saw men in all
sorts of quaint dresses, with arms, and spades, and picks, mustering to
the number of about 200. On enquiry, I was told that it was a regiment
which had misbehaved and displeased the chief in some way. The
punishment he inflicted on them was this: that for a given period they
were to assemble every day and go and work in the fields, opening out
new land for the people. There is something Teutonic in Khama’s
imperial discipline, but the Bechuana are made of different stuff to
the Germans. They are by nature peaceful and mild, a race with strong
pastoral habits, who have lived for years in dread of Matabele raids;
consequently their respect for a chief like Khama—who has actually on
one occasion repulsed the foe, and who has established peace,
prosperity, and justice in all his borders—is unbounded, and his word
is law.

Khama pervades everything in his town. He is always on horseback,
visiting the fields, the stores, and the outlying kraals. He has a word
for every one; he calls every woman ‘my daughter,’ and every man ‘my
son;’ he pats the little children on the head. He is a veritable father
of his people, a curious and unaccountable outcrop of mental power and
integrity amongst a degraded and powerless race. His early history and
struggles with his father and brothers are thrilling in the extreme,
and his later development extraordinary. Perhaps he may be said to be
the only negro living whose biography would repay the writing.

The blending of two sets of ideas, the advance of the new and the
remains of the old, are curiously conspicuous at Palapwe, and perhaps
the women illustrate this better than the men. On your evening walk you
may meet the leading black ladies of the place, parasol in hand, with
hideous dresses of gaudy cottons, hats with flowers and feathers, and
displaying as they walk the airs and graces of self-consciousness. A
little further on you meet the women of the lower orders returning from
the fields, with baskets on their heads filled with green pumpkins,
bright yellow mealy pods, and rods of sugar cane. A skin caross is
thrown over their shoulders, and the rest of their mahogany-coloured
bodies is nude, save for a leopard-skin loin-cloth, and armlets and
necklaces of bright blue beads. Why is it that civilisation is
permitted to destroy all that is picturesque? Surely we, of the
nineteenth century, have much to answer for in this respect, and the
missionaries who teach races, accustomed to nudity by heredity, that it
is a good and proper thing to wear clothes are responsible for three
evils—firstly, the appearance of lung diseases amongst them; secondly,
the spread of vermin amongst them; and thirdly, the disappearance from
amongst them of inherent and natural modesty.

It had been arranged that on our departure from Palapwe we should take
twenty-five of Khama’s men to act as excavators at the ruins of
Zimbabwe. One morning, at sunrise, when we were just rising from our
waggons, and indulging in our matutinal yawns, Khama’s arrival was
announced. The chief walked in front, dignified and smart, dressed in
well-made boots, trousers with a correct seam down each side, an
irreproachable coat, a billycock hat, and gloves. If Khama has a vice
it is that of dress, and, curiously enough, this vice has developed
more markedly in his son and heir, who is to all intents and purposes a
black masher and nothing else. Khama is a neatly-made, active man of
sixty, who might easily pass for twenty years younger; his face
sparkles with intelligence; he is, moreover, shrewd, and looks
carefully after the interests of his people, who in days scarcely yet
gone by have been wretchedly cheated by unscrupulous traders. Behind
him, in a long line, walked the twenty-five men that he proposed to
place at our disposal, strangely enough dressed in what might be termed
the ‘transition style.’ Ostrich feathers adorned all their hats. One
wore a short cutaway coat, which came down to the small of his back,
and nothing else. Another considered himself sufficiently garbed with a
waistcoat and a fly whisk. They formed a curious collection of
humanity, and all twenty-five sat down in a row at a respectful
distance, whilst we parleyed with the chief. Luckily for us our
negotiations fell through owing to the difficulties of transport; and,
on inspection, I must say I felt doubtful as to their capabilities.
Away from the influence of their chief, and in a strange country, I
feel sure they would have given us endless trouble.

We left Khama and his town with regret on our journey northwards. A few
miles below Palapwe we crossed the Lotsani River, a series of
semi-stagnant pools, even after the rainy season, many of which pools
were gay just then with the lotus or blue water lily (Nymphæa
stellata). The water percolates through the sand, which has almost
silted it up, and a little further on we came across what they call a
‘sand river.’ Not a trace of water is to be seen in the sandy bed, but,
on digging down a few feet, you come across it.

The future colonisation and development of this part of Bechuanaland is
dependent on the question of water, pure and simple. If artesian wells
can be sunk, if water can be stored in reservoirs, something may be
done; but, at present, even the few inhabitants of Khama’s country are
continually plunged in misery from drought.

North of Palapwe we met but few inhabitants, and, after passing the
camp of the Bechuanaland Border Police at Macloutsie, we entered what
is known as the ‘debatable country,’ between the territories of Khama
and Lobengula, and claimed by both. It is, at present, uninhabited and
unproductive, flat and uninteresting, and continues as far as Fort
Tuli, on the Shashi River, after crossing which we entered the country
which comes under the direct influence of Lobengula, the vaguely
defined territory which under the name of Mashonaland is now governed
by the Chartered Company.








CHAPTER II

FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF MASHONALAND


We left Fort Tuli on May 9, 1891, and for the ensuing six months we
sojourned in what is now called Mashonaland; of our doings therein and
of our wanderings this volume purports to be the narrative. Besides our
excavations and examinations into the ruins of a past civilisation, the
treatment of which is necessarily dry and special, and, for the benefit
of those who care not about such things, has been, as far as possible,
confined within the limits of Part II., we had ample time for studying
the race which now inhabits the country, inasmuch as we employed over
fifty of them during our excavations at Zimbabwe, and during our
subsequent wanderings we had them as bearers, and we were brought into
intimate relationship with most of their chiefs. The Chartered Company
throughout the whole of this period kept us supplied with interpreters
of more or less intelligence, who greatly facilitated our intercourse
with the natives, and as time went by a certain portion of the language
found its way into our own brains, which was an assistance to us in
guiding conversations and checking romance.

All the people and tribes around Zimbabwe, down to the Sabi River and
north to Fort Charter—and this is the most populous part of the whole
country—call themselves by one name, though they are divided into many
tribes, and that name is Makalanga. In answer to questions as to
nationality they invariably call themselves Makalangas, in
contradistinction to the Shangans, who inhabit the east side of the
Sabi River. ‘You will find many Makalangas there,’ ‘A Makalanga is
buried there,’ and so on. The race is exceedingly numerous, and certain
British and Dutch pioneers have given them various names, such as
Banyai and Makàlaka, which latter they imagine to be a Zulu term of
reproach for a limited number of people who act as slaves and herdsmen
for the Matabele down by the Shashi and Lundi Rivers. I contend that
all these people call themselves Makalángas, and that their land should
by right be called Makalangaland.

In this theory, formed on the spot from intercourse with the natives, I
was glad to find afterwards that I am ably supported by the Portuguese
writer Father dos Santos, to whom frequent allusion will be made in
these pages. He says, ‘The Monomatapa and all his vassals are
Mocarangas, a name which they have because they live in the land of
Mocaranga, and talk the language called Mocaranga, which is the best
and most polished of all Kaffir languages which I have seen in this
Ethiopia.’ Couto, another Portuguese writer, bears testimony to the
same point, and every one knows the tendency of the Portuguese to
substitute r for l. Umtali is called by the Portuguese Umtare; [1]
‘blanco’ is ‘branco’ in Portuguese, and numerous similar instances
could be adduced; hence with this small Portuguese variant the names
are identical. Father Torrend, in his late work on this part of the
country, states, ‘The Karanga certainly have been for centuries the
paramount tribe of the vast empire of Monomatapa,’ and the best
derivation that suggests itself is the initial Ma or Ba, ‘children,’
ka, ‘of,’ langa, ‘the sun.’ They are an Abantu race, akin to the Zulus,
only a weaker branch whose day is over. Several tribes of Bakalanga
came into Natal in 1720, forced down by the powerful Zulu hordes, with
traditions of having once formed a part of a powerful tribe further
north. Three centuries and a half ago, when the Portuguese first
visited the country, they were then all-powerful in this country, and
were ruled over by a chief with the dynastic name of Monomatapa, which
community split up, like all Kaffir combinations do after a generation
or so, into a hopeless state of disintegration. [2] Each petty chief
still has his high-sounding dynastic name, like the Monomatapa or the
Pharaoh of his day. Chibi, M’tegeza, M’toko, and countless lesser names
are as hereditary as the chiefdoms themselves, and each chief, as he
succeeds, drops his own identity and takes the tribal appellative.
Such, briefly, is the political aspect of the country we are about to
enter.

This is a strange, weird country to look upon, and after the flat
monotony of Bechuanaland a perfect paradise. The granite hills are so
oddly fantastic in their forms; the deep river-beds so richly luxuriant
in their wealth of tropical vegetation; the great baobab trees, the
elephants of the vegetable world, so antediluvian in their aspect. Here
one would never be surprised to come across the roc’s egg of Sindbad or
the golden valley of Rasselas; the dreams of the old Arabian
story-tellers here seem to have a reality.

Our first real intercourse with the natives was at a lovely spot called
Inyamanda, where we ‘outspanned’ on a small plain surrounded by domed
granite kopjes, near the summit of one of which is a cluster of
villages.

Here we unpacked our beads and our cloth, and commenced African trading
in real earnest; what money we had we put away in our boxes, and never
wanted it again during our stay in the country. The naked natives
swarmed around us like flies, with grain, flour, sour milk, and honey,
which commodities can be acquired for a few beads; but for a sheep they
wanted a blanket, for meat is scarce enough and valuable amongst this
much-raided people. We lost an ox here by one of the many sicknesses
fatal to cattle in this region, and the natives hovered round him like
vultures till the breath was out of his body; they then fell on him and
tore him limb from limb, and commenced their detestable orgy. As one
watched them eat, one could imagine that it is not so many generations
since they emerged from a state of cannibalism.

We found it a tough climb to the villages through the luxuriant verdure
of cactus-like euphorbia, india-rubber tree, the castor-oil, and acacia
with lovely red flowers. At an elevation of five hundred feet above our
waggons were the mud huts of the people, and up here every night they
drive their cattle into extraordinary rock stables for safety. Perched
on the rocks are countless circular granaries, constructed of bright
red mud and thatched with grass. One would think that a good storm of
wind would blow them all away, so frail do they seem.

Rounding a corner of the hill we came across a second village, nestling
amongst stupendous boulders, and ascending again a little higher we
reached a third by means of a natural tunnel in the rock, fortified,
despite its inaccessible position, with palisades.

The natives were somewhat shy of us, and fled to rocky eyries from
whence to contemplate us, seated in rows in all sorts of uncomfortable
angles, for all the world like monkeys. They are utterly unaccustomed
to postures of comfort, reclining at night-time on a grass mat on the
hard ground, with their necks resting on a wooden pillow, curiously
carved; they are accustomed to decorate their hair so fantastically
with tufts ornamentally arranged and tied up with beads that they are
afraid of destroying the effect, and hence these pillows.

These pillows are many of them pretty objects, and decorated with
curious patterns, the favourite one being the female breast, and
resting on legs which had evidently been evolved out of the human form.
They bear a close and curious resemblance to the wooden head-rests used
by the Egyptians in their tombs to support the head of the deceased,
specimens of which are seen in the British Museum. They are common all
over Africa, and elsewhere amongst savage tribes where special
attention is paid to the decoration of the hair.

A Makalanga is by nature vain, and particular about the appearance of
his nudity; the ladies have fashions in beads and cloths, like our
ladies at home, and before visiting a fresh kraal our men used to love
to polish themselves like mahogany, by chewing the monkey-nut and
rubbing their skins with it, good-naturedly doing each other’s backs
and inaccessible corners. Somehow they know what becomes them too,
twisting tin ornaments, made from our meat tins, into their black hair.
Just now they will have nothing but red beads with white eyes, which
they thread into necklaces and various ornaments, and which look
uncommonly well on their dark skins; and though it seems somewhat
paradoxical to say so of naked savages, yet I consider no one has
better taste in dress than they have until a hybrid civilisation is
introduced amongst them.

From many of the huts at Inyamanda were hanging their dollasses—wooden
charms, on which are drawn strange figures. Each family possesses a set
of four tied together by a string. Of these four one always has a
curious conventional form of a lizard carved on it; others have battle
axes, diamond patterns, and so forth, invariably repeating themselves,
and the purport of which I was never able to ascertain. They are common
amongst all the Abantu races, and closely bound up with their occult
belief in witchcraft; they are chiefly made of wood, but sometimes neat
little ones of bone are found, a set of which I afterwards obtained.

On the evening of the new moon they will seat themselves in a circle,
and the village witch doctor will go round, tossing each man’s set of
dollasses in the air, and by the way they turn up he will divine the
fortune of the individual for the month that is to come.

There are many odds and ends of interest scattered about a Makalanga
village; there is the drum, from two to four feet in height, covered
with zebra or other skin, platted baskets for straining beer, and
long-handled gourds, with queer diagonal patterns in black done upon
them, which serve as ladles. Most of their domestic implements are made
of wood—wooden pestles and wooden mortars for crushing grain, wooden
spoons and wooden platters often decorated with pretty zigzag patterns.
Natural objects, too, are largely used for personal ornaments. Anklets
and necklaces are made out of mimosa pods; necklaces, really quite
pretty to look upon, are constructed out of chicken bones; birds’ claws
and beaks, and the seeds of various plants, are constantly employed for
the same purpose. Grass is neatly woven into chaplets, and a Makalanga
is never satisfied unless he has a strange bird’s feather stuck
jauntily in his woolly locks.

Never shall I forget the view from the summit of Inyamanda Rock over
the country ruled over by the chief Matipi; the horizon is cut by
countless odd-peaked kopjes, some like spires, some like domes, grey
and weird, rising out of rich vegetation, getting bluer and bluer in
the far distance, and there is always something indescribably rich
about the blueness of an African distance. As we descended we passed a
wide-spreading tree hung with rich yellow maize pods drying in the sun.
Here, too, the bright coral red flowers of the Erythrina kaffra were
just coming out. Richness of colour seemed to pervade everything.

It was immediately on crossing the Lundi River, the threshold of the
country as it were, that we were introduced to the first of the long
series of ancient ruins which formed the object of our quest. By
diligent search amongst the gigantic remains at Zimbabwe we were able
to repeople this country with a race highly civilised in far distant
ages, a race far advanced in the art of building and decorating, a
gold-seeking race who occupied it like a garrison in the midst of an
enemy’s country. Surely Africa is a mysterious and awe-inspiring
continent, and now in the very heart of it has been found work for the
archæologist, almost the very last person who a short time ago would
have thought of penetrating its vast interior. Quid novi ex Africa?
will not be an obsolete phrase for many generations yet to come.

The Lundi River was the only one of the great rivers which flow through
this portion of the country which gave us any real trouble. Our waggons
had to be unloaded and our effects carried across in a boat, and the
waggons dragged through the rushing stream by both teams of oxen; it
was an exciting scene, and the place was crowded with people in the
same condition as ourselves. On reaching the left bank we halted in a
shady spot, and encamped for two days, in order to give our oxen rest
and to study the ruin. It was a very charming spot, with fine rocky
kopjes here and there, rich vegetation, and the dull roar of the fine
stream about fifty feet below us. From one of the kopjes we got a
lovely view up the river, over the thickly wooded flats on either side
and the Bufwa range of mountains beyond.

The country beyond the Lundi is thickly populated, with native villages
perched on rocky heights, many of which we saw as we wended our slow
way through the Naka pass. One hill is inhabited by a tribe of human
beings, the next by a tribe of baboons, and I must say these aborigines
of the country on the face of it seem more closely allied to one
another than they are to the race of white men, who are now
appropriating the territory of both. The natives, living as they do in
their hill-set villages on the top of the granite kopjes, are nimble as
goats, cowardly yet friendly to the white stranger. They are constantly
engaged in intertribal wars, stealing each other’s women and cattle
when opportunity occurs, and never dreaming of uniting against the
common enemy, the Zulu, during whose periodical raids they perch
themselves on the top of their inaccessible rocks, and look down
complacently on the burning of their huts, the pillaging of their
granaries, and the appropriation of their cattle. Under the thick
jungle of trees by the roadside as we passed along we saw many acres
under cultivation for the produce of sweet potatoes, beans, and the
ground or monkey nut (Arachis). They make long neat furrows with their
hoes beneath the trees, the shade of which is necessary for their
crops. They are an essentially industrious race, far more so than the
Kaffirs of our South African colonies. Here the men work in the fields,
leaving the women to make pots, build granaries, and carry water. In
the Colony women are the chief agriculturists.

We spent a long and pleasant day within a few yards of another village
called M’lala in Chibi’s country, also perched on a rocky eminence,
where many objects of interest came before our notice.

Here for the first time we saw the iron furnaces in which the natives
smelt the iron ore they obtain from the neighbouring mountains. This is
a time-honoured industry in Mashonaland. Dos Santos alludes to it in
his description, and so do Arab writers of the ninth and tenth
centuries, as practised by the savages of their day. [3] In Chibi’s
country iron-smelting is a great industry. Here whole villages devote
all their time and energies to it, tilling no land and keeping no
cattle, but exchanging their iron-headed assegais, barbed arrow-heads,
and field tools for grain and such domestic commodities as they may
require. I am told also of villages which, after the same fashion, have
a monopoly of pot-making. This industry is mostly carried on by the
women, who deftly build up with clay, on round stands made for the
purpose, large pots for domestic use, which they scrape smooth with
large shells kept for this object, and then they give them a sort of
black glaze with plumbago. In exchange for one of these pots they get
as much grain as it will hold.

The native iron furnace is a curious object to look upon. It is made of
clay, and is another instance of the design being taken from the human
form, for it is made to represent a seated woman; the head is the
chimney, decorated in some cases with eyes, nose, and mouth, resting on
shoulders; the legs are stretched out and form the sides of the
furnace, and to complete the picture they decorate the front with
breasts and the tattoo decorations usually found on female stomachs.
[4] They heat the charcoal in the furnace by means of air pumped out of
goat-skin bellows through clay blow-pipes fixed into the embers. It is
a quaint sight to see them at work with all their commodities—pillows,
knives, and assegais, fixed on to the reed walls which shut off the
forge from the outer world.

At M’lala too we were first introduced to the women who have their
stomachs decorated with many long lines, or cicatrices. Between thirty
and forty of these lines ran across their stomachs, executed with
surprising regularity, and resembling the furrows on a ploughed field.
In vain we tried to photograph and count them. On one occasion I
succeeded in counting sixteen furrows, when the bashful female ran
away, and I think I had done about half. This is the favourite pattern
in Chibi’s country and with the neighbouring dependent tribes for
female decoration, and they admire it so much that they put it also on
their drums, on their granaries, and on their pillows, and, as I have
said, on their forges. ‘The breast and furrow’ pattern, one might
technically term it, and I fancy it has to do with an occult idea of
fertility.

One of these oddly marked ladies was busily engaged in building a
granary on a rock. She first lays a circular foundation of mud, into
which she puts sticks. On to these she plasters mud until the
funnel-shaped thing is about three feet high. A hole is left near the
top for inserting and extracting the grain, and it is then thatched
with grass; and it effectually keeps out the many rats and mice which
swarm in these parts. The costume of these natives is extremely
limited. A man is content with two cat-skins, one in front and one
behind, though the latter is not always de rigueur. The women wear
leathern aprons and girdles, tied so tightly as almost to cut them in
two, and made of several long strips of leather, like boot-laces
fastened together. On to these they hang all the necessaries of their
primitive life. At present old cartridge cases are the fashion for
holding snuff, or decorated reeds, or wooden cases. Then they have a
few decorated bone ornaments, evidently of a mystic character; a
skin-scraper or two with which to perform their toilette, which
articles are of the form and shape of the strigil known to us from
classical times, and the ends of the boot-laces are elegantly finished
off with brass or copper beads. The needle, too, is a feature seldom
absent from the man’s neck and girdle, being a sharp-pointed bit of
iron or brass with which they pierce the skins and fasten them together
with threads of bark; these needles are fitted into a wooden case,
which the more fanciful decorate with bands of brass wire.

At M’lala too we saw the blind witch-doctor of the village, dressed in
all his savage toggery. Small gourds with seeds inside to rattle were
tied to his calves. These are the fruit of the Oncoba spinosa. A buck’s
horn with a chain was hung round his neck, with which he made a hideous
noise. Odd chains of beads decorated his neck, made out of the pods of
the Acacia litakunensis, and his arms and legs were a mass of brass
bracelets and anklets; and his hair resplendent with feathers completed
the fantastic appearance of this poor blind man, who danced before us
unceasingly, and made such hideous noises that we were obliged to give
him some beads and ask him to stop.

The pass through which the road leads up from the river country to Fort
Victoria is now called ‘Providential,’ by reason of the fact that the
pioneer force of the Chartered Company did not know how to get over the
range of hills rising to the north of the Tokwe River, until Mr. Selous
chanced to hit on this gully between the mountains leading up to the
higher plateau. Its scenery, to my mind, is distinctly overrated. It is
green and luxuriant in tropical vegetation, with the bubbling stream
Godobgwe running down it. The hills on either side are fairly fine, but
it could be surpassed easily in Wales and Scotland, or even Yorkshire.
In point of fact, the scenery of Mashonaland is nothing if not quaint.
Providential Pass is distinctly commonplace, whereas the granite kopje
scenery is the quaintest form of landscape I have ever seen.

Fort Victoria has no redeeming point of beauty about it whatsoever,
being placed on a bare flat plateau, surrounded in the rainy season by
swamps. Nearly everybody was down with fever when we got there;
provisions were at famine prices—for example, seven shillings for a
pound of bacon and the same price for a tin of jam—and the melancholy
aspect of affairs was enhanced by the hundred and fifty saddles placed
in rows within the fort, which had once belonged to the hundred and
fifty horses brought up by the pioneers, all of which had died of horse
sickness.

The diseases to which quadrupeds are subject in this country are
appalling. One man of our acquaintance brought up eighty-seven horses,
of which eighty-six died before he got to Fort Victoria. The still
mysterious disease called horse sickness is supposed to come from
grazing in the early dew, but of this nobody is as yet sure; the poor
animals die in a few hours of suffocation, and none but ‘salted
horses,’ i.e. horses which have had the disease and recovered, are of
any use up here. Our three horses were warranted salted, but this did
not prevent one of them from having a recurrence of the disease, which
gave us a horrible fright and caused us to expend a whole bottle of
whisky on it, to which we fondly imagine it owes its life. Another
horse also gave us a similar alarm. One morning its nose was terribly
swollen, and the experienced professed to see signs of the sickness in
its eye. Nevertheless nothing came of it, and in due course the
swelling went down. On close enquiry we discovered that it had been
foolishly tied for the night to a euphorbia tree, and had pricked its
nose with the poisonous thorns.

As for oxen, the diseases they are subject to make one wonder that any
of them ever get up country alive; besides the fatal lung sickness they
suffer from what is called the ‘drunk sickness,’ a species of staggers.
When we reached Zimbabwe nearly all our oxen developed the mange and
swollen legs, but recovered owing to the long rest. Besides these
casualties they often die from eating poisonous grasses; also in some
parts the unwholesome herbage, or ‘sour veldt,’ as it is known amongst
the drivers, produces kidney diseases and other horrors amongst them.

All around Fort Victoria, they told us, the grass was sour, so we only
remained there long enough to make our preparations for our excavations
at Zimbabwe. Tools of all descriptions we had luckily brought with us
from Fort Tuli, as there were none here when we arrived. In fact the
dearth of everything struck us forcibly, but by this time doubtless all
this will be remedied, for we were amongst the first waggons to come up
after the rains, and now Fort Victoria, with the recent discovery of
good gold reefs in its immediate vicinity, is bound to become an
important place.

From Fort Victoria our real troubles of progression began. It is only
fourteen miles from there to the great Zimbabwe ruins by the narrow
Kaffir path, and active individuals have been known to go there and
back in a day. It took us exactly seven days to traverse this distance
with our waggons. The cutting down of trees, the skirting of swamps,
the making of corduroy bridges, were amongst the hindrances which
impeded our progress. For our men it was a perpetual time of toil; for
us it was a week of excessive weariness.

For two nights we were ‘outspanned’ by the edge of a deep ravine, at
the bottom of which was a swampy stream. This had to be bridged with
trees and a road made up and down the banks before our waggons could
cross over it. A few hundred yards from this spot the river M’shagashi
flowed, a considerable stream, which is within easy reach of Zimbabwe
and eventually makes its way down to the Tokwe. On its banks we saw
several crocodiles basking, and consequently resisted the temptation to
bathe.

By diving into the forests and climbing hills we came across groups of
natives who interested us. It was the season just then in which they
frequent the forests—the ‘barking season,’ when they go forth to
collect large quantities of the bark of certain trees, out of which
they produce so much that is useful for their primitive lives. They
weave textiles out of bark; they make bags and string out of bark; they
make quivers for their arrows, beehives for their bees, and sometimes
granaries, out of bark. The bark industry is second only to the
iron-smelting amongst the Makalangas.

At the correct season of the year they go off in groups into the
forests to collect bark, taking with them their wives and their
children, carrying with them their assegais, and fine barbed arrows
with which they shoot mice, a delicacy greatly beloved by them; they
take with them also bags of mealies for food, and collect bags of
caterpillars—brown hairy caterpillars three inches long, which at this
season of the year swarm on the trees. These they disembowel and eat in
enormous quantities, and what they cannot eat on the expedition they
dry in the sun and take home for future consumption. Their only method
of making a fire is by rubbing two sticks dexterously together until a
spark appears, with which they ignite some tinder carried in a little
wooden box attached to their girdles. At night time they cut down
branches from the trees, and make a shelter for themselves from the
wind. It is curious to see a set of natives asleep, like sardines in a
box, one black naked lump of humanity; if one turns or disturbs the
harmony of the pie they all get up and swear at him and settle down
again. One man is always told off to watch the fire to keep off wild
beasts, and then when morning comes they pack their belongings, their
treasures of bark, mice, and caterpillars, and start off along the
narrow path in single file at a tremendous pace, silent for a while,
and then bursting forth into song, looking for all the world like a
procession of black caterpillars themselves.

These forests around Zimbabwe are lovely to wander in, with feathery
festoons of lichen, like a fairy scene at a pantomime; outside the
forests are long stretches of coarse grass, towering above our heads in
many cases, and horrible to have to push through, especially after a
fall of rain. They were then in seed, and looked just like our harvest
fields at home, giving a golden tinge to the whole country.

Fine trees perched on the summit of colossal ant-hills cast a pleasant
shade around, and if by chance we were near a stream we had to be
careful not to fall into game pits, deep narrow holes hidden by the
long grass, which the natives dig in the ground and towards which they
drive deer and antelope, so that they get their forelegs fixed in them
and cannot get out.

All around Zimbabwe is far too well watered to be pleasant; long
stretches of unhealthy swamps fill up the valleys; rivers and streams
are plentiful, and the vegetation consequently rich. Owing to the
surrounding swamps we had much fever in our camp during our two months’
stay; as we had our waggons with us we could not camp on very high
ground, and suffered accordingly. This fever of the high veldt with
plenty of food and plenty of quinine is by no means dangerous, only
oft-recurring and very weakening. Of the fourteen cases we had under
treatment none were really dangerously ill, and none seemed to suffer
from bad effects afterwards when the fever had worn itself out. The
real cause of so much mortality and misery amongst the pioneer force
during their first wet season in the country was the want of nourishing
food to give the fever patients and the want of proper medicine.

As for the natives themselves, I cannot help saying a few words in
their favour, as it has been customary to abuse them and set their
capabilities down as nought. During the time we were at Zimbabwe we
were constantly surrounded by them, and employed from fifty to sixty of
them for our work, and the only thing we lost was half a bottle of
whisky, which we did not set down to the natives, who as yet are
happily ignorant of the potency of fire-water. Doubtless on the
traversed roads and large centres, where they are brought into contact
with traders and would-be civilisers of the race, these people become
thieves and vagabonds; but in their primitive state the Makalangas are
naturally honest, exceedingly courteous in manner, and cowardice
appears to be their only vice, arising doubtless from the fact that for
generations they have had to flee to their fastnesses before the raids
of more powerful races. The Makalanga is above the ordinary Kaffir in
intelligence. Contrary to the prognostications of our advisers, we
found that some of them rapidly learnt their work, and were very
careful excavators, never passing over a thing of value, which is more
than can be said of all the white men in our employ. Some of them are
decidedly handsome, and not at all like negroes except in skin; many of
them have a distinctly Arab cast of countenance, and with their
peculiar rows of tufts on the top of their heads looked en profil like
the figures one sees on Egyptian tombs. There is certainly a Semite
drop of blood in their veins; whence it comes will probably never be
known, but it is marked both on their countenances and in their
customs. In religion they are monotheists—that is to say, they believe
in a supreme being called Muali, between whom and them their ancestors,
or mozimos, to whom they sacrifice, act as intercessors. They lay out
food for their dead; they have a day of rest during the ploughing
season, which they call Muali’s Day; they have dynastic names for their
chiefs, like the Pharaohs of old; they sacrifice a goat to ward off
pestilence and famine; circumcision is practised amongst some of them.
We have also the pillows or head rests, the strigil, the iron sceptres
of the chiefs, the iron industry, all with parallels from the north.
Then, again, their musical instruments, their games, and their totems
point distinctly to an Arabian influence, which has been handed down
from generation to generation long after the Arabians have ceased to
have any definite intercourse with the country. During the course of
these pages numerous minor illustrations will from time to time appear
which point in the same direction. It is a curious ethnological problem
which it will be hard to unravel. All over the country sour milk is
much drunk and called mast, as it is in the East, and in parts of this
country beer is called dowra or doro, a term which has come from
Abyssinia and Arabia, and the method of making it is the same. The corn
is soaked in water and left till it sprouts a little; then it is spread
in the sun to dry and mixed with unsprouted grain; then the women pound
it in wooden mortars, and the malt obtained from this is boiled and
left to stand in a pot for two days, and over night a little malt that
has been kept for the purpose is thrown over the liquid to excite
fermentation. It will not keep at all, and is sometimes strong and
intoxicating. Women are the great brewers in Mashonaland, and a good
wife is valued according to her skill in this department.

This Kaffir beer is certainly an old-world drink. There are several
classical allusions for what is termed ‘barley beer.’ Xenophon and the
Ten Thousand one evening, on reaching an Armenian village in the
mountains of Asia Minor, refreshed themselves with what he describes as
‘bowls of barley wine in which the grains are floating.’

The Egyptians too made beer after the same fashion, and used it also in
sacrifices. Much that was known in the old world has travelled
southwards through Nubia and Abyssinia, and is to be found still
amongst the Kaffir races of to-day. Some of the words in common use
amongst the Kaffirs in Mashonaland are very curious. Anything small,
whether it be a child or to indicate that the price paid for anything
is insufficient, they term piccanini; the word is universal, and points
to intercourse with other continents. The term Morunko, or Molungo,
universally applied to white men, is probably of Zulu origin, and has
been connected—with what reason I know not—with Unkulunkulu, a term to
denote the Supreme Being. At any rate it is distinctly a term of
respect, and certainly has nothing to do with the Mashona language, in
which Muali or Mali is used to denote God.

Finally, at long last, after exactly three months to a day of
‘trekking’ in our ox waggons, the mighty ruins of Zimbabwe were reached
on June 6, 1891, and we sat down in the wilderness to commence our
operations, with the supreme delight of knowing that for two months our
beds would not begin to shake and tumble us about before half our
nights were over.








CHAPTER III

CAMP LIFE AND WORK AT ZIMBABWE


Our camp was pitched on slightly rising ground about 200 yards from the
large circular ruin at Zimbabwe, and was for the space of two months a
busy centre of life and work in the midst of the wilderness. There were
our two waggons, in which we slept; hard by was erected what our men
called an Indian terrace, a construction of grass and sticks in which
we ate, and which my wife decorated with the flowers gathered around
us—the brilliant red spokes of the flowering aloes, which grew in
magnificent fiery clusters all over the rocks, the yellow everlasting
(Helipterum incanum), which grew in profusion in a neighbouring swamp,
wreaths of the pink bignonia, festoons of which decorated the ruins and
the neighbouring kraal. Besides these she had the red flowers of the
Indian shot (Canna indica), which was found in abundance on the hill
fortress, fronds of the Osmunda regalis and tree fern, the white silky
flowers of the sugar tree (Protea mellifera), and many others at her
disposal, a wealth of floral decoration which no conservatory at home
could supply.

Our tent was our drawing-room; and in addition to these places of
shelter there were the photographic dark tent, five feet six square,
the kitchen, and the white men’s sleeping-room, cleverly constructed
out of the sails of our waggons, with walls of grass. In the centre was
an erection for our cocks and hens, but even from here the jackals
occasionally contrived to steal one or two. Around the whole camp ran a
skerm, or hedge, of grass, which latter adjunct gave a comfortable and
concentrated feeling to it all. Outside our circle the native workmen
erected for themselves three or four huts, into which they all huddled
at night like so many sardines in a tin. Around us in every direction
grew the tall, wavy grass of the veldt, rapidly approaching the time
when it can be burnt. This time was one of imminent peril for our camp;
the flames, lashed to fury by the wind, approached within a few yards
of us. Men with branches rushed hither and thither, beating the
advancing enemy with all their might; our grass hedge was rapidly
pulled down, and we trembled for the safety of our Indian terrace.
Suddenly a spark caught the huts of the natives, and in a few moments
they were reduced to ashes, and the poor shivering occupants had to
spend the night in a cave in the rocks behind. Luckily the strenuous
efforts of our men were successful in keeping the flames from our camp,
and we were thankful when this business was over. Instead of the tall,
wavy grass, reeking with moisture when it rained and rotting in the
heat of the sun, we had now around us a black sea of ashes, recalling
the appearance of the vicinity of a coal mine; but though less
picturesque it was far more healthy, and during the last weeks of our
stay at Zimbabwe the attacks of fever were less frequent and less
severe.

From Fort Victoria came over during our stay a whole host of visitors
to see how we were getting on. Prospecting parties going northwards
tarried at Fort Victoria for a rest, and came over to see the wondrous
ruins of Zimbabwe. Englishmen, Dutchmen from the Transvaal, Germans,
all sorts and conditions of men came to visit us, and as temporary
custodians of the ruins we felt it our duty to personally conduct
parties over them, thereby hearing all sorts and conditions of opinions
as to the origin of the same. One of our friends told us that they
reminded him forcibly of the Capitol of Rome; another, of a religious
turn of mind, saw in them an exact parallel to the old walls of
Jerusalem; and a Dutchman, after seeing over them, told me that he was
convinced that they must be just ‘one tousand year old, and built in
the reign of Queen Shabby.’ The names of King Solomon and the Queen of
Sheba were on everybody’s lips, and have become so distasteful to us
that we never expect to hear them again without an involuntary shudder.

Thus our two months’ stay at Zimbabwe can in no way be said to have
been dull. We had our daily work from eight in the morning till
sundown, with an hour at midday for luncheon and repose. Out of the
working days we lost nine from rain, a curious soaking misty rain which
always came on with a high south-east wind, and always, oddly enough,
with a rise in the barometer, very exceptional, we were told, at that
season of the year. Over these days I would willingly draw a veil; they
were truly miserable and always resulted in fresh outbreaks of fever
amongst us. With the exception of these nine days the weather was
simply delicious, fresh, balmy, and sunny; after sundown and our
evening meal we would sit around our camp fire discussing our finds of
the day and indulging in hopes for the morrow. Most of our white men
were musical, and beguiled the monotony of the evening hours by a
series of camp concerts, which made us intimately acquainted with all
the latest music-hall ditties. Occasionally rations of Cape brandy,
better known as dop, would be sent out to the B.S.A. men in our employ;
then the evening’s fun became fast and furious, and on two occasions
caused us no little anxiety. Luckily these rations were always consumed
on the night of their arrival, and though the following morning
revealed a headache or two, and an occasional attack of fever, we
always rejoiced to see the bottles empty and to know that the orgy
would not be repeated for perhaps a fortnight.

Umgabe is the dynastic name of the petty chief whose territory includes
the Zimbabwe ruins; he recognises the suzerainty of Chibi, but is to
all intents and purposes a free ruler. He came the day after our
arrival to visit us, and then we were introduced to the Makalanga
custom of hand-clapping. The mysterious meaning attached to this
hand-clapping I was afterwards able in a measure to fathom. [5] On the
arrival of a chief or grand induna the hand-clapping is a serious
undertaking, and has to go on incessantly until the great man is seated
and bids them stop. Umgabe was glad to see us, he said, and had no
intention of interrupting our proposed work, provided only we agreed to
one thing, and that was to leave his women alone. As for ourselves and
our white men, we answered that he need have no fear, but as for our
negro workmen we would not hold ourselves responsible for them, but
suggested that, as they would all be his subjects, he must see to them
himself.

Umgabe is a huge fat man, tall and dignified, though naked; around his
neck he has a string of large white Venetian beads of considerable
antiquity, brought doubtless to this country by Arabian traders in the
Middle Ages; in his hand he carries his iron sceptre, the badge of a
chief, and his battle axe is lavishly decorated with brass wire.
Amongst his men we saw many of varied types, some distinctly Arabian in
features, and I am bound to say the Kaffir type amongst them was the
exception and by no means the rule. Arched noses, thin lips, and a
generally refined type of countenance are not, as a rule, prominent
features amongst those of pure Kaffir blood, but they are common enough
around Zimbabwe.

We made arrangements with Umgabe about our work, and collected together
a team of thirty individuals who were to do our digging, &c., for the
wages of one blanket a month, which blankets cost 4s. 10d. apiece at
Fort Tuli, and probably half that in England. For this reward they were
to work and also find themselves in everything; it is the present
stipulated rate of wages in the country, but I do not expect it will
remain so long.

We had great difficulties with them at first. Spades and picks were new
to nearly all of them; they were idle; they were afraid of us, and also
of the chief on the hill. If it was cold they would sit crouched over
small fires of wood, and appear numb and utterly incapable of work.
Then they insisted on eating at the inconvenient hour of 10.30 A.M.
food brought for them by their women, paste of millet meal and
caterpillars; and for every little extra duty they clamoured for a
present, or a parsella, as they called it. These difficulties gradually
disappeared. Some of them became excellent hands with pick and shovel;
they got accustomed to us and our hours, and worked with a will, and
for a teaspoonful of beads they would do any amount of extra work.
Their chief skill was displayed in clearing. I almost despaired of
getting rid of the thick jungle which filled the large circular ruin,
so that it was almost impossible to stir in it. This they contrived to
do for us in three or four days, hacking away at stout trees and
branches with their absurd little hatchets, and obtaining the most
satisfactory results. Also they were excellent at removing piles of
fallen stones, singing as they worked and urging one another on.
Altogether we had no cause to complain of our workmen when confidence
had been thoroughly established between us. Poor cowardly things that
they are, anything like harshness made them run away at once. Our cook,
whose temper was exceedingly capricious, one day pursued his native
kitchen boy with a hatchet, and he never could get a kitchen boy to
stay with him after that; they would poke their fun at him and rouse
his ire exceedingly, but always at a respectful distance.

From the many villages on the heights around Zimbabwe came every day
crowds of natives, bringing provisions for sale, and we held a regular
market in our camp. By this means we got as many cocks and hens as we
wanted, eggs, milk, honey, and sweet potatoes; then they would bring us
tomatoes, the largest I have ever seen, chillies, capers, rice, and
monkey nuts. Some of these, I am told on excellent authority, are
distinct products of the New World, the seeds of which must have
originally been brought by Dutch, Portuguese, and Spanish traders and
given in exchange for the commodities of the country; now they form an
integral part of the diet of these people and prove to us how the ends
of the world were brought together long before our time.

These daily markets were times of great excitement for us, for, besides
giving us an insight into their ways and life, we found it an excellent
time to acquire for a few beads their native ornaments. In carving
their knives they are particularly ingenious. The sheath of these
knives generally ends in a curious conventional double foot; the handle
too seems intended to represent a head. Here again it would appear that
they take the human form as a favourite basis for a design.

Also their snuff-boxes are many and varied in form; some are made of
reeds decorated with black geometrical patterns, some of hollowed-out
pieces of wood decorated with patterns and brass wire, also they have
their grease-holders similarly decorated, all pointing to a high form
of ingenuity.

They were very glad to get good English powder from us; but,
nevertheless, before this advent of the white man they made a sort of
gunpowder of their own, reddish in colour and not very powerful,
specimens of which we acquired. The art must have been learnt from the
Portuguese traders and passed up country from one village to another.
From a species of cotton plant they produce a very fair equivalent for
the genuine article, which they spin on spindles and make into long
strings. When the natives found we cared for their ornaments they
brought them in large quantities, and our camp was inundated with
knives, snuff-boxes, bowls, pottery, and all manner of odd things. They
were cunning too in their dealings, bringing one by one into camp small
baskets full of meal and other commodities from a large store outside,
realising that in this way they got many more beads and more stretches
of limbo than if they brought it all at once. As for Umgabe himself,
his chief kraal and residence was six miles away, and we saw but little
of him after the first excitement of our arrival had worn off; but his
brother Ikomo, the induna of the kraal on the hill behind the ruins,
often came down to see us, and was a constant source of annoyance,
seeing that his friendly visits had always some ulterior motive of
getting something out of us. On one of these occasions my wife had
collected a beautiful bowl of honey; the rascal Ikomo first eyed it
with covetousness and then plunged his hand into the very midst
thereof, and enjoyed his fingers complacently for some time after,
whilst she in disgust had to throw away the best part of her treasure.

Frequently Ikomo would try to interrupt our work, and so frighten our
black diggers from other villages that they ran away, and we had to
collect a fresh team. On one occasion, whilst digging upon the
fortress, we disturbed a large rock, which slipped. On it was perched
one of their granaries, which promptly fell to pieces, and the contents
were scattered far and wide. In vain we offered to pay for the damage
done; almost in no time we were surrounded by a screaming crowd of
angry men and women, with Ikomo at their head, brandishing assegais and
other terrible weapons of war. For a moment the affair looked serious;
all our blacks fled in haste, and we, a small band of white men
surrounded by the foe, were doubtful what course to pursue. At length
we determined to stand their insults no longer, and seizing whatever
was nearest—spade, pick, or shovel—we rushed at them, and forthwith
Ikomo and his valiant men fled like sheep before us, clambering up
rocks, chattering and screaming like a cageful of monkeys at the Zoo.
Sir John Willoughby and one or two men from Fort Victoria chanced to
come over that day to visit us, and on hearing of our adventure he
summoned Ikomo to a palaver, and told him that if such a thing happened
again his kraal would be burnt to the ground and his tribe driven from
the hill; and the result of this threat was that Ikomo troubled us no
more.

Ikomo’s kraal occupies a lovely situation on Zimbabwe Hill, with huts
nestling in cosy corners amongst the rocks, from the top of which
lovely views can be obtained over the distant Bessa and Inyuni ranges
on the one side, and over the Livouri range, and Providential Pass on
the other, whilst to the south the view extends over a sea of rugged
kopjes down into the Tokwe valley. From this point the strategical
value of the hill is at once grasped, rising as it does sheer out of a
well-watered plain, unassailable from all sides, the most commanding
position in all the country round. The village is festooned with
charming creepers, bignonia and others, then in full flower; rows of
granaries decorate the summit, and in the midst are some of those
quaint trees which they use as larders, hanging therefrom the produce
of their fields neatly tied up in long grass packages, which look like
colossal German sausages growing from the branches.

On one of the few flat spaces in the village is kept the village drum,
or ‘tom-tom,’ constantly in use for dances. One day we found the women
of the village hard at work enjoying themselves round this drum,
dancing a sort of war dance of their own. It was a queer sight to see
these women, with deep furrows on their naked stomachs, rushing to and
fro, stooping, kneeling, shouting, brandishing battle axes and
assegais, and going through all the pantomime of war, until at last one
of these Amazons fell into hysterics, and the dance was over. On
another occasion, whilst visiting some ruins in a lovely dale about
eight miles from Zimbabwe, we were treated to another sort of dance by
the women of a neighbouring village. The chief feature in the
performance was a grotesque one, and consisted of smacking their
furrowed stomachs and long hanging breasts in measured cadence with the
movements of their feet, so that the air resounded with the noise
produced.

As for the men, they are for ever dancing, either a beer drink, the new
moon, or simple, unfeigned joviality being the motive power. Frequently
on cold evenings our men would dance round the camp fire; always the
same indomba, or war dance; round and round they went, shouting,
capering, gesticulating. Now and again scouts would be sent out to
reconnoitre, and would engage in fight with an imaginary foe, and
return victorious to the circle. If one had not had personal experience
of their cowardice, one might almost have been alarmed at their hostile
attitudes. On pay-day, when our thirty workmen each received a blanket
for their month’s work, they treated us to a dance, each man wrapped in
his new acquisition. Umgabe, with his sceptre and battle axe, conducted
the proceedings; it was a most energetic and ridiculous scene to
witness, as the blankets whirled round in the air and the men shouted
and yelled with joy. When all was over, each man measured his blanket
with his neighbour, to see that he had not been cheated, and, gaily
chattering, they wended their way to the village, with their blankets
trailing behind them. The novelty of possessing a blanket was an
intense joy to these savages. One tottering old man was amongst our
workmen, and seeing his incapacity, I was about to discard him, but his
longing for a blanket was so piteous—‘to sleep in a blanket once before
he died’—that he was allowed to continue and do what he could to earn
one.

Dancing is the one great dissipation of the Makalanga’s life; he will
keep it up for hours without tiring at their great beer-drinking
feasts, at weddings—nay, even at funerals. At these latter ceremonies
they will not allow a white man to be present, so that what they do is
still a mystery; but we heard repeatedly the incident festivities after
a death had taken place—the shouting, the dancing, and the hideous din
of the ‘tom-tom.’ One day a native turned up at our camp with some
curious carrot-like roots in his hand. On enquiry as to what he was
going to do with them he replied that he was going to a funeral, and
that they chewed this root and spat it out—for it is poisonous—at these
ceremonies. The natives call this root amouni.

In our work at Zimbabwe we unwittingly opened several of their graves
amongst the old ruins. The corpse had been laid out on a reed mat—the
mat, probably, on which he had slept during life. His bowl and his
calabash were placed beside him. One of these graves had been made in a
narrow passage in the ancient walls on the fortress. We were rather
horrified at what we had done, especially as a man came to complain,
and said that it was the grave of his brother, who had died a year
before; so we filled up the aperture and resisted the temptation to
proceed with our excavations at that spot. After that the old chief
Ikomo, whenever we started a fresh place, came and told us a relation
of his was buried there. This occurring so often, we began to suspect,
and eventually proved, a fraud. So we set sentiment aside and took
scientific research as our motto for the future.

In the tomb of a chief it is customary to place a bowl of beer, which
is constantly replenished for the refreshment of the spirit, for they
are great believers in making themselves agreeable to the departed, and
at the annual sacrificial feast in honour of the dead meat and beer are
always allotted to the spirits of their ancestors.

One day as we were digging in a cave we came across the skeleton of a
goat tied on to a mat with bark string; by its side was the carved
knife, with portions of the goat’s hair still adhering to it. Here we
had an obvious instance of sacrifice, a sacrifice which takes place, I
believe, to avert some calamity—famine, war, or pestilence—which at the
time threatens the community. The natives were very reticent on the
point, but visibly annoyed at our discovery.

There is a good deal of music inherent in the Makalanga. One man in
each village is recognised as the bard. One of our workmen had his
piano, which was constantly at work. These pianos are very interesting
specimens of primitive musical art; they have thirty or more iron keys,
arranged to scale, fixed on to a piece of wood about half a foot
square, which is decorated with carving behind. This instrument they
generally put into a gourd, with pieces of bone round the edge to
increase the sound, which is decidedly melodious and recalls a spinet.
One finds instruments of a similar nature amongst the natives north of
the Zambesi. Specimens in the British Museum of almost exactly the same
construction come from Southern Egypt and the Congo, pointing to the
common and northern origin of most of these African races.

About Zimbabwe we found the natives playing a sort of Jew’s harp, made
out of a reed and string, giving forth a very faint and ineffective
sound. Also they have their cymbals and their drums, which latter they
play with elbow and fist in a most energetic manner. Anything, in fact,
which makes a noise is pleasing to them. At their dances they tie to
their persons small reeds or gourds filled with the seed of the Indian
shot, which rattle and add to the prevailing din. They are for ever
singing the low, monotonous songs common to primitive races; they
encourage one another with song when at work in the fields, or when out
on a hunting expedition, and dearly did they love some small musical
boxes which we had with us. Music is certainly inherent in them, and
one of our men was quite quick at picking up an air, and very angry if
his comrades sang out of time or tune.

When time permitted we made several little excursions in the
neighbourhood of Zimbabwe. One of these led us to the ruins which they
call Little Zimbabwe, about eight miles off. Of all these ruins they
have next to no legends, which surprised us greatly. One story,
however, they tell, which appears to have obtained universal credence
amongst them—that long, long ago white men came and erected these
buildings, but the black men poisoned the water and they all died. This
story seems to have about as much value in it as the one told us by De
Barros, that the natives of his day thought that they had been built by
the Devil.

About two miles from our camp there was a long flat granite rock, along
which the path passed. On either side of this are two piles of stones,
and a line is scratched on the rock between them. Our guides each took
a stone, scratched them along the line, and deposited them on the heap
opposite. On returning in the evening they did exactly the same thing,
and we were told that it is a luck sign, which they do on undertaking a
journey to ensure them from danger by the way. It was a very lovely
ride, past huge granite boulders, and hills covered with dense foliage,
beneath which the women of a village danced for us to the tune of their
drum, forming one of the wildest, weirdest pictures we had ever seen.
On another occasion we rode to a fortified rock, which had been long
since abandoned; but the rude stone walls had been constructed by a
more recent race, and compared with certain ruined villages we
afterwards saw in Mangwendi’s country. [6] On our homeward ride we
turned aside to rest in a hut where we found natives busily employed in
making beer, a process which they always carry out in the fields, where
they have their stores, and in cooking locusts, which we tasted and
thought not altogether unlike shrimps.

Thus our time passed at Zimbabwe, actively and pleasantly, and when our
second month of work was up, as we had much travelling before us in the
country, we reluctantly decided on departure.

We went up to take leave of the induna Ikomo at his kraal on the day
before our departure. He was seated in front of his hut, eating his
red-coloured sodza, made of millet meal, and locusts, allowing his head
men, who sat around, to take occasional handfuls from his savoury
platter. Conversation turned on his tribe. He told us how they had come
to Zimbabwe about forty years ago, when he was only eighteen years of
age, from the neighbourhood of the Sabi River, where they had lived for
many years. No one was then living on Zimbabwe Hill, which was covered,
as it is still in parts, with a dense jungle. No one knew anything
about the ruins, neither did they seem to care. This is how all
tradition is lost among them. The migratory spirit of the people
entirely precludes them from having any information of value to give
concerning the place in which they may be located; they seldom remain
more than one generation in one place, and one place is to them only
different from another inasmuch as it affords them refuge from the
Matabele and has soil around it which will produce their scanty crops.

On leaving Zimbabwe and our work, we determined on making a tentative
trip of a few days, with horses and a donkey, to see how we could
manage travelling in the wilds in this country without our waggon home.
Moreover, we wished to pay a visit to Umgabe at his kraal, and to take
his rival, Cherumbila, on the way back to Fort Victoria.

One lovely morning—the 6th of August—we left our waggons, our cook, and
our curios to find their way to Fort Victoria by themselves, and set
off. The scenery southwards down the gorge was charming, granite kopje
after granite kopje carrying the eye far away into the blue hazy
distance. The foliage was thick and shady, and as we halted at a stream
to water our animals we plucked large fronds of Osmunda regalis and the
tree fern. To our left we passed a huge split rock, just a square block
of granite eighty feet high split into four parts, so that narrow paths
lead from each side into the heart of it. It was one of the most
extraordinary natural stone formations I have ever seen, and the
natives call it Lumbo. A relation of Umgabe’s rules over a fantastic
kraal, called Baramazimba, hard by this rock; its huts are situated in
such inaccessible corners that you wonder how the inhabitants ever get
to them. Huge trees sheltered the entrance to this village, beneath
which men were seated on the ground playing isafuba, the mysterious
game of the Makalangas, with sixty holes in rows in the ground. Ten men
can play at this game, and it consists in removing bits of pottery or
stones from one hole to the other in an unaccountable manner. We
watched it scores of times whilst in the country, and always gave it up
as a bad job, deciding that it must be like draughts or chess, learnt
by them from the former civilised race who dwelt here. This game is
played in different places with different numbers of holes—sometimes
only thirty-two holes dug in the ground—always in rows of four. It has
a close family relationship to the game called pullangooly of India,
played in a fish—the sisoo fish, made of wood—which opens like a
chess-board, and has fourteen holes in two rows of seven, small beans
being employed as counters. The same game hails also from Singapore and
from the West Coast of Africa, where it is played with twelve holes and
is called wary. In short, wherever Arabian influence has been felt this
game in some form or other is always found, and forms for us another
link in the chain of evidence connecting the Mashonaland ruins with an
Arabian influence. The Makalangas are also far superior to other
neighbouring Kaffir races in calculating, probably owing to the
influence of this very game.

At midday we reached Umgabe’s kraal and found our host only just
recovering from the effects of drinking too much beer, and he had a
relapse in the course of the afternoon to celebrate our arrival. He
allotted us two huts, which we proceeded to have cleaned out. My wife
and I occupied one, delightfully situated beneath a spreading cork
tree; it was about twelve feet in diameter, and in the centre was the
fireplace of cement with a raised seat by it on which the cook usually
sits when stirring the pot. We spread our rugs where it appeared most
level; but during the night, in spite of our candle, the rats careered
about us to such an alarming extent that sleep was next to impossible,
and we had ample time at our disposal for contemplating our abode.

On one side was a raised place for the family jars, huge earthenware
things covered with slabs of stone, containing meal, caterpillars,
locusts, and other edibles. On the opposite side was a stable for the
calves, which we were able to banish; but we could not so easily
control the cocks and hens which came in at all the holes, nor the rats
which darted amongst the smoke-begrimed rafters when day dawned. These
blackened rafters of the roof the Makalangas use as cupboards, sticking
therein their pipes, their weapons, their medicine phials, their tools,
and their pillows, and we soon found that this was the place to look
for all manner of curios; only the huts are so dark that it is
impossible to see anything when there happen to be no holes in the
walls. A low door three feet high is the only point for admitting light
and air; consequently the huts are not only dark but odoriferous.
Besides the walls, the Makalangas construct a primitive sort of
cupboard out of the spreading branch of a tree tied round with bark
fibre; this contains such things as they fear the rats may spoil. They
are very ingenious in making things out of bark—long narrow bags for
meal, hen coops in which to carry their poultry about, nets to keep the
roofs on their granaries. Bark to them is one of the most useful
natural products that they have.

Umgabe’s kraal has as lovely a situation as can well be imagined. It is
situated in a glade, buried in trees and vegetation, so that until you
are in it you hardly notice the spot. Huge granite mountains rise on
either side, completely shutting it in; a rushing stream runs through
the glade, supplying the place with delicious water. Here is distinctly
a spot where only man is vile; and the great fat chief, seated on the
top of a rock, sodden with beer, formed one of the vilest specimens of
humanity I ever saw.

The aforesaid stream in its course down the valley, just below the
village, runs underneath a vast mass of granite rocks, which form a
labyrinth of caves exceedingly difficult to approach. To facilitate the
entry the inhabitants have made bridges of trees, and in times of
danger from the Matabele they take refuge therein; they take their
cattle with them, and pull down the bridges. In the interior they
always keep many granaries well filled with grain, in case of
accidents. Old Umgabe was most unwilling for us to go in and learn his
tribal secret; however, nothing daunted, with the aid of candles we
effected an entry, and a queer place it is. Granaries are perched in
all sorts of crannies, traces of a late habitation exist all around,
and the boiling stream is roaring in the crevices below.

The flat rocks outside were just then covered with locusts drying in
the sun; millet meal and other domestic commodities were spread out
too.

The rest of that lovely afternoon we spent in wandering about in this
paradise, admiring the dense foliage, the creepers, and the euphorbia
which towered over the huts, and regretted when the pangs of hunger and
the shades of evening obliged us to return to our huts to cook our
frugal meal and pretend to go to bed.

It was a long ride next day to Cherumbila’s kraal, the bitter enemy and
hereditary foe of our late host; we passed many villages and many
streams on the way, and had a direful experience at one of the swamps
which our path crossed just before reaching our destination. One of our
horses disappeared in it, all but his head, another rolled entirely
over in it, whilst we stood helpless on the bank and fearful of the
result; but at length we managed to drag the wretched animals out, and
an hour before sundown we reached Cherumbila’s stronghold.

It is quite a different place from Umgabe’s, and much larger, with huts
running along the backbone of a high granite ridge. The principal
kraal, where the chief lives, is fortified with palisades and rough
walls, and is entered by a gateway formed of posts leaning against one
another; the huts are better, with decorated doors, and the people
finer than those of Umgabe’s tribe. Many of them have their heads
cleanly shaved at the top, with a row of curious tufts of hair tied
together and made to look like a lot of black plants sprouting from
their skulls.

Cherumbila himself is a lithe, active man, a complete contrast to
Umgabe; a man of activity both of mind and body, he is feared and
respected by his men, and is consequently one of the strongest chiefs
hereabouts, and raids upon his neighbours with great success. Years
ago, when he was a boy, he told us, his tribe lived on the top of one
of the highest mountains overlooking Providential Pass, when a Matabele
raid, or impi, fell upon them and drove most of the inhabitants over a
steep precipice to their death: the remnant that escaped came here and
settled, and have now, under Cherumbila’s rule, grown strong. The chief
allotted us his own hut for our night’s lodging. Nevertheless we had
much the same experiences as on the previous night, which made us vow
that on our prospective trips to the Sabi and northwards we would take
our tent and never again expose ourselves to the companionship of rats
and other vermin in the native huts.

The following day a lovely ride over the mountains, through dense
forests and swarms of locusts, which our black men eagerly collected,
brought us back again to Fort Victoria and comparative civilisation,
where we made preparations for our more extended expeditions away from
the road and our waggons, warned but not discouraged by our discomforts
with Umgabe and Cherumbila.










PART II

DEVOTED TO THE ARCHÆOLOGY OF THE RUINED CITIES


CHAPTER IV

DESCRIPTION OF THE VARIOUS RUINS


During our stay in Mashonaland we visited and carefully examined the
sites of many ruins, a minute description of which I propose to give in
this chapter. As a feature in the country they are most
remarkable—ancient, massive, mysterious, standing out in startling
contrast to the primitive huts of the barbarians who dwell around them
and the wilderness of nature. Of course it was impossible in one
season, and in the present undeveloped state of the country, to visit
them all; but from accounts given of others which we could not visit,
and which consequently I shall only briefly allude to here, there is
enough evidence to prove that they were all built by the same race, in
the same style, and for the same purpose.

From Dr. Emil Holub’s work (‘Seven Years in South Africa’) we learn
something about a ruin he saw on the Shashi River, which consisted of a
wall protecting a hill and formed ‘of blocks of granite laid one upon
another, without being fixed by cement of any kind.’ Also at Tati he
saw another ruin, forming a long line of protection for a hill, roughly
put together on the inside, but on the outside, ‘probably with some
view to symmetry and decoration, there had been inserted double rows of
stones, hewn into a kind of tile, and placed obliquely one row at right
angles to the other. Each enclosure had an entrance facing north.’ He
concludes that the ruin was constructed to protect the gold, ‘numbers
of pits fifty feet deep being found in the vicinity.’ This pattern, the
construction, and the object undoubtedly connect these ruins with those
which I shall presently describe.

Mr. G. Philips, an old hunter in these parts, said at the Royal
Geographical Society’s meeting, November 24, 1890, of the Zimbabwe
ruins, ‘They are exactly like others I have seen in the country—the
same zigzag patterns and the mortarless walls of small hewn stones.
When hunting in the mountains to the west of this I came on a regular
line of these ruins, and one must have been a tremendously big place.
There were three distinct gateways in the outer wall, which I suppose
was at least thirty feet thick at the base, and one of those immense
ironwood trees (hartekol), that would have taken hundreds of years to
grow, had grown up through a crevice in the wall and rent it asunder.’
He also described another ruin north-west of Tati. ‘The walls are
twelve to fifteen feet thick, and it is entered by a passage so
arranged as to be commanded by archers from the interior, and it only
admits of the passage of one at a time.’

Mr. E. A. Maund, in speaking of the ruins at Tati and on the Impakwe,
says, ‘As I have said, these ruins are always found near gold workings;
they are built in the same way of granite, hewn into small blocks
somewhat bigger than a brick, and put together without mortar. In the
base of both of these there is the same herring-bone course as at
Zimbabwe, though nearer the base of the wall.... The remains on the
Impakwe are similar in construction and are within fifty yards of the
river; it was evidently an octagonal tower.’ Mr. Moffat, our political
agent in Matabeleland, in speaking to me about this ruin, told me how
it had been much demolished during his recollection, owing to the fact
that all waggons going up to Matabeleland outspan near it, and the men
assist at its demolition.

There is another ruin of a similar character near where the River Elibi
flows into the Limpopo, and another further up the Mazoe Valley than
the one we visited. [7]

I have alluded to these ruins, which I have not seen, to prove the
great area over which they are spread, and I have little doubt that as
the country gets opened out a great many more will be brought to light,
proving the extensive population which once lived here as a garrison in
a hostile country, for the sake of the gold which they extracted from
the mines in the quartz reefs between the Zambesi and Limpopo Rivers.

From personal experience I can speak of the ruins on the Lundi River;
of those at and near Zimbabwe; of the chain of forts on the Sabi River,
including Metemo, Matindela, Chilonga, and Chiburwe, and the fort in
the Mazoe gold fields, all of which belong to the same period, and were
built by the same race, and agree in character with those described by
Messrs. Philips and Maund on the Tati, Impakwe, and elsewhere, and are
quite distinct from the more modern structures in Mangwendi’s and
Makoni’s countries, which we visited towards the end of our tour and
which I shall describe in Chapter XI.

The circular ruin erected on a low granite eminence of about five
hundred yards from the Lundi River is of exceeding insignificance when
compared with those of Zimbabwe and Matindela: it is only fifty-four
feet in diameter, and the original wall was only five feet thick; the
courses are very regular and neatly put together without mortar, and
the stones, of granite, are of a uniform size, broken into blocks about
twice the size of an ordinary brick. It had two entrances, one to the
north and another to the south-east, the latter being carefully walled
up with an inserted structure in which the courses are carried out with
a carefulness similar to the walls of the rest of the building. The
interesting features of this ruin are the patterns in three tiers
beginning at a few feet from the northern entrance, the two lower ones
consisting of a herring-bone pattern, formed by the stones being placed
obliquely in contrary directions in each tier, whilst the upper pattern
is produced by regular gaps of two inches being left between the stones
in two of the courses. Nearly facing the rising sun at the equinox is a
curious bulge, about two feet deep, constructed in the wall. At this
bulge the two lower rows of ornamentation terminate, but the upper one
is carried on round it as far as the south-eastern entrance. There can
be little doubt that these patterns, found on nearly all the
Mashonaland ruins, were constructed for a purpose; they only go round a
portion of the buildings; they have always the same aspect—namely,
south-east—and one cannot dissociate these circular buildings and the
patterns from some form of sun worship. ‘The circle is a sacred
enclosure,’ says Major Conder in his ‘Heth and Moab,’ ‘without which
the Arab still stands with his face to the rising sun.’ Into this
question of solstitial orientation in connection with the ruins Mr.
Swan will enter at length in the ensuing chapter.

The Lundi ruin had a cement floor, similar to those floors which we
afterwards frequently came across in the Zimbabwe buildings; it would
appear to have acted the double function of a fortress and a temple,
guarding a population settled here on the river’s bank, who built their
huts around it.

The ruins of the Great Zimbabwe (which name I have applied to them to
distinguish them from the numerous minor Zimbabwes scattered over the
country) are situated in south latitude 20° 16′ 30″, and east longitude
31° 10′ 10″, on the high plateau of Mashonaland, 3,300 feet above the
sea level, and form the capital of a long series of such ruins
stretching up the whole length of the western side of the Sabi River.
They are built on granite, and of granite, quartz reefs being found at
a distance of a few miles.

The prominent features of the Great Zimbabwe ruins, which cover a large
area of ground, are, firstly, the large circular ruin with its round
tower on the edge of a gentle slope on the plain below; secondly, the
mass of ruins in the valley immediately beneath this; and thirdly, the
intricate fortress on the granite hill above, acting as the acropolis
of the ancient city. These we will now discuss in their order.

When we reached the Great Zimbabwe the circular ruin was on the inside
a dense mass of tropical vegetation; creepers and monkey ropes hung in
matted confusion to the tall trees, forming a jungle which it was
almost impossible to penetrate, and added to the mazy labyrinth of
walls a peculiar and almost awe-inspiring mystery.

It was the work of some days to clear this off with the aid of native
workmen, whilst at the same time we proceeded with our excavations in
the neighbourhood of the tower and other prominent portions of the
building.

As for the walls themselves, they were nearly free from vegetation,
for, owing to the absence of mortar, no lichen, moss, nor creeper could
thrive on them, and those few things which had penetrated into crevices
were of a succulent character, which formed their branches to the shape
of the interstices. To this fact is due the wonderful state of
preservation in which these ruins are found.

What appeared at first sight to be a true circle eventually proved
elliptical—a form of temple found at Marib, the ancient Saba and
capital of the Sabæan kingdom in Arabia, and at the Castle of Nakab al
Hajar, also in that country. [8] Its greatest length is 280 feet; the
wall at its highest point is thirty-five feet above the ground, and
fifteen feet at the lowest; its greatest base thickness is sixteen feet
two inches, and its thinnest point is about five feet. In the structure
of the wall one very noticeable feature is that the portion to the
south-east is very much better built, and is both thicker and higher:
here the courses are marvellously true, as if built with a levelling
line, and the stones, of granite hammered into shape, are exactly the
same size, whereas on the north-west side and in some of the interior
walls, which are marked in a lighter colour on the plan, the courses
begin to get slightly irregular, and the stones of unequal size,
suggesting almost a different period of workmanship; but then there is
no point where the good definitely ends or the bad begins, except at a
short gap on the northern side, where the good wall would seem to have
been continued more in a northerly direction, and the inferior wall to
have been brought round to meet it.

There are three entrances to this circular building. The principal one,
only three feet wide, faces the hill fortress and the north. It has an
odd curvature in it, constructed evidently true north, whereas all the
other entrances are straight. Below this entrance runs a very
substantial substructure wall, and the little space immediately inside
it was covered with a thick cement, made out of powdered granite, out
of which steps had been formed leading down to the various passages
which converge here from the centre of the building. The presence of
this concrete in use for flooring and steps in buildings constructed
without mortar is interesting, showing that dry building was used not
from necessity but from choice.

The entrance to the north-west had been walled up, and we had to climb
over a heap of stones to gain admittance until it was opened out. It is
narrow and straight, and protected by two buttresses on the inside. The
wall here is very inferior to what it is at the main entrance. There
was also another entrance between these two, presumably merely a
sally-port in the wall, the lintel of which had consisted of wooden
beams, which had been burnt, and on their giving way the wall above had
also fallen down.

Of the outer wall of the circular building the most interesting portion
is decidedly that to the south-east. A few courses below the summit on
the outside, from point A to point B on the plan, runs the pattern,
formed by two courses having the stones placed chevron-wise, neatly
fitted in with smaller stones receding a little, so as to make the
pattern at a distance appear as if it stood out in relief, whereas it
is really flush with the wall. This pattern coincides with the sacred
enclosure inside, terminating at point B exactly where the enclosure
terminates, and at the other end at point A about half-way down the
narrow passage, forming thus an arc of one and a half right angle. Its
connection with the sanctity of the place is obvious, and into its
relation to the orientation of the temple Mr. Swan will enter fully in
the ensuing chapter. Along this portion of the wall, and on this only,
large monoliths were inserted, most of which have fallen away; but
those still standing show that they were equidistant. Here too the top
of the wall has been neatly paved with slabs of granite, and must have
formed a broad promenade, presumably approached by steps from a point
near the main entrance. Here one can still walk with ease, whereas on
the inferior portion of the wall it is now scarcely possible to
scramble.

The labyrinthine character of the interior will be best grasped by a
glance at the plan. Entering from the northern portal, we at once
plunge into its intricacies. The great and astounding feature is the
long narrow passage leading direct from the main entrance to the sacred
enclosure, so narrow in parts that two people cannot walk abreast,
whilst on either side of you rise the stupendous walls, thirty feet in
height, and built with such evenness of courses and symmetry that as a
specimen of the dry builder’s art it is without a parallel. The large
blocks of cut stone used in Egyptian, Greek, and Roman masonry must
have been comparatively easy to deal with as compared with these small
stones of rough granite built in even courses in a circular wall of
immense thickness and height. The idea at once suggests itself that the
people who erected these walls had at one time been accustomed to build
in bricks, and that in the absence of this material they had perfected
a system of stone-building to represent as nearly as possible the
appearance of brick; also another reason for the use of small stones
may have been to enable them to construct the tower and curves with
greater accuracy. The facings of the stones are all uniform, but most
of them run back into the wall irregularly, acting in the same way as
throughs in our dry-built walls at home in preserving the building from
falling. In this narrow passage, at point S, is the remarkable hole,
executed with perfect neatness through the thickest part of the wall,
about the actual use of which I am able to give no definite theory. It
could not have been used for drainage or defence; and in the fortress
above there are two similar tunnels equally inexplicable.

The actual approaches to the sacred enclosure are most carefully
defended with buttresses on either side, into which a form of
portcullis has been fixed, with two grooves, one running down each
side, presumably originally intended to receive a wooden door; but at a
later period all these entrances have been carefully walled up, for
what purpose it is difficult to say. It naturally occurred to us that
this had been done at a time of danger for protection, but the neatness
with which the blocking-up walls are executed is against this theory.

At point V on the plan there is a remarkable instance of the two
periods of building. Here, in front of the sacred enclosure, the wall
was decorated with courses of black slate in the older and better wall,
whereas they are omitted in the inferior continuation.

At point E there is a raised platform immediately in front of the large
round tower, covered with a flooring of thick cement, supported by
large stones loosely packed together, into which a monolith had been
stuck. This platform was connected with the sacred enclosure by a
flight of cement steps, and was presumably used for religious purposes.

In dealing with the two remarkable round towers which stood in the
sacred enclosure, one cannot lay too much stress on the symmetry of the
courses and the accuracy with which they have been built. They stand in
the centre of the sacred enclosure, which was floored with cement. By
digging to their foundations we were able to get very accurate
measurements of them, and found that the circumference of the smaller
one corresponds exactly to the diameter of the big one, and the
diameter of the big one is apparently equal to half its original
height, and its circumference again is equal to the diameter of the
round building on the Lundi River. The battering of the big tower is
carried out with mathematical accuracy, the slope of the curve being
perfectly regular, and is produced by placing the superincumbent stones
in a slightly receding position, so that with the aid of a monkey rope
we were able to climb to the top. A few courses below the summit, which
would seem to be very much in its original condition except on the
south side, where Herr Mauch confesses to have pulled down the stones
of several courses, runs a dentelle pattern, marked D on the plan,
formed by placing the stones of one course edgeways. This pattern is
the same as the lower one given in the illustration of Matindela ruins,
p. 137; but unfortunately, owing to the demolition of the upper
courses, it is impossible to define its extent. The tower would seem to
have been thirty-five feet in height, and the summit to have been a
level of about four feet in diameter. By digging below this tower, and
pulling out stones from the sides, which we carefully replaced, we
demonstrated to our satisfaction that it was solid. It was built on
nothing but the soil of the place, and was erected over nothing; the
foundations go down for one foot below the floor of cement which
covered the enclosure, and it has been preserved to us simply by its
solidity, its long through stones, and the way in which the stones have
supported one another. We investigated the smaller tower very
thoroughly, and found it also solid.

The religious purport of these towers would seem to be conclusively
proved by the numerous finds we made in other parts of the ruins of a
phallic nature (vide Chap. VI.), and I think a quotation from
Montfaucon’s ‘L’Antiquité Expliquée’ will give us the keynote of the
worship. ‘The ancients assure us that all the Arabians worshipped a
tower, which they called El Acara or Alquetila, which was built by
their patriarch, Ishmael.’ ‘Maximus of Tyre says they honoured as a
great god a great cut stone; this is apparently the same stone
resembling Venus, according to Euthymius Zygabenus. When the Saracens
were converted to Christianity they were obliged to anathematise this
stone, which formerly they worshipped.’ This tower doubtless
corresponded to the sacred tower of the Midianites, called Penuel, or
the ‘Face of God,’ which Gideon destroyed (Judges viii. 7). Allusions
to these towers are constant in the Bible, and the Arabian historian El
Masoudi further tells us that this stone or tower was eight cubits
high, and was placed in an angle of the temple, which had no roof.
Turning to Phœnician temple construction, we have a good parallel to
the ruins of the Great Zimbabwe at Byblos; as depicted on the coins,
the tower or sacred cone is set up within the temple precincts and shut
off in an enclosure (vide illustration, p. 150). Similar work is also
found in the round temples of the Cabiri, at Hadjar Kem in Malta, and
the construction of these buildings bears a remarkable resemblance to
that of those at Zimbabwe, and the round towers, or nuraghs, found in
Sardinia may possibly be of similar significance. MM. Perrot and
Chipiez, in their ‘History of Art in Sardinia,’ speak of these nuraghs
as forts or temples, around which the primitive inhabitants of the
island once lived. They are ‘truncated cones, built with stone blocks
of different sizes, narrowing to the top. The stones are unhewn as a
rule and laid on without mortar.’ Here too we have a parallel for our
monoliths, menhirs of unhewn stone, and also for the phalli, specimens
of which are found carved on stone (p. 57, figs. 49 and 50), and here
too the intricate plan of the fortresses suggests at once a parallel to
those at Zimbabwe; hence it would appear that the same influence was at
work in Sardinia as in South Africa. In Lucian’s ‘De Syriâ Deâ,’ which
we shall have occasion again to quote when discussing our finds in
Chapter VI., we find a description of a temple at Hierapolis, in
Mesopotamia, in the propylæa of which, he tells us (§ 16), ‘there stood
two very large phalli, about thirty cubits high.’ Our tower at Zimbabwe
stood apparently twenty cubits high and ten in diameter. He further
says (§ 29), ‘These phalli are solid, for when a priest had to ascend
he had to put a rope round himself and the phallus and walk up.’

Herr Mauch, in his account of Zimbabwe, alludes to a sacrifice which
took place here amongst the natives in his day (1871). This ceremony
seems to correspond very closely to the sacrifice celebrated elsewhere
in this country to the spirits of their ancestors. It is pretty evident
that another tribe of Kaffirs dwelt near Zimbabwe at that time, who
looked upon the circular building as sacred; whereas the present people
do not seem to look upon it with any religious superstition, which will
account for the growth of vegetable matter inside only during late
years. This was further evidenced by our excavations in this building;
we found but little depth of soil, very little débris, and indications
of a Kaffir occupation of the place up to a very recent date, and no
remains like those we afterwards discovered in the fortress.

The rest of the circular building, as the plan shows, is divided off
into various smaller enclosures, and in one spot we imagine, by
comparison with the temples on the hill, an altar stood; it is now only
a heap of rubbish. There are also three remarkable monoliths erected in
it, two near the north-western entrance and one behind the altar. They
are about 11 feet in height—rough, unhewn blocks of granite, firmly
buried in the ground. On the hill fortress, and also, as I have said,
on the wall of the circular building, the quantity of monoliths is very
marked, and stone-worship seems to have formed an integral feature in
the ancient cult of this place. MM. Perrot and Chipiez write (vol. i.
p. 58), ‘We find the worship of betylæ (βαιτύλια, bethels, i.e. sacred
stones) in every country reached by Phœnician influence’ (vide Chap.
VI). Probably we shall be more correct in considering it an even more
remote Semitic influence, which continued in vogue amongst the
Phœnicians until more recent times. Palgrave in his Arabian travels
also speaks of the many monoliths he saw in Lower Nejed: ‘Huge stones,
like enormous boulders, placed endways perpendicularly on the soil.
They were arranged in a curve, once forming part, it would appear, of a
large circle.... That the object of these strange constructions was in
some measure religious seems to me hardly doubtful ... in fact, there
is little difference between the stone wonder of Kaseem and that of
Wiltshire’ (Stonehenge).

The valley between the lower circular ruin and the fortress on the hill
is a mass of ruins. About a hundred yards from it, and connected by a
wall, is a curious angular enclosure, divided into several chambers at
different levels; it has three entrances, all of which are straight,
like those at the Lundi and Matindela, and not rounded off like those
in the circular ruin. The main entrance leads into two narrow passages:
the one going to the left is protected by an ambuscade; the other,
going to the right, ascends a slope, at the top of which evidently once
stood two round towers, the bases of which we excavated, and near them
we found several long pillars, presumably fallen monoliths. But here
again the Kaffirs had been living until a recent date, and consequently
we made no discoveries here. Outside this ruin we opened three kitchen
middens, and came across one or two small articles of interest.

Sloping down from this ruin into the valley below a narrow passage
conducts one through a perfect labyrinth of ruins. Some of these,
notably the large circular erection just outside the big temple, are of
very inferior workmanship, and would appear to have been constructed at
a much later period; whereas the wall surrounding a large space at the
bottom of the valley is as good as the best part of the large circular
building. We did not attempt any excavation amongst these, and if we
had I expect the results would have been unsatisfactory. All the
surface of them has been dug over and over again by generations of
Kaffirs for their mealy fields. There is a great growth of brushwood,
and probably a considerable depth of soil, which our limited appliances
and inexperienced workmen would have found it hard to deal with.

Again and again these circular ruins repeat themselves, always, if
possible, occupying a slightly raised ground for about a mile along a
low ridge, acting, doubtless, the double purpose of temples and
fortresses for separate communities, the inhabitants dwelling in
beehive huts of mud around. This, to my mind, is the probable
restoration of this ancient African settlement.

Down the valley to the north-west runs a long wall of irregular stones,
roughly put together, for a mile or more—such a wall as Kaffirs would
erect to-day to protect themselves from the advance of an enemy. This I
do not connect with the more ancient and regularly built edifices, but
it probably owes its erection to a period when Zulu hordes swept down
on the more peaceful and effeminate descendants of the Monomatapa.

Many were the miles we walked in every direction, around and on the
hill fortress, to the east, west, north, and south, intent on one
object—namely, that of finding indications of a cemetery, which the
ancient inhabitants of these ruins might have used—but our searches
were always in vain. Kaffir remains we found in abundance, and a small
cemetery of some twenty graves of rough stone piled over the bodies,
about ten miles from Zimbabwe, also Kaffir, but nothing else.
Consequently we came to the conclusion that the ancient inhabitants,
who formed but a garrison in this country, were in the habit of
removing their dead to some safer place. This plan seems to have a
parallel in Arabia in antiquity, a notable instance of which is to be
found on the Bahrein Islands, in the Persian Gulf, where acres and
acres of mounds contain thousands of tombs, and no vestige of a town is
to be found anywhere near them. The custom still prevails amongst the
Mohammedans of Persia, who transport their dead to such places as
Kerbela, Meshed, and Kum, to rest in the vicinity of some sacred
shrine; and the absence of any burial place near Zimbabwe would seem to
point to the same custom having prevailed here.

Having failed to bring to light any definite records of the past during
the first fortnight of our work, we naturally cast our eyes around for
the most likely spot to carry on our work, and our choice fell on the
south-western portion of the hill fortress. Here were certain
indications which struck us as favourable, and furthermore it occurred
to us that a spot situated on the shady side of the hill behind the
great rock might possibly be free from Kaffir desecration; and the
results of our excavations on this spot proved this to be the case, for
here, and here only, did we come across relics of the past in our
digging. In fact, the ancient builders seemed to have originally chosen
the most shady spots for their buildings. Undoubtedly the oldest
portions of the Zimbabwe ruins are those running along the sunless side
of the hill fortress; on the other side, where now the Kaffir village
is, we found hardly any trace of ancient structures. Our difficulty was
to get the shivering Kaffirs to work there, for whenever our backs were
turned they would hurry off to bask in the rays of their beloved sun.

I will now proceed to describe the hill fortress, approaching it from
the valley below. The labyrinthine nature of this fortress will best be
realised by a glance at the accompanying plan. The kopje itself is of
great natural strength, being protected on one side by gigantic granite
boulders, and on the south by a precipice from seventy to ninety feet
in height, and on the only accessible side the ancient inhabitants
constructed a wall of massive thickness, like those of the ruins below.
This wall is thirteen feet thick on the summit, with a batter of one
foot in six; it is thirty feet high in parts, and the flat causeway on
the top was decorated on the outside edge by a succession of small
round towers alternating with tall monoliths; seven round towers in all
we made out, about three feet in diameter, and several others had been
destroyed by the fall of a portion of the wall. This system of round
towers and monoliths produces one of the most peculiar and unique forms
of decoration I have ever seen.

To open out the approach to this fortress town was a work of
considerable time and labour; it will easily be seen by the plan how
intricate it is, protected at every turn with traverses and ambuscades,
and there commences at the bottom of the precipice a flight of steps
leading up the steep ascent. The architects availed themselves of a
narrow slit in the granite boulder, up which the steps led, the passage
being exceedingly narrow; then the path divided into two, one path
turning abruptly to the right, and at the turning a pretty little bit
of wall with the stones placed pointways for about a yard relieved the
monotony and formed a sort of dentelle pattern; then it led along a
narrow ledge over the precipice, and in spite of the impossibility of
attack at such a point it was nevertheless protected by traverses even
here. In fact, the redundancy of fortification all over this mountain,
the useless repetition of walls over a precipice itself inaccessible,
the care with which every hole in the boulders through which an arrow
could pass is closed, prove that the occupants were in constant dread
of attack, and lived like a garrison in the heart of an enemy’s
country.

At the summit of the mountain are huge boulders about fifty feet high.
Immediately below the highest is a curious little plateau which had
been decorated by the ancient occupiers; it is approached by narrow
passages and steps on either side, and a curious passage through the
wall below, covered with huge beams of granite to support the
superincumbent weight. The steps on one side were made of the same
strong cement, and the wall to the left was decorated with the same
design of stones, placed edgeways for six rows, that we had found at
the angle of the approach. The little plateau itself was adorned with
huge monoliths and decorated pillars of soapstone, the patterns on
which were chiefly of a geometric character, and one of which was
eleven and a half feet in height. Here too we unearthed many stones of
natural but curious forms, to which I shall have again occasion to
refer in Chapter VI.

The large semicircular space below this platform was a dense jungle
when we started to work upon it, consisting of nettles of extraordinary
pricking powers and other obnoxious plants, which our natives cleared
away with marvellous dexterity. In the centre of this building stood an
altar covered with a thick coating of cement, and several large blocks
of cement were lying about. In a wall in this enclosure was another of
those curious holes pierced through its thickness, and there was plenty
of evidence to show that this had once been a most prominent point in
the ancient structure, forming, as it does, by far the largest
available level space on the fortress, and must probably have been used
as an agora, where from the platform an assembled crowd could have been
addressed, and for religious celebrations on a large scale. The view
from it is extensive and magnificent over the Livouri and Bessa ranges,
and situated, as it is, far above the level of the marshy ground below,
it would be healthy and habitable during all seasons of the year.

The labyrinthine nature of the buildings now before us baffles
description. In one place is a narrow sloping gully, four feet across,
ascending between two boulders, and protected, for no conceivable
reason, by six alternate buttresses and a wall at the upper end,
forming a zigzag passage narrowed in one place to ten inches. Walls of
huge size shut off separate chambers. In all directions everything is
tortuous; every inch of ground is protected with buttresses and
traverses. Here too, as in the large circular building below, all the
entrances are rounded off, and I imagine that here we have quite the
oldest portion of the ruins, built at a time when defence was the main
object. When they were able to do so with safety, they next constructed
the circular temple below, and as time went on they erected the more
carelessly put together buildings around, which I have described.

The south-western end of this line of ruins was obviously a temple; it
has been lately used as a cattle pen by the chief, but the soil has not
been disturbed. On removing the soil we came across a level cement
floor, supported on an elaborate system of under-walls filled up with
large stones on which the cement floor rested, as was the case in the
raised platform in the circular temple below. In the centre stood the
altar, an angular structure of small granite blocks, which fell to
pieces a short time after exposure to the air; when we removed the soil
which had buried this altar, around it we found the phalli, the birds
or soapstone pillars, and fragments of soapstone bowls, which I shall
subsequently describe more in detail.

On a portion of the wall outside, as in the circular building below,
ran a pattern—a dentelle pattern formed by placing the stones edgeways,
with exactly the same aspect as the pattern below. To the north of the
temple a steep ascent, constructed on supporting walls, led through the
granite boulders to a hollow space walled in on one side, and protected
by the rocks on the other three; a rounded buttress guarded the
entrance, and in the centre stood two tall monoliths of slate firmly
fixed into the cement floor and the stones beneath; from this spot a
slope led up to the top of the rock, on which a terrace had been
constructed overlooking the temple and facing the rising sun. Another
gully between two boulders, only wide enough for one man to pass at a
time, led out of the temple to the side where the modern Kaffir village
is. This had also been anciently strongly protected.

The temple was approached from the lower ridge above the precipice by a
narrow passage between two high walls gently ascending to a flight of
steps. This passage ended in a most curious architectural
feature—namely, steps were formed leading to the temple on the one
side, and apparently only for ornamentation on the other, by continuing
the rounded courses of the outer wall so that they produced the effect
of two miniature theatres facing one another, and proving almost more
than any other point amongst the ruins the high pitch to which the
ancient builders had brought their knowledge of keeping even courses in
dry building. This point in the architecture proves the especial
attention paid by the constructors to curves, and these curves would
seem to have been constructed on the same principle as the curves in
the large circular building which Mr. Swan will discuss in Chapter V.

Adjoining the temple to the north is another semicircular building, the
inner wall of which has six vertical rows, six feet high, let into the
construction, as if for beams, with a ledge on the top, as if for a
roof. We were unable to form any opinion as to the use of this chamber,
and though we emptied it of soil we found nothing in it.

Between two boulders to the north-west of the temple led a narrow
passage, tortuously winding, with walls on either side wedged up
against the boulders, and every conceivable hole in the rocks was
walled up. This passage led to another open space protected on two
sides by rocks and on two by walls. This space was also full of wall
foundations; but, being open to the sun, it had been occupied and
ransacked by the Kaffirs.

To the south of the temple a flight of steps led down to the
gold-smelting furnaces and the caves, of which I shall speak more at
length in connection with the finds. This corner of the building was
the only one in which our excavations were successful, and I entirely
attribute this fact to its chilly and shady position—a spot studiously
avoided by the succeeding generations of Kaffir tribes for this reason.
Below the temple at the bottom of the precipice we commenced work, with
great hope of finding the other portions of the bowls, &c., which we
had found above. Here there is an enormous mass of fallen stones from
the buildings above, but amongst them we found surprisingly little of
interest. Perhaps a thorough excavation of this slope would yield
further results, as so many of our finds in the temple above are
fragmentary, and the presumption is that the other portions were thrown
over the precipice; but this will be a gigantic work, entailing an
enormous amount of labour and expenditure.

Such is the great fortress of Zimbabwe, the most mysterious and complex
structure that it has ever been my fate to look upon. Vainly one tries
to realise what it must have been like in the days before ruin fell
upon it, with its tortuous and well-guarded approaches, its walls
bristling with monoliths and round towers, its temple decorated with
tall, weird-looking birds, its huge decorated bowls, and in the
innermost recesses its busy gold-producing furnace. What was this life
like? Why did the inhabitants so carefully guard themselves against
attack? A thousand questions occur to one which one longs in vain to
answer. The only parallel sensation that I have had was when viewing
the long avenues of menhirs near Carnac, in Brittany, a sensation at
once fascinating and vexatious, for one feels the utter hopelessness of
knowing all one would wish on the subject. When taken alone this
fortress is sufficiently a marvel; but when taken together with the
large circular building below, the numerous ruins scattered around, the
other ruins of a like nature at a distance, one cannot fail to
recognise the vastness and power of this ancient race, their great
constructive ingenuity and strategic skill.

About eight miles from Zimbabwe, standing alone in a fertile valley,
there is another ruin which we visited, presumably of a later and
inferior date, for the courses and stones are irregular and correspond
to the later constructions at Zimbabwe. It too stands on a flat granite
rock, and its structure is equally intricate, as will be seen from the
plan. The natives know it by the name of the Little Zimbabwe, but for
purposes of investigation into the origin of the constructing race it
affords us no special point of value, which is the case also with most
of the other ruins which we visited, and nothing need be said about
them except to point out their existence. These remarks refer to the
ruins which we found at Metemo, Chilondillo, Chiburwe, and in the Mazoe
valley, all of which were obviously erected as forts to protect a
surrounding population. Some of them are of the best period of
workmanship, notably those at Chiburwe and in the Mazoe valley; others
are of inferior workmanship, with uneven courses and irregularly shaped
blocks of granite, proving that, as we find the two periods side by
side at the Great Zimbabwe, also we have them scattered over the
country.

The great ruin at Matindela is second only in importance to the Great
Zimbabwe itself, and merits a close description.

The circular building at Matindela encloses an area not far short of
that enclosed by the large circular building at the Great Zimbabwe; it
crowns a low sloping granite kopje about 150 feet in height. The place
is full of huge baobab trees, two of which in their growth have pushed
down and grown up in the walls themselves. There are those that tell us
about the fabulous age of the baobab, attributing an age of 5,000 years
to the larger ones. The Director of Kew Gardens, Mr. Thiselton Dyer,
tells me that this is grossly exaggerated, and that a few centuries is
probably all that can be attributed to the very largest. Be this as it
may, the baobabs have grown up and arrived at maturity long after the
building of the Matindela ruins and their subsequent abandonment.

The best built portion of the wall has the same aspect as that at the
Great Zimbabwe; but the other side, corresponding to the worst built
part of the Zimbabwe wall, has never been completed at Matindela; the
fact that the south-eastern side has been so strongly built and so much
trouble has been spent on its decoration, and that the north side is
comparatively open and neglected, and that the hill is equally
assailable from both sides, leads one naturally to infer that the idea
of a temple is here more prominent than that of a fortress.

The walls at Matindela are nowhere more than fifteen feet in height,
nor are the courses nearly as regular as those at the Great Zimbabwe;
but the great feature of interest is here the arrangement of the
patterns, which establish beyond a doubt that they were inserted in the
walls for a more complex purpose than mere ornamentation. The
arrangement of these patterns is as follows: First to the south-east
comes the herring-bone pattern, running over the chief entrance as a
lintel for six yards. Here it ends, and two feet below begins the
dentelle pattern for the same distance; then the pattern stops
altogether on the outside, but there are indications that it was
continued on the inside instead. Then it is again inserted for forty
feet on the outside, and finally is again put on the inside for the
remainder of its extent—namely, thirteen feet. Above the pattern and
nearly over the principal entrance a curious loophole is still left
standing, and the best portion of the wall has been battlemented, the
outside portion being raised in front two or three feet higher than the
back. The wall is eleven feet six inches at its thickest, and on the
top of it we saw holes in which monoliths evidently once stood, as they
did on the wall of the circular building at the Great Zimbabwe.

Another very marked feature at Matindela is that the doorways are all
square, like those at the Lundi ruin, and not rounded off, as those at
Zimbabwe, and then again all these doorways have been walled up in an
uniform fashion, the courses corresponding exactly to those of the rest
of the wall. In the original construction of the building certain
spaces of seven feet had been left in the wall; two feet on either side
had then been built up, thus leaving an entrance of three feet, which
entrance in its turn had also been walled up. Here, as at the Great
Zimbabwe, the theory at once occurred to me that these places had been
walled up at a time of siege; but when one takes into consideration the
care with which these apertures have been walled up, and the triple
nature of the added wall, this theory seems untenable. The walling up
of the pylons in certain Egyptian temples at Karnak, which Prof. Norman
Lockyer brought before my notice, seems an apt parallel, though the
reasons for so doing do not seem to my mind at present sufficiently
proved. It must also be borne in mind that the walling up of the
principal entrance at Matindela must have taken place prior to the
construction of the pattern which rests upon it.

The interior of this building, as will be seen from the plan, was
divided up into chambers, as the other ruins at Zimbabwe, but the walls
here are much straighter, and the circular system of construction seems
to have been more or less abandoned. I take it that this ruin at
Matindela was constructed by the same race at a period of decadence,
when the old methods of building had fallen into desuetude.

Outside the walls of the temple or fortress we found many circular
foundations, very regularly built of granite blocks, and varying in
diameter from six to fifteen feet. They were built in groups at
considerable intervals apart, and we counted over forty of them. Some
of these circular foundations have a double circle, as if for a step;
the probability is that they formed the foundations of stone huts like
those found in the Marico district of the Transvaal, and were the homes
of the ancient inhabitants under the protecting wing of the
temple-fortress. There are no traces of these circular foundations
within the walls of the enclosure, but all were found outside within a
radius of two hundred yards. There are traces, too, of other buildings
about half-way down the slope of the granite hills, two walls parallel
to one another, about thirty feet long, with doorways and six circular
foundations outside them. There are also two depressions on the eastern
side of the hill, now filled up with timber, which were probably the
quarries from which the builders obtained the stone for their work.

About twelve miles to the north of Matindela, near a mountain called
Chiburwe, on another low granite hill, we found another fort with
similar circular foundations on the plain around it. This fort is about
forty feet in diameter, and the walls are of the best period, with
courses far more even than those of Matindela, and the stones of more
uniform size and fitting more closely, corresponding to the best of the
buildings at the Great Zimbabwe. Here, too, was another gigantic baobab
tree, which had grown up in the wall and knocked it down; and here,
too, the south-eastern portion of the wall is much better and thicker
than the rest, which has in places either never existed or fallen down;
but the destruction here was so complete that it was impossible to tell
if there ever had been a pattern on it or not.








CHAPTER V

ON THE ORIENTATION AND MEASUREMENTS OF ZIMBABWE RUINS.

BY R. M. W. SWAN.


The form of nature worship which was practised at Zimbabwe found one of
its expressions in the worship of the sun, and we have evidence of this
cult in some architectural features and decorations of the temples
themselves, and in the many images of the solar disc which were found
in the temples along with the other symbols of the worship of
reproductive power. It was very natural that these two cults should be
associated together or merged in one, and it was common to many early
peoples to think of the sun in conjunction with moisture as the great
creator of all vegetable fertility, for even the most casual
observation would show them that in the dark days of winter the
vegetable world seemed to sleep, and that it only awoke to activity
when the sun’s rays had become more powerful and while the soil was
still moistened by rain.

All religions have their times and seasons for special ceremonies of
worship, and the appropriate time for the greatest of these festivals
of solar worship would be at mid-summer, when the sun seemed most
brilliant and his rays most energetic. Accordingly we find that at
Zimbabwe means had been provided for ascertaining the time of the
summer solstice, and that the side of the temple which faced the rising
sun at this period of the year was adorned with a decoration symbolical
of fertility.

But the temples at Zimbabwe seem also to have served a more directly
practical purpose than that of mere worship of the powers of nature,
and while regulating the festivals held in honour of natural powers, to
have provided the means of observing the passage of the seasons and of
fixing the limits of a tropical year, and thus providing the elements
of a calendar.

The duration of a day is clearly marked by an apparent revolution of
the sun, and from the most remote antiquity a month has been equivalent
to the length of a lunation; but there is no equally obvious
astronomical phenomenon to enable the length of the year to be fixed;
and although the difference between summer and winter is very apparent
in most climates, there is nothing which very obviously defines the
limits of these seasons, and the periods of spring and autumn are even
less marked. But the dates of all festivals in solar worship would have
some relation to the seasons; and, besides, the times for agricultural
and many other operations would require to be fixed, and it would thus
be doubly necessary to find means of marking the progress of the year.
By most ancient peoples twelve lunations were considered to be equal to
a tropical year, but it was soon discovered that this was not so, for
the several months did not long coincide with their appropriate
seasons, and so the history of most ancient calendars tells of devices
to make the twelve lunar months of 29½ days each correspond with the
tropical year of 365¼ days. At Zimbabwe things seem to have been better
arranged, unless there, too, as in ancient Egypt, they had their
troublesome civil year measured by twelve revolutions of the moon, in
addition to their sacred year measured in the temples by an apparent
revolution of the sun among the stars.

The simplest way of ascertaining the period of a tropical year is by
observing the position of the sun relatively to the equator, or its
declination, and this can conveniently be done either when the sun is
on the horizon or on the meridian, but most easily with accuracy in the
former way, as the angle to be subdivided will generally be greater,
and greater accuracy will be attained, because long shadows can more
conveniently be used in this way than in the other. Or the right
ascension of the sun might also be observed; that is, its place among
the stars, or its position in the zodiac. This can be found most
readily by observing the heliacal rising of stars, or the meridian
passage of stars when the sun is near the horizon. At Zimbabwe all of
these methods seem to have been used, and to do so does not necessarily
imply more astronomical knowledge than is possessed by the peasantry in
any of the more secluded districts of Europe, where watches are not
much used, and where almanacks are not read, but where the people have
the habit of telling the time of the day and of the year by the motions
of the sun and of the stars; for to an agricultural people the change
in position of the sun in summer and winter is as obvious as the
seasons themselves, and the variation of the times of rising of the
stars with the seasons can as little escape observation. Herodotus
tells us that the Greeks used the gnomon to measure the length of
shadows, and thus ascertain the position of the sun at midday, or its
declination. The Chinese also used it at a very early period, and we
have similar arrangements in some of our modern churches. Instances of
the observation of the position of the sun on the horizon, except at
Zimbabwe, are few and doubtful, although gnomons seem sometimes to have
been used for this purpose; but ancient literature contains very many
references to the observation of the heliacal risings of stars, and
ancient architectural remains illustrate these literary allusions.
Hesiod often speaks of the times of different agricultural operations
having been fixed by the rising of stars, and Egyptian records tell us
that the rising of Sirius was observed at the overflowing of the Nile;
also it has recently been found that both Egyptian and Greek temples
were generally built so that the rising of some star could be observed
from their sanctuaries, and a coincidence has been traced between the
date of the great festival proper to each temple and the time of the
heliacal rising of the star towards which the axis of the temple was
originally directed. The Malays, at the beginning of this present
century, had a tradition that their seed-time had in old days been very
well fixed by the rising of the Pleiades, but that since they had
become Mohammedans the festivals of their religion and its calendar did
not so well regulate their seed-time as was done in old times. It has
been found that means were provided by the ancient Egyptians for
observing the meridian transits of stars; and did we possess detailed
and carefully oriented plans of the temples of Chaldæa and Assyria,
there is little doubt that we should find that the meridian had been
observed there also.

Thus it is evident that the several means which were adopted at
Zimbabwe for observing the motions of the heavenly bodies were used in
other countries also, and in all cases they seem to have been used for
regulating the time of celebration of religious festivals as well as
the ordinary affairs of life. Forms of nature worship analogous to that
practised at Zimbabwe seem often to have been accompanied in other
countries by an observation of the heavenly bodies. It is also worthy
of note that the stars which were observed at Zimbabwe seem all to have
been northern ones, and the builders of these temples probably acquired
the habit of observing these stars in the northern hemisphere. To this
we shall refer again.

What El Masoudi says of the temples of the Sabæans of Mesopotamia does
not, of course, directly apply to the temples at Zimbabwe; but in the
plans of those temples one is reminded of the multiform temples which
he describes, and of the mysteries involved in some of their
architectural features which he could not fathom, for in these temples
of Mashonaland there are some curious evidences of design in plan. A
glance at the plan of the great temple suggests that the architects had
carelessly drawn a great ellipse on the ground and built round it,
getting occasionally out of line and leaving occasional doorways; but
when one realises the wonderfully careful nature of the masonry, and
the great accuracy with which the comparatively rough stones have been
laid in regular courses, and been forced to combine to produce regular
forms, and when a careful plan of the whole building has been made,
then it is seen that what were regarded as careless irregularities in
construction are, in reality, carefully constructed architectural
features, which doubtless had some religious significance to the
worshippers, but whose meaning remains a mystery to us.

The walls which are lightly shaded in the accompanying plans are much
inferior in construction to the more darkly shaded walls, for while the
latter are built in most regular courses, and the stones are most
carefully packed in the whole thickness of the walls, the former,
though sometimes having the exterior courses laid with some regularity,
are most carelessly built in their interior, and the stones seem to
have been laid in anyhow, and consequently there is a great difference
in the durability of these walls; and while it would almost be possible
to drive a cart along the top of the better-built part of the outer
wall, one can only creep along the top of the worse-built portion while
risking a fall. Besides, the better-built and the worse-built portions
of the outer wall do not unite near the great doorway, and the
foundation of the well-built walls turns outward, as is shown in the
plan. The worse-built walls of all the temples do not show any of the
peculiarities of design so characteristic of the better walls, except
in two instances, where they seem to be rough reconstructions of older
walls. We may, therefore, assume that these poorer walls are not of the
original period, and that they were built by a people who either did
not practise solar worship or who did not do so under the original
forms. We will, therefore, disregard the poor walls in studying the
plans of the temples. It is much to be regretted that we could recover
no plan of the western side of the original outer wall, as it might
have made clear to us the meaning of many of the features of the
eastern wall.

The most important feature in the interior of the temple is, of course,
the great tower, which is a marvel of workmanship in rough material,
and in the truth of its lines almost as wonderful as the column of a
Greek temple. We could at first discover no reason for its being built
in its peculiar position. It has not been placed with any reference to
the points of the compass nor to the bearing of the sun at the
equinoxes, and its position is only indirectly connected with the
position of the sun at the solstices. But it is in the middle of the
space marked off by the two inner doorways, and the more easterly of
these two doorways is at the point where the sun would appear when
rising at the summer solstice when regarded from the central altar, as
will be shown farther on; and the other doorway is at the point where
the decoration on the outer wall terminates, and that is at the part of
the wall where the sun’s rays would be tangential to its curve when
rising at the same solstice. The portion of the outer wall behind the
above-mentioned sacred enclosure is built in the form of a circular arc
with its two extremities at B and K, and its centre at P, and the tower
stands midway between these points. Close to the great tower is the
little one, and no reason for its position suggests itself; but the
relative proportions of the two towers are curious, and seem to offer
an explanation of the plan of some other parts of the building—in fact,
the diameter of the great tower seems to have represented the unit of
measure in the construction of the curves of the outer walls and of all
the regularly curved inner walls in the great temple, and in all the
well-built temples in Mashonaland. The diameter of the great tower at
its base is 17·17 feet or 10 cubits, [9] and this is exactly equal to
the circumference of the little tower. This ratio of circumference to
diameter and the above measure of 10 cubits seem together to have
determined either the length of the radius or diameter, or halves of
these, of all the circular curves on which many of the walls are built.
For instance, the radius of the curve behind the great tower is 169⅓
feet, and this is equal to the diameter of the great tower multiplied
by the square of the ratio of circumference to diameter; or 17·17 ×
3·142 = 169·34. The well-built partly circular enclosure to the
north-west of the tower has a diameter of 54 feet, and this is equal to
17·17 × 3·14. The curve of the outer wall, from the eastern end of the
sacred enclosure (at K) to A is circular, and has its centre at the
altar, and its radius is 107⅘ feet. This is equal to twice 17·17 ×
3·14. This length of 107⅘ feet is also the exact distance between the
middle points of the two doorways at either end of the sacred
enclosure. The curve of the outer wall from A to the great doorway
seems to have a similar radius to the arc behind the tower, namely,
169⅓ feet, but in our measurements there we hardly fixed a sufficient
number of points in the line of the wall to make quite certain of this.
The inner long wall is parallel to the outer one until it reaches the
sacred enclosure, so it may be considered as combined with the outer
wall for our present purpose. Besides these there are no well-built
curved walls in the great temple, except the piece of wall near the
monoliths at M, and it is too short to allow of the centre of its curve
being laid down with certainty of accuracy. It does not, however, seem
to belie this system of measurement.

We need hardly expect to find the same measure always applying to the
buildings on the hill, for the form of these buildings is often
controlled by the nature of the ground. Still they do apply, and the
diameter of the curve on which the wall of the eastern temple is built
is 84½ feet, which is equal to half of 17·17 × 3·142. Of the two curved
walls on the left hand when entering this temple from the south the
diameter of the curve of one is equal to 17·17 × 3·14, and the radius
of the other is 17·17 feet. The only other regularly curved wall on the
hill is the western great wall with monoliths and round towers, and the
diameter of the circle of which the curve of this wall forms a part is
254 feet, and this does not agree with our system of measure. But this
wall and its towers are not well built, and there is good reason to
suppose that it is not the original wall, or that the outer portion of
it is not original; and, in fact, we discovered the foundation of part
of another parallel wall, as is partly shown in plan, six feet west of
this wall. If this were the original wall, it would give a diameter of
266 feet for the circle, which is half of 17·17 × 3·143.

At Matindela the only regularly curved piece of wall is that about the
principal doorway, but it is so rough in its construction that one
hesitates to deal with it, and we can only say that it seems to be
built on a curve of 107⅘ feet radius = twice 17·17 × 3·14. The whole
appearance of this wall and the slight inaccuracies in the orientation
of the decorations which it carries, suggest that it is a more recent
wall built roughly as a copy of an original wall on the same
foundation.

The ruin at the Lundi River is circular in form and well built, and its
diameter is fifty-four feet, which is equal to 17·17 × 3·14.

Of course all the above measurements refer to the outside of the walls
at the base, as this is the way in which the tower itself was measured.

The same principle of measurement applies to the curves which determine
the shape of the two towers themselves, and this explains why it is
that the little tower tapers much more rapidly towards the top than
does the great one. If we describe a circular curve with its centre on
the same level as the base of the great tower and its radius equal to
twice 17·17 x 3·14 on 107⅘ feet, we find that it exactly fits the
outline of the great tower as it is shown in our photographs. Also, a
curve described in a similar way but with a radius equal to twice the
diameter of the little tower multiplied by 3·14 (5·45 × 3·14 × 2 =
34·34 feet) will correspond to the outline of that tower.

The towers when built were doubtless made complete in their
mathematical form and were carried up to a point as we see in a coin of
Byblos, where we have a similar tower represented with curved outlines.
Their heights as determined by these curves would be 42·3 and 13·5 feet
respectively, and these numbers also bear the same relation to each
other that the circumference of a circle does to its diameter.

We have no explanation to give of the position of the little tower
relatively to the great one, but there probably was some meaning in it
which might appear had we a plan of the original walls around the
towers. It is very doubtful that these walls, which now mark off the
sacred enclosure, are of the same period as the towers. They are shaded
darkly in our plan because they are fairly well built; but although
they are better built than most of the secondary walls, yet they are
not equal in point of execution to the great outer wall and the towers,
and their lines, too, are not so regular as those of the original walls
generally are. It seems probable that they are rough copies of some old
walls which had fallen, and are wanting in some of the essential
features of their originals. We can only say that the centre of one
tower is distant 17·17 feet from the centre of the other, within a
limit of error of two inches.

The angular height of both the towers measured from the centres of the
curves which determine their forms is the same—namely 23° 1′.

None of the angular values of the arcs seem to have been of any special
significance, except perhaps the angle at the altar in the great
temple, which is subtended by the arc AK. The value of this angle is
about 57°, and is equal to our modern unit of the circular measure of
an angle, which is the angle at the centre of any circle that is
subtended by an arc equal to the radius. It is hardly likely that it
can have had this meaning to the builders of the temple, and the
probable cause of the coincidence is that at A they meant to halve the
angular distance between K and the doorway. Besides, the sun’s rays,
when it rises at the summer solstice, do not fall directly on the part
of the wall beyond A, and this probably had some connection with their
reason for changing the radius of the arc at this point.

There is no evidence that any of the trigonometrical functions were
known to the builders of Zimbabwe; not even the chord, which was
probably the earliest recognised function of an angle, for the chords
of the various arcs bear no simple relation to each other. The only
interesting mathematical fact which seems to have been embodied in the
architecture of the temples is the ratio of diameter to circumference,
and it may have had an occult significance in the peculiar form of
nature worship which was practised there. We do not suppose that it was
intended to symbolise anything of an astronomical nature, and it is
extremely improbable that the builders of Zimbabwe had any notion of
mathematical astronomy, for their astronomy was purely empirical, and
amounted merely to an observation of the more obvious motions of the
heavenly bodies. When the minds of men were first interested in
geometry it would at once occur to them that there must be some
constant ratio between the circumference of a circle and its diameter,
and they would easily discover what this ratio was, and they may have
considered this discovery so important and significant that they
desired to express it in their architecture. Analogous instances of an
embodiment of simple mathematical principles in architectural forms
will occur to every one.

The centres of the arcs seem generally to have been important points,
and altars were sometimes erected at them from which the culminations
or meridian transits of stars could be observed, and on which
sacrifices were probably offered to the sun when it was rising or
setting at either of the solstices.

Around the outside of the wall of the great temple, between the points
marked A and B on plan, there extend two bands of a kind of chevron
pattern, formed, as will be seen from the illustrations, by placing
stones on their edges. This pattern seems to have been symbolical of
fertility, and it extends along the part of the wall which receives
directly the rays of the sun when rising at the summer solstice. It
reminds one of the Egyptian hieroglyphic symbol for water, and of how
naturally the idea of water would be associated with fertility in the
mind of a solar worshipper. It also resembles the symbol for the
zodiacal sign of Aquarius, and we might suppose that the temple was
built when the sun was in this sign of the zodiac at the summer
solstice, did such a supposition not carry us back to too remote a
period. Besides, the sun is generally believed to have been in
Capricornus at the December solstice at the period at which the zodiac
was invented, and when its signs received their names.

One hundred and seven and four-fifths feet from A and the same distance
from K and from B is the centre of the arc AK, and at this point is
some ruined masonry which seems once to have formed an altar. Zimbabwe
is in South latitude 20° 16′ 30″, and consequently the sun, when rising
there at the summer solstice, would bear East 25° South were the
horizon level. But Mount Varoma interposes itself between the temple
and the rising sun at this time, so that the sun attains an altitude of
5° before its rays reach the temple. Then its amplitude will be more
nearly 24°, and a line produced in this direction from the altar will
pass across the doorway of the sacred enclosure, where the curve of the
wall changes its radius, and, roughly speaking, through the middle of
the chevron pattern. The same line drawn in an opposite direction for
seventy-three feet would fall on a tall monolith which we there found
lying by its well-built foundation. Where the pattern ends at A and B
the rays of the sun are nearly tangential to the wall, so that all
parts of the wall, and those parts only, which receive the direct rays
of the sun when rising at the summer solstice are decorated by this
symbolical pattern.

The sun’s rays would not fall on the altar at this time, and it seems
strange to have an altar devoted to solar worship under the shadow of a
wall; but the same objection would apply to every part of the interior
of the temple, and we can hardly suppose that the priests at Zimbabwe
performed their ceremonies of worship outside of the temple, as some
tribes of Arabs do with some stone circles at the present day, neither
is there any sign of such ceremonies having been performed on the top
of the broad wall. The monolith, seventy-three feet from the altar, was
sufficiently tall to receive the rays of the sun when it rose over
Mount Varoma, and the shadow of a monolith erected on the wall at K
would fall on it at the same time, thus marking with great accuracy the
occurrence of the solstice. Monoliths had been erected at intervals
along the decorated part, and only on this part, of the wall, and these
may have served to indicate other periods of the year in a similar way.

Near the top of the great tower, which at present stands thirty-two
feet high, there is a dentelle pattern, which may be described as a
chevron pattern laid on its side, and which resembles a common Egyptian
pattern. This extends partly round the tower, but it is impossible to
determine its aspect with accuracy as so much of it has fallen away. It
seems, however, to have faced the setting sun at the winter solstice.

At the temple at the east end of the fortress on the hill similar means
are provided for observing the summer solstice. Only a small part of
the decorated wall remains, the middle part, which was of great height,
having fallen, so that we do not know how far the decoration may have
extended towards the south. On the other side it terminates at the
doorway, which is placed close to the high cliff which forms the
northern side of the temple. We discovered the altar, with several
phalli and many little terracotta images of the solar disc lying near
it, and some among the stones of the altar. This altar is not at the
centre of the arc, but is placed ten feet nearer the rising sun at the
solstice, and its position seems to be due to the position of the break
in the cliff, which is true north of the altar, so that the meridian
can be observed through this passage from the altar in its actual
position, and it could not have been observed from the altar were it
placed at the centre of the arc. It was impossible to describe the arc
with the altar as its centre owing to the position of some rocks which
would have interfered with the building of the wall. At the summer
solstice the sun rises here on a level horizon and bears East 25°
South, and a line drawn from the altar in this direction passes through
the pattern, and continued for ten feet in the opposite direction it
would fall on the centre of the arc.

The great curved wall at the western end of the fortress, which is
surmounted by little round towers and erect monoliths, faces the
setting sun at the winter solstice. If we suppose the altar was placed
here, we have on an eminence marked A, fifty feet true north of the
altar, a tall monolith which would enable the meridian transits of
northern stars to be observed from the altar, and a line drawn from
this altar towards the setting sun at the winter solstice would seem to
have passed through the middle of the line of towers and monoliths.
This great wall is not so well built as the walls at the eastern
temple, and it seems probable that it is a restoration of an old wall
which was originally parallel to this, and whose foundations we
discovered as already mentioned. Possibly on the original wall the
round towers and monoliths were aligned between the altar and the
setting sun at certain definite periods of the year. At present they do
not seem to mark any important periods, but the position of the setting
sun at the summer solstice is well marked by a round tower on the wall
overhanging the high cliff, and this is undoubtedly a wall of the best
period.

At this western end of the fortress we have two instances of parts of
walls which faced the setting sun at the winter solstice being
decorated by a dentelle pattern.

The disposition of the ornamental patterns on the little round ruin at
the Lundi River is interesting. It faces the rising sun at the winter
solstice, but the place had been inhabited by Kaffirs, and all vestige
of an altar, if it ever existed, had been destroyed. The nature of the
patterns here is different from that of those at Zimbabwe. The one near
the top of the wall is composed of two rows of little squares
alternating with blank spaces, and a little way below this are two rows
of a herring-bone pattern. There is a curious rounded protuberance on
the outside of the wall, and the herring-bone pattern stops at this
point, but the other extends right round to the south-eastern doorway.

This temple is similar in many ways to the partly circular one
north-west of the great tower at Zimbabwe. They have both the same
diameter and they each have two doorways which are in somewhat similar
positions, although the temple at the Lundi is oriented towards the
rising sun at the winter solstice, and the other, if it ever had a
pattern, would have had it facing the setting sun at this solstice.

The dentelle pattern on the great tower seems to have been oriented
towards the setting sun at the winter solstice, and the centre of the
partly circular temple at G is roughly in a line between the centre of
the tower and the sun at this time. When the sun is rising at the
summer solstice G will be behind the tower and in the middle of its
shadow, in a position analogous to that of the altar behind the arc AK.
The direction of the wall at the north-eastern extremity of the arc of
which G is the centre is towards the rising sun at the winter solstice,
and its inner side points past the centre of the arc AK [10] towards
the point of the outer wall which is in a straight line between the
altar and the sun when it rises at this solstice. The wall at the other
extremity of the arc points to the rising sun at the other solstice.

It is perhaps worthy of remark that the centre of the great tower is
distant the length of its own height (42·3 feet) from the solstitial
line MK, while the centre of the little tower would be the same
distance from a parallel solstitial line drawn from the south-eastern
extremity of the arc of which G is the centre; and also that the
centres of the great tower and the centres of the arcs AK and KB lie in
one straight line.

At Matindela the general aspect of the decorated part of the building
is towards the setting sun, but the masonry is so rough in its
construction that we need expect little accuracy in orientation. The
whole appearance of the place suggests that what exists at present is
merely a rough rebuilding of an older structure. What remains of the
internal arrangements of the building is very fragmentary, and we could
find no trace of an altar. Over the doorway there is a herring-bone
pattern facing the setting sun at the summer solstice, and adjoining
this on its north side there is a band of ornament of the dentelle kind
with a similar aspect. Above this dentelle pattern there is a loophole
in the wall which may have served to pass a ray of light from the
setting sun to an altar at some festival. Farther along the wall there
is another pattern facing the setting sun at the winter solstice, and
on the inside of the wall yet another looking towards the rising sun at
the summer solstice. The construction of the doorways at Matindela is
remarkable. They have been originally made of considerable width, and
then been narrowed very much by square masses of masonry which were
built at both sides. The direction of the doorways also seems to have
some meaning, for three of them look East 25° North, and four East 25°
South, thus corresponding to the direction of the sun rising and
setting at the solstices.

At the Mazoe Valley, and to the north-east of Matindela, near Mount
Chiburwe, there are well-built ruins of the best period of this style
of architecture, but, unfortunately, too little of them remains to
allow us to understand their plans. They are both very small, and are
not circular, like the Lundi River ruin, but their walls seem to have
been built on a series of curves like the wall of the great temple. A
very extraordinary thing regarding all the older ruins in Mashonaland
is the way in which the stones which once composed the walls have
disappeared. They have not been covered up by soil, and there is no
trace of them in the surrounding country, and yet in these two ruins
not one-twentieth part of the stones remain, and all that do remain are
in their original places in the walls.

When the western wall was rebuilt at the great temple at Zimbabwe there
was apparently a want of stones, and the rebuilders were too lazy to
procure more, so they probably shortened the wall by decreasing the
size of the temple, and also economised stones by making the new wall
much less thick.

The place marked A near the western end of Zimbabwe Hill is remarkable.
It is a natural eminence, the height of which has been increased by
building. To the south of it is a great mass of masonry which is
pierced by several roofed passages, and over which a winding stairway
leads from the eastern buildings to the eminence, while a similar
staircase leads from the eminence towards the buildings lying
northward. To the eastward of the eminence tower great granite
boulders, the termination at this end of that line of boulders which
caps the hill along its whole length, and which protects the fortress
on the north side. At the highest point of the eminence is erected the
great monolith before referred to, which seems to have marked the
meridian for the altar at R. Close to this monolith stood another made
of soapstone. We found its base in its place, and its other fragments,
shown in the illustration, were all discovered near. This monolith was
decorated with bands of the chevron pattern running halfway round, with
images of the sun and other geometrical patterns placed between the
bands. It seems probable that it served as a gnomon, and that means had
been provided for measuring the length of its shadow at midday. The
foundation of the monolith is twenty-five feet higher than the site of
the altar, and the monolith itself was ten feet long, so that we have a
total height for its summit of thirty-five feet above the base of the
altar, and it stood fifty feet true north of the altar. At Zimbabwe the
altitude of the upper limb of the sun at midday, at the winter
solstice, is about 46½°, so that the top of the monolith would then
throw its shadow in the direction of the altar, and to within about
seventeen feet of its centre. Probably some arrangement had been made
near the altar for observing the length of its shadow; and were the
shadow received on an inclined plane or staircase, as seems to have
been done with the dial of Ahaz, mentioned in the Old Testament, it
might be lengthened to any extent and its variations in length
increased in magnitude; and so the change in declination of the sun
could be observed with considerable accuracy. The sun is little more
than three degrees south of Zimbabwe at midsummer, and it would be
difficult to measure with accuracy the short shadows then cast, and we
do not find anything to show that they had been observed, and the means
provided in the two other temples for observing the position of the sun
on the horizon would be much more effectual for fixing this solstice.

The positions of the doorways relatively to the altars or the centres
of the arcs is of interest; and we find that every important doorway in
walls of the original period, with the exception of the south-eastern
doorway in the temple at the Lundi, and the south-western one in the
partly circular interior temple at Zimbabwe, is placed true north of
the centre of an arc or of an altar, and the centre of every arc has
had a doorway or some other means of marking out the meridian placed
north of it. True north of the centre of the tower itself we have a
doorway in the wall of the sacred enclosure, and although the wall in
which this doorway is made was probably not built at the original
period, yet there probably was a doorway in a similar position in the
wall which it has replaced. The part of the great outer wall north of
the tower seems also to have been marked, for about this point we found
a great step constructed on its top about five feet high.

Above the temple at the east end of the fortress on the hill, a cliff
rises perpendicularly for fifty feet, and poised on its top there
stands a most remarkable great rock which may once have been an object
of veneration to the worshippers in the temple beneath it. It forms one
of the highest points on the hill. A line drawn true south from this
rock and produced 680 yards would pass through the doorway in the great
temple and fall on the altar in the centre of the decorated arc. Until
this line suggested itself we were puzzled to account for the peculiar
character of the doorway. It passes through a wall sixteen feet thick,
and is itself only three feet wide, and it does not pass through the
wall at right angles, but cuts it somewhat obliquely, so that its axis
is roughly parallel to the meridian line.

A line drawn true north from the centre of the arc at G will pass
through the doorway of the small temple and the centre of the arc KB at
P. This line points through the outer wall where the gap occurs, and it
is probable that the opening which was made in the outer wall to allow
of observation along this line, determined its fall at this point. This
meridian line is thirty-six feet distant from the other from the centre
of the arc AK, and it must have pointed to the same great stone. But if
both these lines point to the middle of this stone, which is 680 yards
distant, they will incline towards each other about one degree, and the
time of the transit of a star over the stone observed by one line will
differ four minutes from that observed by the other. This inaccuracy
would be so obvious to the observers that we cannot suppose they would
have worked in this way. The great stone measures nearly, if not quite,
thirty-two feet across, and were the lines directed, not both to its
centre, but one to either side, they would be parallel to each other
and would both give the same time for a transit of a star. This would
imply that stars were observed, not passing over the stone, but
disappearing and reappearing behind it, and a star observed at the
altar to disappear would at the same instant reappear to an observer at
G and P; or if the rock were less than thirty-two feet wide the star
would reappear at G and P before it disappeared at the altar. We have
thus a sort of double observation of the same meridian transit.

If we admit that these meridian lines were used for the observation of
stars in this way, and if we can determine what star or stars were
observed, the time that has elapsed since they were observed admits of
calculation. The apparent altitude of the middle of the stone as seen
from the centres of the arcs is 7½°, and the latitude of Zimbabwe is
20° 16′ 30″, so that we want stars having a north polar distance of
about 28°. Owing to the changing direction of the pole of the earth,
which produces the phenomenon of the precession of the equinoxes, the
declinations and right ascensions of all the stars are undergoing a
slow but regular change; but there are no stars of the first magnitude
which have had approximately this polar distance since any probable
date of the foundation of Zimbabwe. Of stars of the second magnitude
there are four, and of the third magnitude many more, which may have
been used, and they would all serve for widely different periods. In
order to enable us to select the proper star from this number we must
have its right ascension, and this we may yet hope to get when we have
the date of some important yearly festival at Zimbabwe, and the hour at
which the star would be wanted on the meridian on the night of this
festival.

There are two other places where the meridian transits of stars have
been watched at Zimbabwe, and in these cases it is still the same
portion of the heavens which has been observed. The altar in the
eastern temple in the fortress has been placed ten feet E.S.E. of the
centre of the arc, in order to permit of the meridian being observed
through the gap in the rock which formed the northern doorway. Here the
line laid off is much shorter than that between the rock and the great
temple, but still fairly accurate observations could be made. To the
north of the centre of the arc of the great wall of the western temple
there is, as we have already shown, a great monolith erected, and at
one side of this the stars might be observed at their culminations. As
seen from the altar this monolith would mark out an angular distance of
9° of the meridian.

It is remarkable that only stars of the northern hemisphere seem to
have been observed at Zimbabwe, for in the great temple itself the
culminations of southern stars could quite as easily have been observed
as those of northern ones, and in the fortress all view of the northern
sky is almost completely shut off by the cliffs and huge boulders which
form its northern line of defence; yet every point from which northern
stars could have been observed has been used for this purpose, and
there is no temple there from which northern stars were not observed,
while at the same time the openly displayed southern sky has been left
unregarded. This, of course, points to a northern origin for the
people, and suggests that before they came to Zimbabwe they had
acquired the habit of observing certain stars—a habit so strong that it
led them to disregard the use of the southern constellations, though
they must have known that they would equally well have served to
regulate their calendar; it even seems to indicate that they attached
ideas of veneration to certain stars, and rendered them worship. It
seems a plausible supposition that while the great temple itself was
devoted to solar and analogous forms of worship, the little circular,
or partly circular, temples within its walls, of which we found one
fairly well preserved and fragmentary remains of several others, were
dedicated to the cult of particular stars.

There is no sign in the temples of any observation of anything external
to the temples themselves, unless of the heavenly bodies; and no
features of the surrounding country, such as prominent mountain-peaks
or great isolated rocks, of which there are many striking instances
near the temples, have had any regard at all paid to them. The outer
walls, with the exception of the decoration towards the solstices, are
featureless and blank, and the doorways, where one might expect
ornament, are extremely narrow and entirely plain. When one is within
the great temple one realises how fitting a place it is in which to
observe the starry sky, for the high walls around exclude all view of
the landscape, and the only objects which attract one’s attention are
the heavenly bodies above one; and at night-time one feels how easily
the thoughts of a star-worshipper could be concentrated on their proper
object.

It is incredible that such a style of architecture as we have
described, and such a civilisation as it signifies, could have
originated and developed in South Africa, for such a development would
have required a very long time, and would have implied at least a long
and peaceful settlement in the country; and although the builders of
Zimbabwe may have long possessed the place, yet it is apparent that
they never considered the country was their own. This is clear from the
nature of their defences and the strength of their fortifications. Had
they lived long enough in the land to alter or develop any of their
arts independently of their mother country, they would have left a
deeper mark on their surroundings than they have; besides, living as
they must have lived, they could not have increased in civilisation,
nor developed any of its arts, and we may assume that they had their
architecture as well as their religion in common with their mother
country. The balance of probabilities seems to be in favour of that
country being South Arabia; and when it and Abyssinia, with which it
was so long associated, are better known, we may find temples which are
built of similar small stones and with similar mathematical and other
peculiarities in their construction. Our information of these countries
is meagre, but some of those buildings which are known in Yemen, which
seem to combine temple and fortress in one, as on Zimbabwe Hill, may
have been built by the same race that constructed Zimbabwe; and the
elliptic temples at Marib and Sirwah, and the one at Nakab al Hajar,
with its north and south doorways seeming to indicate an observation of
the meridian, may embody some of the mathematical principles
illustrated by the ruins of Mashonaland.

When the original builders of Zimbabwe have been traced to their home,
it will remain to discover who were their successors in Mashonaland
that rebuilt the western wall of the great temple and some portions of
other buildings, for this certainly was not done by any of the present
negro races.

There is nothing to show that even these walls do not belong to a now
far distant time; for although they would not long remain in this
country, yet at Zimbabwe they might endure for an indefinite period,
for there, in a clear atmosphere free from dust, and a tropical climate
with its yearly torrential rains, no soil can accumulate among the
stones to support vegetation which would destroy the walls. The few
small plants which grow even on the oldest walls are of species which
do not require much mineral matter for their growth, and whose roots
are so soft that they mould themselves to the shape of the interstices
in the walls, but do not press asunder the stones. Besides, the present
inhabitants of the country do not use stone in any of their
constructions, and never trouble themselves to remove stones from any
existing walls, so that more stones have probably been disturbed during
the two years of British occupation of the country than the Kaffirs
would disturb in as many centuries; and under the old conditions the
walls might endure for an indefinite time. [11]








CHAPTER VI

THE FINDS AT THE GREAT ZIMBABWE RUINS


In this chapter I propose to discuss all the objects discovered during
our excavations in the ruins as apart from the buildings themselves,
and to analyse the light that they throw on the original constructors
and their cult. All these objects were found, with a few minor
exceptions, in the eastern temple on the fortress. As I have said,
traces of a recent Kaffir habitation will account for the absence of
objects in the lower buildings, but the upper ruin, sheltered from the
sun and hidden by trees and lofty boulders, was a spot repugnant to the
warmth-loving Kaffir, and to this fact we owe the preservation of so
many objects of interest belonging to the ancient inhabitants. The most
remarkable feature in connection with the finds is that everything of a
decorative nature is made of a steatitic schist or soapstone. This
stone is found in the country, and is still employed by natives farther
south in making pipes for smoking dokha or hemp; it lends itself easily
to the tool of the artist, and is very durable.

First, let us take the birds perched on tall soapstone columns, which,
from the position in which we found most of them, would appear to have
decorated the outer wall of the semicircular temple on the hill. These
birds are all conventional in design. The tallest stood 5 feet 4 inches
in height, the smallest about half a foot lower. We have six large ones
and two small ones in all, and probably, from the number of soapstone
pedestals with the tops broken off which we found in the temple, there
were several more. Though they are all different in execution, they
would appear to have been intended to represent the same bird; from the
only one in which the beak [12] is preserved to us intact, we
undoubtedly recognise that they must have been intended to represent
hawks or vultures. The thick neck and legs, the long talons and the
nature of the plumage point more distinctly to the vulture; the
decorations on some of them, namely, the dentelle pattern at the edge
of the wings, the necklace with a brooch in front and continued down
the back, the raised rosette-shaped eyes, and the pattern down the
back, point to a high degree of conventionality, evolved out of some
sacred symbolism of which these birds were the embodiment, the nature
of which symbolism it is now our object to arrive at. Two of the birds,
similar in character, with straight legs and fan-shaped tails different
from the others, are represented as perched on zones or cesti; two
others have only indications of the cestus beneath their feet; a fifth,
with nothing beneath its feet, has two circles carved under it and two
on the wings [13]; a sixth is perched on a chevron pattern similar to
that which decorates the large circular temple; hence there is a sort
of similarity of symbolism connecting them all.

We have now to look around for comparisons by which we may hope to
identify the origin of our birds, and I have little doubt in stating
that they are closely akin to the Assyrian Astarte or Venus, and
represent the female element in creation. Similar birds were sacred to
Astarte amongst the Phœnicians and are often represented as perched on
her shrines.

Of the maternal aspect in which the ancient Egyptians held the vulture
we have ample evidence. Horapollo tells us (I. 11) that the vulture was
emblematic of ‘Urania, a year, a mother,’ whilst Ælian goes so far as
to suppose that all vultures were females, to account for their
character as emblems of maternity. The cesti and the circles point
obviously to this, and these birds in connection with phallic worship
are interesting as emblems, signifying incubation. Let us now consult
Lucian, who in his work ‘De Syriâ Deâ’ describes a temple at
Hierapolis, near the Euphrates, which, as we have seen, has much in
common with these temples at Zimbabwe. In § 33, p. 479, he mentions a
curious pediment, of no distinctive shape, called by the Assyrians ‘the
symbol,’ on the top of which is perched a bird. Amongst some of Dr.
Schliemann’s discoveries at Mycene, there are also images surmounted by
birds which differ from the ξόανον in the ‘De Syriâ Deâ’ solely in the
fact that they are not shapeless, but represent a nude female figure.
The goddess of this shrine was evidently Astarte, and wore a cestus,
‘with which none but Urania is adorned.’ [14] On a Phœnician coin found
in Cyprus we have the dove on the betyle or pedestal as the central
object. [15] In Egyptian archæology we also come across the bird on the
pedestal, more particularly in the curious zodiac of Denderah, where a
bird perched on a pillar, and with the crown of Upper Egypt on its
head, is, as Mr. Norman Lockyer tells me, used to indicate the
commencement of the year; also from the Soudan we have a bird on a
pedestal carved on some rude stone fragments now in the Ashmolean
Museum. It is just possible that the birds at Zimbabwe had some
solstitial meaning, but as their exact position on the temple walls is
lost, it is impossible to speak on this point with anything like
certainty. Also in the difficult question of early Arabian cult, which
was closely bound up with that of Egypt, Assyria, and Phœnicia, we find
the vulture as the totem of a Southern Arabian tribe at the time of the
Himyaritic supremacy, and it was worshipped there as the god Nasr, and
is mysteriously alluded to in Himyaritic inscriptions as ‘the vulture
of the East and the vulture of the West,’ which also would seem to
point to a solstitial use of the emblem. [16]

The religious symbolism of these birds is further attested by our
finding two tiny representations of the larger emblems; they, too,
represented birds on pillars, the longest of which is only three and a
half inches, and it is perched on the pillar more as the bird is
represented in the zodiac of Denderah. Evidently these things were used
as amulets or votive offerings in the temple. Lucian alludes to the
phalli used as amulets by the Greeks with a human figure on the end,
and he connects them with the tower thirty cubits in height.

In the centre of the temple on the hill stood an altar, into the stones
of which were inserted and also scattered around a large number of
soapstone objects representing the phallus either realistically or
conventionally, but always with anatomical accuracy which unmistakably
conveys their meaning, and proves in addition that circumcision was
practised by this primitive race; ‘its origin both amongst the
Egyptians and Ethiopians,’ says Herodotus, ii. 37, 104, ‘may be traced
to the most remote antiquity.’ We have seen in the previous description
of the tower the parallel to Lucian’s description of the phalli in the
temple at Hierapolis. Here, in the upper temple, we found no less than
thirty-eight miniature representations of the larger emblem; one is a
highly ornate object, with apparently a representation of a winged sun
on its side, or perchance the winged Egyptian vulture, suggesting a
distinct Semitic influence. There is a small marble column in the
Louvre, twenty-six inches in height, of Phœnician origin, with a winged
symbol on the shaft like the one before us; it is crowned by an
ornament made of four petalled flowers. This winged globe is met with
in many Phœnician objects, and MM. Perrot and Chipiez, in their work on
Phœnicia, thus speak of it as ‘a sort of trade-mark by which we can
recognise as Phœnician all such objects as bear it, whether they come
from Etruria or Sardinia, from Africa or Syria.’ And of the stele in
the Louvre the same authors say, ‘We may say that it is signed.’ A
carefully executed rosette with seven petals forms the summit of our
object found in the temple. Now the rosette is also another distinctly
Phœnician symbol used by them to indicate the sun. We have the rosette
on Phœnician sepulchral stelæ in the British Museum in conjunction with
the half-moon to indicate the heavenly luminaries, and here at Zimbabwe
we have this object surmounted by a rosette, rosettes carved on the
decorated pillars, and the eyes of the birds, as before mentioned, are
made in the form of rosettes. The fact of finding these objects all in
close juxtaposition around the altar and in the vicinity of the birds
on pillars is sufficient proof of the nature of the objects and their
religious symbolism. Thus we have in both cases the larger emblems and
their miniature representatives, the tower and the smaller phalli, the
large birds and the tiny amulets, proving to us that the ancient
inhabitants of the ruins worshipped a combination of the two deities,
which together represented the creative powers of mankind.

A curious confirmation of this is found in the pages of Herodotus, who
tells us [17]: ‘The Arabians of all the gods only worshipped Dionysus,
whom they called Ourotalt, and Urania;’ that is to say, they worshipped
the two deities which, in the mind of the father of history,
represented in themselves all that was known of the mysteries of
creation, pointing to the very earliest period of Arabian cult, prior
to the more refined religious development of the Sabæo-Himyaritic
dynasty, when Sun-worship, veneration for the great luminary which
regenerated all animal and vegetable life, superseded the grosser forms
of nature-worship, to be itself somewhat superseded or rather
incorporated in a worship of all the heavenly luminaries, which
developed as a knowledge of astronomy was acquired.

We have already discussed the round towers and the numerous monoliths
which decorated the walls and other parts of the Zimbabwe ruins;
excavation yielded further examples of the veneration for stones
amongst the early inhabitants. One of these was a tall decorated
soapstone pillar 11 feet 6 inches in height, which stood on the
platform already alluded to, and acted as a centre to a group of
monoliths; the base of this pillar we found in situ, the rest had been
broken off and appropriated by a Kaffir to decorate a wall; it was
worked with bands of geometric patterns around it, each different from
the other and divided into compartments by circular patterns, one of
which is the chevron pattern found on the circular ruin below; it only
runs round a portion of the pillar; and may possibly have been used to
orient it towards the setting sun. Besides this tall pillar we found
two fragments of other similar pillars decorated one with geometric
patterns and the other with an extraordinary and entirely inexplicable
decoration. On these pillars the rosette is frequently depicted, and it
would seem that they all came from the same place, namely, the platform
decorated with monoliths. Here also we found several stones of a
curious nature and entirely foreign to the place. Two of them are
stones with even bands of an asbestiform substance, a serpentine with
veins of chrysolite, the grooves being caused by the natural erosion of
the fibrous bands. Another stone is an irregular polygonal pillar-like
object of coarse-grained basalt, the smooth faces of which are natural
points, the whole being a portion of a rough column or prism. Another,
again, is a fragment of schistose rock, apparently hornblendic; also we
found several round blocks of diorite in this place. The collection
here of so many strange geological fragments cannot be accidental, and
points to a veneration of curious-shaped stones amongst the earlier
inhabitants of the ruins, which were collected here on the platform, a
spot which, I am convinced, will compare with the βαιτύλια or betyles
of the Phœnicians, and of this stone cult we have ample evidence from
Arabia. El Masoudi alludes to the ancient stone-worship of Arabia, and
leads us to believe that at one time this gross fetichism formed a part
of the natural religion of the Semitic races. Marinus of Tyre says they
honoured as a god a great cut stone. Euthymius Zygabenus further tells
us that apparently ‘this stone was the head of Aphrodite, which the
Ishmaelites formerly worshipped, and it is called Bakka Ismak;’ also,
he adds, ‘they have certain stone statues erected in the centre of
their houses, round which they danced till they fell from giddiness;
but when the Saracens were converted to Christianity they were obliged
to anathematise this stone, which formerly they worshipped.’ [18] Herr
Kremer, in his account of the ancient cult of Arabia, makes frequent
allusions to the stone-worship. In the town of Taif a great unformed
stone block was worshipped, identical with the goddess which Herodotus
calls Urania; and one must imagine that the Kaaba stone at Mecca
resembles the black schistose block which we found at Zimbabwe; it is
an exceedingly old-world worship, dating back to the most primitive
ages of mankind.

The next series of finds to be discussed are the numerous fragments of
decorated and plain soapstone bowls which we found, most of them deeply
buried in the immediate vicinity of the temple on the fortress; and
these bring us to consider more closely the artistic capacities of the
race who originally inhabited these ruins. The work displayed in
executing these bowls, the careful rounding of the edges, the exact
execution of the circle, the fine pointed tool-marks, and the subjects
they chose to depict, point to the race having been far advanced in
artistic skill—a skill arrived at, doubtless, by commercial intercourse
with the more civilised races of mankind. Seven of these bowls were of
exactly the same size, and were 19·2 inches in diameter, [19] which
measurements we ascertained by taking the radii of the several
fragments. The most elaborate of these fragments is a bowl which had
depicted around its outer edge a hunting scene; it is very well worked,
and bears in several points a remarkable similarity to objects of art
produced by the Phœnicians. There is here, as we have in all Phœnician
patterns, the straight procession of animals, to break the continuity
of which a little man is introduced shooting a zebra with one hand and
holding in the other an animal by a leash. To fill up a vacant space, a
bird is introduced flying, all of which points are characteristic of
Phœnician work. Then the Phœnician workmen always had a great power of
adaptability, taking their lessons in art from their immediate
surroundings, which is noticeable all over the world, whether in
Greece, Egypt, Africa, or Italy. Here we have the same characteristic,
namely, a procession of native African animals treated in a Phœnician
style—three zebras, two hippopotami, and the sportsman in the centre is
obviously a Hottentot. The details in this bowl are carefully brought
out, even the breath of the animals is depicted by three strokes at the
mouth. There is also a fragment of another bowl with zebras on it
similarly treated, though somewhat higher and coarser. The fragments of
a large bowl, which had a procession of bulls round it, is also
Phœnician in character. [20] The most noticeable feature in the
treatment of these bulls is that the three pairs of horns we have
preserved to us are all different.

There are three fragments of three very large bowls, which are all of a
special interest, and if the bowls could have been recovered intact
they would have formed very valuable evidence. Search, however, as we
would, we never found more of these bowls, and therefore must be
content with what we have. The first of these represents on its side a
small portion of what must have been a religious procession; of this we
have only a hand holding a pot or censer containing an offering in it,
and an arm of another figure with a portion of the back of the head
with the hair drawn off it in folds. Representations of a similar
nature are to be found in the religious functions of many Semitic
races, and it is much to be regretted that we have not more of it for
our study.

The second fragment has an elaborate design upon it, taken from the
vegetable world, probably an ear of corn; it was evidently around the
lip of the bowl and not at the side; it is a very good piece of
workmanship, and of a soapstone of brighter green than that employed in
the other articles. The third fragment is perhaps the most tantalising
of all; it is a fragment of the lip of another large bowl which must
have been more than two feet in diameter, and around which apparently
an inscription ran. The lettering is provokingly fragmentary, but still
there can be no doubt that it is an attempt at writing in some form:
the straight line down the middle, the sloping lines on either side
recall some system of tally, and the straightness of the lettering
compares curiously with the proto-Arabian type of lettering used in the
earlier Sabæan inscriptions, specimens of which I here give, and also
with some curious rock carvings found by Mr. A. A. Anderson in
Bechuanaland. It was common in Phœnician and early Greek vases to have
an inscription or dedication round the lip; vide, for example, a lebes
in the British Museum from a temple at Naucratis with a dedication to
Apollo on the rim, and used, like the one before us, in temple service.
The circles on the birds also appear to have a line across, like the
fourth letter given as illustrating the early Arabian alphabet.

Of the other fragments of bowls we found, one has a well-executed cord
pattern running round it, another a herring-bone pattern alternating
with what would appear to be a representation of the round tower; and
besides these there are several fragments of what have been perfectly
plain bowls, notably one large one, the diameter of which is outside 2
feet and inside 1 foot 8 inches. The edges of this bowl are very
carefully bevelled and the bottom rounded, and it is a very fine
specimen of workmanship, the whole of which we were able to recover
saving a portion of the bottom. Another plain bowl has a round hole
pierced through its side, and another fragment is made of a reddish
sort of soapstone with oxide of iron in it. The tool marks on these
bowls point to very fine instruments having been used in carving them.
Altogether these bowls are amongst the most conspicuous of our finds,
and the fact they all came from the proximity of the temple would
undoubtedly seem to prove that they were used in temple service, broken
by subsequent occupants of the ruins, and the fragments thrown outside.

The next find from Zimbabwe which we will discuss is the circular
soapstone object with a hole in the centre, which at first is
suggestive of a quern; but being of such friable material such could
not have been the case. It is decorated round the side and on the top
with rings of knobs, four on the side and four on the top; from the
central hole a groove has been cut to the side, and the whole is very
well finished off. This thing is 2 feet 2 inches in circumference. We
also found portions of a smaller bowl with the same knob pattern
thereon. The use of this extraordinary soapstone find is very obscure.
Mr. Hogarth calls my attention to the fact that in the excavations at
Paphos, in Cyprus, they found a similar object, similarly decorated,
which they put down as Phœnician. It is now in the Fitzwilliam Museum
at Cambridge, and is a cylindrical object of coarse white marble six
inches in diameter and about four and three-quarter inches high. It is
studded with round projecting studs left in relief on the marble,
resembling in general disposition those on our soapstone find, and
there is no question about the similarity of the two objects. They
remind one of Herodian’s description of the sacred cone in the great
Phœnician temple of the sun at Emesa, in Syria (Herodian, bk. v. § 5),
which was adorned with certain ‘knobs or protuberances,’ a pattern
supposed by him to represent the sun, and common in phallic
decorations.

In the vicinity of the temple we also came across some minor objects
very near the surface, which did not do more than establish the
world-wide commerce carried on at the Great Zimbabwe at a much more
recent date, and still by the Arabians—namely, a few fragments of
Celadon pottery from China, of Persian ware, an undoubted specimen of
Arabian glass, and beads of doubtful provenance, though one of them may
be considered as Egyptian of the Ptolemaic period. Glass beads almost
of precisely the same character—namely, black with white encircling
lines—have come from ancient tombs at Thebes, in Bœotia, and are to be
found in almost every collection of Egyptian curiosities.

The pottery objects must have been brought here by Arabian traders
during the middle ages, probably when the Monomatapa chiefs ruled over
this district and carried on trade with the Arabians for gold, as
European traders do now with objects of bright appearance and beads.
Similar fragments have been found by Sir John Kirk in the neighbourhood
of Quiloa, where in mediæval times was a settlement of Arabs who came
from the Persian Gulf, forming an hereditary intercourse between the
Arabs and the east coast of Africa until the Portuguese found them
there and drove them away three centuries ago. It is impossible that a
collection of things such as these could have been brought together by
any but a highly commercial race during the middle ages, and the
Arabians alone had this character at the time in question.

Considering the large quantity of soapstone fragments, bowls, and other
things, the finds of pottery of a good period at Zimbabwe were not
many. Noticeably one piece of pottery is exceedingly excellent, worthy
of a good period of classic Greek ware. The pattern round it is
evidently stamped on, being done with such absolute accuracy. It is
geometric, as all the patterns on the pottery are. It is not hand-made
pottery, for on the back of it are distinct signs of a wheel. Then
there are some black fragments with an excellent glaze and bevel, also
fragments of pottery lids, and a pottery stopper, pointing to the fact
that the old inhabitants of Zimbabwe had reached an advanced state of
proficiency in ceramic art. Fragments of one pot with holes neatly
bored round the neck remind one of water-coolers still found in the
East. Besides the fragments of pots, we found an enormous number of
small circular objects of pottery, which may have been used as
spindle-whorls, though most of them show no signs of wear, and some of
them having rude decorations thereon. The only fragment which shows an
attempt at the use of pottery for other than domestic purposes is a sow
which we found in a kitchen midden just outside the large circular
building on the plain, with two phalli near it. This animal compares
well with the rude attempts to depict animal life found in prehistoric
excavations on the Mediterranean. Whether it has any religious
significance or not is, of course, only conjecture, but it is curious
that Ælian tells us that the Egyptians ‘sacrifice a sow to the moon
once a year;’ and Herodotus says ‘the only deities to whom the
Egyptians are permitted to offer a pig are the moon and Bacchus.’ All
that the pottery proves to us is that the ancient inhabitants of
Zimbabwe had reached a high state of excellence in the manufacture of
it, corresponding to a state of ceramic art known only to the rest of
the world in classical times.

Concerning the bronze and iron weapons and implements which we found at
Zimbabwe it is very difficult to say anything definite. In the first
place, these ruins have been overrun for centuries by Kaffir races with
a knowledge of iron-smelting, who would at once utilise fragments of
iron which they found for their own purposes; secondly, the shapes and
sizes of arrows and spear-heads correspond very closely to those in use
amongst the natives now. As against this it must be said that there are
many iron objects amongst our finds which are quite unlike anything
which ever came out of a Kaffir workshop, and the patterns of the
assegai, or spear-head, and arrow are probably of great antiquity,
handed down from generation to generation to the present day. Amongst
the most curious of our iron finds at Zimbabwe certainly are the double
iron bells, of which we found three in the neighbourhood of the temple
on the fortress. Similar bells are found now on the Congo. There are
some in the British Museum, and also in the Geographical Society’s
Museum at Lisbon, which came from San Salvador, on the Congo, and are
called Chingongo, whereas amongst the present race inhabiting
Mashonaland the knowledge of this bell does not exist, nor did it
presumably exist in Dos Santos’ days, who enumerates all the Kaffir
instruments which he saw; and he would assuredly have mentioned these
bells had they existed there in his days 300 years ago. We must,
therefore, conclude that either these bells are ancient, and were used
by the old inhabitants of these ruins, the traditional form of which
has been continued amongst the negroes of the Congo, or that some
northern race closely allied to the Congo races swept over this country
at some time or another, and have left this trace of their occupation.
The barbed bronze spear-head we found under a mass of fallen rock close
to the entrance to the fortress. This again finds a parallel in weapons
which come from much farther north in Nubia, though its execution is
finer than any of that class which has come before my notice. The shape
of this weapon is exactly the same as that of the unbarbed spear-head,
which has a coating of gold on it, [21] and shows the same peculiarity
of make as the assegai-heads still made by the natives—namely, the
fluting which runs down the centre being reversed on either side. Then
there are the tools—chisels, an adze, pincers, spades, &c., which are
quite unknown to the Kaffir races which now inhabit this country. Still
it is possible that all these things may have been made during the time
of the Monomatapa, who evidently had reached a higher pitch of
civilisation than that existing to-day; so that I am inclined to set
aside the iron implements as pertaining to a more recent occupation,
though at the same time there is no actual reason for not assigning to
them a remoter antiquity.

The finds in the fortress of Zimbabwe which touch upon, perhaps, the
most interesting topic of all are those which refer to the manufacture
of gold. Close underneath the temple in the fortress stood a
gold-smelting furnace made of very hard cement of powdered granite,
with a chimney of the same material, and with neatly bevelled edges.
Hard by, in a chasm between two boulders, lay all the rejected casings
from which the gold-bearing quartz had been extracted by exposure to
heat prior to the crushing, proving beyond a doubt that these mines,
though not immediately on a gold reef, formed the capital of a
gold-producing people who had chosen this hill fortress with its
granite boulders for their capital owing to its peculiar strategic
advantages. Gold reefs and old workings have been lately discovered
about twelve miles from Zimbabwe, and it was from these that their
auriferous quartz was doubtless obtained.

Near the above-mentioned furnace we found many little crucibles, of a
composition of clay, which had been used for smelting the gold, and in
nearly all of them still exist small specks of gold adhering to the
glaze formed by the heat of the process. Also we found several
water-worn stones, which had been used as burnishers, which was
evidenced by the quantity of gold still adhering to them; and in the
adjoining cave we dug up an ingot mould of soapstone of a curious
shape, corresponding almost exactly to an ingot of tin found in
Falmouth Harbour, which is now in the Truro Museum, and a cast of which
may be seen at the School of Mines in Jermyn Street. This ingot of tin
was undoubtedly made by Phœnician workmen, for it bears a punch mark
thereon like those usually employed by workmen of that period; and Sir
Henry James, in his pamphlet describing it, draws attention to the
statement of Diodorus, that in ancient Britain ingots of tin were made
ἀστραγάλων ῥυθμοὺς, or of the shape of astragali or knuckle-bones; and
the form of both the ingots is such that the astragalus may easily be
used as a rough simile to describe them. Probably this shape of ingot
was common in the ancient world, for Sir John Evans, K.C.B., has called
my attention to an ingot mould somewhat similar in form, found in
Dalmatia, and the Kaffirs far north of the Zambesi now make ingots of
iron of a shape which might easily be supposed to have been derived
from the astragalus; but at the same time the finding of two ingots in
two remote places where Phœnician influence has been proved to be so
strong is very good presumptive evidence to establish the fact that the
gold workers of ancient Zimbabwe worked for the Phœnician market. A
small soapstone object with a hole in the centre would appear to have
been a sort of tool used for beating gold.

An interesting parallel to the ancient gold workings in Mashonaland is
to be found by studying the account of the ancient gold workings at the
Egyptian gold mines in Wadi Allaga, also given us by Diodorus. There,
too, the gold was extracted from the quartz by a process of crushing
and washing, as we can see from the process depicted in the paintings
on the Egyptian tombs; and in any gold-producing quarter of
Mashonaland, near old shafts and by the side of streams, innumerable
crushing-stones are still to be seen, used anciently for a like
purpose, when slave labour was employed. Diodorus tells us of the gangs
of slaves employed, of the long dark shaft into which they descended,
of which a countless number are scattered still over Mashonaland; and
after describing the process of washing and crushing he concludes:
‘They then put the gold into earthen crucibles well closed with clay,
and leave it in a furnace for five successive days and nights, after
which it is suffered to cool. The crucibles are then opened, and
nothing is found in them but the pure gold a little diminished in
quantity.’ Hence it is obvious that the process employed by the ancient
Egyptians for crushing, smelting, and forming into ingots was exactly
the same as that employed by the ancient inhabitants of Zimbabwe; which
fact, when taken in conjunction with the vast amount of evidence of
ancient cult, ancient construction, and ancient art, is, I think,
conclusive that the gold-fields of Mashonaland formed one at least of
the sources from which came the gold of Arabia, and that the forts and
towns which ran up the whole length of this gold-producing country were
made to protect their men engaged in this industry. The cumulative
evidence is greatly in favour of the gold diggers being of Arabian
origin, before the Sabæo-Himyaritic period in all probability, who did
work for and were brought closely into contact with both Egypt and
Phœnicia, penetrating to many countries unknown to the rest of the
world. The Bible is full of allusions to the wealth of Arabia in gold
and other things. Ezekiel tells us that the Sabæans were merchants in
gold for the markets of Tyre. Aristeas tells us that a large quantity
of spices, precious stones, and gold was brought to Rome διὰ τῶν
Ἀράβων, not from Arabia, but by the Arabians. The testimony of all
travellers in Arabia is to the effect that little or no gold could have
come from the Arabian peninsula itself; it is, therefore, almost
certain that the country round Zimbabwe formed one at least of the
spots from which the ‘Thesaurus Arabum’ came. Egyptian monuments also
point to the wealth of the people of Punt, and the ingots of gold which
they sent as tribute to Queen Hatasou. No one, of course, is prepared
to say exactly where the kingdom of Punt was; the consensus of opinion
is that it was Yemen, in the south of Arabia. But suppose it to be
there, or suppose it to be on the coast of Africa, opposite Arabia, or
even suppose it to be Zimbabwe itself, the question is the same: where
did they get the large supply of gold from, which they poured into
Egypt and the then known world? In Mashonaland we seem to have a direct
answer to this question. It would seem to be evident that a prehistoric
race built the ruins in this country, a race like the mythical Pelasgi
who inhabited the shores of Greece and Asia Minor, a race like the
mythical inhabitants of Great Britain and France who built Stonehenge
and Carnac, a race which continued in possession down to the earliest
dawnings of history, which provided gold for the merchants of Phœnicia
and Arabia, and which eventually became influenced by and perhaps
absorbed in the more powerful and wealthier organisations of the
Semite.








CHAPTER VII

THE GEOGRAPHY AND ETHNOLOGY OF THE MASHONALAND RUINS


The ancient geography of the east coast of Africa is a subject fraught
with difficulties on all sides. To begin with, our authorities are not
only meagre, but they are men who had no practical knowledge of the
subject, and who knew next to nothing of the vast extent of commercial
operations which were going on outside the limits of the Red Sea. The
written accounts come to us from either an Alexandrian or Roman source,
whereas the practical knowledge possessed by the Arabs themselves of
these outer waters is lost to us for ever. It was probably the
monopolising policy of the Semitic nations which induced them to
conceal from other countries the whereabouts of their commercial
relations, which on the one hand extended outside the pillars of
Hercules to the Canaries and Great Britain, and on the other hand
outside the Straits of Bab-el-Mandeb to India, China, and the east
coast of Africa. Of these two directions the voyage to Great Britain
was undoubtedly the most adventurous, the navigation of the Indian
Ocean with a knowledge of the monsoons, which the Arabian who lived on
it must have had from time immemorial, presenting far less difficulty.
Hippalus has the credit of introducing the monsoons to Western
civilisation, but surely a seafaring race like the Arabians, who lived
on the spot, must have known all about them long before his day; and
just as they were reticent on the subject of their voyages, so were
they reticent on the subject of the localities from which their
merchandise came. The knowledge given us by Marinus of Tyre, by the
anonymous author of the ‘Periplus of the Red Sea,’ by Ptolemy, by
Pliny, and others, was obviously not the knowledge possessed by the
traders of the world, for they do not even attempt to elucidate the
question of where the precious commodities came from which they
enumerate.

Ptolemy’s information is provokingly vague, and he candidly admits in
his first chapter that it was obtained from a merchant of Arabia Felix;
he gives us such names as Cape Aromata, supposed to be Guardafui,
outside the straits, the inland province of Azania and Rhapta. The only
thing we gather from him is that they were trade emporia, and therefore
places of considerable importance.

The ‘Periplus’ enters into further details, and mentions that the Arab
settlement at Rhapta was subject to the sovereign of Maphartes, a
dependency of Sabæa or Yemen. Dean Vincent imagines Rhapta to have been
10° south of the equator, that is to say, near Quiloa, where again an
Arab settlement continued right down into the middle ages. The
‘Periplus’ further tells how Muza, Aden, and other points near the
mouth of the Red Sea were emporia for the goods brought from outside by
the Arabians and then transferred to Egyptian and Phœnician trading
vessels.

Further south the ‘Periplus’ mentions Prasum as the farthest point
known to the author; and here he says ‘an ocean curves towards sunset
and, stretching along the southern extremities of Ethiopia, Libya, and
Africa, amalgamates with the western sea.’ All this probably the author
of the ‘Periplus’ got from the Arabs, just as the Portuguese got all
their information from the same source thirteen centuries later, and
just as Herodotus got his vague story of the circumnavigation of Africa
six centuries before, when he tells us how the Phœnicians in the
service of Pharaoh Necho, B.C. 600, ‘as they sailed round Africa had
the sun on their right hand.’

From these and other statements in Marinus of Tyre, Pliny, and others,
it is obvious that the waters of East Africa were known only to the
Greeks and Romans vaguely through a Phœnician and Arabian source. The
early legendary stories of Greece tell of a voyage fraught with every
danger in search of gold. The celebrated Argonautic expedition has
given commentators an immense amount of trouble to reconcile its
conflicting statements—namely, that it went to the extremities of the
Euxine, entered the great stream ocean that went round the world, and
returned by the Nile and Libya. It certainly appears to me simple to
suppose that it is merely the mutilation of some early Phœnician story
made to suit the existing circumstances of the people to whom the story
was narrated. The Bible gives us the account of King Solomon’s
expedition undertaken under Phœnician auspices; in fact, the civilised
world was full of accounts of such voyages, told us, unfortunately, in
the vaguest way, owing doubtless to the fact that those who undertook
them guarded carefully their secret.

From an Egyptian source also certain knowledge may be gained, though
the Egyptians themselves would appear never to have carried their
commerce outside the Straits of Bab-el-Mandeb, but to have met at the
port of Adule, at the south of the Red Sea, Arabian merchants who did
so. Now in the reign of Queen Hatasou, of the eighteenth dynasty, in
the seventeenth century B.C., the land of Punt was conquered by an
Egyptian expedition, and on the monuments of Deir-el-Bahari the
conquered people of Punt are depicted as sending tribute, which
included ebony, ostrich feathers, leopard skins, giraffes, lions,
living leopards, cynocephalous apes, elephants’ tusks, and ingots of
gold, all products of South-eastern Africa. When compared with the
Biblical account of King Solomon’s expedition about seven centuries
later, the productions of both show a very remarkable analogy. Gold was
the most important of the objects brought, gold in ingots such as the
mould would produce which we found at Zimbabwe, and the gold of Arabia
in antiquity was proverbial. During the height of the prosperity of
Rome gold was sent thither by the Arabians, as we have seen from
Aristeas. Horace bears testimony to this in his line, ‘Thesauris Arabum
et divitis Indiæ.’ Agatharcides, in B.C. 120, speaks in glowing terms
of the wealth of the Sabæans; allusions to it are common in the Bible,
and the connection between Phœnicia and Arabia is borne testimony to by
Ezekiel in his denunciation of Tyre: ‘Arabia and all the princes of
Kedar, they occupied with thee in lambs, and rams, and goats: in these
were they thy merchants. The merchants of Sheba and Raamah, they were
thy merchants: they occupied in thy fairs with chief of all spices, and
with all precious stones, and gold.’ [22] Probably community of origin,
the inherent commercial instinct common to the Semitic races, brought
about this intimate relationship between Phœnicia and Sabæa. Another
testimony to the wealth of gold in Arabia is given us by the Assyrian
inscriptions, on which Tiglath Pileser II., B.C. 733, is mentioned as
receiving tribute from that country in gold, silver, and much incense;
and Sargon in his annals also mentions the tribute of Shamsi, Queen of
Arabia, as paid in gold and spices. There was little, if any, gold to
be found in Arabia itself; on this point all travellers who have
penetrated this country are agreed. Here, near the east coast of
Africa, far nearer to Arabia than India and China and other places,
which they were accustomed to visit, not only is there evidence of the
extensive production of gold, but also evidence of a cult known to
Arabia and Phœnicia alike, temples built on accurate mathematical
principles, containing kindred objects of art, methods of producing
gold known to have been employed in the ancient world, and evidence of
a vast population devoted to the mining of gold.

As to the vexed question of the land of Ophir, I do not feel that it is
necessary to go into the arguments for and against here. Mashonaland
may have been the land of Ophir or it may not; it may have been the
land of Punt or it may not; Ophir and Punt may be identical, and both
situated here, or they may be both elsewhere. There is not enough
evidence, as far as I can see, to build up any theory on these points
which will satisfy the more critical investigation to which subjects of
this kind are submitted in the present day. All that we can
satisfactorily establish is that from this country the ancient Arabians
got a great deal of gold; but as gold was in common use in prehistoric
times, and lavishly used many centuries before our era, there is no
doubt that the supply must have been enormous, and must have been
obtained from more places than one. ‘Tyre heaped up silver as the dust,
and fine gold as the mire of the streets,’ Zechariah tells us (ix. 3),
and the subject could be flooded with evidence from sculptural and
classical sources; and though the output from the old workings in
Mashonaland is seen to have been immense, yet it can hardly have
supplied the demand that antiquity made upon it. The study of Arabian
and Phœnician enterprise outside the Red Sea is only now in its
infancy—we have only as yet enough evidence to prove its extent, and
that the ruins in Mashonaland owe their origin to it.

After the commencement of the Christian era there is a great gap in our
geographical knowledge of these parts; and as far as Western
civilisation is concerned, this corner of the world had to be
discovered anew. It was not so, however, with the Arabians, who, though
probably banished from the interior many centuries before by the
incursions of savage tribes, still held to the coast, and exchanged
with the natives their cloth and their beads for gold which they
brought down. Of Arab extension in Africa we have also other evidence.
The ‘Periplus’ tells us that the Sabæan King Kharabit in A.D. 35 was in
possession of the east coast of Africa to an indefinite extent. The
Greek inscription from Axume in Abyssinia, copied by Mr. Salt in his
travels there, further confirms this. It was a dedication to Mars of
one golden statue, one silver, and three of brass in honour of a
victory gained by ‘Aizanes, king of the Axomites, of the Homerites
(given us by Eratosthenes as one of the Arabian tribes), of the
Æthiopians, and of the Sabæans.’ Three cities of the name of Sabæ are
mentioned as connected with this kingdom, two in Arabia and one in
Æthiopia; and now we have the river which doubtless in those days
formed the great outlet for the population between the Zambesi and the
Limpopo, still bearing the name of Sabæ or Sabi, and in the Æthiopian
tongue the word Saba is still used for ‘a man.’ Herr Eduard Glaser, the
Arabian traveller and decipherer of Himyaritic inscriptions, states in
his work: ‘So much is absolutely certain, that Himyar (Arabia) then
possessed almost the whole of East Africa. Such a possession, however,
was not won in a night, but rather presupposes, in those old times,
without cannon and without powder, centuries of exertion.’

Arabian writers of the ninth and tenth centuries a.d. frequently allude
to the gold of Sofala; but to the Western world this country was a
blank until Portuguese enterprise again opened it out. John II. of
Portugal sent Pedro de Covilham and Alfonso de Payva in 1487 to Cairo
to gather information concerning a route to India by the Cape. It is
not at all unlikely that Covilham heard from the Arabs reports
concerning the gold country behind Sofala; but sufficient evidence to
this effect is not forthcoming. He died in Abyssinia, and never
returned to Portugal to tell in person his experiences. At any rate,
ten years later the Cape was rounded by the Portuguese, and Vasco da
Gama in all the ports he called at on the east coast of Africa found
Arab traders established, who told him about the gold. The next
expedition, under Alvarez de Cahal in 1505, found Sofala, and in its
harbour two Arab dhows laden with gold.

The Portuguese commander, Pedro de Nhaya, took possession of the town
of Sofala in the name of the King of Portugal and garrisoned the old
Arab fort there, and with this act began the modern history of this
country, about which a veil of mystery had hung from the very beginning
of time. That the Arabs were confined to the coast at this period is
evident from Duarte Barbosa’s remarks, who wrote in 1514: ‘The
merchants bring to Sofala the gold which they sell to the Moors (the
name applied to the Arabs by the Portuguese), without weighing it, for
coloured stuffs, and beads of Cambay.’

Before discussing the Portuguese accounts of this country, let us
linger a little longer amongst the Arabs, and see what we can get from
them about the inhabitants of this district and the irruption of the
wild Zindj tribes over it, which probably caused the destruction of the
earlier civilisation. Zaneddin Omar ibn ’l Wardi’ gives us an account
of these Zindj. He wrote in the 336th year of the Hegira, and tells us
that ‘their habitations extend from the extremity of the gulf to the
low land of gold, Sofala ’t il Dhab,’ and remarks on a peculiarity of
theirs, namely, that ‘they sharpen their teeth and polish them to a
point.’ He goes on to say: ‘Sofala ’t il Dhab adjoins the eastern
borders of the Zindj ... the most remarkable produce of this country is
its quantity of native gold, that is found in pieces of two or three
meskalla, in spite of which the natives generally adorn their persons
with ornaments of brass.’ He also states that iron is found in this
country and that the natives have skill in working it, and adds that
‘ships come from India to fetch it.’ This shows us the origin of the
skill still possessed by the natives in smelting iron, which has been
handed down from generation to generation.

El Masoudi, who has been called the Herodotus of Arabia, gives us still
further details about the race, speaking of Sofala as a place to which
the Arabs of his time went habitually to obtain gold and precious
stones from the natives. He is more explicit about the descent from the
north of the Zindj tribes, which took place not long before his day;
and unless there was a previous wave of barbarians, concerning whom we
have no account, it may be supposed that it was owing to their advent
that the gold settlements up country were finally abandoned, and the
Arab traders restricted to the coast. Describing the natives of the
land behind Sofala, he speaks of them as negroes naked except for
panther skins; they filed their teeth and were cannibals; they fought
with long lances, and had ambuscades for game. They hunted for
elephants, but never used for their own purposes the ivory or gold in
which their country abounded. From this picture it is easy to see that
in those days the inhabitants were just as they are now, an uncultured
wild race of savages. We get another testimony to this in the voyage of
two Arabs who went to China in 851 A.D., and returned by the east coast
of Africa. M. Renaudot has translated their experiences, in which they
describe the Zindj as follows: ‘Among them are preachers who harangue
them, clad in a leopard skin. One of these men, with a staff in his
hand, shall present himself before them, and having gathered a
multitude of people about him, preach all the day to them. He speaks of
God and recites the actions of their countrymen who are gone before
them.’ In this account we easily recognise the witch-doctor and
ancestor worship, the Mozimos and Muali of the present race. Abou
Zeyd’s evidence is also to the same effect. He thus speaks of the
Zindj: ‘Religious discourses are pronounced before this people, and one
never finds elsewhere such constant preachers. There are men devoted to
this life who cover themselves with panther and monkey skins. They have
a staff in their hands, and go from place to place.’ Quite an accurate
description of the South African witch-doctor. Consequently, from this
mass of evidence we may affirm with absolute certainty that for a
thousand years at least there has been no change in the condition of
this country and its inhabitants. Further testimony to the same effect
is given us by Edrisi in his geography, who alludes to the Zendj tribes
as inhabiting this country, and occupying the coast towns Dendema and
Siorma, ‘which latter is situated on a gulf where foreign vessels come
to anchor.’ He speaks, too, of the iron trade which the Zendj carried
on with the Indians, and of the abundance of gold in the mountains
behind Sofala, adding, ‘nevertheless, the inhabitants prefer brass,
making their ornaments of the latter metal.’

The simple Arabian stories of Sindbad the sailor and Aladdin are quite
as credible as some of the stories which the first Portuguese
travellers who visited the east coast of Africa tell us about the great
Emperor Monomatapa and the wealth of gold in his dominions. When they
first appeared on the scenes the Monomatapa was a big Kaffir chief,
like Cetewayo or Lobengulu, who ruled over the gold district in which
the Zimbabwe ruins are situated; nevertheless they burden their
accounts with stories of the gilded halls in which he lived, of nuggets
of the precious metal as big as a man’s head, and which with their
force raised the roots of trees. Needless to say these are the
fabrications of their own brains, written to attract attention to the
country they had discovered.

That this big Kaffir chief, Monomatapa, lived at his Zimbabwe or head
kraal is, however, pretty clear, not necessarily at the place where the
ruins are, because the whole of this country is scattered with
Zimbabwes. Each petty chief now calls his head kraal by this name, and
this fact, not thoroughly recognised, has brought about endless
confusion in topography. The derivation for this name which to my mind
appears the most satisfactory is of Abantu origin, and came from the
north, where it is generally used to denote the head kraal of any
chief. Zi is the Abantu root for a village, umzi being in Zulu the term
for a collection of kraals. Zimbab would signify somewhat the same, or
rather ‘the great kraal,’ and we is the terminal denoting an
exclamation, so that Zimbabwe would mean, ‘here is the great kraal.’

Again, another source of confusion arises from the fact that
Monomatapa—or, as it ought to be written, Muene, or lord of Matapa—is a
dynastic name, just as every petty chief in Mashonaland to-day has his
dynastic name, which he takes on succeeding to the chiefdom. So did the
lords of Matapa. In various Portuguese treaties we have the names of
different Monomatapa’s: one is called Manuza, another Lucere, and so
forth, right down to the days of Livingstone, when the Monomatapa he
mentions was a petty chief near the Zambesi.

When the Portuguese arrived at Sofala they got a lot of information
from the Arab traders they found there concerning the wonders of the
country, the great chief and the great ruins; and as Zimbabwe was the
name of the chief’s residence and the name given by the inhabitants to
the ruins, it is not to be wondered at that some confusion arose.

Now these Arab traders were particularly and not unnaturally jealous of
the arrival of the Portuguese, perhaps not unlike the Portuguese are
now of the British arrival. They made all the mischief they could
between the Portuguese and the natives, they represented the Portuguese
Jesuit Father Silveira, who nearly managed to convert the Monomatapa to
Christianity, as a spy, and conduced to his martyrdom in 1561. In fact,
one of the great obstacles to the success of the Portuguese was Arab
jealousy, which was at the bottom of the failure of all their
expeditions up country.

Of all the Portuguese travellers who wrote about this country, Father
dos Santos is the most reliable. Though he did not travel far up
country, nevertheless he told no lies; and anyone who has been amongst
the inhabitants as they are now will recognise in his narrative a
faithful and accurate account of the people, proving how little they
have altered in the lapse of between three and four centuries. A few
extracts will show this: ‘They beat their palms, which is their mode of
courtesy.’ [23] ‘They smelt iron and make mattocks, arrows,
assegai-points, spears, little axes, and they have more iron than is
necessary, and of copper they make bracelets, and both men and women
use them for their legs and arms.’ He describes their indistinct idea
of a Supreme Being, their feasts in honour of their ancestors, their
curious pianos, ‘with bars of iron enclosed in a pumpkin,’ their ‘wine
of millet, which the Portuguese could not bear, but were obliged to
drink and make festivity, for fear of quarrelling.’ ‘They have an
infinity of fowls, like those of Portugal;’ and also he describes the
days on which they are not to work, appointed by the king, unknown to
them, when they make feasts and call these days Mozimos, or days of the
holy already dead. [24] In fact, this narrative is so truthful in all
its details, that we may safely take from it his account of the
disintegration of the Monomatapa chiefdom, as it accounts for many
things which otherwise would be obscure. He tells us that a Monomatapa
sent three sons to govern in three provinces, Quiteve, Sedanda, and
Chicanga; on their father’s death they refused to give up to the heir
their respective territories, and the country became divided into four.
Since then it has been subdivided again and again; each petty chief
fought with his neighbour, union was impossible, and in their turn they
have fallen an easy prey to the powerful Zulu organisation under
Umzilikatze and his successor Lobengulu. This I take to be, in a few
words, the history of the country and its people during modern times,
and as much probably as will ever be known of them.

Dos Santos calls these people Mocarangas, and in this too, I think, he
is right, for the reasons I have previously given. [25] They are now,
as we have seen, a miserable race of outcasts, fleeing to the mountain
fastnesses on the approach of a Zulu raid, hounded and robbed until
there is no more spirit in them. Monteiro mentions a Monomotapa, or
emperor of Chidima, very decayed, but respectable, with a territory to
the west of the Zambesi, near Zumbo. This is probably the same that
Livingstone alludes to. An interesting fact that Monteiro also gives us
is the number of Zimbabwes north of the Zambesi, as the head kraals of
chiefs, showing the northern origin of the name.

Having considered the people in whose country the Great Zimbabwe ruins
are, let us now proceed to cull what we can from a Portuguese source
concerning the ruins themselves.

De Barros [26] gives us the fullest account of the ruins. Let us take
it and see what it is worth: ‘In the midst of the plains in the kingdom
of Batua, in the country of Toroe, nearest the oldest gold mines,
stands a fortress, square, admirably built, inside and out, of hard
stone. The blocks of which the walls consist are put together without
mortar and are of marvellous size. The walls are twenty-five spans in
thickness; their height is not so considerable compared with their
breadth. Over the gate of the building is an inscription, which neither
the Moorish traders (the Arabs of the coast) who were there, nor others
learned in inscriptions, could read, nor does anyone know in what
character it is written. On the heights around the edifice stand others
in like manner built of masonry without mortar; among them a tower of
more than twelve braças (yards) in height. All those buildings are
called by the natives Zimbahe—that is, the royal residence or court, as
are all royal dwellings in Monomotapa. Their guardian, a man of noble
birth, has here the chief command, and is called Symbacao; under his
care are some of the wives of Monomotapa, who constantly reside here.
When and by whom these buildings were erected is unknown to the
natives, who have no written characters. They merely say they are the
work of the Devil (supernatural), because they are beyond their powers
to execute. Besides these, there is to be found no other mason work,
ancient or modern, in that region, seeing that all the dwellings of the
barbarians are of wood and rushes.’

De Barros further states that when the Portuguese Governor of Sofala,
Captain Vicento Pegado, pointed to the masonry of the fort there, with
a view to comparison with the buildings up country, the Moors (Arabs)
who had been at the ruins observed that the latter structure was of
such absolute perfection that nothing could be compared to it; and they
gave their opinion that the buildings were very ancient, and erected
for the protection of the neighbouring gold mines. From this, De Barros
inferred that the ruins must be the Agizymba of Ptolemy, [27] and
founded by some ancient ruler of the gold country, who was unable to
hold his ground, as in the case of the city of Axume, in Abyssinia.

In criticising this account, it is at once apparent that it was written
by a person who had never seen the ruins; the fortress is round, not
square; the blocks of stone are all small and not of ‘marvellous size;’
the tower is wrongly placed on the heights above instead of in the ruin
on the plain. But at the same time De Barros is candid, and as good as
tells us that his account was gathered from ‘the Moorish traders who
were there.’ That is to say, all the wonders of the upper country we
get second hand from an Arabian source. Legends of inscriptions on
stone are common to all mysterious ruins in every country. Possibly the
decorated soapstone pillar gave rise to it, as it did to the subsequent
account of the ‘Zimbabwe cryptogram,’ which ran through the papers
shortly after the visit of the first pioneers of the Chartered Company.
At all events, now there is no sign of anything over any gateway or any
trace of such a stone having been removed.

Alvarez gives us an account even vaguer than De Barros. The following
is Pory’s translation, published in London in 1600: ‘For here in Toroa
and in divers places of Monomatapa are till this day remaining manie
huge and ancient buildings of timber, lime and stone being singular
workmanship, the like whereof are not to be found in all the provinces
thereabout. Heere is also a mightie wall of five-and-twenty spannes
thick, which the people ascribe to the workmanship of the divell, being
accounted from Sofala 510 miles the nearest way.’

Pigafetta copies this account in pretty much the same strain, as also
does Dapper, whose account of this country is a tissue of
exaggerations. He says: ‘In this country, far to the inland on a plain
in the middle of many iron mills, stands a famous structure called
Simbaœ, built square like a castle with hewn stone, but the height is
not answerable. Above the gate appears an inscription which cannot be
read or understood, nor could any that have seen it know what people
used such letters.... The inhabitants report it the work of the devil,
themselves only building in wood, and aver that for strength it exceeds
the fort of the Portuguese at the seashore, about 150 miles from
hence.’

We could quote several other allusions to the ruins from Portuguese,
Dutch, and English sources, copied one from the other, and all bearing
the stamp of having come from the same fountain-head, namely, the
Arabians, who told the Portuguese about them when they first arrived at
Sofala. Our examination of the ruins confirms this in every respect. In
our excavations we found Celadon pottery, Persian pottery, and Arabian
glass, similar to the things found at Quiloa, where the Arabs also had
a settlement. These objects represent the trading goods brought by the
Arabians and exchanged with the inhabitants who lived in and around
these ruins in the middle ages; but at the same time we found no trace
whatsoever of the Portuguese, which would have been the case, as in
other places occupied by them in Arabia and the Persian Gulf, had they
ever been there. From these facts I think it is certain that we may
remove from the Portuguese the honour claimed by them of being the
modern discoverers of the ruins, an honour only claimed in the face of
recent events, for De Barros is candid enough in telling us that his
information came ‘from the Arabs who were there.’ Clearly to settle
this question it is only necessary to quote a letter which I saw in the
library at Lisbon, dated April 17, 1721, from the Governor of Goa,
Antonio Rodrigue da Costa, to the king. East Africa was included then
in the province of India, and the governor wrote as follows:—

‘(1) There is a report that in the interior of these countries many
affirm there is in the court of the Monomatapa a tower or edifice of
worked masonry which appears evidently not to be the work of black
natives of the country, but of some powerful and political nations such
as the Greeks, Romans, Persians, Egyptians, or Hebrews; and they say
that this tower or edifice is called by the natives Simbabóe, and that
in it is an inscription of unknown letters, and because there is much
foundation for the belief that this land is Ophir, and that Solomon
sent his fleets in company with the Phœnicians; and this opinion could
be indubitably established if this inscription could be cleared up, and
there is no one there who can read it. If it were in Greek, Persian, or
Hebrew, it would be necessary to command that an impression be made in
wax or some other material which retains letters or figures, commanding
that the original inscription be well cleaned.

‘(2) At the same time it would be suitable to examine whether in that
land is a range of mountains called Ofura, what distance it is from the
coast or seaport, and whether it contains mines of gold or silver.

‘(3) In the same way it would be as well to inquire into the most
notable names of those parts, mountains, chiefdoms, and rivers.

‘(4) To learn if the lands of Sofala are high or low, or marshy, or if
they have any mountain ranges.’

Hence it will be seen that, even as late as 1721, it was only rumoured
that there were ruins, and that the Portuguese sphere of influence went
very little inland. Needless to say, the expedition was never sent, and
that the reports were of the vaguest and most contradictory character.
Bocarro and Corvo both testify to the fact [28] that the Portuguese,
after the disastrous campaigns of Baretto, advanced but little into the
country, and were confined almost exclusively to the littoral. Taking
the map of this district, and looking at the spelling of the names, it
is easy to see how far Portuguese influence extended. They spell the
common prefix Inya with an h instead of a y: for example, they write it
Inhambane. Also they spell the name Gungunyama, Gungunhama; other
nations spell such names with a y, for example, Inyagowe. Hence the h
for y clearly marks the Portuguese sphere of influence.

These reports of an Eldorado northwards continued, and produced
periodical excitements amongst the young colonists of South Africa. The
Boers were everlastingly getting up treks with a view to reach it; the
vague mystery about King Solomon’s mines existing there, and the palace
of the Queen of Sheba, whetted their appetites when they heard these
rumours; but still nothing was definitely done until a German traveller
of more than ordinary energy penetrated as far as the Zimbabwe ruins in
the year 1871. This man was Karl Mauch: he examined them carefully and
wrote an accurate account of them, but, unfortunately, he ventured on a
speculation as to their origin which at once cast discredit on his
discoveries in the eyes of unbelieving archæologists. He maintained
that the fortress on the hill was a copy of King Solomon’s temple on
Mount Moriah, that the lower ruins were a copy of the palace which the
Queen of Sheba inhabited during her stay of several years in Jerusalem,
and that the trees in the middle of it were undoubtedly almug trees.

The result of this was that the subject of Zimbabwe ruins was in
abeyance for nearly twenty years after Mauch’s visit, and was rather
accredited as a traveller’s tale until the British Chartered Company
took possession of the country and enabled research to be
satisfactorily made. Nevertheless to Karl Mauch is distinctly due the
honour of being the first to investigate the ruins in modern times.










PART III

EXPLORATION JOURNEYS IN MASHONALAND


CHAPTER VIII

DOWN TO THE SABI RIVER AND MATINDELA RUINS


It was the report of extensive ruins, ‘larger,’ said a native, ‘than
those of Zimbabwe,’ which induced us to make an expedition involving
considerable hardships and unknown risks down in the direction of the
Sabi River. Our waggons, of course, could not go, as our way would be
by the narrow native paths. Previous experience had warned us against
depending on the native huts, so for the transport of our tents,
bedding, and provisions we had to make considerable preparations.

At Fort Victoria we borrowed seven donkeys from the Chartered Company,
and we engaged a few natives of reputed respectability under the
command of a man called Mashah, quite the most brilliant specimen of
the Makalanga race we came across during our sojourn in the country.
He, his father and his mother and his wife, a sister of our old friend
Umgabe, had been captured some years ago by the Matabele and spent
several years in servitude, during which time he had learnt the Zulu
tongue and the more energetic habits of this stronger race. Eventually,
after the death of his father and mother, he and his wife had escaped
and returned to Umgabe’s kraal, and on the arrival of the Chartered
Company’s pioneer force Mashah placed his services at their disposal.
He greatly distinguished himself by saving the lives of a band of the
pioneers when on a wild prospecting trip, for which service he received
a present of a Martini-Henry rifle, of which he was naturally very
proud.

Mashah’s Makalanga brethren call him ‘the white man’s slave,’ from his
devotion to the new race, and he constantly affirmed that if ever the
white man left this country he would go with them, for he was heartily
sick of the petty jealousies and constant squabbles of his countrymen.
He was a strange object to look upon with his tawny B.S.A. hat with an
ostrich feather in it, his shirt with a girdle round his waist, and
bare legs. He never once grumbled at anything he had to do, he was
never tired, and kept our other Kaffirs in excellent order. As for the
rest of them, they were as naked as God made them, save for the
insignificant loin-cloth. A man called Metzwandira was told off as our
body-servant, to wash the cups and plates and spoons, which latter
treasures he counted carefully over to us after every meal. We got
greatly attached to this individual, his manners were so gentle and
courteous and his voice so soft and silvery. One and all of them were
delighted to become possessed of our rejected milk tins, &c., with
which they made bracelets, seven inches wide, by cutting off the two
ends of the tin and drilling holes along the edge. One man tied the lid
of a ‘bully beef’ tin round his neck, another fastened the round bottom
of a milk tin in a jaunty fashion on to his black hair. Every tin we
opened and finished was eagerly picked up by our followers and carried
in net bags all the way, with a view to making some object of ornament
out of them. Even when given an old pair of boots, the recipient only
took out the brass hooks and eyes to fasten as ornaments in his
loin-cloth, and cast the rest away.

On leaving Fort Victoria we followed the Chartered Company’s road for
forty miles northwards with our waggons to Makori post station. One day
we were encamped near the two large villages of Umfanipatza and
Sibibabira built on two rocks, but now, with the confidence inspired by
the presence of the Chartered Company, the inhabitants are beginning to
build huts on the flat space around. We paid a visit to them both, and
admired the tall euphorbia which grew in them and the rich entanglement
of begonia and other creepers then in flower. In one hut we found a man
weaving a bark blanket very neatly with no loom, only platting it with
his fingers. It was done with a kind of pink twine made of some bark.

At Makori post station, under the shade of wide-spreading trees, and in
close proximity to some fantastic granite rocks, which rose like
gigantic menhirs out of the plain and were covered with an almost
scarlet lichen, we passed several busy days, preparing cruppers,
girths, and breast-bands for our seven pack-donkeys; bags for our
coffee, sugar, and tea; cobbling our boots and overhauling our clothes,
and nursing four fever patients, for there had been two days of chilly
drizzling rain, the inevitable result of which was fever for some of
our party. The post station lay about one mile from our camping-ground;
the two huts where the B.S.A. men lived were situated on a rocky kopje
full of caves, in one of which their horse was stabled, and from the
top of the rock an extensive view was gained over the high plateau,
well wooded just here and studded with rocks of fantastic shape. Here
and there thick volumes of smoke rose from the grass fires common all
over the country at this season of the year, which looked for all the
world like distant manufacturing towns, and suggested the comparison of
a view from a spur of the Derbyshire hills over the plain of Cheshire,
with Stockport, Manchester, and other centres of industry belching
forth their dense volumes of smoke.

On August 14 we started on our journey. It was a lovely morning, and
our progress was very slow, for our cavalcade was so heterogeneous—my
wife and I on horseback, Messrs. Swan and King with a horse between
them, three white men to look after the donkeys, and Mashah and his
Makalangas to carry what the donkeys could not. We straggled terribly
at first, for the donkeys were obstinate and their pack-saddles
unsteady, the natives were fresh and anxious to get along, so we had to
call for frequent halts to readjust ourselves, which gave us ample
opportunity for looking around. The country here is sown broadcast with
strange granite rocks; one group had formed themselves into an
extraordinary doorway, two columns on either side about sixty feet
high, with a gigantic boulder resting on the top of them for the
lintel. Like the structures of a giant race, these strange rocks rise
out of the thick vegetation in all directions. Presently, as we were
experiencing some little difficulty in getting our raw cavalcade across
a stream, a Makalanga joined us who had been born without hands. To his
left stump had been attached, by means of a leather thong, the claw of
a bird; with the assistance of this he ate some food we gave him with
marvellous dexterity, and fired his gun. He was a bright cheery
individual, evidently greatly respected by his more gifted comrades.

We only accomplished seven miles this first day, owing to the
difficulties of progression, and in the afternoon found ourselves
encamped by a wretched village called Chekatu. Here they had no cattle
and no milk to sell us owing to Matabele raids. The chief, Matzaire by
name, came to visit us with his iron sceptre in his hand, which made us
think of the rods of iron with which certain Israelitish kings are
stated to have ruled. We climbed amongst the huts before sundown and
came across an old hag busily engaged in shaving the heads of her
younger sisters, cutting their woolly locks into all sorts of odd
shapes as fancy or fashion suggested. She refused our most tempting
offers to part with her razor, and it was not till some time afterwards
that we were able to obtain a specimen of this Makalanga ironcraft.

Next day we crossed two rivers, tributaries of the Tokwe, and after a
prosperous ride of ten miles reached Sindito’s kraal, called Sekatu,
the inhabitants of which took us for a Matabele impi, and would not
come down till Mashah had screamed to them that we were no rogues, but
honest men. We gave the chief a cup of tea, which he detested, and as
soon as politeness permitted he said he had had enough. He returned the
compliment by giving us a calabash of good beer, which we drank with
pleasure. Sekatu was rather a nice village, on a hill covered with
thick jungle, amongst which grew in profusion cucumbers, about six
inches long, of a rich orange colour, with thorns outside and with a
delicious bright green pulp inside. They are the Cucumis metuliferus,
specimens of which may be seen in the museum at Kew Gardens. We had
seen these before, and looked upon them as poisonous, until our natives
partook of them and gave us confidence. Ever afterwards, as long as
they were in season, we indulged freely in this delicious fruit, and
voted it the best we had come across in Mashonaland.

The next day we halted for half an hour at a village called Imiridzi,
where we acquired a bag of bark fibre, made by knitting the twine with
two sticks for knitting-needles. These articles seemed very popular in
this village, and nearly everyone was engaged in their production.
Midday found us at a very large kraal, the chief place in the dominions
of a powerful Makalanga chief called Gutu. Gona is the name of the
kraal, and it is completely buried between two high granite kopjes. At
the entrance to it some tall trees are completely hung with provisions
packed away in their long sausage-like bundles—bags of locusts,
caterpillars, sweet potatoes, and other delicacies. These trees we
henceforth called ‘larder trees,’ and found them at nearly every
village. The inhabitants of Gona were unusually rich in savage
ornaments, and we annexed many snuff-boxes, knives, and other oddments.
The chief was unfortunately away, but his representative brought us
fine pots of beer and milk, and we made a hearty meal despite the dense
and rather unsavoury mass of natives which surrounded us during its
consumption. They have a plentiful growth of tobacco plants near Gutu’s
kraal, and large fields of rice, in which the women were just then
busily engaged in making the broad furrows; they have very prettily
carved doors to their huts, and many of the men wear sandals on their
feet. Altogether Gona struck us as one of the most prosperous kraals we
had seen in the country.

As we journeyed eastwards the appearance of the people was certainly
wilder. We here saw their heads decorated with curious erections of
woven grass, fastened into their hair and reaching an elevation of a
foot, like miniature Eiffel towers on their heads; [29] and at a
village called Muchienda we acquired two quaint-shaped straw hats with
ostrich feathers sticking in the top, quite different to anything we
had seen elsewhere. As we approached this village a long string of
natives passed us on their way to hunt; on their heads they carried
bark cases full of nets, which they stretch across the valleys and
drive the game into them. Muchienda was a lovely village by a rushing
stream full of rocks, which formed a little waterfall; the stream was
shaded by magnificent timber, and a background of lovely mountains made
us think Muchienda an ideal spot, at which we would willingly have
tarried longer.

Every day, as we approached the Sabi Valley, the scenery became
grander; the dreary high plateau gave place to deep valleys and high
rugged mountains; the vegetation was much more luxuriant and the
atmosphere many degrees hotter, so hot that during our midday halts we
did not care to wander very far from our camp, especially as we had a
good deal of manual labour to perform apart from the actual travelling,
in tent pitching, bed making, and cooking, for our white men were
generally so tired with driving and packing the donkeys that we could
not ask them to do anything after the march was over.

We soon got accustomed to sleeping on the ground. When it was unusually
rugged, for the grass grows here in tufts like the hair on the niggers’
heads, we got grass cut on which to lay our rugs; occasionally we found
it necessary to encamp on spots over which a grass fire had passed, and
then we got hopelessly black, and lived like sweeps until we reached a
stream, where we could wash ourselves and our clothes.

Lutilo, with the village of Luti perched upon one of its lower
precipices, is quite a grand mountain, almost Alpine in character, with
exquisite views over the distant Sabi and Manica Mountains. Here we
tarried for almost a whole day to visit an insignificant set of ruins a
few miles distant, called Metemo, but which formed a link in the great
chain of forts stretching northwards. It had been built in three
circles of very rough stone, somewhat ingeniously put together on the
top of a rounded granite hill, but hopelessly ruined. So we only
tarried there a while to make a plan, and to rest, and enjoy the lovely
view.

The country around here is very thickly wooded, and on our return to
our camp a herd of deer passed close to us, a species known to the
Dutch as Swartvit-pens, or ‘swarthy white paunches,’ but we failed to
get one, a matter of considerable regret from a commissariat point of
view, for meat is scarce in the villages about here, and our tinned
supplies were getting low.

We struck our camp at Lutilo rather late in the afternoon, and only got
as far as a river called the ’Nyatzetse, the crossing of which involved
the unloading of our animals. On the way we passed through two
villages, where the inhabitants were busily engaged in building huts,
for it was evidently a new encampment, and in making beer, which was
too new to drink; the land around was being freshly turned up for their
fields, after the approved Makalanga fashion. First they clear a space
of jungle, leaving the larger trees, and pile up the brushwood round
the roots, then they set fire to the heaps, and when it is consumed the
tree is killed, and more easy to cut down.

The next day brought us at a very early hour to the site of the
Matindela ruins, which was to be our halting-place for a few days. The
ruins certainly are fine, but far inferior to those of Zimbabwe; they
are perched on the top of a bare granite rock about 150 feet high, a
most admirable strategical position. [30] In the centre of them we
pitched our tents for our welcome halt of three days, and made
ourselves as comfortable as rain would permit, for it fell in torrents
here even though it was the dry season. The term ‘Matindela’ means
‘guinea-fowl,’ quantities of which birds are found around here, as
indeed they are in most parts of this country.

We were now only twenty miles from the Sabi River, and the country
around was almost deserted, ruined villages crowned most of the
heights, and the deserted fields and devastation in every direction
were lamentable to behold. There were evidences, too, of a fairly
recent raid, in which the poor Makalangas had been driven out of their
homes and probably carried into slavery. By common consent the two
great Zulu chiefs, Lobengula and Gungunyana, whose embassy visited
England last year, consider the Sabi as their respective boundary for
marauding expeditions. On this occasion I believe Gungunyana and his
Shangans were to blame, who, finding that Lobengula was cut off by the
Chartered Company from this part of his district, had made bold to
cross the Sabi and raid on the western side, bringing destruction into
the Makalanga homes, which in former years had here been thought very
secure, being, as they were, far from Lobengula and just out of
Gungunyana’s recognised district.

The Makalangas have the greatest horror of the Shangans, who dwell
across the Sabi, and do Gungunyana’s bidding. One day at Matindela we
brought home a specimen of a curious fruit which hangs from the trees,
eighteen inches to two feet long, like thick German sausages; it has
beans inside, and we asked Mashah if it was good to eat: ‘No Makalangas
eat umvebe,’ as he called it, ‘only the Shangans and baboons.’

Whilst at Matindela we sampled several kinds of strange fruit: firstly
the Kaffir orange, a kind of strychnia, which is a hard fruit with
yellow pulp inside around seeds, and of which every traveller should
beware of eating if not quite ripe—an error into which several of our
party fell; it is apt to produce violent sickness under those
conditions, and at best it is painfully astringent, causing horrible
facial contortions when you eat it, as most of the fruits about here
do. Amongst other things, they brought to our camp at Matindela large
quantities of the delicious cucumbers, monkey-nuts, sweet potatoes, and
a sweet fruit which you chew and spit out like sugar-cane, which they
call matoko. From the gigantic trees around us, the far-famed baobab
trees, we gathered the nuts with the refreshing cream of tartar pulp
inside. The baobab is the great feature of Matindela Hill; there are a
dozen of them on it, huge giants, which in their growth have knocked
down large portions of the walls. Though probably these trees are not
as old as report says, nevertheless their presence here proves that
these ruins have been utterly abandoned for many centuries. It is
another problem to prove how their thick roots find sustenance for so
huge a vegetable growth, perched as they are on an almost soil-less
granite rock. Doubtless these roots follow the fissures in the granite
and obtain the required moisture from some considerable distance. The
effect, however, is exceedingly odd to see these colossal trees growing
in no depth of soil on the top of a granite rock.

I had always been sceptical about the honey-bird until its virtues were
properly proved to us when at Matindela. An insignificant little bird,
with a significant chirp, led our men over rocks and through jungle
till they actually found honey, so that we could no longer indulge in
doubts as to this mysterious gift, which, like the water-finding
divining rods, I will leave to others to explain.

Traces of recent life around Matindela were numerous: the valleys had
all at one time been ploughed: ruined huts, constructed high up in the
trees, had served as outlooks for the agriculturists, bark beehives
were in the trees, but the villages were all blackened and burnt, the
granaries knocked down and the inhabitants gone, no one knows where.
Never during any camp of lengthened duration were we visited by so few
natives as at Matindela. About here game is very plentiful; we sighted
fresh elephant and giraffe ‘spoor,’ and we personally made the
acquaintance of zebras, kudu, and other kinds of antelope. Across the
valley below was an old and now disused stockade for catching game, and
hunting-parties in this locality have been numerous. These parties are
arranged by the Makalangas on a small or large scale; sometimes, when
they have an elaborate system of stockades, they just drive the game
towards a cul de sac or a narrow gap where men are hidden in the grass;
sometimes they have great parties forming two half-moons; one of these
stations itself behind a kopje, whilst the other, with dogs and
shouting, drives the game to them.

Their game laws give rise to frequent squabbles amongst the chiefs; it
is generally understood that, if a man wounds a buck and another kills
it, the wounder claims the carcass, but the killer is entitled to take
whichever limb he wishes. There is a tribe near Zimbabwe who will not
eat a buck unless it has had its throat cut, and so they endeavour
first to wound it, and then proceed to cut its throat. For small buck,
hares, &c., they make traps across the narrow paths with a beam which
falls when the animal treads on the plank below, being fixed on the
path between two sloping rows of stakes.

Our course from Matindela was north-east—not the most direct route to
the Sabi, which is only about twenty miles due east, but we had nobody
with us who knew the way, and we had to go to a village for a guide.
After a ride of seven miles we reached a curious lofty mountain called
Chiburwe, close on 1,000 feet above the plain; it is almost round, and
its flanks are decorated with huge granite boulders rising out of
euphorbia, baobabs, and rank tropical vegetation. On the side we first
reached this mountain the vegetation was too dense to allow us to
ascend, so we had to ride to the northern side and go up by a slippery
slope of black granite, the ordinary approach used by the natives,
whose bare feet cling readily to the rocks, but which was horrible for
feet encased in European boots. The summit is flat and grassy like a
Brighton down, being covered with a soft small stagshorn moss,
delightful to lie upon. This spot is the happy play-ground of two
native villages, which are placed on either side of the mountain; here
they are sublimely safe and free from the raids of their enemies, and
Chiburwe forms a sort of Makalanga outpost in the direction of the
Sabi. Amongst other names mentioned by Portuguese writers which are
still retained in the locality we find Chiburga as a stronghold, where
the Monomatapa’s wives were kept. I think it highly probable that this
is the spot. On the summit we found several sets of holes for the
Isafuba game, and the inhabitants we came across seemed more than
usually timid. Our view was indescribably lovely, with Lutilo and the
spots we knew well behind us, and the mysterious blue mountains of
Manica before us.

In a rocky crevice we found one of the miserable villages of Chiburwe,
with no beer, no milk, no fowls and no eggs to be had; it appeared to
be solely inhabited by two women grinding millet, who were much afraid
of us, and retired into the darkest recesses of their huts. Their
ingenuity in utilising bark is exemplified up here, where mud is
scarce, for they make their granaries of the bark of the baobab, only
covering the edges with mud, and binding them round with withes.

For two days after leaving Chiburwe we wandered through trackless
forests, guided only by a notion of the direction we wished to go, for
we could not annex a native guide. A mile or two from Chiburwe we found
a ruined fort of the best period of Zimbabwe work, with courses of
great regularity, but much of the wall had been knocked down by the
baobab trees which had grown up in it. Nobody could give us a name for
this ruin in the wilderness, so we called it Chiburwe, measured it,
took notes on it, and rode on.

The forest scenery was grand and impressive in its solitude; sometimes
we had great difficulty in getting our animals through the thick
undergrowth; the trees were rich in colour, red and light green, equal
to any of our autumnal tints, out of which now and again rose granite
boulders. The crossing of the River Mwairari, a fine tributary of the
Sabi, gave us a little trouble; it has a fine volume of water with
occasional rapids, waterfalls, and high rocks, and we had to follow its
right bank for several miles before we could get our animals across;
the river bed was luxuriant in tall pampas grass and patches of
papyrus.

On the second afternoon after leaving Chiburwe we sighted the Sabi
River, having gone miles out of our way; it is a really magnificent
stream even here so far inland, and is navigable now for canoes very
little below where we struck it. In ancient times it must have been
navigable for larger craft, for all African rivers are silting up.
There is little doubt but that the ancient builders of the ruins in
Mashonaland, the forts and towns between the Zambesi and the Limpopo,
utilised this stream as their road to and from the coast; and as the
country again is opened out it may still be found useful as a waterway
for small craft. Where we struck the Sabi it is a rapid river, flowing
through a gorge and with a rocky bed; there are no marshes here, but
fertile-looking slopes leading down to it, which appeared to us to
promise well for the future agriculturists who settle on its banks,
though the rainfall, which takes place only in summer, and for the
space of only four months, will be a drawback to cereals. Now these
slopes are entirely deserted, and about here we saw no villages, nor
natives, nor paths, for days, doubtless owing to the raids of
Gungunyana and his Shangans from across the stream. There is no doubt
about it, the world is not full yet. In Mashonaland there exist tens of
thousands of acres of fertile land entirely unoccupied. Thanks probably
to the Matabele raids, the population is here exceedingly scanty, and
when one travels through the long-deserted stretches of country,
healthy, well watered, and capable of growing anything, which still
exist between the Zambesi and the Limpopo, one cannot help thinking
that those who complain of the world being too full, and that there is
no opening for colonisation, are a century or two before their time.

Everybody revelled in the waters of the Sabi that evening—bathing and
washing clothes occupied most of our time until it was dark; but, alas,
our camp was pitched on ground over which a grass fire had passed, and
the good effects of our Sabi wash were more than obliterated. We again
plunged into the trackless wilderness, and it was not till the second
day after leaving the river that we once more joyfully found ourselves
in a native path leading in the direction which we ought to go; but we
followed it for over thirty miles before we came across a village. This
was called Zamopera, on the banks of a pleasant stream. We were so
pleased to see people again and to have a chance of replenishing our
stock of provisions that we tarried there for the best part of a day,
and pitched our camp beneath the shadow of a friendly rock. Crowds of
men and women from Zamopera came to visit us; wild-looking people they
were—the men with long matted hair hanging like a fringe over their
faces, and hung with beads and cowrie-shells, whilst the women here cut
off all their hair except a circle in the middle, which is short and
threaded with beads in seven rows, four of white outside and three of
red in the centre, looking exactly like round bead mats on the top of
their heads. We were now in the country of another great Makalanga
chief, called Gambidji, whose kraal, perched on a lofty rock, we
sighted in the distance, but had not time to visit.

In the villages about here, which are numerous and flourishing, we saw
many curious objects, some of which we acquired, others we could not
strike a bargain for: a native razor, bone dollasses, and quaint-shaped
battle-axes were added to our collection. Mafusaire’s village is
perched amongst odd-shaped boulders, fantastic as the rocks in
Dovedale, ever varying in form. The inhabitants were a very friendly
lot, and were almost beside themselves with delight when my wife took
down her hair and showed them its length. They greatly prized a gift of
a few of these long hairs, which they will doubtless keep as a memento
of the first white lady who ever came amongst them.

The fear of the Makalanga of horses is most curious; even our own men
would not touch them, and the villagers were quite awestruck when we
mounted. They generally followed us in crowds for a little distance
from the village, and screamed with delight when we trotted, scampering
and capering by our sides.

We passed by the tomb of a chief on the afternoon after leaving
Mafusaire’s; it consisted of a mound with a circular construction of
stones on the top of it, over which is a thatched roof standing on
posts; on the top of the stones stood a pot, in which beer is
periodically put, for the delectation of the deceased.

We were now in the immediate neighbourhood of Mount Wedza, the highest
point in Mashonaland, with an elevation of over 6,000 feet above sea
level. It is for the most part a dark forest-clad ridge, and it is from
here that the natives of Gambidji’s country get the iron ore which they
smelt in their furnaces and convert into tools and weapons. The
villages in this district are entirely given up to the smelting
business, and outside the kraals usually are erected two or more
furnaces. They are still in the Stone Age here, using for anvils and
hammers pieces of hard diorite. One of these villages where we halted
for a while was, to our astonishment, called Smet. Not believing our
ears, we asked again and again, and got the same reply. The only
solution to this strange nomenclature seems to be, that they either got
the name from some Dutch trader or from some enterprising Makalanga who
had been down to work in the Kimberley mines. For long these natives
have been in the habit of doing this, tramping all the way from the
Zambesi to the diamond-fields, and not returning thence until they have
acquired enough wealth to buy a wife or two and settle themselves in
life.

A man from Smet, who was going to ’Mtigeza’s kraal, volunteered to act
as our guide. He carried with him three large iron hoes which he had
made, and for which he expected to get a goat at the kraal. Gambidji’s
country is very extensive, extending nominally from the Sabi to a ridge
which we crossed before reaching ’Mtigeza’s, and most of the
iron-smelting villages recognise his sovereignty.

Two chiefs of the name of ’Mtigeza live around Mount Wedza, both
claiming to be the descendants of the old ’Mtigeza stock. Our ’Mtigeza
was a queer little old man, almost in his dotage, but considered very
powerful by his neighbours, and this was evidenced by the villages
being more in the open, and not seeking protection from rocky heights.
His fortress is a curious one, situated on an extensive plateau 4,800
feet above the sea level, with disjointed low masses of rocks dotted
about. Around the central mass of rocks is ’Mtigeza’s head kraal,
surrounded by palisades, and the rock itself is strongly fortified,
with all the approaches walled up, and for us Europeans it was by no
means easy to reach the summit by means of holes through which we could
hardly squeeze, and slits in the rock through which we could only pass
sideways. On the top is a circular fort built of rough stones and
mortar, and the boast of the people here is that the Matabele have
never been able to take their stronghold. From the fort we had a good
bird’s-eye view over ’Mtigeza’s realm; there are a number of encircling
villages built on similar masses of rock, about half a mile or more
distant. These are governed by the old man’s sons.

We sent the old chief a blanket, and he presently came to pay us a
visit. According to our custom, we showed him our things, in which he
did not manifest much interest until my wife produced a burning-glass,
and showed off its wonderful fire-producing qualities on his skin. Then
in a weak little voice the old chief murmured, ‘I, ’Mtigeza, want it,’
and she promptly presented it to him, also a little salt. As we lunched
he sat and watched us, but would partake of nothing we offered him,
until we threw some well-picked chicken bones to our men; these he
coveted and got.

’Mtigeza held an indaba or palaver of his inaunas in a shady nook
before his kraal, the result of which was that a goat was to be
presented to us by quite a lengthy process. First of all it was
presented to Mashah, who humbly received it with hat off and head
bowed, making all the necessary compliments for us. Mashah then
presented it to our white men, and they finally presented it to us, and
it formed a valuable addition to our larder.

We were surprised to find little evidence of wealth in ’Mtigeza’s
kraal. Their knives and snuff-boxes were decidedly inferior in
workmanship to those we had seen elsewhere, and this we found as we
travelled on to be invariably the case where the Matabele or Zulu
influence has been least felt. The Zulu is the most ingenious of the
Abantu races, and has imparted his ingenuity to the Makalanga, over
whom he has raided and many of whom have been his slaves.

There were two as yet roofless but substantial huts being built in the
kraal entirely of mud, which is a new departure for the Makalanga. The
insides of these were decorated with squares of black and white, like
those one sees in Bechuanaland. Undoubtedly foreign influence is being
felt here from its proximity to Fort Charter, and very soon the
architectural features of Makalangaland will change with the rapidity
that all things change in Kaffirdom. Inside the huts were big household
granaries for the domestic stores, also made of mud and decorated
curiously with rims, and rude paintings in white of deer, birds, and
men. One represents a waggon with a span of six oxen and a man driving
it. The artistic skill is, of course, of a low order, but it shows the
influence of the Morunko, or white man, and how his approach has been
the theme of their wonder and excited their imagination. I doubt not
but those who follow after us will find attempts made to illustrate on
their granaries a Morunko lady with long flowing hair trotting on that
strange animal, the horse.

’Mtigeza and his kraal pleased us so much that we did not leave till
quite late in the afternoon. We passed through quantities of
rice-fields, which spoke of prosperity; and this Makalanga rice is
truly excellent, being larger, more glutinous, and of a pinker hue than
our Indian rice, which to our minds tasted very insipid after it. It
was almost dark when we reached Matimbi’s kraal, and pitched our tents
close to the tomb of another chief. Matimbi came down to see us; he is
the handsomest of all the chiefs we had yet seen, with quite a
European-shaped face, long hair and long beard, both rarities in this
country, and a splendid knife, carved and decorated with brass wire,
which we coveted but could not obtain.

On the following day, September 2, a long ride brought us to Fort
Charter and our waggons in time for our midday meal. Thoroughly did we
enjoy our tables, our chairs, and our waggon-beds after nearly three
weeks’ intimate acquaintance with mother earth. Until the experience of
greater privations farther north came upon us, we thought we enjoyed
the food, the soup, the bully beef, the bread, and the jam which our
cook placed before our hungry eyes to the utmost extent that man could
do.

Here we regretfully parted with our friend Mashah and most of our
Makalangas; two only of enterprising mind elected to follow us and earn
more blankets, and they served us with unswerving fidelity till we
reached the coast at Beira. Mashanani was the name of one of them,
whose only fault was a too great attachment to Kaffir beer; Iguzu was
the name of the other, the most industrious man I ever saw. When not
working for us, he would sit on a rock for ever patching a ragged old
shirt that had been presented to him, until there was little of the
original fabric left, or else turning old jam tins into ornaments or
threading beads.








CHAPTER IX

FORT SALISBURY AND THE OLD WORKINGS AND RUINS OF THE MAZOE VALLEY


A few remarks on the future capital of the Mashonaland gold-fields may
not be amiss, by way of sharp contrast, in a work more especially
devoted to the study of the past. The same motive, namely, the thirst
for gold, created the hoary walls of Zimbabwe and the daub huts of Fort
Salisbury, probably the oldest and the youngest buildings erected for
the purpose by mankind, ever keen after that precious metal which has
had so remarkable an influence on generation after generation of human
atoms. These remarks on Fort Salisbury will, moreover, have a certain
amount of historical value in years to come, when it has its railway,
its town hall, and its cathedral, for we were there on the day on which
its first birthday was kept, the anniversary of the planting of the
British flag by the pioneers on the dreary upland waste of Mashonaland.
It seemed to us a very creditable development, too, for so young a
place, when it is taken into consideration that Fort Salisbury, unlike
the mushroom towns of the Western Hemisphere, has grown up at a
distance of 800 miles from a railway, without telegraphic
communication, and for months during the rainy season without
intercourse of any kind with the outer world, handicapped by fever,
famine, and an unparalleled continuation of rain.

In the space of twelve months three distinct townships had grown up.
One was under the low hill or kopje devoted to business men, where
indications of brick houses succeeding daub huts had already manifested
themselves; solicitors, auctioneers, and a washerwoman had already
established themselves there; bars, restaurants, and a so-called hotel
had been constructed. Fort Salisbury had already started its mass
meetings and revolutionary elements, for it seems that in all new
communities the spirit of evil must always come in advance of the good.
An enterprising individual had produced a paper called the Mashonaland
Times and Zambesia Herald, and two men had brought billiard-tables with
them, one of which was hopelessly smashed on the journey, ensuring for
the other a successful and paying monopoly. About half a mile from this
busy quarter was the military centre, the fort and the Government
stores surmounted by Her Majesty’s flag, forming a little village in
itself. A quarter of a mile farther were the huts devoted to the civil
administration; and farther off still were the hospital huts
superintended by some charming Benedictine sisters and a Jesuit Father.
Around all this was the wide open veldt of Mashonaland, studded just
then by lovely flowers, and grazed upon by many lean, worn-out oxen,
the sole survivors of many well-appointed teams which had struggled up
the same interminable road that we had, leaving by the roadside the
carcasses of so many comrades, which, in process of decay, had caused
us many an unpleasant sensation.

On September 12, the anniversary of the arrival of the pioneers, a
grand dinner was given to about eighty individuals at the hotel to
celebrate the event: representatives of the military, civil, and
business communities were bidden; gold prospectors, mining experts, men
of established and questionable reputations—all were there, and the
promoters underwent superhuman difficulties in catering for so many
guests, and gave fabulous prices for a sufficiency of wine, spirits,
and victuals properly to celebrate the occasion. It was in its
initiative ostensibly a social gathering to celebrate an ostensibly
auspicious occasion; but one after-dinner speech became more
intemperate than the other: the authorities were loudly abused for
faults committed by them, real or imaginary; well-known names, when
pronounced, were hooted and hissed; and the social gathering developed,
as the evening went on, into a wild demonstration of discontent.

At the bottom of all this ill-feeling was the question of supplies. The
previous rainy season had been passed by the pioneers in abject misery;
there was no food to eat, and no medicine to administer to the
overwhelming number of fever patients. The rainy season was now fast
approaching again, when for months the place would be cut off by the
rivers from the outer world, and the 400 waggon-loads of provisions
promised by the company had not yet arrived. Lucky were those who had
anything to sell in those days: a bottle of brandy fetched 3l. 10s.;
champagne was bought at the rate of 30l. a dozen; ham was 4s. 6d. a
lb.; tins of jam 5s. 6d.; butter, tinned meats, and luxuries were
impossible to obtain; and yet when, after a few weeks, the 400 waggons
did come, there was a glut in the market of all these things; plenty
was ensured for the coming wet season, and there were no more mass
meetings or abuse of the authorities.

Probably few cases have occurred in the world’s history of greater
difficulty in catering than that which presented itself to the
Chartered Company during the first year of Fort Salisbury’s existence.
Very little could be obtained from a native source, for the inhabitants
here are few. Hungry, impecunious gold prospectors were flocking into
the place; the usual tribe of adventurers, who always appear as
impediments to a new and presumably prosperous undertaking, were here
by the score. Eight hundred miles lay between Fort Salisbury and the
food supply, which had to be traversed by the tedious process of
bullock waggons. The Pungwe route, which had been confidently looked to
as a more rapid means of communication, had so far proved a fiasco, and
hundreds of pounds’ worth of provisions were rotting on the other side
of the fly belt at Mapanda’s and Beira; so no wonder discontent was
rife at the prospect of famine and death during the ensuing wet months,
and no wonder just then that the administrators were at their wits’
end, for, though firmly believing that the waggons would come, they
could not be sure, for there was no telegraphic communication in those
days. One morning we saw Mr. Selous hurriedly despatched to bring up
the waggons at any cost. A few weeks later we heard that they had
arrived, and the danger which had threatened the infant Fort Salisbury
was averted.

At an elevation of 5,000 feet above the sea level, and barely 18° south
of the equator, the air of Fort Salisbury is naturally delicious, and
it will probably be the healthiest place in the world when the swamps
in its vicinity are properly drained, from which, during the rainy
season, malarious vapours proceed and cause fever. The question of
drainage was exercising the minds of the authorities when we were
there, and much probably has now been done in that direction. Searching
winds and clouds of dust were about the only discomforts we personally
experienced whilst encamped there; these, however, caused us no little
inconvenience, as we were preparing our belongings for various
destinations, a matter of no small difficulty after seven months of
waggon life. We were told to sell everything we could, including our
waggons and oxen, as it would only be possible to perform the rest of
the journeys before us with horses and donkeys and bearers,
necessitating the reduction of our impedimenta to the smallest possible
quantity. What promised to be a very interesting expedition was in
store for us—namely, to take a present of 40l. worth of goods from the
Chartered Company to a chief, ’Mtoko by name, who lived about 120 miles
north-east of Fort Salisbury. His country had as yet been hardly
visited by white men, and was reported to be replete with
anthropological interests. Then we were to make our way down to
Makoni’s country, where the existence of ruins was brought before our
notice, and so on to Umtali and the coast. This prospective trip would
take us many weeks, and would lead us through much country hitherto
unexplored, so that ample preparations and a careful adjustment of our
belongings were necessary. The best interpreter to be had was kindly
placed at our disposal by the Chartered Company, as the language in
those parts differs essentially from that spoken at Zimbabwe and the
Sabi, a certain portion of which had by this time penetrated into our
brains. The interpreter in question was just then absent from Fort
Salisbury, so to occupy our time we decided on a trip to the Mazoe
Valley, and the old gold workings which exist there.

Having despatched three donkeys with bedding and provisions the night
before, we left Fort Salisbury one lovely morning, September 15, and
rode through country as uninteresting as one could well imagine until
we reached Mount Hampden. Somehow or another we had formed impressions
of this mountain of a wholly erroneous character. It has an historic
interest as a landmark, named after one of the first explorers of
Mashonaland, but beyond this it is miserably disappointing. Instead of
the fine mountain which our imaginations had painted for us, we saw
only a miserable round elevation above the surrounding plain, which
might possibly be as high as Box Hill, certainly no higher. It is
covered with trees of stunted growth; it is absolutely featureless; and
is alone interesting from its isolation, and the vast area of flat
veldt which its summit commands.

Soon after leaving Mount Hampden the views grew very much finer, and as
we descended into the valley of the Tatagora, a tributary of the Mazoe,
we entered into a distinctly new class of scenery. Here everything is
rich and green; the rounded hills and wooded heights were an immense
relief to us after the continuous though fantastic granite kopjes which
we had travelled amongst during the whole of our sojourn in
Mashonaland. The delicate green leaves of the machabel tree, on which,
I am told, elephants delight to feed, were just now at their best, and
take the place of the mimosa, mapani, and other trees, of which we had
grown somewhat weary. The soil, too, is here of a reddish colour, and
we enjoyed all the pleasurable sensations of getting into an entirely
new formation, after the eye had been accustomed to one style of
colouring for months.

As we proceeded down the valley the hills closed in and became higher;
occasional rugged peaks stood up out of gentle wooded slopes; and if
one had ignored the trivial detail of foliage, one might have imagined
that we were plunging into a pretty Norwegian valley with a stream
rushing down its midst.

Presently we came upon a nest of native kraals, and alighted to inspect
them. There are those who say that these people are the real Mashonas,
who have given their name to the whole country. This I much doubt; at
any rate they are very different from the Makalangas, with whom we had
hitherto been entirely associated, and have been here only for a few
years. When Mr. Selous first visited this valley on one of his hunting
expeditions in 1883, he found it quite uninhabited, whereas now there
are many villages, an apt illustration of the migratory tendencies of
these tribes. They are quite different in type to the Makalangas, and,
I should say, distinctly inferior in physique. They build their huts
differently, with long eaves coming right down to the ground. Their
granaries are fatter and lower, and made of branches instead of mud,
these two facts pointing distinctly to a tribal variation. They wear
their hair in long strings over their face, one on each side of the
nose, and the others hanging on their cheeks, giving them quite a
sphinx-like appearance. These strings are adorned with beads and
cowrie-shells, and must form the most uncomfortable style of coiffure
that ever was invented. They have magnificent bowls of hand-made
pottery, decorated with chevron patterns in red and black, which
colours they obtain from hematite and plumbago; and on all advantageous
spots near the villages are platforms raised on stakes for drying
grain.

Undoubtedly this race, whoever they may be, have a northern origin, for
they call beer Doorah or Doro, the same word used for the same material
in Abyssinia and Nubia. This word is also used in ’Mtoko’s and Makoni’s
country. Curiously enough, Edrisi, in his geography, when speaking of
the Zindj inhabitants near Sofala, makes this statement: ‘Dowrah is
very scarce amongst them,’ pointing to the Arabian origin of the word;
whereas in Manicaland beer is called Wa-wa, and in Mashonaland, south
of Fort Salisbury, it is called ’Mtwala, a word of Zulu origin.

Four miles beyond these villages the valley gets very narrow and the
scenery very fine; and the shades of evening found us comfortably
located in the huts of Mr. Fleming, a gold prospector, at a distance of
twenty-five miles from Fort Salisbury and in the vicinity of the
ancient mines. Immediately opposite to us rose a fine rocky mountain in
which are caves where the natives hide themselves and their cattle
during Matabele raids. It was a lovely warm evening, and as we sat
contemplating the scene and resting after the labours of the day, we
felt the soothing influence upon us of scenery more congenial to our
taste than any we had yet seen in Mashonaland.

The first set of old workings which we visited was only a few hundred
yards from Mr. Fleming’s huts, and consisted of rows of vertical
shafts, now filled up with rubbish, sunk along the edge of the
auriferous reef, and presumably, from instances we saw later,
communicating with one another by horizontal shafts below. We saw also
several instances of sloping and horizontal shafts, all pointing to
considerable engineering skill. It must have been ages since these
shafts were worked, for they are all filled nearly to the surface with
débris, and huge machabel-trees, the largest in the vicinity, are
growing out of them. We then proceeded to visit some old workings about
a mile and a half off on the hill slopes. One vertical shaft had been
cleared out by Mr. Fleming’s workmen, and it was fifty-five feet deep.
Down this we went with considerable difficulty, and saw for ourselves
the ancient tool marks and the smaller horizontal shafts which
connected the various holes bored into the gold-bearing quartz.

I am told that near Hartley Hills some of these old workings go down
even to a greater depth, and that one has been cleared out to the depth
of eighty feet, proving incontestably that the ancient workers of these
mines were not content with mere surface work, and followed the reef
with the skill of a modern miner.

All about here the ground is honeycombed with old shafts of a similar
nature, indicated now by small round depressions in straight lines
along the reef where different shafts had been sunk; in fact, the
output of gold in centuries long gone by must have been enormous.

Since the modern invasion of this gold-producing district a
considerable amount of prospecting has been done, but of necessity time
has not allowed of a thorough investigation of the country. Wherever
the gold prospector has been, he finds instances of ancient working,
and these old shafts extend all up the country wherever the
gold-bearing quartz is to be found. There are ruins similar to those at
Zimbabwe and the old workings in the Tati district. The old workings
and ruins extend for miles and miles up the Mazoe Valley. Numerous old
shafts are to be found at Hartley Hills, and on the ’Mswezwe River.
Near Fort Victoria and in the immediate vicinity of Zimbabwe the
prospectors have lately brought to light the same features; everywhere,
in short, where the pioneer prospectors have as yet penetrated
overwhelming proof of the extent of the ancient industry is brought to
light. Mr. E. A. Maund thus speaks of the old workings in the ’Mswezwe
district: [31] ‘On all sides there was testimony of the enormous amount
of work that had been done by the ancients for the production of gold.
Here, as on the Mazoe and at Umtali, tens of thousands of slaves must
have been at work taking out the softer parts of the casing of the
reefs, and millions of tons have been overturned in their search for
gold.’

In all these places, too, as in the Mazoe Valley, especially down by
the streams, are found crushing-stones, some in long rows, suggesting
the idea that the gold had been worked by gangs of slaves chained
together in rows, after the fashion depicted on the Egyptian monuments
and described by Diodorus; and near Mr. Fleming’s camp we were shown
traces of a cement smelting furnace similar to the one we discovered in
the fortress of Zimbabwe, showing that all the various processes of
gold production, crushing, washing, and smelting, were carried on on
the spot.

As we proceeded up the Mazoe Valley we saw plenty of traces of the
juvenile enterprise at work on the old hunting-ground; and a little
below Mr. Fleming’s camp the Taragona and Mazoe Rivers join, the latter
coming down from a valley of higher level, by a Poort or gorge.
Established on the old workings along here were numerous settlements
bearing modern names—Rothschild’s, Cherry’s, Lockner’s, and others—and
soon probably a little township will spring up around the mining
commissioner’s hut, where the Mazoe River is lined by fine timber,
including lemon-trees, the fruit of which was just then ripe, and
deliciously refreshing after our hot morning’s work. These lemon-trees
are alluded to by Dos Santos as existing in these parts in his day
three hundred years ago.

The mining commissioner, Mr. Nesbit, entertained us most hospitably for
our midday repast, and directed us on our way to the Yellow Jacket
Mine, near which we were to see more old workings and an ancient ruined
fort. By another narrow gorge or Poort, rich in vegetation, and lovely
to look upon, we reached the higher valley, and when darkness had
already set in, by the aid of the distant glimmering light of a camp
fire we made our way to the tents of the Yellow Jacket prospectors,
whose abode we had nearly missed in the gloaming. The kindly
prospectors hastened to prepare for us an excellent supper of eland
steak, for they had shot one of these fine beasts a day or two before,
a wonderfully good stroke of luck for us, as we were without meat. The
eland is the best beast you can kill in Mashonaland, for not only is it
large, but around its heart it has a considerable amount of fat, so
that its flesh can be properly served up, and not reduced to lumps of
leather for want of grease. They had also shot a fine lion here not
long before, and proudly showed us the skin.

The country about here is very thickly wooded, and we had a glorious
ride next morning to the ruins we wished to visit, about five miles
distant, across rushing streams overhung with verdure, and in which
alluvial gold is still found in small quantities. Here we saw specimens
of those curious birds with long tail-like feathers at the end of their
wings, which can only fly for a short distance, and seem overweighted
by nature for some peculiar freak of her own. There are, too, all up
this country many varieties of small birds with tail feathers four or
five times their own length, which droop as they fly. These birds seem
to me to resemble closely the one depicted on the temple of
Deir-el-Bahari in the representation of a village in Punt (Mariette’s
‘Deir-el-Bahari,’ plate v.), identified as the Cinnyris metallica, and
found all along the east coast of Africa.

We reached the ruin in good time, and halted by it for a couple of
hours. It is a small ancient fort, built, as usual, on a granite kopje,
and constructed with courses of wonderful regularity, equal to what we
term the best period of Zimbabwe architecture. Not much of the wall was
standing; enough, however, to show us that the fort had been almost
twenty feet in diameter, and to cause us to wonder where the remaining
stones could have gone to, as there are no buildings or Kaffir kraals
anywhere near it. This is another of the many mysteries attached to the
Mashonaland ruins; where the walls are ruined the stones would seem to
have entirely disappeared. This difficulty confronted us at several
places, and I am utterly at a loss to account for it.

The fort, as it stands now, is exceedingly picturesque, in a green
glade with mountains shutting it in on all sides; fine timber grows
inside it and large boulders are enclosed within the walls. It was
obviously erected as a fort to protect the miners of the district, and
is a link in the chain of evidence which connects the Zimbabwe ruins
with the old workings scattered over the country.

On our homeward journey we visited a lot more ancient workings, some of
which are being opened by the present occupiers, who seemed tolerably
well satisfied with their properties, despite the strictures which had
been passed by experts, that the gold reefs in the Mazoe Valley
‘pinched out’ and did other disagreeable things which they ought not to
do. From a picturesque point of view the Mazoe Valley is certainly one
of the pet places in Mashonaland: the views in every direction are
exquisite, water is abundant everywhere, and verdure rich; and if the
prospectors are disappointed in their search for gold, and find that
the ancients have exhausted the place, they will have, at any rate,
valuable properties from an agricultural point of view.

Owing to our previous arrangements we were obliged to return to Fort
Salisbury the next day, regretting much that we had not time to proceed
farther up the Mazoe Valley, where, about forty miles farther on, is
another great centre of ancient industry. I was told of another ruin
there, probably built for the same defensive purpose; it is near a
Kaffir village called Chipadzi’s. About twenty-five miles farther up
the valley from the commissioner’s is Mapandera’s kraal on the Sangwe
River, a tributary of the Mazoe or Mazowe. Here, on the Inyota
Mountain, gold is said to be plentiful and old workings very numerous,
as many as seventy-five crushing-stones having been counted on one
single claim. Twenty miles south-east of Mapandera’s is Chipadzi’s
kraal, and a few miles from here in the mountains is another ruin,
described to me as being a circular wall round a kopje from 150 to 200
feet in diameter. This wall is in a very ruined condition, being not
more than four feet in height, but the courses are reported to be quite
as regular as those of Zimbabwe, which appears to be the crucial test
in classifying these remains of ancient workmanship. It has no
entrance, and the natives thereabouts did not appear to know anything
about it or attach any special interest to it.

The Mazoe Valley is frequently alluded to in early Portuguese
enterprise, being easily approachable from the Zambesi, and the river
is, I am told, navigable about eighty miles below where we struck it.

Couto, the Portuguese writer, thus speaks of the gold mines here in his
quaint legendary style: ‘The richest mines of all are those of Massapa,
where they show the Abyssinian mine from which the Queen of Sheba took
the greater part of the gold which she went to offer to the Temple of
Solomon, and it is Ophir, for the Kaffirs called it Fur and the Moors
Afur ... the veins of gold are so big, that they expand with so much
force, that they raise the roots of trees two feet.’ He fixes the spot
which he here alludes to farther on when speaking about the three
markets held by the Portuguese in these parts: ‘(1) Luanhe, thirty-five
leagues from Tete South, between two small rivers, which join and are
called Masouvo; (2) Bacoto, forty leagues from Tete; and (3) Massapa,
fifty leagues from Tete up the said River Masouvo.’ Now the Mazoe,
which, doubtless, in the native tongue, is the Maswe, like the Pungwe,
Zimbabwe, &c., joins the Zambesi just below Tete.

Further evidences of this Portuguese enterprise will doubtless come to
light as the Mazoe Valley is further explored. In the vicinity of a new
mine called the Jumbo, fragments of old Delft pottery have been found,
a few of which were shown to me when at Fort Salisbury. Nankin china is
also reported from the same district, an indubitable proof of
Portuguese presence; and no doubt many of the large Venetian beads,
centuries old, which we saw and obtained specimens of from the
Makalangas in the neighbourhood of Zimbabwe, were barter goods given by
the traders of those days to the subjects of the Monomatapa, who
brought them gold in quills to the three above-named dépôts, collected
from the alluvial beds of the Mazoe and other streams. It is rumoured
amongst the inhabitants of the Mazoe and Manica that long ago, in the
days of their ancestors, white men worked gold and built themselves
houses here. This rumour most probably refers to the Portuguese, who at
the three above-mentioned places had churches and forts, faint traces
of which are still to be found in the district.

Corvo, in his work ‘As Provincias ultramarinas,’ speaks at considerable
length about the early Portuguese enterprise and the jealousy of the
Arab merchants at their advent, and how these men excited the suspicion
of the Monomatapa and brought about the subsequent martyrdom of the
Jesuit missionary Silveira and the entire destruction of the Portuguese
mission, which had nearly converted the Monomatapa in 1561. He
concludes his remarks on this subject as follows:—

‘The early Portuguese did nothing more than substitute themselves for
the Moors, as they called them, in the ports that those occupied on the
coast; and their influence extended to the interior very little;
unless, indeed, through some acts of violence, or through some
ephemeral alliance of no value whatever, and through missions without
any practical or lasting results. It is easy to see, by looking at the
map, where the Portuguese influence extended to, and that they never
left a good navigable river as a basis of operation. They went up the
Zambesi, and up the Mazoe as far as they could, where they established
the three fairs for trading purposes, and up the Pungwe and Buzi
Rivers, establishing themselves in the same way at Massi-Kessi and
Bandiri; and beyond this their influence did not extend at all during
what may be called the most flourishing epoch of their colonial
existence.’

From the Yellow Jacket tents we had a long ride before us of thirty
miles back to Fort Salisbury. We arose betimes and found it very cold,
with a thin coating of ice on the water-cans, almost the only time we
saw ice during our ‘winter’ in Mashonaland, although occasionally the
wind was cold and the nights very fresh. Winter in these parts is
delightful, with brilliant sun by day; but as evening approaches a coat
is necessary, and during our two nights at the Yellow Jacket huts we
had to remove rugs, which were sorely wanted below, to procure the
necessary warmth above.

One more breakfast off that excellent eland fortified us for our ride,
and the sun was not high in the heavens when we bade farewell to our
hospitable entertainers. About three hours’ ride brought us to the
Mazoe again just before it enters the Poort on its way to the lower
valley. At the extremity of the valley we were riding down, just before
the hills are ascended to reach the level plateau, there is another
nest of Kaffir villages; one of these had incurred the enmity of the
officers of the Chartered Company for refusing to recognise its
authority by restoring stolen cattle.

A fine of cattle had been imposed on the chief, accompanied by a threat
that if the fine was not paid by a certain day the kraal would be burnt
down. The fine was not paid, and Major Forbes, with a band of men, rode
out to execute the orders, borrowing two of our horses for the
occasion. As we passed through the village the ashes of huts and
granaries were still smouldering, broken pots and household goods lay
around in wild confusion, and all the inhabitants had taken refuge at
one of the neighbouring villages. As we passed by this it is needless
to say we did not meet with an altogether cordial reception; we
dismounted and went amongst them, asking in vain for beer, eggs, and
fowls.

‘The Morunko had taken them all,’ they said, and they received our
overtures of friendship with silent, and we thought rather ominous,
contempt. Accordingly we remounted and rode off, and I think all
parties were relieved when we had put a little distance between us and
the village. Since then I hear a solitary white man has been murdered
in the Mazoe Valley. Luckily our force amounted to three, a number
sufficient to overawe any Mashonaland village.

There are some nice-looking farms just started on the slopes of the
hills here. Near there we met a wondrous long string of natives in
single file, who avoided us and looked askance at us and our animals.
Some day or another, when Fort Salisbury becomes a big place, and food
supplies are needed, those who have pegged out farms in the Mazoe
district will reap a fine profit from their agricultural produce, if I
am not much mistaken.








CHAPTER X

OUR EMBASSY TO THE CHIEF ’MTOKO


There is always a charm to us connected with the investigation of a
country the name of which conveys nothing to anybody, and which is a
blank on the map. This, I think, was one of the chief incentives to us
to accept the diplomatic post of presenting a gift of forty pounds’
worth of goods from the Chartered Company to the chief ’Mtoko.

We gathered that ’Mtoko was a powerful chief, dreaded by the natives,
whose country lay about 120 miles to the north-east of Fort Salisbury;
that he ruled over a large and almost unknown district reaching on the
west to the territories under the influence of the Portuguese satellite
Gouveia; and that his father, who had lately died, had entered into a
treaty with the Chartered Company which gave them paramount influence,
but that the present chief and his subjects, who were reported to have
customs of an exceedingly primitive order, had as yet had no official
dealings with the Company. This was about all the information we could
gather.

The following is an exact copy of my credentials:—


    To the Chief Matoko

                           The British South Africa Company, Salisbury.
                                                    September 21, 1891.

    My Friend,—Mr. Selous has told Mr. Rhodes, the Big Induna of all
    white men in this country, all about you, and he has sent his
    friend Mr. Bent to see you and your people, and to give you some
    presents from him; and also to tell you that you are now under the
    Great White Queen, and that the Portuguese will not trouble you any
    more.

    You and your people will now live in peace and security.

        I am, your Friend,
            F. Rutherfoord Harris,
                Secretary.


We certainly felt somewhat adventurous when we left Fort Salisbury, on
September 23, on this journey of uncertain length and uncertain
results. We could take hardly any comforts with us except our tent, and
the smallest possible allowance of bedclothes, and only just enough
food to keep us from starvation for a week, for the donkeys of this
country carry very little weight, and the only bearers we could get
were our two faithful Makalangas, Mashanani and Iguzu. These, together
with our three white men, who looked after the eleven donkeys, formed
our only staff, for the interpreter had not yet come in, and was to be
sent after us. The only fixed idea of time that we had was that a
steamer was supposed to leave Port Beira for the Cape on November 18,
and this at all hazards we had to catch; the intervening space of time
was to us a maze of delightful uncertainty, only to be unravelled as
that time went by.

After a comfortable breakfast at the civilian mess hut, and farewells
to our kind friends at Fort Salisbury, my wife, Mr. Swan, and I started
on our three horses in pursuit of our donkeys, which had started along
the Manica road about an hour before. These we soon caught up, and
after a hot dusty ride of about ten miles we pitched our tents about
one hundred yards from a large Kaffir village on a flat space, hidden
away amongst a sea of small granite boulders. Here the women wore
pretty chaplets of red and white beads sewn on to snake-skins, and
aprons and necklets gaily decorated with the same; the chief had a
splendid crop of long black hair. Beyond this the village presented
nothing fresh to our notice until night fell, when our rest was
disturbed for hours by a series of hideous noises: drums were beaten,
dogs were barking, men were howling like wild beasts, and when they
ceased the women would take up their refrain, guns were periodically
let off, and everything conceivable was done to render night hideous.
On rising next morning and inquiring the cause of this nightmare, we
were informed that a death had taken place in the village, and that the
inhabitants were indulging in their accustomed wailing. I was also told
that in these parts they carefully tie up the limbs of a dead man, his
toes and his fingers each separately, in cloths, prior to burial,
whereas a woman is only tied up in a skin, and her grave is of no
account.

At the village of Karadi we left the Manica road and entered a very
populous district with numerous villages perched on the rocky heights,
the inhabitants of which were greatly excited at the sight of us, and
followed us for miles. This, we learnt, was Musungaikwa’s country. The
women here had a distinct tattoo mark of their own—namely, the lizard
pattern, which we have seen on the dollasses or divining-tablets
[32]—done in dots on their stomachs. Some of the men, too, have the
same device tattooed on them on their chests and backs. This is the
third distinctive tattoo mark we have seen in Mashonaland—namely, the
furrow pattern around Zimbabwe, the dots in squares in Gambidji’s
country, and here the lizard pattern, all of which are raised marks on
the skin made by the insertion of some drug. They are evidently
connected with some charm, but what the nature of it is I was never
able to discover.

At Musungaikwa’s, necessity for the first time made us acquainted with
red millet-meal porridge, called respectively sodza and ufa in
different parts of the country. With milk and sugar it is quite
palatable but gritty; the natives like it best very thick, eating it
with a stick and dipping it into water before consumption; they appear
almost to live upon it, and dispose of surprising quantities. Much rice
is grown about here in the swampy ground, sometimes in round holes,
sometimes in wide furrows, which are surprisingly straight for Kaffirs,
who seem to have the greatest difficulty in producing a straight line.
Their paths, though very accurate in direction, represent to the eye a
long wavy line, and they are aggravatingly narrow for a European, who
turns his toes out, to walk in, for the Kaffirs always go in single
file, and always put their feet down straight.

The natives about here followed us with bags of bark fibre full of figs
of a rich brown colour, which we purchased, and found excellent when
they were not inhabited, as was generally the case, by hundreds of
little ants.

At about thirty miles from Fort Salisbury we reached a nest of seven or
eight kraals ruled over by a chief called Kunzi. Here we elected to
stay and wait for the interpreter, and as he did not join us for two
days we had a pleasant time for rest and for studying the inhabitants.
Kunzi, the paramount chief of this community, is a young and
enterprising individual; he corresponds to the nouveau riche of
Kaffirdom, being spoken of as ‘a chief of the assegai’ in
contradistinction to the old hereditary chiefs around. He came
originally from ’Mtigeza’s country, got together a band of followers,
and won for himself with his assegai the territory he now occupies. To
a chief of this description all the youth and prowess of the country
flock, hence he had a remarkably fine set of followers, and these he
rules with marvellous strictness. We had an example of his power, for
we wanted to get bearers from him. He brought the men in person, and
would not allow them to go with us until we had paid the stipulated
quantity of cloth in advance and deposited it with him. This
arrangement did not please me at all, knowing well the tendency paid
bearers have to run away, but it was inevitable. The men served us
extremely well, accompanied us for a fortnight until we reached the
spot arranged upon with the chief, and when I offered them more to go
farther they refused, saying that they dare not do so without the
consent of their chief.

Kunzi is an ambitious man, and talks of becoming king of Mashonaland,
but as he was driven back during his last attack on his neighbour
Mangwendi, and as the Chartered Company may have something to say to
it, this eventuality seems at present in the dim future. Kunzi is,
however, a man of promise, and if he had been born a little earlier he
might have been in a position to resuscitate the fallen glories of the
race.

Outside Kunzi’s kraal is a fine iron smelting furnace, decorated with
the breast and furrow pattern, and with a large quantity of newly made
blow-pipes of dried mud, and decorated with a spiral pattern, lying in
heaps outside. We watched the process here at our leisure. First they
crush the ore obtained from the neighbouring mountains, which has a
large quantity of manganese in it, and spread it on the rocks; the
forge is heated with charcoal and kindled by two men with four bellows,
each worked by one hand; the nozzles are inserted into the blow-pipes,
and the blow-pipes into the charcoal; they press the bellows with their
hands by means of a wooden handle, and work with great vigour, singing
and perspiring freely as they work. Around the furnace is a hedge of
tall grass, and at night time, when the ore is cool, they remove it
from the furnace and afterwards weld it into the required shapes with
stone hammers. This time-honoured handicraft interested us much,
mentioned as it is by Dos Santos three hundred years ago, and by the
Arabian writers close upon a thousand years ago, as a speciality of the
country.

One of the neighbouring kraals is ruled over by Kunzi’s brother
Gwadeli, who, in his anxiety to be hospitable, gave us warm beer to
drink, which nearly had the effect of an emetic. A rock rises out of
the centre of this kraal, where is an induna’s grave walled into the
rock, with four pots of beer before it, and hedged off by a rope of
bark.

The following morning we watched with some interest a trader from Fort
Salisbury selling goods to the natives. Beads, gunpowder, and salt were
the favourite commodities he had to offer, in return for which he
rapidly acquired a fine lot of pumpkins, maize, potatoes, and other
vegetables; whilst for blankets and rifles he obtained cattle which I
am sure would bring him in a handsome profit when he reached the
capital. We ourselves got a few interesting things at Kunzi’s,
including a quill with gold in it which the natives had found in the
’Nyagowe River, and a dexterously wrought garment for a young lady,
about half the size of a freemason’s apron; it is made of bark fibre,
with geometrical patterns of excellent design worked into it, a species
of textile with which we were to become better acquainted in ’Mtoko’s
country. Here, too, we saw sticks set up in the ground with the bark
peeled off and bound round the top—a sort of fetich, which they call
their Maklosi or luck sign. They set these things up whenever they come
to a new country; also, on similar occasions, they kneel before a tree
and burn snuff, saying as they do so: ‘Muali!’ (the native name for
God) ‘we have brought knives, give us meat.’ Then they do the same at
another tree, asking the same petition for their children.

A delicious stream for bathing and washing clothes flowed a few yards
below our camp, which gave us sufficient employment for what would
otherwise have been an idle afternoon. At midnight our interpreter
arrived, and the following morning we commenced our journey in real
earnest.

At a village where we halted for a while we were introduced to a young
girl, who was shortly to become chief Kunzi’s eleventh wife—the state
wife, to be presented to him by his tribe, whose son will be heir to
the chiefdom, to the exclusion of the children by his other purchased
wives. This marriage is usually recommended and seen to by the tribe
when the chief is getting on towards middle life; and the succession in
these parts is carried on in this way. She wore round her neck one of
the large white whorls made out of the end of shells, which are common
amongst the natives, but a specimen of which I tried ineffectually to
get. This, I now learnt, is the sign of betrothal, and is transferred
to the neck of the baby when born. Men also wear them for love
philtres, and hence their reluctance to part with them.

During this day’s march we passed by a pond dug in a hollow which was
in process of drying up. These holes are dug by the natives in the dry
season with the object of catching fish when the swamps dry up; also
for fishing they make use of a thing very like our lobster-pot, which
they tie to a fence across a rapid portion of the stream. The love the
natives have for salt throughout this saltless country is very marked;
for sugar and lollipops, which we offered them, they have a positive
aversion; anything of a savoury nature pleases them immensely, and
their gestures of delight over the scrapings of tins of anchovy paste
were most pleasing to contemplate. Mice, locusts, and caterpillars are
their daintiest viands, and if given a lump of salt they will put it
straight-way into their mouths and consume it with the greatest
complacency.

We halted that night at the village of Yandoro, still in Kunzi’s
country, with a solitary rock in its midst, divided into two parts by a
narrow split forming a gully which is bridged over by trees, so that
they can retire to the highest point when the Matabele come, and wait
there till the impi has departed with their cattle and grain.

I learnt here a little more concerning the mysteries of hand-clapping
and greetings. One of our bearers from Kunzi’s kraal, Girandali by
name, had relatives here, and I followed him to their hut, the inmates
of which were seated solemnly on the floor and began to clap, whereupon
Girandali commenced to relate parenthetically the events of his career
since they last met; between each parenthesis the host clapped and said
his name. This went on for fully ten minutes, each parenthesis being
received with more or less clapping, as it attracted the attention of
his hearers. When Girandali had done, there was a general clapping
which lasted for some time, and then the formal part of the
conversation was over.

The chief of a neighbouring village, Bochiko by name, here paid us a
visit. He is a most curious specimen of his race, a veritable pigmy
only four feet four inches in height. He has lost all his toes in
battle and has had one leg broken and never set; he wore a large brass
ring with curious patterns on it on his tiny fingers, and brass
bracelets on his tiny arms, both of which we purchased from him. He is
said to have five wives and five stalwart children.

We were greatly surprised on rising next morning to learn that my mare,
an old ‘salted horse,’ which we had had with us for six months, and
ridden hard all the time, had presented us with a foal during the
night—unfortunately a dead one. The mare did not seem much the worse
for her adventure; in fact, I personally was the only sufferer, for a
probably misplaced compassion prompted me to walk instead of ride for
the next day’s march.

We were now passing through a corner of Mangwendi’s country, a chief
with whom we were to become better acquainted later on. Gaza, one of
his chief indunas, has a kraal on an exceedingly high rock by which we
passed; in fact, about here the country is very populous, owing to the
rocky nature of the ground and the inaccessible eyries in which the
natives can plant their huts. We wondered what the meaning of many pots
might be which we saw here on high boulders with stones around and on
the top. By inquiry we learnt that they were beehives, equivalent to
the bark hives we so constantly saw farther south. There is much
ceremony about here at the presentation of beer. At Malozo’s kraal the
chief handed the pot to one of our bearers, who handed it to the
interpreter, who handed it to me. Their hair, too, is very wildly
dressed, being long and tangled, and when it becomes past endurance by
reason of the insects collected therein, they shave it off and hang it
to a tree, revealing to the world their bare and greatly disfigured
pates.

After this we went through a long stretch of almost uninhabited
country, very lovely indeed to look upon, richly wooded, with glimpses
through the woods of tree-clad heights, with strange finger-shaped
rocks appearing out of them as far as the eye could reach into the blue
distance. These granite kopjes would be distinctly wearisome were it
not for the ever-varying fantastic shapes. The forests themselves are
painfully monotonous; at one time you are riding through groves of
medlars with coarse large leaves, then you come across a stretch of
white-flowered sugar-tree (Protea mellifera), which, I think, of all
trees is the most aggravating, from the dull monotony of its leaves and
generally scraggy appearance of its branches. Its flower is very
pretty, being like a soft silvery white chrysanthemum, three inches in
diameter; it is very attractive to butterflies and pretty sun-beetles,
with which the flower is sometimes quite covered. About here we passed
a curious granite mountain called Mount Jomvga, rising above all the
rest like a gigantic silver thimble. Mount Jomvga haunted us for days
and days, and we never lost sight of it during the whole of our stay in
’Mtoko’s country.

We were now rapidly approaching ’Mtoko’s country, but the nearer we
approached our goal the more difficulty we had in obtaining information
as to where the chief actually lived. Some said he lived at the village
of Lutzi, a few miles across the border, others said he lived about six
miles farther on; consequently we were somewhat perplexed, and ended by
stopping near Lutzi for a while, whilst our interpreter rode on to make
further inquiries.

Amongst other embarrassing things that a son inherits with the chiefdom
are his father’s wives. Of course a man is not expected to marry his
own mother, but his stepmothers are different, especially if, as often
happens, they are young and comely. At Lutzi we were told that the new
’Mtoko had deposited several of his father’s widows, presumably the old
and ugly ones, whom he did not admire. Certainly some of the customs of
this country are exceedingly strange, and we should not have believed
them had we not again and again asked the same questions from different
individuals and always got the same reply. One of these is sufficiently
horrible, and I hope the influence of the Chartered Company will soon
work for its suppression. If a woman gives birth to twins they are
immediately destroyed. This they consider an unnatural freak on the
part of a woman, and is supposed to indicate famine or some other
calamity. In this custom they differ essentially from their Matabele
neighbours, where Lobengula, like our Queen, honours a prolific mother
with a special gift. In ’Mtoko’s country the unfortunate twins are put
into one of their big pots, with a stone on the top, and left to their
fate.

In their marauding transactions there is a curious code of honour
amongst them. Suppose a woman to be stolen from a tribe, the injured
individuals lie in wait for the oxen of the thieves, and when captured
take them to the chief, who allots them as follows: 1. One is
slaughtered for general consumption and joviality. 2. The rightful
owner of the stolen woman is next indemnified. 3. The rest of the tribe
are questioned as to whether they have any grievance to be rectified.
4. If there are any oxen over they are scrupulously returned to their
owners. Their code of morality is far below the standard amongst the
Zulus in Matabeleland.

Many of the customs have a curious Eastern tinge; for example, hired
labour is unknown, and if a man wants assistance in his fields he brews
a quantity of beer, bids his neighbours come, and the better the beer
the more labourers he will get. This custom is still common in Asia
Minor and the East, where wine is the substitute for beer.

Lutzi did not interest us much; it is a scattered and poor-looking
kraal on a bleak hill, with large stone semicircles, where the men of
the village can sit and smoke sheltered from the wind; so on hearing
that the ’Mtoko’s kraal was really about six miles off, we set out for
it about ten o’clock on the following morning.

There is much that is different in this country from what we had seen
elsewhere in Mashonaland, enough almost to point to a difference of
race; the language, too, we found so different that we could understand
but little of it ourselves, though the ordinary Makalanga terms for
commodities such as mazai for eggs, makaka for milk, &c., were still in
vogue. Probably the different circumstances of life will account for
the difference in character. The people do not live in kraals huddled
together on the top of rocks, but in small scattered kraals of from six
to twenty huts dotted all over the country, where agriculture may take
them, arguing a degree of prosperity and security to property which we
had not seen elsewhere in Mashonaland. In these little kraals there is
generally a hut raised on poles in the midst, which acts as a kind of
watch-tower. They told us that the Matabele never penetrate as far as
this, and that the only enemy they fear is the Portuguese half-caste
Gouveia, whose territory lies over the mountains to the east; but his
attacks were successfully repulsed by the old ’Mtoko, who had thereby
established such a reputation for valour that none of his neighbours
durst interfere with him.

The result of this condition of affairs was that in ’Mtoko’s country we
saw more cattle than we had seen elsewhere, but all of the same
calibre. The characteristic of all domestic animals in Mashonaland is
their small size. The cows are less than our Guernsey breed, and give
very little milk; the sheep and goats are diminutive and unhealthy
looking; the hens are ridiculous little things, and their eggs not much
bigger than pigeons’ eggs at home. As for the dogs, they are the most
contemptible specimens of the canine race I have ever seen in any of my
wanderings. This does not look well for the prospects of the
agriculturists, but probably the diminution in physique amongst the
Mashonaland cattle is rather due to the coarse grass and swampy land
and the want of proper care than to any other cause.

Up a narrowing valley, with a gorge or kloof at the end of it, under
the shadow of a rocky mountain, and almost hidden by a dense mass of
timber, lies ’Mtoko’s kraal, also, after the fashion of the country, a
small one. In our innocence we advanced right up to the kraal; and
despite the expostulation of an angry crowd of natives, who screamed
and yelled at us, we commenced to pitch our tents close by the shady
trees in a spot which looked very inviting for a few days’ rest.
Suddenly it dawned upon us that we had been guilty of some breach of
savage etiquette, so I immediately despatched our interpreter to see
the chief, with a portion of the present as a foretaste of better
things to come. We seated ourselves rather disconsolately beneath the
trees awaiting his return, watching the inhabitants, who swarmed around
us.

The women of ’Mtoko’s country are quite the most decent of their sex
that we had seen since entering Mashonaland. Out of bark fibre they
weave for themselves quite massive dresses, two yards long and one yard
wide, which they decorate with pretty raised geometric patterns like
one sees on old-fashioned ‘Marsella’ quilts at home; these they gird
round their loins and fasten on with a girdle of bark netting, and
consequently they present an air of decency to which their sisters in
other parts of this country are strangers, with their tiny leather
aprons scarce worthy of the name of clothing. Nevertheless, when in
their huts the women of this country take off this heavy and somewhat
awkward garment, and one day, having crawled into a hut, I was somewhat
startled to find myself in the presence of two dusky ladies dressed
like Eve in the Garden of Eden. Most of the people about here have
their upper and lower lips bored, and insert in them either a nail-like
object, somewhat after the fashion of the Nubians, or a bead or ring,
or a plain bit of stick. Their front teeth of both upper and lower jaws
are filed, an ancient custom to which both Dos Santos and El Masoudi,
the Arabian historian, allude. There is evidently a strong Zambesi
influence in ’Mtoko’s country; their battle-axes, their assegais, and
their powder-horns are far more elaborately carved and decorated with
brass wire than those we had seen farther south, and bear a close
resemblance to those which the tribes on the Zambesi produce. In their
hair they wear combs inlaid with different-coloured straws, and their
bracelets also are very elaborate.

Our emissary came back with a long face. The ’Mtoko, despite the
offering we had sent him, was indignant at our invasion of his privacy;
in fact, to avoid seeing a white induna without taking counsel with his
head men, he had been obliged to take refuge in a cave. His father, he
said, would not allow a white man to encamp within eight miles of his
kraal. This happened to Mr. Selous, the only white man who had as yet
visited the country in an official capacity, when he came to get the
old ’Mtoko to sign the treaty a few months before. However, he said he
would consent to our pitching our tents at a spot indicated about a
mile away, and would come and visit us and receive the rest of his
gifts on the morrow.

Somewhat crestfallen and highly indignant at our treatment, we packed
up our things again and hurried off as fast as we could, so that we
might get our tents pitched before night came on.

The following day was advancing rapidly, and still no signs of ’Mtoko’s
visit. We were much annoyed at the loss of time and the supposed
insult, so we collected our presents together, and determined to take
them and get them given, come what might. We set off and marched behind
the gift, which was carried on the heads of many bearers. We had
scarcely gone two hundred yards on our way, when men came running to
us, announcing the advent of his majesty; so we went back again to
prepare our rugs for the reception, and sat in state.

Through the trees we saw him coming, with a following of about fifty
men armed with battle-axes and assegais. About two hundred yards from
our camp they all seated themselves, and held a council which we
thought would never end. The result of this was an envoy sent to state
it was the monarch’s opinion that the white lady had bewitched the
presents, for she had been seen going to a stream and sprinkling the
things with water which she had fetched from thence; that he would
nevertheless graciously receive the presents, but that he would not
keep them but give them at once to his uncle. Whilst we were making up
our minds whether we should be annoyed or amused at this message, the
chief and his men moved one hundred yards nearer to us, so we
determined to await the progress of events. Here again they stopped for
another indaba. This time the message, that the chief would like us to
send him the presents to the spot where he was, was accompanied by a
present to us of a kid and twenty pounds of meal. This somewhat
pacified us. Nevertheless we sent a message back that if the chief
wished for the things he must come and fetch them in person. To the
indunas who brought the message we gave a few articles for themselves.

The result of this last message was instantaneous. His majesty came
forthwith, but he refused to sit on the rug prepared for him. He
refused to shake hands, nay, even look at the white lady, and during
the whole of the interview he trembled so violently, and looked so
nervous, that we felt quite sorry for him.

’Mtoko is a fine specimen of his race, lithe and supple of limb, but
more like a timid wild animal than a man. As he sat before us he
nervously peeled a sweet potato with his battle-axe, and looked ill at
ease. Gradually, as the presents came out, his sinister face relaxed,
and in spite of himself became wreathed with smiles. Spread out before
him was an entire uniform of the Cape Yeomanry, helmet and all, with
two horsehair plumes. Then there were knives, and looking-glasses, and
handkerchiefs, and shirts, and beads, and yards of limbo; wealth,
doubtless, of which he had scarce dreamt, was now his. The impression
made on him was great. He was overcome with gratitude, and after
stepping aside for a few moments’ talk with his head men, he told us
that, as a return present, a whole live bullock should be ours.
Permission was given to us to come and encamp under his kraal if we
liked. His apologies were profuse, and he even ventured to touch the
white lady’s hand; and thus ended this strange interview. Not wishing
to uproot ourselves again, we thanked him for his offer, and said we
preferred to remain where we were, but would come up and visit him on
the morrow.

Afterwards we learnt the cause of all ’Mtoko’s nervousness. His father
had died shortly after Mr. Selous’s visit. The common belief was that
he had been bewitched; naturally he thought that the white lady had
been sent purposely to cast a glamour over him. He had been told how
these white men are ruled over by a woman, and he thought Queen
Victoria had sent a humble representative of her sex to bring about the
same state of affairs in his country. Her name was of course asked at
the interview, and feeling the flatness with which her English
appellative would be received, our interpreter promptly called her
’Msinyate, ‘the Home of the Buffaloes,’ to which high-sounding name she
answered for the rest of her stay in ’Mtoko’s country.

The day was far spent when the chief left us, and we took a stroll in
the cool of the evening to a tiny Kraal, consisting only of three huts,
about half a mile from our camp. There was an air of prosperity about
the place which pleased us. The huts are better built than elsewhere,
and have porches. Their granaries are wattled, and have very well
thatched roofs, and our reception was most cordial. They spread mats
for us to sit on. They brought us monkey-nuts, tamarind, and other
vegetables to eat, and seemed to think themselves greatly honoured by a
visit from the white indunas who had brought their chief such a fine
present.

Next morning we walked up to visit ’Mtoko in his kraal. The twenty huts
which compose it are girt around with a strong palisade. Each hut is
large, and has a porch. ’Mtoko and his head men were seated on a rock
in the midst of it with a wood fire for lighting their pipes. One of
the indunas had just decorated his hair in splendid fashion, tying up
his black tufts with beads, and covering the whole with a thick coating
of grease, which soaked into his matted hair before our eyes under the
strong influence of the sun. Into this circle we were all invited, for
the dread of the white lady seemed to have passed away. She presented
the monarch with some English needles, and his delight in receiving
these treasures exceeded even that which he showed on receipt of the
Chartered Company’s gifts, for in ’Mtokoland they are accustomed to use
strong sharp blades of grass for needles, on which ours were a distinct
improvement.

Our object to-day was to inquire into the politics of the country, and
to verify the strange stories we had heard about the priest of the lion
god, the Mondoro, who is reported to be even stronger than the chief.
We wanted to learn more concerning the cult of the lion, and where the
Zimbabwe of ’Mtokoland was, where the annual sacrifices take place to
the king of beasts.

The question was a delicate one, and had to be tenderly approached,
knowing as we did by this time the extreme reluctance of the Kaffirs to
disclose to white men the secrets of their religion. A man called
Benoula seemed to take the lead in everything. The ’Mtoko hardly spoke,
and looked very uncomfortable whilst the catechising was going on. The
results of our investigations were vague. The Mondoro, or lion priest,
was uncle to the chief, and he resided at Lutzi, the village by which
we had passed. The old ’Mtoko on his death-mat had left his son and
heir somehow or another in tutelage to this mysterious priest-uncle of
his. When asked where the Zimbabwe was, he replied reluctantly: ‘The
Mondoro may tell you if he likes; I dare not.’ Finally, after ‘the Home
of the Buffaloes’’ hair had been taken down by his majesty’s special
request, we made arrangements for Benoula to accompany us to Lutzi on
the morrow and introduce us to the priest, whom we had been so near
without knowing it when we first entered the country.

We took a look round the kraal before taking our leave. The cattle are
all housed in the centre of it. There was the pigeon-cote, a feature in
all the villages about here, consisting of a mud box with holes, raised
on poles. Hard by dwelt a hideous black sow with a litter of young ones
in a grass sty. There was a hut for the calves and a hut for the goats,
a scene of bucolic prosperity which we had come across nowhere else in
Mashonaland.

The following morning, after breakfast, we set off for Lutzi once more,
armed with presents for the lion priest, and exceedingly curious about
him. Benoula was there before us, and everyone was expecting our
arrival. Presently we were ushered into a large but rather dilapidated
hut, where sat a venerable-looking old man, who received us and our
presents with great cordiality. We seated ourselves on the ground,
forming a curious assemblage: the Mondoro and his son, ’Mkateo, his
enormously fat daughter Tourla, Benoula, and one or two indunas, our
three selves, and our interpreter. ‘I am the ’Mtoko,’ was almost the
first thing the old man said, explaining how he considered himself the
rightful heir to the chiefdom. ‘Next year, when the crops are gathered
in, I shall return to the kraal where my brother died, and assume the
command of the country.’ We soon saw the state of things, which
explained many points that had previously been mysterious. ’Mtokoland
was threatened with a grave political quarrel, and all the elements of
civil war were present. The elders of the country all recognise the
Mondoro as their chief; whilst younger men, with everything to gain and
little to lose, affect to follow the chief whose kraal we had visited,
and whom they speak of as Bedapera at Lutzi, his own name, as
distinguished from the dynastic name of ’Mtoko.

In his position as religious head of the community lies the Mondoro’s
strength. ‘Here is the Zimbabwe of our land, here the annual sacrifice
to the Maklosi of our ancestors now takes place;’ that is to say,
wherever the chief lives, and wherever the annual sacrifice takes
place, there is the Zimbabwe of the chiefdom.

Then we questioned him about the lion god, and he gave us to understand
that the Mondoro or lion god of ’Mtoko’s country is a sort of spiritual
lion which only appears in time of danger, and fights for the men of
’Mtoko; all good men of the tribe, when they die, pass into the lion
form and reappear to fight for their friends. It is quite clear that
these savages entertain a firm belief in an after-life and a spiritual
world, and worship their ancestors as spiritual intercessors between
them and the vague Muali or God who lives in Heaven.

The lion of ’Mtoko is the totem of the tribe. We asked the old priest
if we should get into trouble if we shot a lion whilst in his country.
‘If a lion attacks you,’ he replied, ‘you may shoot it, for it could
not be one of ours; our lions will do the white man no harm, for they
are our friends.’ There was a charming amount of dignity and sophistry
about the old Mondoro. We felt that he was a far better man to rule the
country than his nervous, superstitious nephew. Once a year this old
Mondoro (the name Mondoro is common in this country both to the sacred
lions and the priest) sacrifices a bullock and a goat to the Maklosi or
luck spirit of their ancestors. Formerly this ceremony took place at
the residence of the old chief, and now here at Lutzi; much beer is
drunk on the occasion, and it takes place in February, about the same
time as the Matabele war-dance.

There is much more of the old spirit of the race about the Mondoro. He
gave us the names of three generations of ’Mtokos who had ruled here
before his brother—a rare instance of pedigree in this country; but the
royal residence, Lutzi, is a miserable place, consisting of two little
kraals crowning the two summits of a bare granite hill. One tree of
sickly growth stood there, decorated, for what reason I could not
discover, with part of a woman’s bark dress, grass roots, hair, and
other oddments. Doubtless they were luck signs too, but we could gain
no information on this point. Evidence of festivities was also present
in the shape of drums and long chains of grass cases for beads, which
they hang round their calves to rattle at the dances. On a hill
opposite stood a single hut, where an outlaw had lived till quite
recently, they told us.

Before we took our leave the Mondoro presented us with a goat,
regretting that, owing to the bad times, he could not give us a
handsomer present. We now understood several points which had been a
mystery to us before—the constant and rather deferential way in which
the ’Mtoko had spoken of his uncle, and the reason why, in the first
instance, our guides had told us that the ’Mtoko dwelt at Lutzi. Also
we now seemed thoroughly to grasp the strange cult of the lion god, a
cult probably carrying us back to the far-distant ages, when the
Arabian tribes invented the system of totems, and called the stars by
their names. [33]

Monteiro and Gamitto, two Portuguese travellers, who went to Cazembe in
1831–32, throw some light on the worship of the lion. They relate how
the negroes near the Zambesi, ‘being Munyaes, subjects of Monomatapa,
revere royal lions of great corpulence as containing the souls of their
ancestors. When the Munyaes discover the lions eating their prey, they
go on their knees at a distance, and creep, clapping their hands and
begging them with humility to remember their slaves, who are hungry,
and that when they were men they were always generous; so that the
lions may retire and the negroes profit by what they leave behind.’
This is again another link connecting these people with the Zambesi and
lands farther north. We were also told a story of how, during the old
’Mtokos’ struggles with the Portuguese, lions had been seen to attack
the enemy, whilst they left the natives alone. Doubtless a faith of
this kind is very conducive to valour, and may account for the
superiority of the men of ’Mtoko over their neighbours.

The two above-quoted Portuguese travellers mention many Zimbabwes on
their route northwards to Cazembe, and in another part of their work
they often make mention of the Monomatapa, especially the Monomatapa of
Chidima, whom they speak of as ‘a much decayed person, but still
respectable.’ His territory commences at Tete and goes on to Zumbo,
‘and when one dies all make civil war, until one gets possession, and
sends to the governor of Tete to confirm his title.’

From what I can make out of the older Portuguese accounts, the district
of Chidima was formerly in the mountains to the north of ’Mtoko’s. This
was the district where the famous silver mines were supposed to be, in
searching for which several Portuguese expeditions came to grief. In
fact, it would appear that ’Mtoko, Mangwendi, Makoni, and the chiefs in
this part of the country are the modern representatives of the
broken-up Monomatapa empire, who, fortunate in the possession of a
rugged and mountainous country, escaped the visitation of the Zulu
hordes, who on their way southwards probably passed by the more open
high plateau of Mashonaland.

Next morning, whilst we were packing for our start from ’Mtoko’s, I was
informed of the existence of some Bushman drawings under an overhanging
rock about half a mile from our camp. I hurried thither and took some
hasty sketches of them. The rock is literally covered with these
drawings in colours of red, yellow, and black, which had evidently
eaten into the granite, so that the figures are preserved to us. They
represent all sorts of wild animals such as elephants, kudus, and
cynocephalous apes; these are wonderfully well executed; the figures of
warriors with poised spears and quivers of arrows are, however,
grotesque. The most curious fact about them is finding these drawings
so far north, and a close examination of this district will probably
bring to light many more. The people who made these drawings inhabited
all this district and down into Manicaland. Specimens, too, are found
near Fort Salisbury; oddly enough, during our wanderings near Zimbabwe
and the Sabi, we never saw any or heard of their existence.

After a ride of eight miles we reached the kraal of Kalimazondo,
another son of the late ’Mtoko. It is just a circular collection of
wattled huts, all joined together by a stockade. We alighted for a
while here and sat in a hut, with a view to putting some leading
questions to the chief concerning the state of the country. He told us
that, in his opinion, his uncle the Mondoro was the rightful heir to
the chiefdom, for his father, the old ’Mtoko, had wished it, but that
his brother Bedapera had said: ‘I am a man, I wish to be chief.’ All
the old indunas and the head men of the country were on the Mondoro’s
side, and he had little doubt but that he would succeed in establishing
his claim.

When approached on the subject of religion, Kalimazondo grew vague and
uncommunicative. We let him know that we had seen the Mondoro, and knew
a great deal. To all this he replied: ‘I dare not tell you anything, or
I should become deaf. I like my gun, and if I was to tell you anything
it would be taken away, and I should be no man.’ Kalimazondo is a
cunning man in his generation, and we saw that we should learn no more
about this strange and primitive community than it had pleased the
priest of the lion god to tell us.

Close to Kalimazondo’s kraal we passed the remains of the hedges or
skerms which Mr. Selous and his followers had erected to protect their
camp when on their visit to the old ’Mtoko, and we congratulated
ourselves that it had not been our fate to be driven thus far from
headquarters.

Next day we rode through an uninteresting waterless country, and
encamped for the night by a stream which formed the southern border of
’Mtoko’s country.








CHAPTER XI

THE RUINED CITIES IN MANGWENDI’S, CHIPUNZA’S, AND MAKONI’S COUNTRIES


We were now once more in the country of Mangwendi, a chief of
considerable power, so nearly equal to ’Mtoko, they told me, that the
two neighbours, like well-matched dogs, growl but do not come to close
quarters.

The noticeable characteristic of this part of the country and all the
way down to Manicaland is the number of ruined fortified kraals which
one comes across, culminating, as if to a central head, at Chipunza’s.
These spots have been long deserted and are now overgrown with jungle.
We visited one of these just after entering Mangwendi’s territories;
there is something about them which recalls the Great Zimbabwe—the
triple line of fortifications, the entrances slightly rounded; but then
the stonework is uneven, the walls being built of shapeless stones,
roughly put together with mortar. Here we see none of the even courses,
the massive workmanship, and the evidences of years of toil displayed
In the more ancient ruins; the walls are low, narrow, and uneven. Are
we to suppose an intermediate race between the inhabitants of Zimbabwe
and the present race, who built these ruins? or are we to imagine them
to be the work of the Makalangas themselves in the more flourishing
days of the Monomatapa rule? I am decidedly myself of the latter
opinion. No one who had carefully studied the Great Zimbabwe ruins
could for a moment suppose them to be the work of the same people; yet
they are just the sort of buildings an uncivilised race would produce,
who took as their copy the gigantic ruins they found in their midst.
For the next few weeks we were constantly coming across these ruins,
and the study of them interested us much.

Mount Masunsgwe was a conspicuous landmark for us for several days
about here. It is a massive granite kopje, placed as a sort of spur to
the range of hills which surrounds ’Mtoko’s country. It is also covered
with similar ruined stone walls belonging to a considerable town long
since abandoned. The next day we crossed a stream near a village,
called the Inyagurukwe, where the natives were busily engaged in
washing the alluvial soil in search of gold. We halted for the night by
another stream, under the impression that Mangwendi’s was only about
four miles off, and that an easy day was in store for us. But the fates
willed otherwise. Shortly after passing a large village, where the
inhabitants were more than usually importunate to see my wife’s hair,
screaming ‘Voudzi! voudzi!’—Hair! hair!—as they scampered by our side
until she gratified their curiosity, we all lost our way in an
intricate maze of Kaffir paths. Our interpreter was ahead and took one
way; my wife and I on horseback, in attempting to follow him, took
another; Mr. Swan on foot took another; and what happened to the men
with the donkeys we never knew, for they did not reach Mangwendi’s till
late in the afternoon, complaining bitterly of their wanderings. We
thought we were making straight for our goal, when, lo and behold! we
found ourselves at the top of a hill near one of the deserted towns,
tenanted only by a tribe of baboons. Our position was critical—we did
not know which way to turn, when luckily we espied two little Kaffir
boys, who guided us to Mangwendi’s; and, worn out with our long hot
ride, we made a frugal meal by the side of a stream before ascending to
the kraal.

Mangwendi’s kraal is a large one, and situated curiously on the top of
a lofty ridge. On turning to a Portuguese writer, Antonio Bocarro, who
gives, in his thirteenth decade of his chronicle of India, an
interesting account of the empire of Monomatapa, he says: ‘The
’Monomatapa are of the Mocaranga race, a free race who do not have
defensive arms, nor fortresses, nor surrounded cities.’ This seems at
first sight rather against the theory that the Monomatapa erected these
hill fortresses, but then we must bear in mind that the Portuguese
penetrated but little into these districts; and, furthermore, we found
at Chipunza’s kraal, a few days’ journey off, the natives actually
constructing similar walls around their chief kraal, evidently a
heritage of stone building retained by them from some higher form of
civilisation.

Bocarro gives us further information concerning the Monomatapa. He
enumerates the chief officers of the kingdom, and amongst others he
mentions ‘Manguendi’ as the chief wizard, or witch-doctor; he also
mentions ‘Makoni, king of Maungo,’ as a vassal of the Monomatapa; and
on inquiry at Makoni’s we learnt that his country is still called Unga,
and the tribal name is Maunga, just as Mangwendi’s is called Noia and
the tribe Manoia. Furthermore, he mentions one Chiburga as the
majordomo of a large town where the chief’s wives were kept, probably
the lofty hill we visited near the Sabi. [34] Thus Bocarro furnishes us
with almost positive proof that the same people dwell here now as dwelt
here under the rule of the Monomatapa, the only difference being that
the Mocaranga race has split up into numerous branches. Over two of
these Mangwendi and Makoni still exercise sway, still retaining their
old dynastic names, and still inhabiting what once was the heart of the
Monomatapa country. For these reasons I feel pretty confident in
asserting that the series of ruined cities amongst which we had now
entered is what remains to us of the once powerful chiefdom of
Monomatapa.

In Mangwendi’s country, as in ’Mtoko’s, the great worship is
sacrificing to ancestors, called here Bondoro, a name remarkably like
the lion god Mondoro. The Bondoro are supposed to intercede for them
with Muali, or God, and to get for them long life and prosperity. In
Mangwendi’s country, however, it is the head of each family who
performs the sacrifice, with the help of a man called Nanza, the
witch-doctor, one of the chief’s family, but by no means having the
same power as the Mondoro in ’Mtoko’s country. They go to the ruined
town which we had accidentally visited, where probably the tribe lived
in former days. Here the bullock or goat is sacrificed, everyone
present is sprinkled with the blood, and they put out portions of the
meat, together with some beer, for the consumption of the Bondoro, and
eat the rest themselves.

On the anniversary of the death of the last Mangwendi they assemble
from all the country round and hold a great feast in honour of the late
chief, at which the present chief conducts the sacrifice. Dos Santos,
in his ‘De Asia,’ describes almost the same thing as taking place
amongst the Mocarangas in his day: ‘Obsequies are made every year to
defunct kings; every year, in the month of September, when the first
moon appears, the king makes grand obsequies for his predecessors, who
are all buried there on a high rock where he lives, called Zimbaohe.’
This hill-set village, where the people of Mangwendi now sacrifice, is
still called by them their Zimbabwe. Dos Santos describes the eating,
drinking, and dancing just as it might be done now.

Another curious custom to which Dos Santos also alludes is continued
amongst them to-day. At Mangwendi’s, during the ploughing season, they
only work for five consecutive days; they observe the sixth, and call
it Muali’s day, and rest in their huts and drink beer. The chief always
announces this day of rest publicly to his tribe. Dos Santos gives the
following account of it: ‘There are days on which they are not to work,
appointed by the king, unknown to them, when they make feasts, and they
call these days Mozimos, or the days of the holy who are already dead.’
The term Mozimo for the spirits of ancestors is still used in many
parts of the country, and has been compared with the term molimo, used
by the Bechuana for the Supreme Being. Alvarez mentions the muzimo as
the god of the Monomatapa, and Gravenbroek (A.D. 1695) also states:
‘Divinitatem aliquam Messimo dictam in lucis summo cultu venerantur.’
This day of rest is observed during the ploughing season only; it may
possibly be of Semite origin, but more probably has been suggested by
the obvious necessity and advantage of intervening days of rest during
a period of hard work.

Mangwendi’s kraal is a very fine one, quite a long climb from the spot
where we were encamped. It is surrounded by palisades, and at the
entrance is a tree filled with trophies of the chase, the antlers of
many deer, and the skins of many wild beasts, which present quite an
imposing appearance. The chief was seated on a rock outside, chatting
with his indunas, when we arrived. He took us into the village and had
beer fetched for our delectation. He is an extremely courteous,
gentlemanly man, and seems most friendly to the white men who come in
his way; and as his kraal is not very far from the new road into
Manicaland, and as this district is very populous, he is constantly
visited by traders and others.

Mangwendi has ten wives, and two young girls, whom he has bought but
not yet married, and his family consists of ten sons and ten daughters,
one of whom, a bright-looking girl of about fifteen, came down to our
camp to sell us meal and beer. Unfortunately we could get little else,
for the traders had bought up all the available provisions, and from
this point until we reached Umtali we suffered more from starvation
than during any part of our journeyings in Mashonaland. ’Mtoko’s
bullock was done; we could get no meat at any of the kraals, or game
along our road; our coffee, sugar, and jams were all done, and our
meals, with rare exceptions, reduced themselves to millet-meal
porridge, rice, and tea, none of which were very palatable without the
ingredients of milk and sugar; and the provoking thing about Kaffir
meal is that it will not bind to make bread, so that for the staff of
life cold rice made into a shape was our only substitute. We generally
kept our pockets full of the ground-nuts (arachis), commonly called
‘monkey-nuts,’ which are excellent when roasted in the embers, and
capital assistants in warding off hunger.

On leaving Mangwendi’s we had regretfully to part with our bearers, who
had accompanied us all the way from Kunzi’s, and engage fresh ones in
their place. One of these, to our surprise, chose to take his wife with
him, but as she had to carry her baby on her back and food for herself
and her husband, she, poor thing, was so done up after our first day’s
march of seventeen miles, that her husband sent her back again.

Our first camp after leaving Mangwendi’s was at a very interesting
spot—an isolated granite kopje called Nyanger, rising about two hundred
feet above the surrounding plain. It was entirely covered with old
walls, irregular in shape, and similar to those above mentioned, and
evidently in former years a place of great strength. It had been long
abandoned, for there were no signs of habitation thereon, and the
approaches were full of débris. To the north-east of this kopje is a
very curious grotto, or domed cave, entirely covered with Bushman
drawings. A kudu and a buffalo are excellently drawn, almost worthy of
a Landseer, and in their drawings one can distinctly trace three
different periods of execution: (1) Crude and now faint representations
of unknown forms of animal life. (2) Deeper in colour, and admirably
executed, partly on the top of the latter, are the animals of the best
period of this art in red and yellow. (3) Inartistic representations of
human beings, which evidently belong to a period of decadence in the
execution of this work.

The colours are invariably red, yellow, and black. I am told that the
two former are obtained from certain coprolites found in these parts,
which, when broken open, have a yellow dust inside.

In this curiously decorated cave we found also many graves formed by
plastering up holes in the rock with a hard kind of cement. We opened
one of them, and found that the corpse had been wrapped in skins and
placed here. In the centre of the cave is a large semicircular wall,
entered in the middle by a rounded entrance; behind this is a sort of
palisade of grass matting placed against poles, to protect it from the
wind, and behind this are similar cement-covered graves. Now the
present race do not bury in this way, but evidently come here at
certain times to keep the place in order, and doubtless venerate the
spot as the resting-place of remote ancestors. There are also several
other graves on the flat space around Nyanger rock, piles of stones
placed around a crescent-shaped wall, which is evidently a sort of
rudimentary temple in which the sacrifices take place.

On our march that day we passed several of these cemeteries in the open
veldt far from any trace of habitation. They are generally placed on
slightly rising ground, and always have the semicircular structure,
which reminded us of the stones placed at the village of Lutzi, where
the inhabitants collected to smoke and talk, protected from the wind.
These spots are evidently still venerated, and form another of the many
problems connected with the past in this district of Africa. I think
they are the places to which Dos Santos alludes in the following
paragraph, where he refers to the chiefs who ‘make grand obsequies to
their predecessors, who are all buried there.’ In a memoir written by
Signor Farao, governor of Senna in 1820, there is a curious testimony
to this theory. He writes: ‘The mountains of Magonio (Makoni?), in
Quiteve, were noted as the burial-places of the kings and queens of
Quiteve, Gembe and Dombo. The remains were carried in procession to the
caves, where they were deposited alongside the bones of former kings,
and some of the most esteemed women of the deceased, or his secretary,
and some of the great people, were sacrificed at the ceremony.’

Most of the granite kopjes in this district have been similarly
fortified to Nyanger rock. Time would not permit of our visiting many
of them, but I am certain that a careful investigation of this district
would produce many valuable additions to the already large collections
of Bushman drawings. The fortifications of these rocks are generally in
rows of walls in terraces with narrow rounded entrances; they are all
constructed in a rough manner, with irregular-shaped stones joined
together with cement.

Near the river Chimbi, which we crossed shortly before reaching
Chipunza’s kraal, there is a particularly interesting specimen of this
class of ruin. The rocky kopje is fortified with walls, all the nooks
and crannies being carefully walled up, and below this is a curious
half-underground passage which evidently connected the fortress with
its water supply; it has a wall on either side of it—one four feet
thick, and the other eight feet thick; and the passage is roofed over
with large slabs of stone, some four and some five feet long. This
passage can now be traced for about fifty feet; it is nearly choked up
with rubbish, but the object for which it was originally constructed is
obvious, as it leads down to low swampy ground, where water could be
obtained.

A mile or two beyond this we alighted for a short time at a pretty
village called Makonyora, which had been surrounded by a palisade which
had taken root and grown into shady trees of considerable size. The
inhabitants seemed numerous and well to do. In this village there are
many instances of walls constructed like those we had seen in the
ruined villages; the foundations for the huts and granaries also are of
stone, so that the air may pass underneath, forming neatly executed
stone circles. The various gullies between the rocks are carefully
walled up, and you pass from one collection of huts to the other
through low entrances in these walls. There is no doubt about it, that
these people here possess an inherited knowledge of stone building
which exists nowhere else in Kaffirland, unless it be amongst the
Basutos, who, I am told, are skilled in stone building, and who, at a
not very remote period, are believed to have migrated from this very
country. It seems to me hardly possible that the gigantic buildings of
Zimbabwe and places in this country can have existed in their midst
without the inhabitants making some attempt to copy them; and here we
have an imitation, though a poor one, in the heart of what was the
strongest chiefdom of the country.

The aspect of the country is here very curious, the high level plateau
(it is about 5,000 feet above sea level) is, as it were, closely sown
for miles around with rugged granite kopjes, some only fifty feet high,
whilst others reach an elevation of several hundred feet. They are very
evenly arranged, too, as if they were the pieces for a cyclopean game
of chess. Through this region we passed, and at the eastern end of it
we reached our destination, Chipunza’s kraal, where we proposed to halt
for a day or two. Chipunza’s is a very large village, built on a gentle
rise on the right bank of the Rusapi River, with huts packed away into
all sorts of snug corners amongst the rocks. Immediately below these,
and within easy reach of the river, we pitched our tents. It was a
great disappointment to us to be able to get no meat here. Our meals,
which were composed entirely of things farinaceous, were growing
exceedingly monotonous, and we almost hated the sight of the
porridge-pot, which turned up with unvarying regularity. As against
this, the air at Chipunza’s was the finest I have ever breathed,
exhilarating like draughts of champagne.

When we reached the village we found the ladies of Chipunza with their
bark blankets tied tight around them, for it was chilly, seated in
picturesque and strange groups amongst the rocks, busily engaged in a
still stranger occupation. They were burning little heaps of cowdung,
and then spreading the results on the rocks to cool. Not understanding
what they were about we approached them, when, to our surprise, an old
crone picked up a lump of this delectable material, put it into her
mouth and consumed it with evident satisfaction, muttering, as she saw
our unfeigned surprise, ‘Salt, salt; good, good!’ and then we realised
that here they use the extract of nitre from the ash as their
substitute for salt, the commodity of life for which they have the
greatest craving, but which it is hardest to obtain.

In the afternoon we went to pay a visit to the chief, who received us
in a sort of inner fortress surrounded by a wall, through an opening in
which, about three feet high, and covered with large slabs of stone, we
had to creep. He is a grey-haired, refined-looking man, with manners
very like, and not the least inferior to, an Arab sheikh. He sat
surrounded by his councillors, and we all set to work to clap hands
vigorously. By this time my wife had learnt to clap hands in the female
fashion, namely, crosswise, whereas previously she had disgraced
herself by clapping like a man, with the fingers straight upon one
another; but, of course, the intricacies of savage etiquette can only
be acquired by practice.

After a little conversation had passed between us, a woman, one of the
chief’s wives, made her appearance, bending her body humbly, and
carrying a large pot full of wa-wa, as they term beer in this part of
the country. This she presented to her lord and master on bended knee,
after having previously drunk a little herself, to convince us that
there was no poison in it; then the chief took a drink, then his
councillors, and finally it was handed to us. We found it was lovely
beer, very potent, and after our long abstinence from anything so
intoxicating, as exhilarating as the air.

We were much struck by the courteous manners of the natives here. One
man, on receiving a present, bowed low and scraped the ground with his
feet. There is something about these people which points distinctly to
a higher form of civilisation having existed amongst them at a former
time; and when one reads Dos Santos’s account of the Mocarangas of
Monomatapa of his day, one cannot help feeling that they are the
remnant of that higher civilisation about which the early Portuguese
travellers tell us so much.

‘The Portuguese,’ says Dos Santos, ‘did not enter the king’s presence,
like the Kaffirs, with deep obeisance, only with bare feet;’ and in a
curious old treaty published in the Portuguese Yellow-book, and
purporting to have been made between the Monomatapa chief Manuza and
Manuel Gomes Serrao in 1629, the following stipulation is inserted:—

‘The ambassadors who shall come to speak with him shall enter his
Zimbahe covered and shod (with boots on their feet) and with their arms
at their sides, as if they were before the King of Portugal. He shall
give them chairs upon which to sit, and they shall not be submitted to
the ceremony of the clapping of hands.’

Chipunza has another name, Chipadzi. The exact relation between these
two names we were unable to ascertain; Chipadzi, however, I believe to
be the old dynastic name of the chief. His Zimbabwe, or place of
sacrifice, is about a mile from the present village, at a spot called
Chittakette, or the Chipadzi’s old town. To this place we were to be
taken on the morrow. We found it an interesting old spot, buried in
trees and with tomatoes and tobacco plants all amongst the ruined
walls. It evidently had had a wooden palisade around it, which had
sprouted and produced the venerable trees, and it had an inner fortress
with walls encircling it, and low gateways through, with large stone
slabs over them. It is an excellent specimen of this rough style of
fortress: the walls are from six to eight feet thick, with loopholes
out of which to shoot, built with no attempt at keeping even courses,
and with mortar. Within the fortress are the remains of huts and
granaries, as if the place had not been abandoned for very many years.

Just outside is Chipadzi’s tomb, with a tall stone erected over it, and
the surrounding ground is covered with tombs. This spot is called the
Zimbabwe by the natives, where they sacrifice annually to the Maklosi
of their ancestors.

We spent two days wandering amongst the granite locks around Chipunza’s
kraal, and we found evidence of a vast population having lived here at
some period. Nearly every one of the granite kopjes is fortified with
walls, and on some of them we found graves of cement similar to those
we saw at Nyanger rock; and on the hill just behind Chipunza’s kraal a
tall stone is erected on a pile of stones, the object of which nobody
seemed inclined to tell us.

How long ago it is since these walled towns were inhabited, and who
inhabited them, is, of course, a mystery. There is, however, no
evidence of any great antiquity about them; the mortar may have stood
for a few centuries, but not more; and from the evidence given us by
the Portuguese, above quoted, from the continuity of certain names and
many customs, and from the fact that the present inhabitants still
retain a certain knowledge of stone building, I think it is a very
reasonable assumption that this was one of the great centres of the
so-called Monomatapa Empire.

After leaving Chipunza’s kraal, and crossing the River Rusapi, a ride
of two hours brought us to Makoni’s kraal. Makoni, chief of the Maunga
tribe, is still one of the most powerful potentates in this district.
He, too, calls his town Zimbabwe, and it is doubtless the same spot
occupied by Makoni, chief of the Maungo, one of the great vassals of
the Monomatapa that Antonio Bocarro tells us about three centuries ago.

It is probably the highest inhabited spot in Mashonaland, being 5,200
feet above the level of the sea, just at the edge of the high plateau,
where it breaks into the serrated ridges of Manicaland. The town covers
a very large area of ground, being a conglomerate mass of huts and
granaries surrounded by a palisade. We spent about an hour resting
there at a sort of public meeting-place surrounded by a wall, where the
inhabitants collected in crowds to stare at us. Most of the men had
very large holes pierced in the lobes of their ears, into which they
would insert snuff-boxes of reeds, decorated with black geometric
patterns, and other articles. The women are all girt with the same
bark-fibre garments which we had seen worn in ’Mtoko’s country.
Accompanied by a swarthy rabble, we climbed a rock behind the town,
from which we got an exquisite view down into the valleys of Manica,
bearing eastwards—a view of rugged mountains tumbled together, of deep
valleys and running streams—a view such as one would get when
descending from the Alps into the plain of Italy. Chief Makoni never
came to see us, and as our time was limited we had to hurry away
without making his acquaintance.

Almost immediately on leaving Makoni’s our road began to descend, and
we entered upon a series of richly wooded gorges, flanked by gigantic
granite cliffs. On one of these pinnacles, about the height of Makoni’s
own kraal, is perched Chigono’s village, occupying a most wonderful
position. How they ever manage to drag up here a sufficiency of water
and the necessaries of life is a marvel. One thing they have in
perfection is climate. We found it hot and stuffy in the valleys, but
in their mountain eyries the Kaffirs enjoy the most perfect air that it
is possible to breathe.

On the third day after leaving Chipunza’s, one of our men had the good
luck to shoot an antelope, an event which was hailed with delight by
all in our camp. We had never in our lives been so long without meat,
and the want of it was beginning to be felt by all. On the fourth day
we crossed the Odzi River, the boundary between Mashonaland and
Manicaland. It is a fine stream even here, with a good body of water
even at the end of the dry season, on its way to join the Sabi River,
just where we touched it a few weeks before. At the point where we
crossed the Odzi the stream was sixty feet across, and the bed is at
least one hundred yards wide, and when the rains are on it must be a
terrible obstacle. Even as it was we had to unload the donkeys and
carry their burdens across, which means, when the afternoon is
advancing, a halt for the night.

A ride of twelve miles brought us next day to the kraal of ’Mtasa, the
most powerful of all the Manica chiefs. He is the paramount lord of the
Nica tribe, which gives its name to the country, and dwells in the
heart of the most mountainous district we had as yet traversed. A mass
of mountains, known to the natives as Mount Yenya, occupies the heart
of his country. ’Mtasa’s kraal itself is over 4,000 feet above the sea
level, and above this the rocky mountains tower 2,000 feet at least.
Here, though not actually as high as Makoni’s, you feel much higher,
looking down into the deep valleys below, and seeing no high plateau
behind you. Amongst these mountains lie numerous scattered kraals,
excellent grazing-ground for cattle, and from marauding neighbours
’Mtasa is free. Nevertheless, during the last two years poor ’Mtasa has
had rather a bad time of it, being the bone of contention between the
Portuguese and English chartered companies. Early in 1891, in the very
centre of this kraal, a small English contingent captured Andrade,
Gouveia, and the representatives of the Mozambique Company, and now the
British flag floats over it.

’Mtasa’s kraal is quite one of the most extraordinary ones we had yet
visited, being a nest of separate villages, each surrounded by its own
stockade, hidden away amongst granite boulders beneath the shade of a
lofty mountain. It is almost impossible to form any idea of the exact
extent of this place, so hidden away is it amongst trees and rocks, and
so intricate are its approaches; but, if report tells truly, which it
does not always do in South Africa, it is one of the largest native
centres in the country. We wandered up to a village the first
afternoon, a considerable climb from our camp. Little groups of natives
sat chattering under the shade of open huts, or just roofs on piles,
the rudimentary form of the café or the club: there were pigeon-cotes
on piles in all directions, and at every turn we found ourselves
blocked by palisades, which caused us to retrace our steps; so, as we
intended to stay another day here, we contented ourselves with gazing
at the magnificent view, the peaked heights of the Yenya range, the
deep wooded valley below with its dashing stream, and far away in the
horizon the distant blue Manica mountains. Certainly no kraal we had as
yet visited enjoys such excellent views as ’Mtasa’s. The huts here are
large and roomy, at the side they have two tall decorated posts to
support shelves for their domestic produce; most of them have two
doors, and with the dense shade of many trees above them they are
exceedingly picturesque.

On our second visit to the kraals we met ’Mtasa’s son, who regretted
that his aged father was ill just then, and had gone away for change of
air. We took leave of him, and climbed up through rocks and through
palisade after palisade, shutting off the various kraals from one
another; one of these we entered by a curious gateway made by swinging
beams, and penetrated into the headquarters of the old chief. By this
time we noticed that the people began to glare at us unpleasantly and
audibly to grumble. Seated in rows on the rocks, they chattered to us
like angry monkeys, but we went on without heeding them. One man, with
a bayonet fixed on to his rifle, followed unpleasantly close behind us;
and then, as we were about to penetrate into what I suppose formed
their innermost recesses, ’Mtasa’s son, who, by the way, had had more
beer than was good for him, came up to us in hot haste, and
peremptorily commanded us to depart. Again he reiterated the statement
that his father was away, and during his absence none could see the
royal kraal; so, somewhat crestfallen, we turned back again and saw no
more. Afterwards we were informed that the old ’Mtasa was there all the
time, but, as he had suffered so much lately from the conflicting
interests of England and Portugal, he thought it best not to see us,
for fear we might make him sign some new treaty against his will.

Of all the natives we had met during our wanderings, those of ’Mtasa’s
pleased us least; they appeared to us to be completely wanting in all
delicacy of feeling, and had to be driven by force from our tents. They
seemed to us to be an ill-bred, impudent race, and though their home
was so lovely we left it without regret. Somehow, too, our visit to
’Mtasa’s kraal was altogether unsatisfactory; we left it with the
consciousness that there were mysteries in it which we had not yet
explored. At the very last moment, just as we were packing up our
things, I chanced to see on a rock close by our camp some more of the
Bushman drawings, grotesque figures of men with bows and arrows and
deer grazing, in the usual colours of red and yellow. I feel confident
that in the massive mountain behind the kraal some more fortunate
travellers will find objects of interest which will well repay
investigation. We have distinctly unpleasant recollections of the
place, as we have also of a certain dangerous slippery drift or ford
across the River Odzani, which we found about half way between ’Mtasa’s
and the B.S.A. camp at Umtali. We had to take off our shoes and
stockings and lead our horses across the slippery rocks; they, poor
things, slipped at every step and trembled with fright. As for our
donkeys, they subsided altogether, and had to be unloaded and almost
carried across.








CHAPTER XII

THE JOURNEY TO THE COAST


We reached Umtali on October 24, just a month after leaving Fort
Salisbury. We were distinctly weary and wayworn, and having had but
little food of late we partook of the refreshments kindly set before us
by the officers of the Chartered Company with, to us, unparalleled
heartiness. At Umtali we pitched our tents near a stream with every
intention, as time would permit, of taking a few days of rest and
retrospect before starting on the arduous journey down to the coast.

We had now travelled through the greater part of Mashonaland, as, I
suppose, the new country must inevitably be called; we had studied the
archæology and anthropology of the districts through which we had
passed with all the diligence that hard travelling and hard work would
allow. Mr. Swan had constructed a map of the route from observations
and bearings taken at every possible opportunity by day and by night;
and at the same time we had formed opinions on the country from our own
point of view, perhaps all the more unbiassed because we were not in
search of gold, neither had we pegged out any claims for future
development.

That the country is a magnificent one, apart from gold, I have no
hesitation in saying. Any country in such a latitude, and at such an
elevation, well watered, with prolific soil, healthy and bracing, if
ordinary comforts are attainable, could not fail to be. The scenery is
in many parts, as I have previously described, very fine; there is
abundance of timber, excellent prospects for cereals, and many kinds of
ore exist which will come in for future development; and gold is there
too. On that point I am perfectly satisfied; whether in large or small
quantities, whether payable or unpayable, is a matter which can only be
decided by years of careful prospecting and sinking of shafts, not by
hasty scratching on the surface or the verdict of so-called ‘experts’
after a hurried visit. That gold was there in very large quantities is
also certain, from the vast acres of alluvial soil, turned over, and
the countless shafts sunk in remote antiquity.

To carry out what is necessary for this possible future development,
or, perhaps, to speak more correctly, resuscitation of this country, an
easy access is indispensable, and the great check to this progress
hitherto has been the absence of railways in South Africa on the
eastern seaboard, the natural and easiest entrance to the country being
in the hands of the listless Portuguese. Progress is impossible with
Kimberley as a base of operations and a thousand miles trek over
difficult and swampy roads before the scene of action is reached. In
Western America the railway is the first thing, development comes next;
and inasmuch as the Chartered Company have tried the converse of
this—to put the cart before the horse, to use a familiar simile—they
have met with innumerable difficulties at the very outset.

Having entered the country by the weary waggon-road through
Bechuanaland, and having left it by the now somewhat arduous Pungwe
route, I can confidently affirm that this latter is the only possible
route; and I now propose to describe it as it at present exists,
feeling sure that in years to come, when the railway hurries the
traveller up to Umtali, when the venomous tsetse-fly no longer destroys
all transport animals, when lions cease to roar at night, and the game
has retired to a respectful distance, a back glimpse at the early days
of this route will be historically interesting.

Umtali is the natural land terminus of this route, as Beira is its
legitimate port. Umtali, so called from a rivulet which flows below it,
was, when we were there, a scattered community of huts, now brought
together in a ‘township’ at a more favourable spot, about five miles
distant from the former site, which township the British South Africa
Company hope to call Manica, and to make it the capital of that portion
of Manicaland which they so dexterously, to use an Africander term,
‘jumped’ from the Portuguese. Of all their camps Umtali was the most
favourably situated that we visited, enjoying delicious air, an
immunity from swamps and fevers, lovely views, and many flowers. On the
ridge, where the camp huts stood exposed to the violent and prevailing
blasts of the south-east winds, which descend in furious gusts from the
surrounding mountains, stood also the guns taken from the Portuguese,
nine in all, and presenting a formidable enough appearance, until we
learnt that they were useless then, for the pins were abstracted before
capture. Far away on the hill slopes were the huts of the original
settlers; the bishop’s palace likewise, a daub hut standing in the
midst of a goodly mission farm. The hospital, with the sisters’ huts,
crowned another eminence, and the newly made fort stood on the highest
point, from which glorious views could be obtained over the sea of
Manica mountains, the rich red soil and green vegetation, so pleasant a
change to the eye after the everlasting grey granite kopjes of
Mashonaland and its uniform vegetation.

Of ancient Portuguese remains there are several in the neighbourhood of
Umtali fort, where centuries ago the pioneers held their own for awhile
against native aggression. To-day, if you dine at the officers’ mess at
Umtali, you find evidences of Portugal of another nature. You sit on
Portuguese chairs and feed off Portuguese plates obtained from the loot
at Massi-Kessi; and when the governor of that district came to pay an
amicable visit to the governor of Umtali, they had nothing to seat him
on save his own chairs, nothing to feed him off save his own plates,
and nothing to give him to eat save his own tinned meats. But
Portuguese politeness rose to the occasion, and no remarks were made.

Crossing a stream below the fort, we found ourselves amidst a
collection of circular daub huts and stores, on either side of what a
facetious butcher, who dealt largely in tough old transport oxen, had
termed in his advertisement ‘Main Street.’ Here you might pay enormous
prices for the barest necessities of life, and drink at old Angus’s bar
a glass of whisky at the same price you could get a bottle for in
England. Scotch is the prevailing accent here, and I think the greatest
gainers out of Mashonaland, in the first year of its existence, were
those canny traders who loaded waggons with jams and drink, and sold
them at fabulous prices to hungry troopers and thirsty prospectors. Old
Angus was a typical specimen of this class, a sandy-haired little
Scotchman, well up in colonial ways, who kept two huts, in one of which
eating, drinking, and gossip were always to be found; whilst the other
was divided into three bare cells, and called an hotel.

Such was the first Umtali, primitive and fascinating in its rawness.
Now these huts are abandoned to the rats and the rain, and a new Umtali
of doubtful expansion has been built five miles away.

Our journey from Umtali to Beira was one which required much
forethought. First, we had much luggage, which we did not wish to leave
behind or bury on the way, as others had been obliged to do; secondly,
my wife did not feel inclined to do the one hundred and eighty miles on
foot, through heat and swamp, in tropical Africa; and thirdly, the
Kaffir bearers were scarce, and especially—at that season of the year,
when their fields wanted ploughing—apt to run away at awkward moments.
So the services of the homely ass were brought into requisition. The
ass would die of the fly-bite, everyone told us, but not until it had
deposited us safely in Beira. Consequently our eleven asses were
retained in our service and considered in the light of the railway
tickets of the future, to be used and thrown away. It seemed horribly
cruel, I must admit, to condemn eleven asses to certain death; but
then, what are animals made for but to lay down their lives to satisfy
the requirements of man in his dire emergencies?

A cart was constructed on two firm wheels, the wonder of its day. Eight
donkeys were harnessed therein, with gear made out of every imaginable
scrap. Three donkeys trotted gaily by its side, to be brought into
requisition in case of sore backs and other disasters; and one wet
evening we despatched our hopeful cart with our blessing on its road to
the coast. It would take three or four days getting by the waggon-road
to Massi-Kessi, whilst we could cross the mountains in one. So next
morning, we on foot and my wife on horseback, started by the mountain
road for Massi-Kessi, and got there as evening was coming on. A good
walk in any of the mountainous districts of the British Isles would
have been just the same. A drenching mist obscured every vision, the
paths were slippery and uneven; occasionally a glimpse at a stream with
bananas waving in the mist, or at a Kaffir kraal, would dispel the
homelike illusion, and bring us back to Africa again. Towards evening
the aggravating mist cleared away, and gave us a splendid panorama of
the surrounding mountains as we approached Massi-Kessi and entered the
valley of the River Revwe. Just here we walked for miles over ground
which had been worked for alluvial gold in the olden days, the soil
being honeycombed with low holes, and presenting the appearance of a
ploughed field with circular furrows.

Certainly the Portuguese, or rather the Mozambique Company, are to be
congratulated on the possession of such a paradise as this Revwe
Valley—fertile in soil, rich in water, glorious in its views over
forest-clad mountains; and it is not to be wondered at that they keenly
resented the temporary appropriation of it. Massi-Kessi and its
neighbourhood are rich in reminiscences of the Portuguese past; the new
fort, where the new company has its store, was built out of the remains
of an old Portuguese fort, around which you may still pick up fragments
of Nankin porcelain, relics of those days, now long since gone by, when
the Portuguese of Africa, India, and the Persian Gulf lived in the lap
of luxury, and fed off porcelain brought by their trading-ships from
China. Higher up in the mountain valleys are forts and roads of this
occupation. As in the Persian Gulf, as in Goa and elsewhere, the
Portuguese influence vanished in East Africa after her union with Spain
and the consequent drafting off of her soldiers to the wars in
Flanders; barely a phantom of her former power remained to her in the
province of Mozambique. A few futile expeditions under Barretto,
Fernandez, and others were destroyed either by the natives or by fever,
during one of which the legend is still told that the defenders of this
fort of Massi-Kessi were obliged to cast bullets out of gold nuggets
when cheaper material came to an end. After this the inland country was
practically abandoned to the savages. Old treaties existed but were not
renewed; lethargy seemed to have taken entire possession of the few
remaining Portuguese who were left here, a lethargy from which they
were rudely awakened by the advent of the Chartered Company. What
better argument do we want for the reoccupation of this country by a
more enterprising race than these forts abandoned and in ruins, and the
treaties with savage chiefs long since neglected—consigned to the
national archives? The little episode of Massi-Kessi is certainly one
which deserves to be engraven on our national records, though it arose
from a mistake, and the ground gained had ultimately to be abandoned;
nevertheless these facts do in no way detract from the bravery of the
Chartered Company’s men.

Forty Englishmen of troop A, under the command of Captain Hayman, were
stationed about 1,500 yards from the fort at one o’clock on the day of
the fight. Messengers were sent from the Portuguese bidding them
retire, but Captain Hayman said his orders were to the contrary, and he
could not. Thereupon the Portuguese force, mustering 150 white men and
300 blacks, advanced, and the action began. At five o’clock they
retreated, with many killed and wounded, but not one single Englishman
suffered. Next morning our troops were surprised to find that the
Portuguese flag was not up, and on marching to the fort they found it
abandoned. Here it was that they took the guns we had seen at Umtali
and 110,000 rounds of ammunition. The victorious troops pushed on as
far as Chimoia’s, and would have driven the Portuguese out of the
country had they not then been met by orders to retreat. Massi-Kessi
was also eventually abandoned, and by the recent treaty is included in
the dominions of the Portuguese Chartered Company. In the store,
however, one of the B.S.A. troopers carved the following memento of his
visit before taking his departure:—


                             R V I
                            A TROOP
                          1 B.S.A.C.P.
                          20 Nov. ’90.


The tradition of good living is still maintained by the Portuguese
officials at Massi-Kessi. Never saw I a greater contrast in seventeen
miles than that offered by the fare provided at the British camp at
Umtali, and that placed before us by the kind Portuguese commandant at
Massi-Kessi; here we had six courses of meat and excellent wines, and
other, to us, unwonted luxuries. They have farms for vegetables, and
many head of cattle around; they have their natives under complete
control, and make them work; they build large roomy huts, but the
commandant’s apologies because we had to sit on wooden boxes, not on
chairs, made us blush, for we knew that the said chairs were there
once, but now were gracing the British mess-room at Umtali.

When speaking of roughing it in the interior, the want of food and the
necessaries of life, Commandant Béthencourt was slightly sarcastic.
‘What strange people you English are to do such things!’ he said. ‘We
Portuguese might, perhaps, do them for our country, but for a
Company—never!’

Now we started in good earnest for the coast, refreshed by our three
days’ rest at Massi-Kessi under the kind roof of the Portuguese; our
cart had arrived, and our eleven donkeys and men looked fit, despite
the evil road they had had to traverse.

Two roads from here were open to us to Beira—one by the Pungwe, the
other by the Buzi River. We hesitated somewhat in our choice, for the
latter, we were told, was less swampy, and the fertile district of
Umliwan would have interested us—where they grow the best tobacco in
these parts, and the prospects of which for agricultural purposes, they
said, are brilliant; but, as the season was growing late, and the rains
might come on any day, we decided on taking the quicker and more
frequented route. Moreover, we were anxious to witness for ourselves
the calamities which had befallen Messrs. Heany and Johnson on their
pioneer route, and to form our own opinion as to its possibility for
the future.

Our first halt was at the Mineni River, a tributary of the Revwe, which
we reached after an easy journey, marked only by the upsetting of our
cart when we least expected it, an accident which occurred for the
first and only time. The Mineni is a rapid stream, flanked by rich
tropical vegetation, with graceful bamboos and lovely ferns overhanging
the water; it supplied a deficiency we had long felt in Mashonaland
scenery, namely, water in conjunction with mountains and rich
vegetation. The greens are peculiarly vivid here, and the red young
leaves of some of the trees give the appearance of autumnal tints, and
form a feature peculiar to African landscape. In its rocky bed we dared
to bathe without fear of crocodiles, an ever-present terror to those
who venture into the sluggish sandy pools of Eastern Africa.

Messrs. Heany and Johnson undoubtedly did good work in preparing their
road, for which work we probably are the only people who are devoutly
thankful, for ours is the only wheeled vehicle which has traversed it
in its entirety since the single pioneer coach went up to Umtali, after
infinite difficulty and weeks of disaster, with such sorry tales of
fever, fly, and swamp, that no waggons have since ventured to repeat
the experiment. The trees which they had cut down, and the culverts
which they had made over the dongas, assisted us materially, and we
stepped along our road right merrily.

The farther we went the more reason we had to be thankful for our frail
cart and homely asses. Others we passed in dire distress whose bearers
had deserted them, and who could not find more: we overtook one party
holding solemn conclave as to what they should throw away, what they
should bury, and what they could possibly manage to take on. Boxes,
containing liquor, clothes, and other commodities which could be
dispensed with, are frequently found on the road, telling their tale of
desertion by bearers and acute misery of the possessors.

He who first started the evil plan of paying these dark bearers in
advance ought for ever to be held up to public obloquy. The Kaffir,
doubtless, has been often cheated by the white man, for many
unscrupulous individuals have traversed this road from Umtali to Beira,
and the black man was wise in his generation when he insisted on
payment before undertaking the journey; but now he has too dangerous an
opportunity for retaliation, of which he takes frequent advantage, and
many are the cases of desertion at awkward points. A white man,
stricken with fever, had to pay his bearers over and over again before
he could persuade them to go on; the Sisters on their way to Umtali
were deserted at Chimoia; and at the season of the year when the fields
are to be ploughed they develop a still greater tendency to this
unscrupulous behaviour.

The Portuguese manage their affairs far better than we do. Troops of
so-called convicts are shipped from their West African provinces to
those on the east coast, and vice versâ, so that in both places they
have ready-made slaves to carry their baggage and their mashilas, or
travelling hammocks. The Portuguese word is law with their black
subjects, whereas the unfortunate Englishman has to pay 25s. or 2l. for
a bearer, who will carry sixty pounds, but will desert when the fancy
takes him. Furthermore, the Englishman dare not treat his nigger as he
deserves; if he did, he would be had up at once before the Portuguese
magistrates, and be sure to get the worst of it. Before the Pungwe
route can be made available, even for the lightest traffic, this order
of things must cease. The native bearer is undoubtedly a fine specimen
of humanity. He will carry on his head weights of surprising size,
which it requires two men to lift up to its exalted position; he runs
along at a rapid pace, and does his twenty-five to thirty miles a day
with infinite ease; and if the desertion and payment question were
settled, there would not be so many thousands of pounds’ worth of
valuable stuff spoiling at Beira, and much wanted at Umtali. Each chief
ought to be compelled to supply a fixed number of bearers at a fixed
tariff, and cases of desertion should be severely punished. But the way
to do this is not clear as yet, for the Portuguese do not wish it, and
to the British mind this form of compulsory labour might savour too
much of slavery.

With our cart we did eighteen and twenty miles a day; quite far enough
for the pedestrian in this warm climate. The first hour’s walk, from 6
to 7 A.M., was always delicious, before the full power of the sun was
felt; the rest of the day was atrociously hot, especially when our road
led us through steaming tropical forests and rank vegetation. Luckily
for us at this season of the year the long grass in the open veldt was
all burnt, and the stifling experience of walking through eight or ten
feet of grass and getting no view whatsoever was spared us.

Shade for our midday halts was always precarious. African trees have
the character of giving as little shade as possible, and this we found
to be invariably the case. Luckily, water is everywhere abundant, and
we could assuage our thirst with copious draughts of tea.

The native kraals on this road are highly uninteresting; the
inhabitants are wanting altogether in that artistic tendency displayed
in Mashonaland, which showed itself in carved knives, snuff-boxes, and
weapons. A chief named Bandula occupies a commanding position on a high
range which we passed on our left, at the foot of which flows a stream
called the Lopodzi, which delighted us with its views over the
Nyangombwe Mountains, and offended us with its swampy banks, where the
frogs croaked as loud as the caw of the rooks in our woods at home.

Chimoia’s kraal is a sort of half-way halt, where all waggons are now
left before entering the much-dreaded ‘fly belt;’ and here my wife
parted reluctantly with her horse, and transferred herself and her
saddle to the back of one of the three loose asses which accompanied
our cart. Most people seem to have two or three asses in their train,
for fear of being utterly helpless in case of the desertion of their
blacks, and all are prepared for their ultimate demise, either by the
violence of the lion or the bite of the fly. One ass at Chimoia’s
distinguished itself by seizing its master’s sugar-bag, and consuming
it and its contents with all the greater avidity when the master and
his stick turned up. All laughed; but all who had experienced the great
calamity of being without sugar in this land felt deep compassion for
the victim.

Chimoia’s is a scattered kraal, poor and destitute: clusters of round
huts with low eaves, and doors through which one has to crawl on hands
and knees.

We could get no meal here, as everyone had told us we should, and when
talking over our supplies the faces of our men grew long and anxious;
and if it had not been for the kindness of other white men whom we met
on our way down, famine would have been added to our other discomforts;
but good fellowship and spontaneous liberality are the characteristics
of all those Englishmen who have been up country, and at one time or
another known what it is to be without food. At Chimoia’s ends the
pleasant traffic in beads and cloth, which for months past had kept our
money in our pockets. Here a rupee is asked for every commodity; and
some day surprising hoards of these coins will be found in the Kaffir
kraals near the coast, for they never spend them, neither do they wear
them as ornaments, and it is a marvel to all what they do with them.
The vegetation is very fine around Chimoia’s, and the land appears
wonderfully fertile. On the top of a strangely serrated ridge of
mountains behind the village is a deserted Portuguese fort, and a
flagstaff with nothing floating therefrom.

Beyond Chimoia’s the streams grow more sluggish, and emit more fœtid
odours, suggestive of fevers. Ragged-leaved bananas, bamboos, and
tree-ferns luxuriate in all these streams, which work their way in deep
channels, or dongas, across the level country.

The fall is now scarcely perceptible, and the long flat belt which
girdles Africa is entered, the much-dreaded low veldt, teeming with
swamps, game, and tsetse-fly. At one time you are walking through a
forest of bamboos, making graceful arches overhead with their long
canes, and recalling pictures of Japan; at another time you go through
palm forests, and then comes a stretch of burning open country; and at
night-time, for the first time, we heard the lions roar. We lighted
huge camp-fires and trembled for the safety of our eleven donkeys, for
which animals lions are supposed to have a particular predilection.

Mandigo’s kraal is twenty-four miles from Chimoia’s, and to us was
equally uninteresting and equally unproductive of the much-needed
supplies. Some say the fly only begins here, and certainly we saw none
ourselves till after Mandigo’s; and from here to Sarmento we saw plenty
of it. The tsetse-fly is grey, about the size of an ordinary horse-fly,
with overlapping wings. Our donkeys, poor things, got many bites, and
we felt grieved at their prospective deaths. We provided them with the
only remedy of which we could hear, namely, a handful of salt every
night; but how this is supposed to act in counter-acting the bite of
the fly I am at a loss to imagine.

Certainly this fly has many peculiarities. All domesticated
quadrupeds—horses, oxen, and dogs—die from it when brought up country;
whereas zebras, buffaloes, and native curs flourish amongst it with
impunity, and its bite has not so much effect upon human beings as that
of a common midge.

Ample evidence of the ravages of this venomous insect are visible on
the roadside. Dozens of waggons lie rotting in the veldt, bearing
melancholy testimony to the failure of Messrs. Heany and Johnson’s
pioneer scheme. Everywhere lie the bleaching bones of the oxen which
dragged them; and at Mandigo’s is an abandoned hut filled to
overflowing with the skins of these animals, awaiting the further
development of the Pungwe traffic to be converted into ropes, or reims,
as they are usually termed in South Africa. Fully 2,000l. worth of
waggons, we calculated, as we passed by on one day’s march, lies in the
veldt, ghostlike, as after a battle.

Then there are Scotch carts of more or less value, and a handsome Cape
cart, which Mr. Rhodes had to abandon on his way up to Mashonaland,
containing in the box seat a bottle labelled ‘Anti-fly mixture,’ a
parody on the situation.

But the greatest parody of all is at Sarmento itself, a Portuguese
settlement on the banks of the Pungwe. Here two handsome coaches, made
expressly in New Hampshire, in America, for the occasion, lie deserted
near the Portuguese huts. They are richly painted with arabesques and
pictures on the panels; ‘Pungwe route to Mashonaland’ is written
thereon in letters of gold. The comfortable cushions inside are being
moth-eaten, and the approaching rains will complete the ruin of these
handsome but ill-fated vehicles. Meanwhile the Portuguese stand by and
laugh at the discomfiture of their British rivals in the thirst for
gold. Even the signboard, with ‘To Mashonaland,’ is in its place; and
all this elaborate preparation for the pioneer route has been rendered
abortive by that venomous little insect the tsetse-fly. In his zeal to
carry out his contract, Major Johnson committed a great error and
entailed an enormous amount of misery when he telegraphed that the
Pungwe route was open, and circulated advertisements to that effect,
giving dates and hours which were never carried out.

Heaps of people, for the most part poor and impecunious, flocked to
this entrance to their Eldorado, and after waiting without anything and
in abject misery at Chimoia’s had to return to Mapanda’s, where the
condition of affairs was desperate—people dying of fever, the doctor
himself ill, and no food, for the Portuguese governor of Neves
Ferreira, Colonel Madera, boycotted the English and forbade the natives
to bring them provisions. Assistance was brought to them by Dr. Todd,
of the Magicienne; but many died, and the rest, disappointed and
penniless, had to return to Capetown.

The River Pungwe is imposing at Sarmento, its bed being nearly two
hundred yards across, and the view of the reaches up and down from the
verandah where the Portuguese governor has his meals al fresco is
fairly striking. But the Pungwe is imposing nowhere else where we saw
it, being a filthy, muddy stream, flowing between mangrove swamps,
relieved occasionally by a tall palm and villages on piles; the
surroundings are perfectly flat, and its repulsive waters were until
lately plied only by the tree canoes of the natives. Crocodiles and
hippopotami revel in its muddy waters, and on its banks game is
abundant enough to satisfy the most ardent sportsman. Deer of every
conceivable species are to be seen still quietly grazing within shot of
the road; buffaloes, zebras, lions, hyenas, wild pigs, nay, even the
elephant, may be found in this corner of the world. Disappointed as the
sportsman may have been with the results of his exploits in Mashonaland
and the high veldt, he will be amply rewarded for the fatigues of his
journey to Beira by finding himself in a country which would appear to
produce all the kinds of wild animals that came to Adam for their
names. One herd of zebra, numbering about fifty, stood staring at us so
long, at a distance of not more than a hundred yards, that we were able
to photograph them twice. The flesh of the zebra is eatable, and we,
with our limited larder, greatly enjoyed a zebra steak when one was
shot. A little farther on a gnu, or blue hartebeest, as the Dutchmen
call it, stood and contemplated us with almost as much curiosity as we
manifested in seeing him so near our path. But, for my part, no amount
of game or quaint tropical sights would compensate for the agonies of
the walk from Sarmento to Mapanda’s across the shadeless burning plain,
beneath a torrid, scorching sun. Now and again we got shelter from the
burning rays beneath the wild date-palms, a very pleasing feature in
the landscape, varied by the fan-palms, with their green feather-like
leaves and bright orange stalks, covered with similarly coloured fruit.
When ripe the fruit becomes dark brown, like the cultivated date; and
though we ate quantities, we did not get very considerable satisfaction
from the consumption. Then a few delightful moments of repose would be
passed by a sluggish stream, almost hidden by its rich jungle of shade;
but on these last days of our long tramp we did not care to delay, but
pushed on eagerly to reach the corrugated iron palaces of Mapanda,
where we should find the river and the steamer.

Mapanda’s is, indeed, a sorry place: not a tree to give one shade, only
a store or two, built of that unsightly corrugated iron so much beloved
by the early colonists of South Africa, and a few daub huts. It is a
paradise only for those who arrive weary and worn from the interior,
and for the sportsman, affording him a pied-à-terre in the very midst
of the land where ‘the deer and the antelope roam.’ It has, however,
certain points on which it justly prides itself. Firstly, it is the
only spot for miles around which is not under water when the floods are
out, for the banks of the Pungwe are fairly high here. Secondly, the
river is navigable up to here for small steamers, even in the driest
season; and, uninviting though it is at present, Mapanda may have a
future before it.

We had three days to wait at Mapanda’s before the little steamer Agnes
would come up to take us away, and these three days were not without
their excitements.

Three lions penetrated one night into the heart of the camp, and
partially consumed three donkeys—not ours, we are thankful to say, but
those of a wicked Polish Jew, who had given infinite trouble to the
English there, by causing an innocent Briton to be arrested by the
Portuguese on a charge of theft; on which account he (the Jew) was well
ducked in the Pungwe, and no one was sorry when the discriminating
lions chose his donkeys for their meal; nay, many expressed a wish that
the owner himself had formed part of the banquet. The next night the
three lions, which had been lurking during the day in the jungle by the
river, came to visit us again, with a view to demolishing what they and
the vultures had left of the Hebrew’s donkeys. One of the three
visitors was shot, but he got away, and we heard no more of them.

Opposite the British colony at Mapanda is a large island forty miles
long by twenty at its widest; this island is formed by the Pungwe and a
branch of the same known by the Kaffir name of Dingwe-Dingwe. The
island is perfectly flat, covered with low brushwood here and there,
and long grass. It abounds in game; and on it the chief Mapanda has his
kraal, having removed thither when the English came to settle at his
old one on the banks of the river. One day we devoted to visiting this
kraal, performing part of the journey in a native canoe which we
borrowed—just the hollow stem of a large tree—which oscillated so much
under our inexperienced hands that we momentarily expected it to upset
and hand us over to the crocodiles; so we effected a hasty landing in
the swampy jungle and proceeded on foot.

Mapanda’s own village consists of only eight bamboo huts, built close
to a tall palm-tree; in the centre of the huts is a raised platform, on
which the grass-woven granaries of the community are kept. Beneath, in
the shade, lay idle inhabitants, and from it were hung the grass
petticoats and jangling beads which they use in their dances. I entered
one of the huts on all-fours for inspection, and as I was engaged in so
doing a terrified woman inside tore down the frail wall and made a
hurried exit at the other side. I am told by those outside that the
effect was most ludicrous. No wonder these dusky beauties are somewhat
afraid of the white man, as hitherto they have dealt only with the
Portuguese, who pride themselves on amalgamating well with the natives.
In choosing a wife the Portuguese is not at all particular as to
colour, nor is he a monogamist, as he would have to be in his far-off
country. This we discovered for ourselves at Neves Ferreira, the
Portuguese settlement on the Pungwe, about six miles below Mapanda’s,
where, beneath tall bananas and refreshing shade, the authorities of
that nation pass a life of Oriental luxury which somewhat scandalises
the strait-laced Briton.

There are several little kraals on the island belonging to the sons and
relatives of Mapanda, all built on the same lines, and in visiting
which we made ourselves insufferably thirsty, so that a good drink of
Kaffir beer, or, as the Portuguese call it, ‘millet wine,’ was highly
acceptable. It is much more potent than the beer they make up country,
and if it were not for the husks therein, and general nature of
fermented porridge it presents, one might fancy it champagne. Here,
too, they make palm wine, tapping all the neighbouring palm-trees for
the sap, which is highly intoxicating, and of by no means a
disagreeable flavour. At Mapanda’s we bade farewell to our donkeys and
our cart and our conductor, Meredith, who had been with us and served
us faithfully ever since we left Kimberley, ten long months before. He
returned to Fort Salisbury with the cart, and wrote to inform us of the
miseries of his journey owing to the rains, which brought fever, and
the demise of the donkeys before the end of the journey.

The voyage from Mapanda’s to the sea at Beira would be indescribably
monotonous were it not for a few interesting features afforded by the
stream itself. The tide here comes up with a remarkably strong bore, or
wall-like wave, reminding one of the same phenomenon in the Severn at
home. We heard it murmuring in the distance like the soughing of a
rising wind; as it approached us the roar grew very loud, and finally
the wave floated our stranded steamer almost in an instant.

Sandbanks are the bane of the navigator of this stream. On his last
voyage our captain had been detained for three days on one, and we
passed a Portuguese gunboat which looked as if it would remain there
till the end of time. Our fate was a mild one: we were only on a bank
for a few hours, until the bore came up. These sandbanks are constantly
shifting, and the captain never knows where they may next appear;
consequently slow speed and constant soundings are the only safeguards.
Crocodiles innumerable bask on these sandbanks, and in the stream
itself hippopotami raise their black heads and stare at the strange
animal which has come, and which will shortly cause the extermination
of their species in the Pungwe.

Beira itself is the Portuguese word for a spit of sand, and is a horror
of corrugated-iron domiciles on a bare shadeless sandspit at the mouth
of the Pungwe. There is no drinkable water to be got within three miles
of the place, and we paid half-a-crown a bucket for a very questionable
quality of the precious fluid. Nobody washes himself or his clothes in
anything but the sea during the dry season. On the last day of our stay
at Beira (November 23) the heavens were opened and rain fell in
torrents. Never was rain more welcome; pot, pan, and bucket were placed
in every direction, and the extortionate water vendors had to retire
from the field.

Where the eye does not rest on sea or sand it wanders from Beira over
miles of flat mangrove swamps. The heat was scorching; when you walked
you sank ankle-deep in sand at each step. Of all places Beira is the
most horrible. When a Portuguese merchant goes to his office he is
borne by four tottering negroes in his mashila; the Englishman walks
and does most of his own work for himself, for the very good reason
that he can get nobody to do it for him. This labour question is one of
vital importance in Beira, and if ever it is to be a port of note the
present order of things must be altered.

Yet, in spite of the fever, the heat, and the sand, Beira must go
ahead, as nature has provided it with an excellent harbour, a rarity on
the east coast of Africa. This is the only harbour for the proposed
railway to the interior, which is to have its terminus on the opposite
side of the harbour to Beira, nearer to the mouth of the Buzi, and will
run along the flats between that river and the Pungwe. Until this line
is made, I think few of those who have come down this road will care to
return and face the discomforts of another foot journey through the fly
country and the swamps. Perhaps it will be two years before this line
is completed, and it must be done by the cooperation of the two
interested companies, the British South Africa and the Mozambique.
Between Massi-Kessi and Umtali it will cost a considerable amount of
capital if the hills are to be tunnelled. On the flats the swamps will
cause difficulties: fevers will play havoc with the labourers, and the
rivers and the dongas will have to be bridged.

When this line is completed, I feel confident that Mashonaland will
rapidly go ahead. There are in it all the elements of prosperity; and
we may yet live to see the glories of the ancient ruins revived under
other auspices, for long centuries have not altered the love of gold
inherent in mankind.










APPENDICES


APPENDIX A

NOTES ON THE GEOGRAPHY AND METEOROLOGY OF MASHONALAND

By Robert M. W. Swan, Esq.


Central Mashonaland consists of elevated granite plateaux, varying in
height between 3,000 and 5,000 feet. Through the surface of these
plains rise groups of isolated little granite hills which are most
remarkable and varied in form, and which sometimes attain an elevation
of 1,000 feet above their base, but more frequently they are about 400
feet high. Generally they are composed of enormous broken blocks of
granite, but often they are dome-shaped and of one unbroken mass of
rock, and suggest the idea of huge bubbles on the surface of a molten
mass. The summits of the latter kind of hills are, of course, quite
inaccessible. They are not hills left in relief by the denudation of
the surrounding country, but, judging from exposed sections of some
that I have seen, they have been elevated by a force acting at a
comparatively small distance below the present surface, and they are
older than the stratified rocks of the country.

On the granite plateaux one meets with patches of stratified rock—of
quartzites and schists, and rarely some crystalline limestone.
Magnesia, too, is sometimes present, notably at Umtali, and in the
steatite which occurs near the Great Zimbabwe, of which many of the
objects found in the excavations were made. The strike of the strata is
generally east and west, and the various patches arrange themselves in
several fairly continuous lines running across the country in the same
direction as the strike. These semi-continuous deposits or belts of
stratified rock are generally two or three miles wide, and in them
occur the gold-bearing quartz reefs. The most southerly belt that I
know of in Mashonaland proper passes by Fort Victoria, and probably
crosses the Sabi River about latitude 20°. The next large one passes by
Umtali and the ’Mfuli River, where it crosses the waggon-road, and so
on to Hartley Hill. This belt includes Mount Wedsa, the highest
mountain in Mashonaland. Next in order comes the Mazoe deposit, which
perhaps also includes the Kaiser Wilhelm gold-field. These deposits are
all fairly similar in nature, but no fossils have been found in them,
and their age has not been determined. They probably represent a
continuous sheet of stratified rock, all of which has been denuded away
except the above-mentioned belts. They generally present a rugged
surface, elevated in mountain ranges, which often rise 1,500 and 2,000
feet above their base, and, although they are nearly always steep, they
are rarely precipitous. These mountains are regular and beautiful in
outline, and refresh the eye after it has grown wearied of the
grotesque forms of the granite hills. The soil on the stratified rocks
is more fertile than it is on the granite, and the vegetation is more
charming; the very coarse grasses of the granite soils being replaced
by many flowering plants.

The ruins which have just been described are all built on granite, but
are generally within a short distance of the quartz formation; and the
ruins at Zimbabwe are situated four miles from the southern edge of the
quartz belt. At Zimbabwe we found little clay crucibles in which gold
had been melted, and an accumulation of quartzite rock which had been
obtained from the casing of a quartz reef. I carefully tested this rock
for gold, but could only find a very minute trace; so I conclude that
it had been rejected as too poor for treatment. While at Zimbabwe,
whenever I could spare time from the excavations, I made excursions to
the quartz belt, and searched for old workings and gold reefs. I found
one reef carrying a small quantity of gold, but no old workings. Since
then, however, rich gold reefs have been discovered about twenty miles
to the north-west of Zimbabwe, and from these probably the ancients
obtained their quartz. The quartz formation near the little ruin at the
Mazoe River has been much worked for gold, and the Manica belt seems to
have been even more exploited. Where the high plateau breaks down at
Massi-Kessi an enormous amount of alluvial has been worked. The old
people must have obtained, from both the alluvial and the reefs, a
great quantity of gold to repay them for the work that they did, and
there is no reason to suppose that they have exhausted the reefs;
indeed, I have seen at the bottom of old workings the reef continuing
and carrying visible gold.

Besides gold reefs, these quartz belts contain much iron ore and some
manganese. In two isolated patches of the quartzite formation at the
Doroba Mountains, near the Sabi River, I found great masses of rich
magnetite and hematite, and on the top of Mount ’Nyaguzwe, near Fort
Victoria, there is also a mass of magnetite; in fact, so very abundant
is iron ore, that compass bearings can rarely be taken with safety from
hills in the quartz formation. Along the right bank of the Sabi River,
near Mount Wedsa, are many native villages, whose one industry is iron
smelting. They obtain the ore from Mount Wedsa, which is renowned far
and wide in Kaffirland as an iron-producing mountain. The mineral they
select is not very rich, and is consequently more easily smelted, and
it contains some manganese. The iron they produce is very pure, and is
consequently soft and easily fashioned into weapons and tools. Their
anvils are simple blocks of hard diorite, on which they hammer with
another smaller block.

The tributaries of the Sabi River flowing near Zimbabwe have been
ill-defined on previous maps. The ’Mpopotekwe joins the ’Mtelekwe and
the ’Mshagashe flows into the united stream a short distance south of
Zimbabwe. This river, under the name of the ’Mtelekwe, then flows into
the Lunde, and not to the Sabi direct. The Tokwe joins the Lunde
farther north. The most interesting geographical work that we did was
on our expedition to the Sabi River, and on that from Fort Salisbury to
’Mtoko’s, and down by Mangwendi’s and Makoni’s country to Umtali. On
our journey to the Sabi we crossed a great many of its western
tributaries; and as the same streams rose near the waggon-road, and we
crossed them pretty far down their courses, we were able to lay down
their direction for a considerable distance with certainty. The Sabi
River itself, in latitude 19° 15′, we found was placed twenty miles too
far west in former maps; and from the information which I gathered from
the natives, in the latitude of Zimbabwe, it must be about fifty miles
farther east than it is placed in these maps. This river, where we
struck it, was a considerable stream flowing rapidly over a rocky bed.
It had fallen about 1,800 feet from its source near Fort Charter, and
had 2,700 feet more to fall before it reached the sea. When it has
received all the tributaries we crossed it must be a very big river.

Going from Fort Salisbury to ’Mtoko’s we crossed many tributaries of
the Mazoe River, which were either not shown at all in former maps, or
were most inaccurately placed. We recrossed these streams again farther
up returning from ’Mtoko’s to Mangwendi’s. I also got excellent views
of them from the various mountains which I ascended, so that I was able
to lay them down in my map with certainty. To the eastward of ’Mtoko’s
we could see the high veldt breaking into mountain ranges as it
descended towards Gouveia’s country.

Approaching Mangwendi’s, and also going between Mangwendi’s and
Chipunza’s, our way lay along a very high watershed, on the western
side of which rose some of the eastern tributaries of the Sabi River,
the most important of which was the ’Msheke. At Makoni’s we reached the
highest part of the plateau, and this is, with the exception of some
villages on Mount Yenya, the highest inhabited part of Mashonaland.
From Makoni’s to Mount Yenya the country is broken; and the descent is
very rapid, but on the east of our route the descent is still more
rapid and the mountains more imposing. On the north side of Mount Yenya
flows the Odzi River, which is there a very considerable stream. Mount
Yenya is a most imposing mountain and the highest in Mashonaland, with
the exception of Mount Wedsa. It rises to a height of 5,800 feet above
sea level, and within 300 feet of its summit are several villages which
own a considerable number of cattle. It probably represents the Mount
Doe which the Portuguese place on their maps about this part, and which
they say is 7,900 feet high, for certainly there is no mountain near
Mount Yenya of equal height. Between Umtali and Massi-Kessi the country
is extremely mountainous, and the scenery is the grandest that we saw
in Mashonaland. We lost 1,400 feet in height between these two places.
A short distance after leaving Massi-Kessi we crossed the Revwe River,
and our way lay along a watershed about 2,000 feet high. This watershed
is thickly wooded, and is traversed sometimes by deep ravines. On the
left hand the streams flow to the Pungwe River, and on the right to the
Revwe and the Muda and Mutuchiri Rivers. Approaching Sarmento, the
country falls rapidly to nearly sea level; and thence to the coast we
traversed a flat alluvial country through which the Pungwe River
sluggishly flows. This swampy level country swarms with game,
especially towards the end of the dry season, but the vegetation is not
nearly so luxuriant as one would expect, and some parts of this country
are quite bare.

I have been careful throughout to spell the native names in accordance
with the rules laid down by the Royal Geographical Society. The sound
of the Bushman clicks which occurs so often in the names of places and
in the names of tribes derived from the names of places, but most
frequently of all in the names of rivers, is slurred over by the
present tribes, and represented by a combination of letters. As I know
of no rule for the spelling of these sounds, I have represented them by
an inverted comma and the consonant nearest in sound. In maps of Africa
north of the Zambesi these clicks are generally spelt in this way,
although the comma has often dropped out, as in words like ‘Nyanza,’
‘Mpwapwa,’ ‘Mvumi;’ but south of that river cartographers have been
less accurate, and have often used various vowels instead of the comma.
I have used such mis-spellings of the native names only when they have
been long established and passed into constant use: as ‘Umtali’ and
‘Inhambane.’

A point of interest in the remote history of the country and of the
ruins which we examined—for the old people doubtless entered the
country by this coast—is the growth of the land at the mouth of the
Pungwe River and around Sofala. From about Sarmento down to Beira one
passes over a low alluvial country which has been slowly encroaching on
the sea for ages. I am sorry that in the rush to the coast I did not
have time to collect data to enable me to form any idea of the quantity
of mud deposited from the waters of the Pungwe in a given time, but its
waters hold in suspension a great quantity of fine clay derived from
the decomposition of the granite in its basin, and this is deposited
where the river enters the sea. The distance from Sarmento to Beira as
the crow flies is sixty-five miles, so that at some period the road to
the interior must have been shortened by this amount, and even in early
historical times some part of the journey across the low fever belt
would have been saved. The site of ancient seaports will now be far
inland, so it need not surprise us that remains of these ports have not
yet been found.

Owing to frequent absence from camp, I was unable to read the
thermometer and barometer as continuously and regularly as I could have
wished, but the readings which I did take give us some idea of what the
climate at Zimbabwe was in June and July last year. We arrived there on
June 6, after a week of south-east winds, high barometer, and rain and
mist. The wind then gradually fell and the barometer with it, and we
had three weeks of fine calm weather. The barometer reached its minimum
on June 27, and at the same time the difference of the readings of the
wet and dry bulb thermometers was at its maximum. The air was then very
dry and the sky clear, with light north winds which were evidently
local in origin, and the temperature at night fell below
freezing-point, so that in the morning we saw a light deposit of
hoar-frost. Immediately after this the barometer began to rise, there
were light south-east winds, the atmosphere became moister, and on July
4 the south-east wind had increased considerably in strength, and some
rain fell. From this time until the end of our stay at Zimbabwe, on
August 2, the barometer slowly rose and fell, its range being limited
to about three-tenths of an inch; and whenever the south-east winds
blew at all strongly the barometer rose and we had mist and rain. We
had during this period generally about a half-day of rain each week.

At first sight it seems surprising that we should have windy wet
weather with a high barometer, but we must remember that the only winds
which can bring rain to Zimbabwe, at least in winter, are the
south-easterly winds, and these, like all other winds blowing towards
the equator, increase the atmospheric pressure. Zimbabwe is situated on
the edge of a plateau about 3,400 feet above sea level. The country
breaks down gradually towards the south and east and more rapidly
towards the west, while towards the north it rises gently until after
about 100 miles it attains an altitude of nearly 5,000 feet. The west
winds, if they do blow, have to traverse the continent and the high
country about the sources of the Limpopo before they reach Zimbabwe, so
that they will deposit their excess of moisture for the altitude of
Zimbabwe before reaching that place; and the northerly winds will tend
to increase in temperature, and consequently in dryness, after falling
from the high country towards the north; so that westerly and northerly
winds will not part with moisture at Zimbabwe. The predominant winds in
this latitude are the south-east trades, and they, carrying their
moisture from the Indian Ocean, are forced to rise as they pass over
this country, and they consequently expand and are lowered in
temperature and so deposit much of their moisture on this edge of the
high plateau. A similar winter climate seems to prevail in most parts
of Mashonaland, the edges of the plateaux receiving most of the
moisture. Manica is situated much nearer the sea than Zimbabwe, and the
country there falls much more rapidly towards the east (it falls 1,400
feet in ten miles near Umtali), and consequently the rainfall there is
heavier. Fort Salisbury is better situated for a dry winter, for it is
in the middle of a high plateau, and the south-east winds will have
parted with most of their surplus moisture for that altitude before
they reach it. The driest time of the year in Mashonaland is from
August to November. I may mention that the greatest difference I
observed in the readings of the wet and dry bulb thermometers was 24°
F. at the ’Mshabetsi River, at an altitude of 2,140 feet, on May 13 at
2 P.M.; the readings being 64° and 88° respectively. At Zimbabwe during
June and July the difference in readings varied from 0° to 20° F., and
the dew point sometimes fell to 32° F. at midday. The extreme range of
shade temperature in the two months was 46° F.








APPENDIX B

LIST OF STATIONS IN MASHONALAND ASTRONOMICALLY OBSERVED, WITH ALTITUDES

By Robert M. W. Swan, Esq.


STATIONS                       LATITUDE      LONGITUDE     HEIGHTS [35]
                               °    ′   ″    °   ′    ″    feet

Mafeking                       25  51   1    25  41   0      —
Ramatlabama River              25  37  57    —               —
At Pan                         25  30  13    25   8  15      —
Kanya, 11 miles S.S.E of       25   7   2    25   8  15     3580
Kanya                          24  58  30    25  16   0     3750
Molopolole                     24  25  30    25  21   0     4020
Molopolole, 4 miles N. of      24  21  30    25  21  30     3872
Klippan, ½ mile N. of          24  17  12    —              4020
Kurumurwa                      24   8  33    —              3570
Khemi                          23  50   8    —              3490
Boatlenama, 15 miles S.E. of   23  42  20    25  35  30     3540
Boatlenama                     23  32  30    —              3400
S. of Selinia Pan              23  27  11    —              3120
N. of Selinia Pan              23  20  51    26   3  15     3050
Near Hataloklu Vley            23  15   4    26  10  53     3140
S. of Shoshong                 23   8  47    26  19  30     3160
Near Shoshong                  23   4   0    26  28   0     3310
At stream                      23   1  57    26  41  30     3260
Near Mahalapsi River           22  57  41    26  51  15     3240
Chuloan Vley                   22  46   0    27   6  30     3010
Palapwe                        22  37  30    27  18   0     3150
At Lotsani River               22  32  45    27  21  30     2740
At Lotsani River               22  33  58    27  34   0     2480
At Lotsani River               22  32  37    27  46  45     2450
Near Elibi Fort                22  32  55    —              2300
Near Elibi Fort                —             —              2230
At Muralla Vley                22  32  55    28  10  30     2290
Makwenje River                 22  26  56    28  21  30     2275
Pakwe River                    22  15  20    28  24  15     2400
Marapong River                 22   7  38    28  31   0     2230
Matlaputla River               22   3  39        —   —
Maklutsi Camp                  22   0  42    28  38  15     2010
Maklutsi River                 21  58  20    28  41   0     1870
Metsimachokwan River           21  49  55    28  52   0     1920
Semalali                       21  53   2    29   0  40     2080
Baobab Spruit                  21  53  17    29  14   0      —
Fort Tuli                      21  55  20    29  20  15      —
Ipagi River                    21  51  59    29  36  15      —
Sigabi River                   21  43  53    29  42  30      —
’Msingwan River                21  39   7    29  48  15     1720
’Mshabetsi River               21  26  22    29  57  15     2140
Mount Yanda                    21  21  57    30   6  15     2330
Bubye River                    21  20  30    30  14   0     2090
’Nyamanda                      21  11  34    30  23  15      —
Mount Host                     21   9  10    30  30  20     2250
Near Nwanetsi River            21   5  16    30  38  30     1910
Near Nwanesti River            20  59  23    30  41   0     1880
Near Mount Ibonda              20  49  49    30  42   0     2130
Lunde River                    20  41   6    30  44  45     1970
Near Naka Mountains            20  35  54    30  45   0     2130
’Mlala                         20  27   9    30  47  30     2580
Tokwe River                    20  23   5    30  53  30     2380
Providential Pass              20  11  11    30  57  45     3090
Fort Victoria                  20   7  53    31   0   0     3380
Zimbabwe                       20  16  30    31   7  30     3340
’Mshagashe River               20   3  40    —              3200
Makori                         19  38  29    30  58  30     4200
Chekatu                        19  38  49    31   3   0     4100
Gona                           19  36  52    —              4350
’Msingana                      19  31  30    —              3650
Kutimasinga’s                  19  38  19    31  37   0     3250
Lutile                         19  34  12    —              3600
Matindela                      19  30  23    31  51  45     3350
Near Mount Wizinde             19  17   0    —              3250
Near Mwairari River            19  14  56    32   2  45     2900
Mukubu River                   19   8  45    32   4  15     2700
Sabi River                     19   7  40    32   1  30     2900
Ampsäi River                   19   6  41    —              2950
Zamopera                       19   0  17    31  39  15     3660
Mafusaire’s                    18  56  26    —              3950
East of Smet’s Kraal           18  51  25    —               —
West of Kwende’s Kraal         18  48  25    31  25  45     4220
’Mtigesa’s                     18  48  30    31  16  45     4570
Fort Charter                   18  35  40    31   9  45     4408
’Mfuli River                   18  18  35    31   5  30     4080
Near stream                    18  10  15    31  10  15      —
S. of Hanyani River            18   0  22    31   3  15     4800
Fort Salisbury                 17  49  30    31   4  15     4820
Fleming’s Camp, Mazoe River    17  32  48    30  56   0      —
Yellow Jacket Mine, ditto      17  28  32    31   4  15     4030
Madelaywa’s                    17  48  30    31  12   0      —
Musungaikwa’s                  17  52  33    31  20  15     5010
Nora River                     17  55  13    31  29   0     4470
Kunzi’s                        17  53  40    31  33   0     4400
Yandoro’s                      17  47   0    31  41  45     4720
Bambabashla’s                  17  40  30    31  48   0     4410
Mahume River                   17  31   0    31  57  45     3420
Near Lutsa                     17  23  30    32   9   0     3450
Near ’Mtoko’s                  17  23  50    32  14   0     3900
’Nyandea River                 17  32   5    32   8  30     3600
Nyamashupa River               17  39  22    32   2  15     3900
Near Mount Masunsgwai          17  50  12    31  54  15     4350
Yaungurukwe River              17  59  25    31  45  45     4700
Mangwendi’s P.S.               18   6  42    31  39  30     4870
Nyanger Mountain               18  15  20    31  46   0     4850
Chikamondi River               18  21   6    31  56  30     4810
Mount Ruanda                   18  22  30    32   7  30     4830
Chipunza’s                     18  27  30    32  10  15     4450
Near Chigono’s                 18  33  50    32  17   0     4450
Near Yenya Mountains           18  45   0    32  22  45     3620
Odzi River drift               18  48  50    —              3420
’Mtasa’s                       18  44  30    32  29   0     4170
Umtali, our camp               18  53  30    32  32  45     3600
Massi-Kessi (Portuguese camp)  18  53  45    32  44  30     2200
Mineni River                   18  56   0    32  50  30     2140
Lusika River                   18  59  27    33   2   0     2000
Vundusi River trib.            18  59  10    33  13   0     2000
Near Chimoia’s                 18  59   0    33  20   0     2140
Zombana River                  18  57  15    —              1930
Makumbese River                19   2  10    —               120
Vley                           19   8  35    —               100
Mutuchiri River                19  16  40    —                50
’Mpanda’s                      19  23  30    34  32  30       20








APPENDIX C

ADDENDA TO CHAPTER V

By R. M. W. Swan, Esq.


Since writing the preceding pages (Chapter V.) it has been found to be
possible from the measurements made at Zimbabwe to determine the radius
of another curve of the outer wall of the great temple. This part of
the wall extends from B in a north-westerly direction for 111 feet, to
a point which we shall call C. The radius of its curve is 133 feet, so
that the diameter of the circle of which it is a part is equal to one
half of 17·17 × 3·143, and the centre of the curve (which we shall call
W) is situated on the meridian line from the altar through the main
doorway. The middle point of this arc B C, the S.S.E. doorway of the
arc G, the centres G and W, all lie in one and the same straight line.
This line cuts the meridian at an angle of 30°, and when produced will
pass over the outer wall at a point which is marked by a step which is
built across the top of the wall. A line drawn in a similar way from
the middle of the arc K B through the centre of the great tower, the
altar, and P, also cuts the meridian at an angle of 30°, but from its
other side. As the original wall no longer exists at the point where
this line would pass we cannot say if its position was marked on the
wall.

These lines of sight seem to have been used, like the meridian lines,
for the observation of stars, but of stars off the meridian. It could
hardly have served any useful purpose to observe several stars crossing
these lines unless they all had the same polar distance; for stars with
different polar distances would cross the lines at different lengths of
time before and after their culminations. Nor, in the latitude of
Zimbabwe, would any individual star cross the lines at any important
time in its daily circuit. But if we suppose that this temple is built
on the model of one in the parent country in the northern hemisphere,
it is easy to imagine a useful purpose which these lines may have
served. In the latitude of Southern Arabia, for instance, an observer
facing north would see the North Pole elevated about 15° above the
horizon. If we compare the northern portion of the sky to a watch dial,
the stars will represent the moving hands, the pole the centre of the
dial, the meridian the XII. and VI. hour-points, and the III. and IX.
hours will be marked by a horizontal line passing through the pole east
and west. When stars cross this line they may be said to be at their
east or west elongation. Now it seems probable that the two lines in
question would be used in the parent country to observe a star having a
north polar distance of 30° when it was at its east and west
elongations and six hours from the meridian.

We have before remarked that none of our trigonometrical functions seem
to have been recognised by the builders of Zimbabwe, and that the
angular values of the arcs are of no special importance when measured
in our way. But they must have been of importance to the builders of
the temples. The locating of the centres of the arcs on the several
meridian lines, supposing the meridian lines were first laid down in
planning the temples (as the central one undoubtedly was in the great
temple), does not really determine the intersecting points of the arcs;
for, were the centre moved along the meridian lines in either
direction, the points of intersection would change their positions and
the lengths of the arcs would be altered.

The lengths of the arcs seem to have been determined by the
intersections of circles of radii different from those of the arcs
themselves, but the lengths of whose radii were determined by the same
system as those of the arcs. The centres of the intersecting circles
are situated on the radius of the arc which lies midway between its
extremities, and the distance between the arc and the intersecting
circle measured on the same radius produced is equal to the diameter of
one of the towers.

The arc AK is built on a curve of 107·8 feet radius; and if a circle be
drawn as described with a radius of 169·3 feet, it will determine the
length of the chord of the arc at 107 feet, and the distance between
the two arcs measured on the middle radius will be 5·45, which is equal
to the diameter of the little tower.

The arc KB treated in the same way, with a curve of 84·6 feet, and with
a distance of 17·17 feet (the diameter of the great tower) between the
intersecting circle and the arc, has the length of its chord fixed at
129½ feet. These two lengths of 107 and 129½ feet agree to within six
inches with our actual measurement of the wall itself.

If we apply our system to the arc BC in an exactly similar manner, but
with the distance between the circle and the arc made equal to the
radius of the great tower, we find that the length of its chord should
be 111 feet; and this also agrees closely with our measurements.

The arc of the eastern temple on the hill has a radius of 42·3 feet,
and if a circle of 169·3 feet be applied to it with a distance of 17·17
feet between the circle and the arc, we find that the length of its
chord should be 72 feet; and this is exactly what we make it on our
plan. This also explains the hitherto inexplicable position of the
eastern doorway.

In a similar way we determine the length of the chord of the great wall
in the western temple to be 140 feet; but as the ends of this wall are
in a ruinous condition, and as the present outer face is not of the
original period, we cannot say whether this was the actual measurement
or not.

With two exceptions, there are no other arcs which are sufficiently
complete to allow us to ascertain their original measurements. These
exceptions are the arc in the little temple at G, and that from the
doorway to A. In the former case, the length of the arc is fixed by the
two doorways; and as one of these is placed north of the centre in
order to permit of observation along the meridian line, and the other
is made to serve the same purpose for the line GW, it is obvious why
the length of this arc was not determined in the same way. In the
latter case, as one end of the arc is at a northern doorway, and as we
are not quite certain of the length of the radius of the arc itself, we
have not attempted to determine the length of its chord.

It is much to be desired that more of the plan of the original temple
should be recovered, and this can only be done by careful excavation
conducted by some one of experience in the art; for an inexperienced or
careless workman could easily and unwittingly remove any of the
remaining mortarless foundations without ever discovering that he had
done so.








APPENDIX D.


The following notes have been kindly supplied by the Secretary of the
British South Africa Company:—


PROGRESS IN MASHONALAND SUMMARISED FROM NOVEMBER 1891 TO MAY 1893.


HEALTH.

The rainy season of 1891 to 1892 found the settlers in Mashonaland well
housed and with an abundance of provisions; in consequence, a wonderful
improvement was manifested in the health of the community, proving that
the insufficiency of food and shelter, necessarily associated with the
initial occupation of a wild country so many hundreds of miles from a
base of supply, was mainly responsible for the sickness of the rainy
season of 1890–1891.

The Senior Medical Officer of the British South Africa Company reported
early in 1892 that not a single case of fever had arisen among the
inhabitants of Salisbury during the worst part of the wet season; in
every case the patient had contracted his fever elsewhere, and there
had been no deaths at all from climatic causes in Salisbury or its
district. He adds: ‘Good food, good clothing, shelter from inclement
weather and the sun, an abundant supply of medicines and invalid
necessaries and a milder season have wrought an enormous improvement in
the general health of the people, and Mashonaland of 1892 is not
recognisable as Mashonaland of 1891.’

The general health has been equally good in the rainy season of 1892–3,
and the experience of the last two years has shown that perfect health
may be enjoyed by anyone who will avoid undue exposure and will observe
a few simple precautions.




TOWNSHIPS

Progress in the townships of Salisbury, Victoria, and Umtali has been
rapid.

At Salisbury 1,800 stands have been surveyed and mapped out; at
Victoria 572 stands, and at Umtali 300. In July 1892 a sale of stands
was held at the three places mentioned above, 70 at Salisbury being
sold for 2,250l., 150 at Victoria for 6,107l., and 44 at Umtali for
1,396l., the total sum realised being nearly 10,000l. for 264 stands.
It is intended to hold another sale in July of this year, where
competition no doubt will be keen, as the attention of capitalists in
England, as well as those on the spot, is being directed to the matter.

The public buildings at Salisbury, such as the Administrator’s Offices,
the Standard Bank Offices, the Police Station, Magazine, Court House,
Survey, Mines, Post and Telegraph Offices, are already completed or on
the verge of completion. All the material required for these buildings
has been drawn from the district itself, with the exception of wood for
doors, skirting, and architraves.

A Sanitary Board has been formed at Salisbury to manage the affairs of
the township with a revenue derived from one-half the stand-rents (10s.
per month) and other fees, such as market dues.

A branch of the Standard Bank was opened at Salisbury on July 20, 1892,
and is doing a very good business. A printed newspaper, the Rhodesia
Herald, is also published there weekly.

The Mining Commissioner for Victoria reported on September 24, 1892, as
follows:—

‘The township of Victoria is growing very fast, and very good buildings
are being erected, the majority being composed of brick and iron or
brick and thatch; they are far superior to those erected at Kimberley,
Barberton, or Johannesburg. The town has only been surveyed a few
months, and progress made is very good. This shows that the people have
every confidence in the mining and general prospects of Mashonaland.’

Victoria also possesses a newspaper, the Mashonaland Times and Mining
Chronicle.

As regards hotels, there are several most substantial buildings of
brick and iron offering excellent accommodation at Salisbury, and
between Victoria and Salisbury there are wayside hotels at the various
post-stations. Victoria itself possesses two, and others are to be
found every 20 miles or so along the 200 miles of road connecting
Victoria with Tuli. At the latter place there is an excellent hotel,
conducted by the Tuli Hotel Company.

On the Salisbury-Umtali Road and at Umtali wayside houses and hotels
have been established, and their number will no doubt be augmented on
the completion of the Beira Railway.




ROADS.

The existing roads have been kept up and improved, and under Mr.
Selous’s superintendence new ones have been made in many directions
connecting Fort Salisbury with the various gold-fields and with the
main road to the Pungwe.

During 1892 Mr. Selous constructed an excellent road from Umtali to
Chimoio, a distance of over 70 miles, to meet the head of the Beira
Railway. The road will be available for heavy waggons at all seasons of
the year. Two road-making parties are engaged at the present time in
maintaining and improving it.




BEIRA RAILWAY.

Satisfactory progress is being made with the Beira Railway, the first
section of which from Fontes Villa (about 48 miles up the Pungwe from
Beira) to Chimoio, a distance of 75 miles, will be opened by the end of
July.

The embankments are completed for 65 miles and the permanent way for
50, but the curves in some places, especially in the last few miles,
are sharp, owing to the broken and hilly nature of the country. Special
rails for these curves have had to be procured from England and are now
on their way out. By the time they arrive at the end of June all the
earthworks will be finished, and they will then only have to be linked
to complete the railway through the fly-belt. It is this fly-belt which
has hitherto opposed such an insuperable obstacle to the importation of
heavy goods by this otherwise easy, cheap, and convenient route.

It is estimated that the cost of transport of goods from Cape Town to
Salisbury will thus be decreased by more than 20l. per ton, and it will
then be possible to import machinery &c. at rates which compare
favourably with those which obtained at the Randt before the recent
completion of the line to Johannesburg.

On completion of the first section, the construction of the second
section as far as Salisbury will be pressed on with, transport being
carried on in the meantime by services of waggons on the Chimoio-Umtali
Road, alluded to above.




AGRICULTURE.

The main occupations of settlers have been gold mining and farming.

Favourable reports of the country from an agricultural and pastoral
point of view have on several occasions been furnished by deputations
of experienced farmers appointed at public meetings, both in the Cape
Colony and the Orange Free State, to inspect and report upon the land.
As the result of these reports, large ‘treks’ of farmers from those
countries have already proceeded, and will be followed shortly by
others, to occupy tracts of land in Mashonaland.

A recent return from the Surveyor-General’s Office at Salisbury shows
that farms representing a total area of 3,178 square miles or 2,000,000
acres have been granted and located, nearly one-half having been
properly surveyed in addition. Grants of land for farms of 3,000 acres
in extent at an annual quit rent of 3l. were obtainable during 1892,
but so many applications were received that these practically free
grants have been altogether suspended, and the price of land is fixed
for the present at 9d. per acre subject to the annual quit rent.

Farming operations in Mashonaland should offer special advantages,
owing to the proximity of the various gold-fields, which have always
afforded markets at most remunerative rates for all farm produce, and
will no doubt continue to do so in the future in an even greater
degree.

The most important of the deputations above referred to upon inspection
estimated that in the parts of the country visited there were at least
40,000 square miles well adapted for colonising purposes. When it is
remembered that the area of Mashonaland and Matabeleland is 125,000
square miles, and that not one-half of this extent of country was seen
by the deputation, it will be generally conceded that their estimate,
large as it is, admits of considerable amplification.

It may be incidentally mentioned, dealing with quite another part of
the British South Africa Company’s territories, viz. the sphere north
of the Zambesi, which amounts to upwards of 500,000 square miles, that
most favourable reports of its mineral and agricultural resources have
been furnished by such well-known travellers as Joseph Thomson and
Alfred Sharpe.




GOLD.

The attention of the majority of the population has mainly been
directed to the exploitation of the gold reefs, and in spite of
difficulties arising from want of transport and from ignorance of the
country, a great deal of solid development has been achieved.

Owing to various causes, it was not until July 1891 that regular
workings were commenced. Since that time prospecting has been carried
on in a systematic and efficient manner, resulting in the discovery of
the gold-bearing districts of Victoria, Manica, Hartley Hill, Mazoe,
and Lo Magondas, having a total area of 27,000 square miles. It is
believed that the gold-belt starting from Umtali passes through
Victoria, and will in all probability connect with the gold-belt
stretching eastward from the Tati gold-fields in the western portion of
Matabeleland, and on which considerable development work has been done.

Fresh discoveries on a large scale have recently been made within 15
miles of Salisbury. The latest cable intelligence states that in these
new fields the reefs proved to 40 and 60 feet are as rich and as wide
as at the surface. Gold-belts have also recently been discovered at Mt.
Darwin, about 80 miles north of Mazoe, at points 120 miles north of
Umtali (Manica) and 80 miles south of the same place, and on the Tokwe
River about 30 miles west of Victoria. The gold formations at the above
places are all very extensive, show visible freely, and give very rich
pannings, while they cannot be said to have been developed at all up to
the present. Another series of reefs, which are described as being
phenomenally rich by the British South Africa Company’s Administrator,
have just been discovered in the commonage at Umtali.

The immense cost of importing even the lightest stamp batteries has, of
course, retarded the gold industry to an enormous extent, but the
completion of the Beira Railway will work a great change in this
respect. What crushings have taken place show very rich results. The
average yield from several hundred tons of ore extracted from all reefs
in the Victoria district, good and bad together, was 18·3 dwt. per ton,
or about 73s. It has, however, been proved in practice that mining
operations even under present conditions can be carried on in
Mashonaland at a cost not exceeding 20s. per ton, leaving the very
handsome profit of 53s. for every ton crushed in the above district.

In a cablegram recently received from the Company’s administrator on
his return from a tour of inspection of the various mining districts he
states that new finds were occurring everywhere daily, and that
crushings were everywhere successful; that the reefs were improving
with depth, and that wonderful development was proceeding in every
district. As regards alluvial gold, that large deposits do exist, and
that their discovery is only a question of time, is the opinion of all
experienced miners. That this time has now arrived seems probable from
a cable message recently received reporting that 50 oz. of alluvial
gold had been brought into Salisbury, causing great excitement there.
Should, however, alluvial fields, so valuable to a new country from
their power of attracting a large mining population, never be
discovered, it may not be too much to say—the progress that has been
made in so short a time, and the enormous extent and richness of the
auriferous reefs being taken into consideration—that the time cannot be
far distant when Mashonaland will assume a leading position amongst the
principal gold-producing countries of the world.








NOTES


[1] M’, which looks so mysterious in all African books, is supposed to
express that the first syllable may be pronounced either um or mu;
there are four correct ways of pronouncing the name in question, Umtali
or Mutare, Umtare or Mutali. The English have adopted the first and the
Portuguese the second.

[2] Vide Chap. VII.

[3] Chap. VII.

[4] Vide illustration, ch. X.

[5] Chap. X.

[6] Chap. XI.

[7] Vide Chap. IX.

[8] Encyclop. Brit.

[9] 17·17 feet is equal to 10 cubits of 20·62 inches; and as all parts
of the building which we have been able to measure accurately, and all
small articles which would probably be made on any scale of measure,
apparently have been made in terms of a cubit of this length, it seems
probable that this cubit was one of the standards of measure in use.

[10] This is not very accurately shown in the small scale plan.

[11] There are many astronomical points in these buildings still to be
considered, and the results of further investigation will be published
later.

[12] Vide illustration, p. 181.

[13] Vide Illustration, p. 181.

[14] Lucian, De Syriâ Deâ, p. 477.

[15] Perrot and Chipiez’s Phœnicia, p. 281.

[16] Kremer, Akademie der Wissenschaft. Wien.

[17] Herod. Bk. III. § 8.

[18] Akademie der Wissenschaft. Wien 1890.

[19] Equal to two Egyptian spans of 9·58 inches.

[20] Vide illustration, p. 194.

[21] Vide illustration, p. 216.

[22] Ezek. xxvii. 21, 22.

[23] Vide Chap. III.

[24] Vide Chap. XI.

[25] Chap. II.

[26] De Barros, De Asiâ. Lisbon, 1552.

[27] According to Ptolemy, the Romans penetrated from the north through
the heart of Africa to a nation called Agizymba, south of the equator.

[28] Chap. IX.

[29] Vide illustration, p. 262.

[30] For description of ruins, vide Chap. IV.

[31] Lecture before the Colonial Institute, April 12, 1892.

[32] Chap. II.

[33] Kremer, Akademie der Wissenschaft.

[34] Chap. VIII.

[35] The heights have been obtained with aneroid and boiling-point
thermometers, and with the exception of that of Zimbabwe, where we
stayed some time, are only approximate.