Ruins near Zimbabwe—East Ruins—Other Ruins within the Zimbabwe
Ruins’ Area 420
NOTES AND ADDENDA 433
INDEX 451
LIST OF PLATES
PAGE
Conical Tower, Elliptical Temple, Great Zimbabwe _Frontispiece_
The late Mr. Theodore Bent, F.R.G.S., explorer of Great Zimbabwe
in 1891, author of _The Ruined Cities of Mashonaland_ xiii
Coin of Byblos, Phœnicia, showing Conical Tower xxxvi
Wooden Bowl with Zodiacal Signs, found near Zimbabwe xxxvi
Cylinder with Rosettes found at Phœnician Temple of Paphos in
Cyprus xxxviii
Soapstone Cylinder, with Rosettes, found near Zimbabwe xxxviii
“Fuko-ya-Nebandge” xl
Model of Temple xl
“To Great Zimbabwe” 2
Havilah Camp, Great Zimbabwe 2
View from Acropolis, showing Elliptical Temple in the Valley,
Zimbabwe 10
Conical Tower and Platform (from north), Elliptical Temple,
Zimbabwe 16
The Balcony, Eastern Temple, Acropolis. The parapet wall of
Balcony is built upon the suspended boulder 16
Carrying débris from the Elliptical Temple 36
A noontide shelter at the Elliptical Temple 36
The Camp Messenger 46
Labourers at the Elliptical Temple 46
The Chipo-popo Falls, near Zimbabwe 56
Rapping the Moje-je-je, or “Mystic Bar,” Zimbabwe 56
Finger Rock, Morgenster, near Zimbabwe 62
I-Baku (the cave) at Chicagomboni, where Adam Renders, the
rediscoverer of Great Zimbabwe, lived from 1868 to 1871 62
The Bird Rock, near Zimbabwe 68
View on Motelekwe River 68
A Makalanga, Zimbabwe 80
The Camp Watchman 80
Makalanga “Boys” fencing, Zimbabwe 84
Motumi and Mongwaine, Zimbabwe 84
Makalanga mother and child, Zimbabwe 88
The Mogabe Handisibishe, chief of the Zimbabwe Makalanga 88
Makalanga women and girls at the Mogabe’s Kraal, Great Zimbabwe 96
Soapstone Beams, with Birds, Zimbabwe 102
Front, side, and back views of Soapstone Bird, Zimbabwe 106
Soapstone Bird on Beam, discovered at Philips Ruins, Zimbabwe, in
1903 (three views) 108
An old wall crossing over the foundation of a still older wall,
Zimbabwe 152
Binding of the summits of two separate walls 152
Exterior of Drain, Elliptical Temple 170
Monoliths on the Platform, Acropolis 170
South-east Wall, with Chevron Pattern, Elliptical Temple, Great
Zimbabwe 198
Chevron Pattern, East Wall, Elliptical Temple 204
North-east Wall, with Chevron Pattern, Elliptical Temple, Great
Zimbabwe 206
North-west Entrance, Elliptical Temple 216
Entrance to Passage, No. 10 Enclosure, Elliptical Temple 216
Exterior of North Entrance, Elliptical Temple, Zimbabwe.
Discovered 1903 220
Summit of South-east Main Wall, Elliptical Temple 222
West Entrance from interior, Elliptical Temple 222
Nos. 3 and 4 Enclosures and West Main Wall, Elliptical Temple 228
West Entrance, No. 7 Enclosure, Elliptical Temple 234
South Wall of No. 7 Enclosure, showing part (to left)
reconstructed, Elliptical Temple 234
Visitors’ Ladder to summit of Main Wall, Elliptical Temple 238
The small Conical Tower, Elliptical Temple 238
The Parallel Passage (from south), Elliptical Temple 246
The Parallel Passage (from north), Elliptical Temple 248
South Entrance to Parallel Passage, looking south, Elliptical
Temple 250
Part of Platform Area, looking west, showing drain from No. 10
Enclosure, Elliptical Temple 250
South Wall, with Pattern, No. 11 Enclosure, Elliptical Temple 258
Joint between original and reconstructed walls, Nos. 11 and 12
Enclosures, Elliptical Temple 258
South-east interior of Elliptical Temple, looking N.N.E., and
showing excavations, 1902–4 264
Circular Cement Platform, with Steps, and carved Soapstone Beams,
discovered 1903, Elliptical Temple 266
Entrance to Inner Parallel Passage from South Passage, Elliptical
Temple 266
East Wall, with Pattern, No. 11 Enclosure, Elliptical Temple 268
Inner Parallel Passage, looking east, Elliptical Temple 268
Zimbabwe Hill, or Acropolis. View from Havilah Camp 276
A turn in the Passage of the South-east Ancient Ascent, Acropolis 284
View from South-east Ascent, Acropolis 284
Lower Entrance to Rock Passage, South-east Ascent, Acropolis 286
View down Rock Passage, South-east Ancient Ascent, Acropolis 286
Entrance to Covered Passage, Western Temple, Acropolis 300
Summit of West Wall of Western Temple, Acropolis, showing small
tower and monoliths 300
West Entrance to Parallel Passage, Western Temple, Acropolis 308
Buttress Passage, Acropolis 308
The Cleft Rock, from north side, Acropolis 312
Natural Archway, Central Passage, Acropolis 312
View of the Platform from main West Wall of Western Temple,
Acropolis 314
Dentelle Pattern on Platform, Western Temple, Acropolis 314
Bottom of Winding Stairs, Western Temple, Acropolis 316
West Entrance to South Cave, Acropolis 316
Exterior of main East Wall, showing Dentelle Pattern, Eastern
Temple, Acropolis 328
Sunken Passage (looking east), Eastern Temple, Acropolis 328
East Entrance to Pattern Passage, Acropolis 338
Pattern Passage, Acropolis, looking east 338
West Wall, Recess Enclosure, Acropolis 340
The Recesses at Recess Enclosure, Acropolis 340
Sunken Passage, section of North-west Ascent, Acropolis 346
Herring-bone Pattern, Water Gate, Acropolis 346
Rounded end of Wall on west side of Maund Ruins, showing steps to
Platform, Valley of Ruins 384
North-east Wall, Maund Ruins, Valley of Ruins 384
Slate Beam in Recess of Entrance, Philips Ruins, Valley of Ruins 430
The Passage, looking south, Mapaku Ruins, near Zimbabwe 430
• • • • •
Map of Rhodesia xxxii
General Plan of Zimbabwe Ruins 8
Plate I.—Relics 104
Plate II.—Relics 116
Plate III.—Relics 122
Plan of Elliptical Temple 194
Plan of Acropolis Ruins 278
LIST OF DIAGRAMS AND PLANS IN THE TEXT
Great Zimbabwe Reserve 7
Section of Floors, No. 15 Enclosure 103
Arabian Glass 128
Arabian Pottery 131
Section of Floors, No. 6 Enclosure 134
South and North Entrances to No. 7 Enclosure, Elliptical Temple
163, 164
North-west Entrance, Elliptical Temple 217
North or Main Entrance, Elliptical Temple 219
West Entrance to Parallel Passage, Elliptical Temple 247
Section of Eastern Temple, Acropolis 324
Plan of Eastern Temple, Acropolis 326
Outspan Ruins 359
Posselt Ruins 367
Philips Ruins 376
Maund Ruins 384
Renders Ruins 387
Mauch Ruins 393
South-east Ruins 397
No. 1 Ruins 401
Ridge Ruins 411
Camp Ruins, No. 1 415
〃 〃 No. 2 418
East Ruins 421
Ruin near Chenga’s Kraal 427
Mapaku Ruins 429
[Illustration: THE LATE MR. THEODORE BENT, F.R.G.S.
EXPLORER OF GREAT ZIMBABWE IN 1891, AUTHOR OF “THE RUINED CITIES OF
MASHONALAND”]
THE VOLUME IS DEDICATED
TO THE MEMORY OF
THE LATE THEODORE BENT, F.R.G.S.
EXPLORER OF GREAT ZIMBABWE, 1891
AND AUTHOR OF
“THE RUINED CITIES OF MASHONALAND”
PREFACE[1]
In preparing this detailed description of the ruins of Great
Zimbabwe—the first given to the world in modern times—the author has
aimed at permitting the actual ruins themselves to relate their own
story of their forgotten past unweighted by any consideration of the
many traditions, romances, and theories which—especially during the
last decade—have been woven concerning these monuments.
The only apology offered for this apparently lengthy Preface is the
mention of the fact that the operations at Great Zimbabwe were carried
on for six months after the text of this volume had been sent to
the publishers in England. The Preface, therefore, thus affords an
opportunity of bringing down the results of these operations to a
recent date.
RUINS’ AREA
The recent examination of the district surrounding the ruins now shows
the Ruins’ Area to be far larger than either Mr. Theodore Bent (1891)
or Sir John Willoughby (1892) supposed. Instead of the area being
confined to 945 yds. by 840 yds., it is now known to be at least 2
miles by 1¼ miles, and even this larger limit is by no means final,
as traces of walls and of walls buried several feet under the veld
have been discovered, not only in Zimbabwe Valley, but in the secluded
valleys and gorges and on the hillsides which lie a mile and even two
miles beyond the extended area. Huge mounds, many hundred feet in
circumference, with no traces of ruins, covered with large full-grown
trees and with the remains on the surface of very old native huts, on
being examined have been found to contain well-built ruins in which
were unearthed small conical towers, gold ornaments, a few phalli, and
in one instance a carved soapstone bird on a soapstone beam 4 ft. 8 in.
high, which is more perfect and more ornate than any other soapstone
bird on beam yet found at Zimbabwe. The examination of such spots and
of all traces of walls which lie at the outer edge of the extended
Ruins’ Area would, even with a large gang of labourers, occupy almost a
lifetime.
Mr. Bent spoke of Zimbabwe as a “city,” and recent discoveries show
the employment of this title to be fully justified, for not only is
the Ruins’ Area vastly extended, but the formerly conjectured area can
now be shown by recent excavations to have been much more crowded with
buildings than could possibly have been seen in 1891. For instance,
2,300 ft. of passages have recently been discovered within the heart
of the old Ruins’ Area buried some feet under the silted soil below
the veld in spots where the siltation is rapid, the existence of which
structures had been altogether unsuspected. In some instances the
native paths, used by visitors inspecting the ruins, crossed these
passages from 3 ft. to 5 ft. above the tops of the passage walls.
The enormous quantity of débris, evidencing occupations in several
periods, scattered over both the old and the extended area, is simply
astonishing, and judging by the value of “finds” made during the recent
work, it seems quite possible that further exploration would, in the
intrinsic value of relics as relics, largely reimburse the expense
of its continuance, while securing the opening up of fresh features
of architecture and probably some definite clues as to the original
builders of the numerous periods of occupation respectively; would
bring an immense addition to scientific knowledge, while the more
important ruins themselves, having been cleared of silted and imported
soils and wall débris, are now ripe for the further examination for
relics.
BURIAL-PLACES OF THE OLD COLONISTS
The secluded valleys, and also the caves in hills, for a distance of
six miles, and in some cases as far as ten miles, from Zimbabwe have
been systematically searched in the hope of discovering the burial
place of the old gold-seekers. The neighbourhood of Zimbabwe contains
several extensive ranges of granite hills each enclosing many secluded
and Sinbad-like valleys and gorges, where natives state white men had
never previously entered. Such spots on the whole of the Beroma Hills
to the east of Zimbabwe, the south end of the Livouri Range to the
west, the Bentberg Range to the south, and several hills in the Nini
district, as well as several parts in the Motelekwe Valley, have been
systematically searched without avail, though there are in certain
of these secluded places traces of walls and artificially placed
upright stones and other signs of human presence which require some
explanation. The siltation of soil from the steep hillsides of many
of these most romantically situated valleys has been very extensive.
These searches could only be carried on after veld fires had swept the
district of the rank grass which here grows to a height of 12 ft. Mr.
Bent and other writers have shown that the old Arabians religiously
preserved their dead, burying them in secluded spots at some
considerable distance from any place of occupation. The writer is not
without hope that these burial-places may yet be found. The population
of Zimbabwe at several different periods must have been immense, and,
judging by the remains found near some of the oldest types of ruins
in other parts of the country where the amount of gold ornaments
buried with each corpse ranged from 1 oz. to 72 oz., the discovery
of such places in the Zimbabwe district would yield important
results, especially as, for many reasons, Zimbabwe undoubtedly appears
to have been the ancient metropolitan capital and the centre of
gold-manufacturing industry of the original and later Arab gold miners,
and the place so far has yielded the richest discoveries of gold in
every form.
The writer is now perfectly assured that no burial-places of the
original builders will be found under the interior of the Elliptical
Temple or within 30 yds. of the exterior. Holes have been sunk at
regular intervals within the temple and immediately outside the walls,
and boring-rods have been systematically employed, and the position
and lie of the formation rock ascertained throughout, so that sections
and levels have been made of the soil and rock under the temple.
All the results gained from each hole and boring are recorded. But
beyond discovering buried foundations at the higher level, only virgin
soil, never before disturbed, was gone through. French and German
archæologists who visited Zimbabwe during the operations confirmed what
British scientists have affirmed, that no burials of people of Semitic
stock would be found within or near to any building so frequently in
use as the great temple must have been. The severe restrictions with
regard to cleanliness and sanitation, especially as to the dead, are
among the most notable features of the old Semitic nations.
ABSENCE OF INSCRIPTIONS
No ancient writing has been discovered, though close attention has been
paid to all stones and pottery likely to bear it, and notwithstanding
that the interiors of some of the more ancient portions of the ruins
have been cleared down to the old floors where, if any existed,
they might reasonably have been expected to be found. Post-Koranic
lettering was found on highly glazed pottery, also on glass, but all
such specimens are of a fragmentary character; but experts such as Mr.
Wallace Budge, the Head Keeper of Egyptian and Assyrian Antiquities
at the British Museum, state that the glass and other “finds” of
pottery are not older than the thirteenth or fourteenth century of this
era. Other pottery thickly covered with dull-coloured glazes—mainly
purples, greens, and browns—is thought to be somewhat older than that
on which the lettering was found. Still, as such a very large portion
of what may be considered as the more ancient of the ruins remains to
be examined, it may yet be possible to unearth older specimens of Arab
writing.
TWO PERIODS OF GOLD MANUFACTURE
Gold in a manufactured form is found on the lowest and original floors
of the most ancient portions of the Zimbabwe ruins. In several ruins
this was found as thickly strewn about the cement floors as nails
in a carpenter’s shop. Gold ornaments discovered at this depth, in
some instances from 3 ft. to 5 ft. below any known native floors,
were always found in association with the oldest form of relics yet
unearthed at Zimbabwe. Such gold articles are of most delicate make,
and are doubtless of an antique character, and expert opinion recently
obtained in England confirms this conclusion.
But there are other gold articles which are ruder in design and make,
and these by no means are entitled to claim such antiquity. In fact,
expert opinion declines to recognise them as being in any sense
ancient; for instance, beaten gold of irregular shape showing the
rough hammer marks of some very crude instrument, and with holes round
the edges of such plates very rudely cut—or rather torn—and placed
in imperfect rows altogether in a haphazard style. This form of gold
plates is identical in every detail with the copper sheathing with
which it is always found associated. The same remarks apply equally to
the gold beads also found with this class of plates which betoken crude
workmanship, as well as to the iron instruments decorated with small
gold knobs.
With regard to the location of the later-period gold articles there is
ample evidence that these are of very old native origin. Such ornaments
are commonly met with on the floors of, or in close proximity to, the
old native huts of the types of Nos. 2 and 3 (see _Architecture_, s.s.
_Native Huts found in Ruins_, pp. 154, 155, _post_), and also in the
cement huts with small radiating walls on levels several feet above any
ancient floorings. In every instance such gold ornaments are found in
association with articles of old native make—such as double iron gongs,
copper sheathing, and copper assegai- and arrow-heads.
ELLIPTICAL TEMPLE
NORTH ENTRANCE
In 1902 the floor of the North Entrance to the temple was exposed to
a depth of 5 ft. below the surface, as shown in Mr. Bent’s book (p.
106), while a flight of steps in perfect condition leading up to the
entrance from the exterior was discovered at a depth of 9 ft. below the
old surface. This entrance, showing a bold conception and admirable
construction, is now considered as one of the principal show features
at Zimbabwe. Further, it is the oldest form of entrance and steps as
well as the finest of any yet discovered in Rhodesia. A quantity of
gold was found on the floor and steps of this entrance, which were once
covered with fine granite cement, also a few true phalli.
PARALLEL PASSAGE
This has been cleared throughout to a depth of at least 3 ft., and in
one place 7 ft. Cement floors were exposed, and these were found to
be divided into small catchment areas with a drain from each passing
outwards through the main wall. Five additional drains were discovered
in this passage. Here were found eight ornate phalli, a portion of a
gold bangle, some beaten gold and gold tacks of microscopic size, and
fragments of carved soapstone beams.
SACRED ENCLOSURE
This was cleared out to a depth of 4 ft. throughout its whole area, and
a few phalli of unmistakable form were found, and old granite cement
floors and steps were uncovered. Explorers and relic hunters had worked
in this enclosure, and had double trenched it from end to end.
A remarkable discovery was made here of distinct traces of granite
cement dadoes, 7 ft. high, round the interior faces of the walls of
this enclosure. In some other enclosures the remains of dadoes can
still be seen.
The small conical tower in this enclosure has during the last ten years
been seriously damaged by the large trunk of a tree pushing over the
summit of the cone. Photographs of this small tower taken in 1891 show
that it was then almost intact.
PLATFORM AREA
This open area, lying to the west and north of the Conical Tower and
the Platform, corresponds to the open areas immediately in front of
the altars in old Grecian temples. This was Mr. Bent’s opinion, and
possibly it answered at Zimbabwe a similar purpose of accommodating the
worshippers. The area, some 120 ft. by 60 ft., has been cleared out of
large trees, and of about 6 ft. of soil throughout, and floors—both
cement and clay—were disclosed, also a fine circular structure of
excellent granite cement, and ascended by two steps. On and close to
this structure were found fragments, mainly bases, of carved soapstone
beams of slender appearance, also some phalli and gold. This platform
lies slightly off the north line between the Conical Tower and the Main
North Entrance.
Some of the walls surrounding this area on the west and north sides,
once considered to be ancient, can now be seen to cross over very old
native clay huts and native copper and iron-smelting furnaces. The
soil contained some phalli, which had been converted by the natives
into amulets, also some Arabian glass—thirteenth and fourteenth
centuries—Venetian beads, gold wire-work, beaten gold, gold scorifiers
of native pottery, iron pincers, and fragments of carved soapstone
bowls with geometric designs.
ENCLOSURES 6, 7, AND 10
Gold-smelting operations must have, at some late period, been
extensively carried on in these enclosures, for on removing from each
enclosure all débris and fallen stones to a depth of from 4 ft. to 7
ft., there were found burnishing stones of fine grain and still covered
with gold, gold scorifiers with gold in the flux, cakes of gold, gold
furnace slag, beaten gold, and gold dust.
At a still lower depth in No. 6 Enclosure a quantity of granite
clay crucibles, showing gold richly, were met with, and these are
undoubtedly of older type than the native pottery scorifiers, also some
ingot moulds of soapstone of the double claw-hammer or St. Andrew’s
cross pattern.
CENTRAL AREA
This area is only partially excavated, it being covered with old
native-built walls which cross over bone and ash débris, old native
huts, an iron furnace, and rich black mould in which the vegetable
matter was still undecayed. Experimental holes and boring-rods showed
that some very old foundations ran below the soil upon which the later
and poorer walls are built. However, a key has now been found which
will enable further excavations to be made within this area without
injury to the upper walls.
SUMMIT OF MAIN EAST WALL
Along the summit of the east main wall, and only over the chevron
pattern which faces east, have recently been discovered the traces of
foundations of small circular towers, both on the inner and outer edges
of the wall. These correspond in measurement and relative position to
the small conical towers on the west wall of the Western Temple at
the Acropolis Ruins, which is decorated with monoliths. Some of the
best-known surveyors and practical builders in Rhodesia are prepared
to certify as to the traces of these foundations. This is entirely a
new discovery, as is also the fact that at one time the summit of the
wall, only over the chevron pattern, bore beautifully rounded soapstone
monoliths, the bases being found displaced under the ruck of loose
blocks which runs along the centre of the summit of this part of the
main wall. Some carved splinters of these monoliths were found at the
bases of the wall. A collection of these “finds” has been sent to the
Salisbury Museum.
PROBABLE AGES OF THE WALLS OF THE ELLIPTICAL TEMPLE
All the walls of the Elliptical Temple are not ancient; that is,
not ancient in the sense applying to the suggested Sabæo-Arabian
occupation of Rhodesia and also to that of the Solomonic gold period.
The evidences pointing to this conclusion, and now for the first time
available, are so obvious and general, and the ocular demonstration so
positive, that one of the many popular myths concerning Great Zimbabwe
must, even at the risk of committing a vandalism on cherished romantic
theories and beliefs, go by the board. The writer prefers that the
ruins should tell their own story, and this can now be read in the
walls, in the débris heaps, and in the relics and their associated
“finds” and locations.
The oldest walls of the temple for which great antiquity may be
claimed are—the main east wall from north to south, the Conical Tower,
the Platform, portions of the inner wall of the Parallel Passage
(reconstructions are present here), and some adjoining walls, and some
buried walls and foundations, and possibly some other walls on the
south side, concerning which some doubt exists, as also the west wall
of the West Passage, a well-built structure which once was extended at
either extremity. As to the question of obviously much later walls,
this is involved in the following section of this preface.
WEST WALL CONTROVERSY
The writer is fully convinced that the original west wall of the temple
once extended outwards further west, and that the present west wall
extending towards the south is of much more recent construction and
is built on a shorter curve, _also that most of the structures of the
central and western portions of the building are also of much later
construction_, and this for many substantial reasons, some of which are
here briefly stated:—
(_a_) The west wall is considered by all practical builders and
architects to be far slighter, much inferior in construction, fuller
of defects, and to contain to a greater extent ill-shaped stones than
the main wall on the east side, while the foundations are at many
points far more irregular, and the batter-back of the interior face
of the west wall is less severe than is the case of the east side.
Lengths of 25 ft. each of both walls have been examined and compared
and photographed, and the number of defects of construction recorded.
The number of false and “straight joints,” false and disappearing
courses, and stones supported at their corners by granite chips, which
the west wall contains, is roughly about forty odd to every one of
such defects in the east wall, which is _the_ architectural marvel for
symmetry, grand proportion, true courses of most carefully selected and
assorted blocks (some of which have been dressed with metal tools) of
any other ancient architectural features at Zimbabwe. All this is an
ocular demonstration, and is commented upon by the most casual visitor
to these ruins. This, too, is very patent when seen from the summit of
Zimbabwe Hill, the view looking down upon the temple revealing most
obviously the different characters of the walls.
(_b_) In 1903 the writer cleared the soil away from the gap between the
older and later walls, and found that they were widely different in
construction; that the later and narrower wall approached the older and
well-built and wider wall at an oblique angle; and that the end of the
older wall is broken and not finished off as are other ends of ancient
walls. In a trench made at a distance of twelve yards west of the gap,
and on the curve the older wall, if continued, would have passed, a
mass of buried masonry, which might have been a portion of the old
wall, was disclosed.
(_c_) Dr. Hahn, the leading expert in South Africa in chemical
metallurgy, analysed the soil underlying the foundation of the west
wall, and pronounced it to be composed of disintegrated furnace slag
and ashes containing gold and iron. The ground to the west of the west
wall has always been the spot at which gold prospectors have washed the
soil for gold, and here gold crucibles and scorifiers are to be found.
This soil contains 73 per cent. of silica, and would make an excellent
foundation for walls, and the west wall is built right along this bed
of furnace slag, which is about 2 ft. in depth, many yards wide, and
extends from north to south.
(_d_) At a few feet from the exterior of the west wall, and _at a depth
of four feet below the level of its foundation_, and extending as shown
in trenches and cross-cuts for at least thirty yards from north to
south, is a floor of granite cement laid on the formation rock, hiding
its irregularities and making a perfectly level surface. The full
extent of this flooring has not yet been ascertained. For two feet
between the level of this cement flooring and the furnace-slag soil
under the foundations of the west wall is fine silted soil. Evidently
the later wall was erected at a very considerable period subsequently
to the laying of the cement flooring and after the siltation of the
soil, and also after the gold-smelting operations had been extensively
carried on for a long period.
(_e_) No single relic of any great antiquity has been found by any
explorer or prospector in the western portion of the temple, while the
eastern portion has yielded at depth great quantities of phalli and of
every relic believed to be associated with the earliest occupiers.
The oldest “find” in the western half of the building is pronounced
by Dr. Budge to be of a period dating from between the thirteenth and
fifteenth centuries of this era, and other “finds” relate to the same
and later periods.
WRITER’S CONCLUSIONS
The writer is now and for the above and further considerations, and
after two years’ residence within the ruins, perfectly convinced of the
following:—
(1) That on the departure of the ancient builders and occupiers the
temple became a ruin, and remained as such for some centuries, the west
wall disappearing in the meantime (as explained later); (2) that some
organised Arab people, possibly a split of the numerous Arab colonies
and kingdoms which existed down the East African coast, possibly of
the Magdoshu kingdom, who, according to De Barros, reached Sofala
(1100 A.D.), exploited the gold mines, and formed a mixed population
between the Arabs and natives, or possibly the Arabs of Quiloa, who
secured as suzerain power Sofala and the kingdom of the Monomotapa
(Rhodesia). One of these peoples is believed to be responsible for
the ruins of Inyanga, which the writer after examining these remains
does not consider to be ancient in the fullest sense of the term. One
of these peoples are also believed to be responsible for making the
“_old_ workings,” the distinction between which and the “_ancient_
workings” must always be kept in mind, a distinction which the late Mr.
Telford Edwards always pointed out and insisted upon, and concerning
which recent investigations prove him to have been correct; (3) that
these Arabs made Zimbabwe their headquarters, to which the washed gold
dust was brought to be converted into ingots for transport; (4) that
these Arabs carried on extensive gold-smelting operations at the west
end of the temple in the shelter of the massive walls, which would
protect them against the prevailing winds and drifting rains; (5) that
_after_ carrying on these gold-smelting operations extensively and for
a considerable period, they built a wall across the open space and
upon their furnace-slag beds, possibly employing native labour (the
Makalanga being notorious for their skill in wall building); and (6)
that these Arabs also built several of the enclosures in the central
and western parts of the temple to suit their special convenience, and
altogether regardless of the buried foundations of the ancient builders.
DESTRUCTION OF THE ORIGINAL WEST WALL
It may be asked what caused the destruction of the original west
wall. Its disappearance may be accounted for as follows. The south
and west walls have for centuries borne the full brunt of all the
torrential rain and storm water which rushes to these points from the
Bentberg Kopjes, which lie close to the temple on the south side. This
accounts for the great depth of silted soil which buries the old cement
flooring. This must have washed the lower portions of the walls till
the cement foundations decomposed and brought down the structure as it
has done at other ruins at Zimbabwe. The writer at the commencement
of his first rainy season at Zimbabwe found a large pool about 30
yds. in length, 15 yds. in breadth, and 2 ft. in depth up against the
present west wall, towards which all surface water from the higher
ground rushed unchanged. This had been going on every rainy season for
many generations, with the result of forming large cavities under the
foundations, and of keeping the wall in a constant drip with damp even
at noontide, and of causing the spread of large moss over the walls,
while shrubs and small trees grew out of the walls at some height from
their base. Trenches and runs-off and banks soon cured this evil, and
now the walls have changed from being black with damp to being grey
with dryness. The moss has naturally flaked off, and the trees and
shrubs in the walls are dead, owing to lack of moisture.
THE ACROPOLIS RUINS
WESTERN TEMPLE
Operations in this temple since the description of the earlier work
was embodied in the text of this volume have been carried on to June,
1904. Soil to a depth of from 3 ft. to 5 ft. was removed from the whole
of the eastern portion of this area. The excavations showed several
layers of native clay floors one above another. The “finds” were those
known to be of native origin, though not made by natives of to-day. The
later or native period of gold manufacture was greatly in evidence,
beaten gold, gold tacks, and gold wire being frequently met with in
association with copper sheathing, copper assegai- and arrow-heads, the
copper containing no alloy.
A trial hole sunk to a depth of 6 ft. below this cleared portion of
the temple area, or 9 ft. below the surface as it appeared in 1903,
showed in its sides the lines of several clay floors and the side of a
Kafir clay hut, now quite decomposed and soft. At the bottom of the
pit a rough pavement of closely-fitting stones of irregular shape and
size was come upon, and the articles found were identical with those
discovered at a higher level.
The clearing of the area also disclosed clay sides of huts with the
remains of short walls of stone radiating from the sides of the huts.
The wall which Mr. Bent considered might have been the “altar” was
found to be the radiating wall of a similar hut built upon a higher
level. These small radiating walls are a general feature of exceedingly
old native huts found at several places at Zimbabwe.
A large circular platform of granite cement was also disclosed. This
spot yielded beaten gold of native make.
A ZIMBABWE REVIVAL
The writer believes that between the thirteenth and fifteenth
centuries, or slightly earlier, a great influx of people took place
at Zimbabwe, and that the majority of the minor ruins in the Valley
of Ruins were built about this period. This is shown by the number of
walls built across exceedingly old débris heaps of native origin, by
the “finds” of Arabian articles on their lowest floors, and by the fact
that no relic of greater age than that period has been found. Two or
three of the better-built minor ruins have the appearance of greater
age, and some of the relics found in this class of ruins are of the
oldest type. No one who had not spent considerable time at Zimbabwe
could have any possible conception of the immense population present
here at a period of but a few centuries ago. The remains of their stone
walls are scattered thickly over the valleys and hillsides of Zimbabwe.
The Makalanga state these are all Makalanga of generations long passed
away. Some are constructions by indigenous peoples, and certainly they
are not ancient, though largely built of stones quarried from the
ancient ruins, and the “finds” are those of old native type, including
Arab articles.
PRESERVATION OF RUINS
The thanks of all scientific circles, and of South Africans generally,
are due to Sir W. H. Milton, Administrator of Rhodesia, whose great
interest in the preservation of the ancient monuments in these
territories is well known, and to whose direction is due the recent
and timely preservation work at Great Zimbabwe. The author desires
to express his personal indebtedness to Sir William Milton for
the adequate arrangements made by him while engaged in his recent
researches at the Great Zimbabwe.
PLAN OF ELLIPTICAL TEMPLE
The clearing of the Elliptical Temple and its vicinity has enabled Mr.
Franklin White, M.E., Bulawayo, to prepare the latest and so far the
most perfect plan of that building, and this he has kindly placed at
the service of the author.
Indebtedness is also expressed to Professor A. H. Keane, LL.D. (author
of _The Gold of Ophir_), for the contribution of the _Introduction_ to
this volume; to Mrs. Theodore Bent for generously permitting the use in
this volume of illustrations from _The Ruined Cities of Mashonaland_;
to Mr. Gray, Chief Veterinary Surgeon, Salisbury, Mr. H. S. Meilandt,
Government Roads Inspector, Bulawayo, and Trooper Wenham, B.S.A.P.,
Victoria, for permission to reproduce certain photographs of the ruins,
and also to the Directors of the British South Africa Company for
permission to include the map of Rhodesia in this work.
HAVILAH CAMP, GREAT ZIMBABWE,
RHODESIA, S.A.
_1st June, 1904_.
INTRODUCTION
BY A. H. KEANE, LL.D.
An archæological work of absorbing interest, such as the volume here
presented to the reader, needs no introduction. Nor are the following
remarks meant to be taken in that sense, but only as a sort of “missing
link” in the chain of evidence between past and present, between the
Arabian Himyarites and the Rhodesian monuments, the forging of which
the author has entrusted to me. In _The Ancient Ruins of Rhodesia_,
of which _Great Zimbabwe_ is the inevitable outcome, Messrs. Hall and
Neal did not discuss the problem of origins, speculation was distinctly
eschewed, and although their personal views were, and are, in harmony
with those of all competent observers, they made no dogmatic statement
on the subject, leaving the main conclusion to be inferred from the
great body of evidence which they patiently accumulated on the spot
and embodied in their monumental work. In _Great Zimbabwe_, of which
Mr. Hall is sole author, and the rich materials for which he has alone
brought together, the same attitude of reserve is still maintained,
perhaps even more severely, and therefore it is that he has now invited
me to develop the argument by which, as he hopes and I believe, the
wonderful prehistoric remains strewn over Southern Rhodesia, but
centred chiefly in the Great Zimbabwe group, may be finally traced to
their true source in South Arabia, Phœnicia, and Palestine.
In _The Gold of Ophir, whence Brought and by Whom_,[2] where several
chapters are devoted to this subject, I inferred, on plausible grounds,
that the Havilah of Scripture—“the whole land of Havilah where there is
gold”—was the mineralised region between the Zambesi and the Limpopo,
and that the ancient gold-workings of this region were first opened
and the associated monuments erected by the South Arabian Himyarites,
followed in the time of Solomon by the Jews and Phœnicians. I further
endeavoured to show that all these Semitic treasure-seekers reached
Havilah (the port of which was Tharshish, probably the present
Sofala) through Madagascar, where they had settlements and maintained
protracted commercial and social intercourse with the Malagasy natives;
and lastly, that the produce of the mines was by them sent down to
the coast and shipped at Tharshish for Ophir, the great Himyaritic
emporium on the south coast of Arabia, whence it was distributed over
the eastern world. It followed that the scriptural “gold of Ophir” did
not mean the gold mined at Ophir, which was not, as hitherto supposed,
an auriferous land, but a gold mart.[3] The expression meant the gold
imported by the Jews and Phœnicians from Havilah (Rhodesia), _viâ_
Tharshish, Ophir, and Ezion-geber in Idumæa, at the head of the Red Sea.
It is needless here to recapitulate in detail the arguments that I have
advanced in support of this general thesis. But I should like to point
out that if one or two of them have been invalidated by my critics,
several have been greatly strengthened by the fresh evidence that has
accumulated since the appearance of _The Gold of Ophir_.
Of course, incomparably the most important mass of fresh evidence is
that which has been brought together by Mr. Hall himself during his
two years’ researches amid the central group of ruins, and is now
permanently embodied in _Great Zimbabwe_. Yet the work has in a sense
been but begun; it has reached down only to the ancient flooring which
has still to be explored; and we are assured by Sir John Willoughby,
a most competent authority, that after two months’ exploring the
wonderful Elliptical Temple with a large gang of labourers, two years
will yet be needed to complete the surface work of that structure
alone, without touching the old floors. Mr. Hall infers that three
further years will be required for the Acropolis itself, besides the
“Valley of Ruins,” with the groups of buildings extending in all
directions for over a mile from the temple. A mere glance at some of
the finely reproduced photographs creates a sense of awe and amazement
at the huge size and solidity of the containing walls with their
patiently interwoven chevron and other patterns, and at the vast
extent of the ground covered by these great monuments of a forgotten
past. Their erection must have taken many scores of years, one might
say centuries, and their builders must consequently have dwelt for
many generations in the land which they so diligently exploited for
its underground treasures. Here and in all the other strictly mining
districts they carried on their operations in the midst of hostile
native populations, as is sufficiently evident from the strongholds
crowning so many strategical heights, from the formidable ramparts and
the immense strength of the outer walls, everywhere rounding off in
long narrow passages leading to the inner enclosures.
[Illustration]
Under such conditions it will naturally be asked, whence did the
foreign intruders obtain their food supplies? The answer to this
question is suggested in _The Ancient Ruins_, where it is pointed out
(p. 208) that the auriferous reefs of the central Zimbabwe district,
and generally of all the districts in immediate proximity to the
fortified stations, show no traces of having ever been worked for
the precious metal. “Possibly the reason for the ancients ignoring
the gold-reefs of this district [Zimbabwe] lies in the fact that
the country round about is exceedingly well suited for agricultural
purposes, the soil being rich and water plentiful, and all vegetable
growths prolific and profuse. The large population of ancients,
together with the enormous gangs of slaves, would naturally consume
a vast quantity of grain, and this necessity would create a large
agricultural class, who, for their own safety and for the protection
of their crops and fruits, would naturally carry on their operations
within such an area as could be safeguarded by the fortresses of
Zimbabwe.”
It might at first sight be supposed that the food supplies were drawn
chiefly from the extensive agricultural settlements of the Inyanga
territory, on the northern slopes of Mashonaland, which drain through
the Ruenga and its numerous affluents to the right bank of the Zambesi.
This Inyanga district may be roughly described, from the archæological
point of view, as an area of old aqueducts, of old terraced slopes,
and of old ruins of a less imposing type than the Zimbabwe remains.
In a notice of _The Ancient Ruins of Rhodesia_ contributed to the
_Geographical Journal_ for April, 1902, I first drew attention to the
surprising analogy, or rather identity, between these terraces and
those of the South Arabian uplands visited by General E. T. Haig in the
eighties. So close is the parallelism that Haig’s description might
almost change places with Mr. Telford Edwards’ account of the Inyanga
works quoted in _The Ancient Ruins_, p. 353 _sq._, as thus:—
TERRACED SLOPES TERRACED SLOPES
(SOUTH ARABIA) (SOUTH AFRICA)
“In one district the whole “The extent of these ancient
mountain side, for a height of terraces is astonishing, and
6,000 ft., was terraced from top there is every evidence of the
to bottom. Everywhere, above, past existence of _hundreds of
below, and all around, endless thousands of inhabitants_. It
flights of terraced walls meet would be quite impossible to
the eye. One can hardly realise convey any idea of the immensity
the enormous amount of labour, of labour implied in the enormous
toil, and perseverance which these number of these ancient terraces.
represent. The terraced walls I saw at least 150 square miles
are usually from 4 to 5 ft. in composed of kopjes from 100 to 400
height, but towards the top of ft. in height literally strewn
the mountain they are sometimes with the ruins. A contemplation
as much as 15 or 18 ft. They are of the enormous tonnage of stones
built entirely of rough stone and earth rudely built into these
laid without mortar. I reckoned terraces left me amazed. It
on an average that each wall appears to be abundantly clear
retains a terrace not more than that the terraces were for the
twice its own height in width, purpose of cultivating cereals of
and I do not think I saw a single some sort. The terraces as a rule
breach in one of them unrepaired” rise up in vertical lifts of about
(Haig, _Proceedings Geographical 2 or 3 ft., and extend backwards
Society_, 1887, p. 482). over a distance of mostly 7 to 12
ft. The terraces are all made very
flat and of dry masonry, not of
hewn stone.”
But Mr. Hall, who visited the Inyanga territory in May, 1904, now finds
that the terraced slopes,[4] the so-called “slave-pits,” and the other
remains, although “old,” are not “ancient.” That is to say, they date
not from Himyaritic times, but probably from the eleventh or twelfth
century of the new era, when parts of Rhodesia were reoccupied by
large numbers of Moslem Arabs from Quiloa and their other settlements
along the east coast. Hence, although the terraced slopes still form a
connecting link between South Africa and South Arabia, the South Arabia
here in question is that, not of pre-, but of post-Koranic times.
Of course, the ruined houses and ruined aqueducts are too much
obliterated to supply any clear points of comparison. But their mere
presence, and especially the vast extent of ground covered by them,
will suffice to confirm Mr. Telford Edwards’ estimate of the vast
numbers of civilised peoples who inhabited the rich Inyanga valleys
in prehistoric times, and whom we may now call Sabæans, Minæans, and
others Himyarites.
Were the houses still extant, we should expect to find them covered
with the same decorative mural motives as are still seen both on the
Zimbabwe monuments and on the public buildings of Sana, present capital
of Arabia Felix. Manzoni, who visited this city three times between
the years 1877 and 1880, figures a mansion six stories high, which is
richly ornamented with two such motives—the chevron and the vertical
block pattern—closely resembling those everywhere occurring on the more
ancient Rhodesian walls. The chevron, which is seen both in single and
double courses exactly as on the great walls of the Elliptical Temple,
is absolutely identical, while the block design differs only in being
quite vertical at Sana, whereas it is slightly tilted, or else two rows
of blocks converge to produce the herring-bone pattern on the Rhodesian
walls, as at Little Umnukwana and many other places. The reader
will find Manzoni’s mansion reproduced in Mr. D. G. Hogarth’s _The
Penetration of Arabia_, 1904, p. 198, and he will there notice that the
various motives fill up all the space between two parallel horizontal
lines, as is so often the case in Rhodesia.[5] Here, therefore, style,
motive, general treatment, everything corresponds between the Rhodesian
remains and the decorative fancies still flourishing in Sana, heir to
the cultural traditions of the neighbouring Mariaba and of the other
ancient Himyaritic capitals in South Arabia.
[Illustration: COIN OF BYBLOS, PHŒNICIA, SHEWING CONICAL TOWER
(FIG. I)]
[Illustration: WOODEN BOWL WITH SIGNS OF ZODIAC FOUND NEAR ZIMBABWE
(FIG. 2)]
In _The Gold of Ophir_ frequent reference is made to the relations,
social and commercial, established between Palestine and Madagascar
certainly as early as the time of Solomon, and possibly even during
the reign of his father David. On this point I might have spoken even
more confidently, for I have since received a communication from M.
Alfred Grandidier, by far the greatest living authority on all
things Malagasy, who calls my attention to the evidence supplied in
his monumental work, _Histoire Physique, Naturelle et Politique de
Madagascar_ (1901), of intercourse between the Jews and the natives
of Madagascar and neighbouring islands even in pre-Solomonic days.
Documents are quoted to show that the Comoros, stepping-stones between
Madagascar and Rhodesia, were peopled in the reign of Solomon “by Arabs
or rather by Idumæan Jews from the Red Sea,” and that the people of the
great island preserve many Israelitish rites, usages, and traditions,
cherish the memory of Adam, Abraham, Lot, Moses, Gideon, but have no
knowledge of any of the prophets after the time of David, “which seems
to show that the Jewish immigrants left their home at a very remote
date, since if the exodus had been recent they could not have forgotten
the great names posterior to the time of David.” Hence he concludes
that “there is nothing surprising in the presence of an Idumæan colony
in Madagascar, for we know that from the very earliest times the Arabs
of Yemen had frequented the East African seaboard at least as far as
Sofala.” These words lend further support to my identification of
Tharshish with Sofala, and in a note it is added that “the Jews and
Arabian Semites were not the only peoples who had formerly commercial
relations with the inhabitants of the African seaboard. From time
immemorial these southern waters were navigated by the fleets of the
Egyptians, probably even of the Chaldeans, Babylonians, Assyrians,
Phœnicians, Tyrians” (_op. cit._, p. 96). And again at p. 100: “From
the earliest times the Indian Ocean was traversed by Chaldean,
Egyptian, Jewish, Arab, Persian, Indian, and other vessels.”[6]
My statements regarding the long-standing relations of the Northern
Semites with the peoples of Madagascar and South Africa as far as
Sofala are thus fully supported by the greatest authority on the
subject. But there are some minds so constituted that they seem
incapable of accepting a new revelation. They can do nothing but _stare
super vias antiquas_, and will strain every nerve to minimise the force
of facts and arguments pointing at conclusions which run counter to
their deep-rooted prejudices. I here reproduce the famous “Zimbabwe
Zodiac” (Fig. 2.), which was found near Great Zimbabwe, and shows the
twelve signs of the Zodiac carved round the rim, as described by the
late Dr. Schlichter in the _Geographical Journal_ for April, 1890. This
specialist tells us that “the signs coincide in every respect with
other finds which Bent and others have made in Zimbabwe. One of the
pictures is an image of the sun analogous to the sun-pictures which
Mauch and Bent found on the monoliths of Zimbabwe, and _analogous also
to finds in Asia Minor which belong to the Assyro-Babylonian period_.”
But a writer in the _Guardian_ attempts to destroy the significance of
this document by asserting that the Zodiac or its nomenclature is of
Greek origin and consequently of no great age. Now the Hon. Emmeline M.
Plunket has recently (1903) published a work on _Ancient Calendars and
Constellations_, in which she maintains that the Babylonian Calendar,
with its Zodiacal signs, dates from 6000 B.C., that is, about 8,000
years ago. It is true that this estimate is not clearly made out. But
on the other hand, the reader may be assured that Miss Plunket does
not hold by the “Greek” theory. Nor does F. Delitzsch, who reminds us
that “when we distinguish twelve signs of the Zodiac and call them
Ram, Bull, Twins, etc., in all this the Sumero-Babylonian culture is
still a living influence down to the present day.”[7] Nor does Sayce,
who points out that the Babylonian account of the Flood occurs in the
eleventh book of the epic of Gisdhubar corresponding approximately
with the eleventh sign of the Zodiac, at that time _Aquarius_, just
as the fifth book records the death of a monstrous lion by Gisdhubar,
answering to the Zodiacal _Leo_ and so on. He further observes that
“the Zodiacal signs had been marked out and named at that remote period
(certainly before 2000 B.C.), when the sun was still in Taurus at the
beginning of spring,”[8] and, let me add, when the Greeks had not
yet been heard of, but when the great Gnomon, or Conical Tower, had
possibly already been erected by the Semitic builders of Great Zimbabwe.
[Illustration: CYLINDER WITH ROSETTES FOUND IN PHŒNICIAN TEMPLE OF
PAPHOS, IN CYPRUS
(FIG. 3)]
[Illustration: SOAPSTONE CYLINDER, WITH ROSETTES FOUND NEAR ZIMBABWE
(FIG. 4)]
That this and the numerous other conical towers still standing amid
the crumbling ruins of Rhodesia are all cast in a Semitic mould
will be at once seen by comparing them with the conical tower of a
temple, figured on a medallion found at Byblos in Phœnicia and here
reproduced (Fig. 1.). The comparison may also be extended to the
two embossed cylinders—one from Great Zimbabwe, the other from the
Temple of Paphos, in Cyprus, here also reproduced (Figs. 3 and 4) from
Bent’s _Ruined Cities_, pp. 170, 171. These two objects, so strikingly
similar in general design, reminded Bent of Herodian’s description of
the sacred cone in the great Phœnician Temple of the Sun at Emessa,
in Syria, which was adorned with certain “knobs or protuberances,” a
pattern supposed by him to represent the sun, and common in phallic
decorations, such as are constantly turning up with every shovelful of
débris removed from the Zimbabwe Temple Enclosures.
But although thousands of stones have been washed and carefully
examined for inscriptions, none have so far been discovered. As the
inscription which stood originally above the gateway of Great Zimbabwe,
as reported by the Arabs to the Portuguese pioneers early in the
sixteenth century,[9] has since disappeared, there are no known written
documents connecting these monuments with South Arabia or Phœnicia,
except a few scratches on the rim of an earthenware vessel figured
by Bent and by him supposed possibly to be of Himyaritic type.[10]
As, on the other hand, South Arabia is covered with Himyaritic rock
inscriptions, some of considerable length and hitherto reputed to be of
great age, their absence from Rhodesia has naturally caused surprise.
This negative argument has even by some of my critics been allowed to
outweigh the overwhelming positive evidence derived from the monuments
themselves, from the hundreds of old gold-workings already described
or recorded, from the multitude of objects—phalli, birds, conic
towers—which have been found in the ruins, and are, beyond all doubt,
intimately associated with Semitic religious observances. But I think
it may now be shown that this “negative argument” is no proof at all
of non-Semitic origins, but, on the contrary, affords strong indirect
evidence of the great antiquity of these Semitic remains in Rhodesia.
It is to be noticed, in the first place, that although the Phœnicians
are believed to have migrated from the Persian Gulf to the
Mediterranean about three millenniums before the New Era, no Phœnician
inscriptions have yet been anywhere discovered in the Mediterranean
lands older than about the seventh or the eighth century B.C. Before
that time the Phœnicians, like the kindred Canaanites and Israelites,
were rude, uncultured peoples, with no knowledge of letters, except,
perhaps, of the hieroglyphs, cuneiforms, and other scripts of their
Egyptian, Assyro-Babylonian, Hittite, and Cretan neighbours. Even the
Moabite Stone, if it be genuine, is post-Solomonic, since its reputed
“author” was the Moabite king, Mesha, contemporary of Jehoram of Israel
and Jehoshaphat of Judah. How, then, could the unlettered Jews and
Phœnicians of the time of David, Solomon, and Hiram leave any written
records of themselves in Rhodesia? After that epoch the intercourse
with South Africa was interrupted, because “Jehoshaphat made ships of
Tharshish to go to Ophir for gold; but they went not; for the ships
were broken at Ezion-geber” (1 Kings xxii. 48). And then the star
of Jacob waned, and the scattering of the Ten Tribes of Israel was
presently followed by the dire calamities that fell upon Judah, and put
an end for ever to all further quest of treasure in the Austral seas.
[Illustration: “FUKO-YA-NEBANDGE,” THE MASHONALAND RELIC, DISCOVERED
NEAR ZIMBABWE
(FIG. 5)]
[Illustration: MODEL OF ELLIPTICAL TEMPLE, ZIMBABWE
(FIG. 6)]
In the second place I find that Semitic students are gradually coming
to the conclusion that the age of the South Arabian rock inscriptions
has been greatly exaggerated, especially by Glaser, whose authority
was at first naturally accepted almost without demur. The language is,
no doubt, Himyaritic, that is to say, the oldest known form of Arabic.
But that language survived for many centuries after the New Era in the
Axumite empire, Abyssinia, where it is called _Geez_, and in Yemen
till some time after the Mohammedan irruption, and is still current in
the island of Sokotra, and in the Mahra district east of Hadramaut,
where it is called _Ehkili_. Hence the language of the inscriptions
is no test of their antiquity, though many afford intrinsic evidence
that they date certainly from at least a few hundred years before the
New Era. The subject is at present _sub judice_, and no more can be
said until the full results are known of the extensive researches now
in progress throughout Yemen. Here a large number of agents of the
French Ministère de l’Instruction Publique have been at work since
the year 1901, and thousands of impressions or rubbings have already
(1903–4) been received in Paris. Some have even begun to appear in
the _Nouveaux Textes Yéménites_, edited by M. Derenbourg, and several
of the inscriptions are stated to be in a hitherto unknown alphabet
quite different from that of the Himyaritic document which forms the
frontispiece of the _Gold of Ophir_. Great revelations may therefore be
pending; but, meanwhile, so much may, I think, be safely inferred, that
the Himyarites who first arrived in Rhodesia, worked the mines, and
built the monuments, some dating from apparently 2000 B.C., had little
or no knowledge of letters, or at least had not yet begun to cover
the rocks of their South Arabian homes with well-formed and carefully
constructed inscriptions. Thus is also explained the absence of all
such documents from their new homes in Rhodesia, where one may now
almost venture to predict that none will ever be found. Nothing can be
inferred from the vanished inscription over the Great Zimbabwe gateway,
since the gold-workings appear to have been resumed for a time by the
later (post-Mohammedan) Arabs, who were fond of decorating the façades
of their mosques and other public buildings with the ornamental but
relatively recent (eighth century) Cufic characters.
Mention should perhaps here be made of Professor Gustav Oppert’s
_Tharshish and Ophir_ (Berlin, 1903), in which the learned author
claims to offer “a final solution” of the problem. But he leaves the
question exactly as it stood over three decades ago, is still lost in
the tangle of time-worn etymologies, and takes no notice at all of
the revelations made by Messrs. Hall and Neal in the _Ancient Ruins_.
The vast body of archæological evidence derived in recent years from
the Rhodesian remains is thus completely ignored, and fresh light
excluded from the only source whence it might have been drawn. On the
other hand, Professor Oppert, rather than admit a Tharshish in the
Indian Ocean, suggests that the _Tharshish_ of Kings and Chronicles
either means “the sea,” possibly the origin of the Greek word θἁλαττα
itself, or else was by the authors of those books foisted into the
texts instead of Ophir. Hence where _Tharshish_ occurs as the objective
of Solomon’s gold expeditions we are to read _Ophir_, although the
original Ophir is allowed to have been where I place it on the south
coast of Arabia. Now the Greek word θἁλαττα is Homeric, and when the
Homeric poems were first sung there were no Greeks in the Indian
Ocean. Hence, even if the wild etymology could be admitted, it would
not serve, and this essay cannot be accepted as “a final solution of
the old controversy.”[11] It is pleasant to be able to add that my
solution has been accepted as final by some of Professor Oppert’s
fellow-countrymen—the editor of the _Coloniale Zeitung_ amongst
others—who declares that “the problem seems now really solved.”[12]
Let me conclude with a question. Those who still reject my solution,
who cast about for the gold of Ophir all over the Indian Ocean—Egypt,
Arabia, Persia, India—anywhere except South Africa, what do they
propose doing with the hundreds of old Rhodesian workings, which are
known to have yielded at least £75,000,000 in their time, and with
the stupendous Semitic monuments connected with these workings, of
which Mr. Hall here presents the public with scores of photographic
reproductions, drawn exclusively from the central Great Zimbabwe group?
Where does India, the spoilt child of the etymologists, stand beside
these remains, which betray such undoubted evidence of their South
Arabian origin?
GREAT ZIMBABWE[13]
CHAPTER I
Arrival at Great Zimbabwe—First Impressions—View
from Acropolis Hill
On the 21st May, 1902, I arrived at Victoria in Mashonaland, _en route_
to the ruins of the Great Zimbabwe, which lie about seventeen miles
south-east of the township. In 1891, when the late Mr. Theodore Bent
visited Zimbabwe, he occupied exactly one week in covering the distance
between Victoria and the ruins. Unfortunately for him and his party, he
had been advised to follow the Moshagashi Valley, instead of taking the
higher ground towards the west, and consequently he experienced great
difficulty with his wagons in crossing spruits, rivers, and swamps,
which are numerous in that direction.
There is now an excellent road to Zimbabwe, and the distance can be
covered by a cyclist well within an hour and a half, while visitors
driving can now arrive at Zimbabwe early in the morning and spend the
whole day among the ruins and yet be in town in ample time for the
evening meal. The distance by road is seventeen miles, and by a native
path cutting across country it is reduced to fifteen miles.
Victoria is a town with barely one hundred white inhabitants. It is the
centre of the largest and finest grain country of Southern Rhodesia,
and the opening up of the gold, copper, and coal areas of the Sabi
district will tend to increase its importance.
The Acting-Civil Commissioner, Mr. Lawlor, arranged for requisitions to
be made for stores, plant, etc., required for the work at the ruins,
and the Officer Commanding the British South Africa Police provided
wagon and ten mules to transport stores out to Zimbabwe. The Native
Commissioner, Mr. Alfred Drew, sent out M’Guti, a native police boy,
to the chief Mogabe, who lives near the ruins and rules over a large
tract of country and is practically independent, to find fifteen “boys”
(afterwards increased to forty) to be at our camp at Zimbabwe at sun-up
on Saturday. The work of collecting stores and plant filled up the rest
of the day.
Early the following morning we loaded up the wagon and left for
Great Zimbabwe, arriving at the main ruins at midday. The wagon was
off-loaded, and in the shade of a large candelabra-shaped euphorbia
tree we lunched, while the “boys” carried the stores up on to a low
granite knoll, where were three spacious native huts, built for the
Civil Commissioner, and occupied by Lord Milner in 1897. Of course,
half the population of Mogabe’s kraal came down the kopje sides in
black strings to watch all that took place, and a jabbering, laughing,
noisy crowd they were. There was not a pair of trousers or a vest among
the lot, and all were absolutely bare, save for their aprons. I liked
their appearance better than that of the average Matabele, for they had
better and more genial faces, and were not at all haughty and reserved.
The camp is within a few feet of the north side of No. 3 Ruins (see
map), and faces the south side of Zimbabwe Hill, and the Acropolis
Ruins are on the summit of a very precipitous cliff, 90 ft. high,
forming part of the side of the hill, the ruins being 220 ft. directly
above the camp. The camp of Mr. Theodore Bent, the archæologist, was a
third of a mile to the south of our camp. Ours is the more convenient
spot, as it is half-way between the two principal ruins, and close to
its east side lies “The Valley of Ruins,” beside which the situation is
far healthier.
[Illustration: “TO GREAT ZIMBABWE”]
[Illustration: HAVILAH CAMP, GREAT ZIMBABWE]
Leaving the “boys” to move the stores and plant from our outspan up to
the huts, we started for a visit to the Elliptical Temple, which can be
seen from the camp. My friends, Mr. Herbert Hayles, of Victoria, and
Mr. J. R. A. Gell (cousin of Mr. Lyttelton Gell, one of the directors
of the British South Africa Company), had accompanied me out to
Zimbabwe to show me the lie of the Zimbabwe Reserve, and to protect me
for the first night of my stay in the event of any visits from ancient
ghosts.
Approaching the west entrance to the Elliptical Temple one is
confronted by the following notice:—
“_The public are warned that digging or prospecting for gold, whether
alluvial or otherwise, or for curiosities and relics of any sort
within the Zimbabwe Reserve, is strictly prohibited without special
permission, and that any person or persons found so doing or in any
way damaging any of the ruins or cutting or damaging any tree or trees
within such Reserve will be prosecuted. And notice is also hereby
given that nobody will be allowed to erect any habitation of any kind
whatever within the Reserve without special permission. By Order._”[14]
But turning from this prosaic notice to the walls themselves, one
saw that every stone of this stupendous and imposing structure had
gained glories from the hands of Time, and yielded a magnificent
subject for the painter’s brush. The walls were white with lichen,
but on their surfaces were splashed art colourings of almost every
possible shade—bright orange and red, lemon-black, sea-green, and pale
delicate yellow—while drooping from the summits were heavy festoons of
the pink-flowered “Zimbabwe creeper.” Over the fallen blocks spread
sprays of passion flowers, convolvuli, and other delicate creepers, and
clusters of St. John’s lilies and large scarlet gladioli rose stately
above beds of rich vegetation. Here was one of Nature’s most perfect
chromographs!
To describe this grand ruin in one chapter would be an utterly
impossible task, and any statement of one’s first impressions on
walking about the temple ’mid its massive Titanic walls must be
altogether inadequate. At any rate, one experienced an overwhelming
and oppressive sense of awe and reverence. One felt it impossible to
speak loudly or to laugh. And yet the ancient builders were what is
termed Pagan—Phallic worshippers with Baal and Astoroth among their
divinities, but a people so skilled in Zodiacal, astronomical, and
other sciences as to amaze and perplex the savants of to-day. Standing
close by the Sacred Cone, near which, according to Colonel Conder, the
Syro-Arabian archæologist, the altar was placed, one felt disinclined
for conversation. Above on a bough was a large owl, with prominent
ears and beautiful yellow eyes, who stared at our daring to trespass
on the verge of mystery. At our feet lay innumerable cast-off skins
of snakes. One thought of the poet Lowell’s _Lost Angel_, where,
speaking of a man so deadening his conscience by constant refusals to
listen to the appeals of his attendant good angel, he finds that the
angel has at last left him alone. Then was the temple of his heart
become desecrated, “the owl and snake inhabit there, the image of the
God has gone!” The owl and snake inhabit the Temple of Zimbabwe, the
altar of which is now broken down and desecrated, but the odious and
unmistakable emblems of Nature Worship are still to be found by the
score. Reverence of the hoary age of these buildings seizes one, for
some accredited archæologists give the age of some of these ruins as
anterior to the time of Moses. One wonders whether Professor Keane’s
contention is correct, that Ancient Rhodesia was the Havilah of
Genesis, especially when one thinks of the estimated £75,000,000 of
gold believed to have been taken by the Ancients from the surface of
the gold-reefs of this country before and during the Biblical-Ophir
period.
But our stay within these massive walls was brief. The writer would
have over two years in which to wander in their labyrinthine passages,
and to examine their architectural features, and compare them with
those of Rhodesian ruins elsewhere, but his friends must start back to
Victoria before sunrise next day. On our way to the other important
ruins—the Acropolis or Hill Fortress—we visited the grave of Major Alan
Wilson and his party[15] who were killed on the Shangani during the
flight of King Lo ’Bengula in 1893.
We climbed up the 230 feet to the Acropolis ruins, but our visit here
also was brief. We clambered round the summits of the walls of the two
temples, which have a score of monoliths still standing, more or less
erect, and penetrated some of the most intricate passages. The feeling
experienced here was one of intense wonder and bewilderment at the
stupendous walls erected at such a height, walls which must have taken
years to build, and all of granite blocks. The view from the summit
is among the finest in Rhodesia. We watched the sunset glow fading on
the white walls of the Elliptical Temple below, and then descended to
prepare the huts for the night and arrange the stores in their proper
quarters. Later, when the round moon one day off the full was shining,
we sat outside the huts watching the effects shown on the western
temple on the hill where the monoliths high up above us stood out
against the greenish moonlit sky. At 4 a.m. the mules were inspanned in
the wagon, and my friends took their departure, leaving me alone among
ruins and natives.
As soon as the sun was fairly up, M’Guti, the native police boy,
arrived from Mogabe’s kraal, followed by a crowd of “boys,” all most
anxious for work. The majority were young men, and the total clothing
of the crowd did not amount to three square yards of calico. They all
squatted down in a semi-circle in front of the main hut while M’Guti
delivered a long oration, but as he was wearing khaki regimentals and
had his steel handcuffs (evidently a badge of authority) lying in front
of him, the sustaining influence of office possessed him. Finally, all
the details were settled, a roll was made up, and the names recorded.
Later, the Mogabe, Handisibishe, and his headmen arrived, and a
long _indaba_ took place, M’Guti interpreting. Mogabe recognised
the likenesses of Mr. and Mrs. Bent, and that of the previous
Mogabe—Chipfuno, his brother. Salt and tobacco sent Mogabe happy away,
and next day a large gourd of _doro_ (native beer) and some sweet
potatoes arrived at the camp as a present.
The view from the summit of the Acropolis may be described as follows:—
_South._—Towards the south and in the nearer distance, and 250 feet
below in the valley, the venerable and lichened walls of the Elliptical
Temple rise out of luxuriantly green vegetation. So much below
the Acropolis cliffs is this temple that one sees over its broken
north walls into the interior and on to the floors of some of the
enclosures. The summit of the conical tower peeps out from among the
giant fig-trees that flourish in the interior of the building. At this
distance the white monoliths along the eastern wall, though clearly
defined against the dark foliage, seem dwarfed. In almost the same line
of view, but slightly eastwards and nearer, and on the north-east side
of the temple, is the “Valley of Ruins,” full of enclosures, passages,
entrances, and walls, which up to 1902 had remained practically
unexplored by white men. Nearer still is the wagon-track passing
Havilah Camp and winding eastwards towards the Mapaku Ruins (“Little
Zimbabwe”) and the Motelekwe[16] River seven miles distant. A hundred
yards east of the temple on an open granite space overlooking the
Valley of Ruins is the site of the camp of Dr. Schlichter, who visited
the Zimbabwe ruins in 1897. Immediately behind this spot and between it
and the foot of the Bentberg (_Motusa_) is the veld land ploughed by
Messrs. Posselt in 1888–9.
[Illustration: GREAT ZIMBABWE RESERVE]
Still looking south and slightly eastwards of the temple is the
Schlichter Gorge, down which the Mapudzi flows towards the south.
At the southern end of the gorge is a succession of ranges of kopjes
of fantastic shape descending into, and again rising from, the
Mowishawasha Valley, and becoming lost in the blue distance. The
Bentberg Kopje, which forms a dark background for the temple, shows its
immense flanks of granite glacis and boulders. Here some fifty years
ago was the chief local kraal of the Barotse, who had settlements among
the Makalanga of this part of the country, and on the north-eastern
side of the hill are still to be seen the remains of ancient walls,
while a clump of castor-oil trees at the foot of the hill on this side
marks the site of Theodore Bent’s camp (June and July, 1891).
Slightly to the west of the temple and almost immediately in front
of it are No. 1 Ruins, the walls of which are crowned with aloes and
euphorbias. Less than a hundred yards west of these ruins are the
Ridge Ruins, on a bare granite ridge, on the east side of which was
the camp of Sir John Willoughby, who excavated portions of the ruins
(November and December, 1892). Fifty yards behind the Ridge Ruins is
the Zimbabwe Spring, marked by a group of trees, where most excellent
water can be obtained, even during the driest season. It was close
to these trees that Messrs. Posselt had their camp in 1888–9. Nearer
than Ridge Ruins is the little graveyard where is the granite tomb of
Major Alan Wilson and his party. Just a few yards nearer is Havilah
Camp, where one can just see the natives moving to and fro across the
open spaces between the huts. Behind the Bentberg and further south is
broken country, with Lumbo Rocks, one of the landmarks of the district,
rising from the summit of a rugged hill like a column piled up against
the sky, its lichen mantle showing brilliant red in the sunset. Here
is the line of high ground which separates the plateau of Mashonaland
from the lower valley of the Limpopo River, the incline in the contour
being both steep and abrupt. This also divides the watershed of
the Motelekwe from that of the Tokwe.[17] In this southern view are
scattered many Makalanga kraals, several of which are perched up in
almost inaccessible rocky eyries; also some romantic valleys, kloofs,
and stretches of park-like land studded with patches of thick woods.
[Illustration: GENERAL PLAN OF ZIMBABWE RUINS showing the general
position of each ruin ]
_South-west._—Looking towards the south-west and in the near distance
is the rising ground between the Bentberg and Rusivanga[18] kopjes,
and the native path leading over it to Bingura’s kraal. At the foot of
Rusivanga and 150 yards from Havilah Camp, and on a knoll on which is
a large old tree, was for some time the camp of Adam Renders, known by
the natives as _Sa-adama_, who rediscovered Zimbabwe in 1868, and who
was here visited by Mr. George Philips, the ivory trader of the very
early days, and by Dr. Karl Mauch, the latter of whom gave in 1871 the
first information of the ruins for almost three hundred years. Here
Renders traded extensively for ivory. Previously to Dr. Mauch’s visit
Renders lived at Nini, eleven miles south-west of Zimbabwe.
Beyond the nearer ridge is a deep and wide valley on the near side of
which is Bingura’s kraal, and from this valley the land rises towards
the southern extremity of the Livouri Mountains some ten miles from
Zimbabwe, and in the immediate distance, though much nearer the Livouri
Range, is Providential Pass, through which the hunter, Mr. F. C.
Selous, led the Pioneer Column in 1890. In the same line of view, but
slightly nearer, is where Renders’ first station was located.
_West._—Looking due west there are two kopjes—Rusivanga and
Makuma—which close in the Zimbabwe Valley on that side at a third of
a mile distance. Further west of the two kopjes is a wide undulating
valley some six or eight miles wide which runs along the east side of
the Livouri Mountains, and this is studded at intervals with low and
bare granite kopjes. The kraal of the dynastic chief Cherimbila is at
Rovali, at the southern extremity of the range. The highest point of
the Livouri is Niande, a hill in the centre of this range with steep
and almost inaccessible sides. Behind the Livouri Range is seen the
high conical summit of the Cotopaxi Mountain, which forms one of the
principal landmarks of this portion of Southern Mashonaland. Towards
the south end of the Livouri Range is a large hill called Mowishawasha.
_Washa_ is always associated by the natives with power and authority.
The natives never climb to the top of this hill without going through
some form of devotion on their way up; also on passing close to the
hill they will stop and clap hands. Natives will not state the actual
reason. Probably an important Makalanga chief of some past times was
buried there. Near to this hill is a smaller one known as Tchib-Fuko,
which also has some native superstitions attached to it. It was in this
district the wooden platter with the zodiacal signs was discovered by
Mr. Edward Muller, also the pot “Fuko-ya-Nebandge.”
_North-west._—To the north-west, and on the opposite side of the valley
at the foot of Zimbabwe Hill, and beyond the _Outer Defence Wall_ which
encloses the Zimbabwe ruins on the west and north sides, is a low
granite knoll called Pasosa, with outlying huts belonging to Mogabe’s
kraal. A few yards behind the huts is a ruin (Pasosa, No. 1), with a
second ruin (Pasosa, No. 2) 60 yards farther north. The country beyond
in this direction is the valley land of the Moshagashi River, which
is some six to eight miles broad, the horizon showing low hills, over
which are the line of houses and trees of Victoria township, fifteen
miles distant as the crow flies, and beyond again are the uplands of
the range north of Victoria. The principal kraals in this direction are
Baranzimba’s (two miles) and M’Tima’s (three and a half miles).
[Illustration: VIEW FROM ACROPOLIS SHEWING THE ELLIPTICAL TEMPLE IN THE
VALLEY, ZIMBABWE]
_North._—In the north is the lower continuation of the Moshagashi
Valley, at this point some eight miles broad. Here the granite
formation of Zimbabwe terminates and the slate commences. The principal
kraal, and by far the largest in this area, is that of Chinongu, which
is four miles from Zimbabwe. Extending from N.N.W. to N.N.E. are the
high and romantically shaped Besa Mountains, and at their eastern
extremity can be seen in the blue distance the Lovugwe country.
_North-east._—To the north-east, at a distance of eight miles and
cutting the sky-line, is the range of the Inyuni Hills. Their sides are
exceedingly steep and, being slate, their contours contrast pleasantly
with those of the kopjes of the granite formation. In the nearer
distance is Motuminshaba, a granite kopje four miles away, and farther
east Tchivi, another granite kopje three miles distant. The land
towards the east-north-east descends to the Motelekwe River, the valley
of which can be seen with Arowi, a huge, isolated granite kopje rising
twelve miles distant, on the far bank of the Motelekwe. In this area
kraals are numerous.
_East._—The Beroma Range (written by Bent as “Veroma”) fills in the
whole of the background towards the east. These hills, which run north
and south, appear to be fully four miles long. The most northerly
point of this range is formed by a large rounded granite kopje called
Sueba,[19] and between this hill and Chenga’s[20] kraal is the path
leading over the nek to the Mapaku Ruins (“Little Zimbabwe”) eight
miles distant. On the west side of Beroma is a line of lower hills
forming its shoulders. The southern end of the Beroma Range is formed
by the high rounded Mount Marsgi, with a series of cliffs on its west
side, and at its base M’Tijeni’s kraal. Marsgi overlooks the Schlichter
Gorge. This is the point from which our description started.
CHAPTER II
MYSTIC ZIMBABWE
Sunday Morning and Midnight in an Ancient Temple—Sunset on the
Acropolis.
Wandering about the Elliptical Temple at Zimbabwe on a Sunday morning
one is faced at every turn with texts for innumerable “sermons in
stones.” The hoary age of these massive walls is grandly and silently
eloquent of a dead religion—a religion which was but the blind
stretching forth of the hand of faith groping in the Dawn of Knowledge
for the Deity and seeking the Unknown. Lowell urges that none should
call any faith “vain” which in the evolution of religion has led
mankind up to a higher level. The builders were “Pagans.” Granted, but
the world four thousand years ago was in its infancy, and infancy is
but a necessary prelude to development in any department of life and
thought. The progressive stages of Old Testament faith demonstrate this
fact most patently. We of the Christian Era, with our two thousand
years of religious enlightenment, have yet to learn of the “many things
I have to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now.” The evolution of
the Christian Ideal has not yet reached its final stage—it has still to
be perfected. But the period of infancy in development should not be
too hastily condemned as “vain.”
The spires that adorn our churches, the orientation of ecclesiastical
buildings, the eastward position of the dead, the candles on the
altars, and what is more, the idea conveyed by sacrificial offering,
have their origin in the ancient faiths and world-wide litholatrous
and solar ideas of the Semitic peoples, whether of Yemen or Phœnicia,
who built their temples in every part of the then known world which
came under their influence. In these, as in many more such instances,
parallelisms become identities, but identities adapted by the Christian
Church to convey in an old-world form a figure of a higher faith. The
continuity between this old temple at Zimbabwe, Stonehenge, and the
modern cathedral, is complete.
When one reviews the forms and practices, so far as they are known,
of the Semitic builders of the Great Zimbabwe, what a flood of light
shines in upon the history and worship of the Hebrews. The writings
of the Prophets live afresh, and the mystic chapters of Job become
full of pregnant meaning. A key is provided to the secret of Abraham
offering his son, to Jacob’s pile of stones, to Jephthah’s vow, to
the Syro-Phœnician woman’s conversation at the well, and to a hundred
points of biblical lore which would otherwise barely attract attention,
much less provoke interest. These old Semites—of whom the Hebrews were
a younger branch—stinted not their worship, and knew the ecstasy of
sacrifice. Their best beloved they gave—their dearest, in the belief
that the gift which was offered without a pang was not prized by
Deity. Bearing this in mind, the Old Testament is found to be replete
with unfailing interest, charm, and point; it becomes, in fact, a
marvellously new book even to the biblical student.
The builders of the temple at Zimbabwe have now, it is believed,
slept through three millenniums, if not four, yet the religious faith
of the Semitic family was so strong, so real, and so forceful, that
its ramifications can be found in the faith of the Christian Church
of to-day. Nor can this be wondered at. One has but to glance round
these temple walls to read in granite blocks the fact that to the
builders their religious faith was of primal importance. Here is
clearly envisaged the fact that to them their religion was very real,
so much so that were Europe devastated to-morrow, it could scarcely
show in proportion to its other buildings such monuments to religious
faith as can be seen in Rhodesia to-day. Their finest art, their best
constructive skill, and the patient labour of long years, were lavished
upon these buildings which thickly stud the country. Thoroughness and
devotion are written large on the orientated, massive, and grandly
sweeping walls of the Elliptical Temple at Great Zimbabwe. One cannot
call their faith “vain” when one realises that it led them out from
themselves towards something higher, while for them it must be
remembered the True Light had not shined. Struggling though blindly to
improve their relationship to Deity provided a no mean factor in the
religious progress of the world.
While these ancient Semitic colonisers of Rhodesia have slept their
many-centuried sleep, what epochs of the world’s history have come
and gone, and what empires have risen and decayed! Ah! see that
lichen-mantled granite block low down in the cyclopean wall. It has a
little chip of stone under one corner as if to steady it. The ancient
mason was a careful worker. The chip is still there to-day. One can
move it with a finger. Was it there when Moses led the Hebrews towards
the Promised Land, or there when young Joseph was sold as a slave into
Egypt? Who shall say? Civilisations have come and gone, but the chip is
there, and affords not merely an evidence of the careful mason, but a
sermon on the brevity of life, the utter smallness of pomp and power,
and the absolute absurdity of pride. Still the little granite chip has
served its purpose for some four thousand years, and it may yet be
there occupying its humble position at the end of the next millennium.
The oldest fanes of Europe, whether of Greece or Rome, cannot so
deeply move to awe-inspiring feeling as can the massive walls of the
temple at Zimbabwe, for these old empires are believed to have been
almost unborn when Zimbabwe was at its zenith. Thus the walls compel a
listening to their sermons.
As one strays through the Sacred Enclosure, thoughts come:—What were
the relative positions of magic and religion, especially in the
complicated and closely observed Phallic worship of these ancients;
whence the zodiacal, astronomical, and geometrical knowledge of the
builders; what of the touch of tragedy in their exodus or departure;
the exact meaning of the granite, slate, and carved soapstone monoliths
on the summits of the walls; the origin of the occupiers; was Rhodesia
the Havilah of Genesis; did it provide the Solomonic gold; of the close
kinship of these successful ancient gold-seekers from Yemen or Tyre and
Sidon to the Hebrews of Palestine; and of their intimate connection in
origin, language, and neighbourhood which Holy Writ abundantly declares
existed from the ninth chapter of Genesis until Paul preached in
Phœnicia?
Gazing at the Sacred Tower, one thinks of the Tower of Siloam, and of
the “high places” of Samaria, and of the times when even this form of
worship became the state religion of Judah under Ahaziah; and sitting
at the conjectured site of the ancient altar, where the writer has
found in numbers the stone emblems of their faith, thoughts arise of
the Bethel stones of the Hebrews, the Bethûl or “the dwelling-places
of God” of the Phœnicians, and the Penuel or “Face of God” of the
Midianites.
The Law of Moses adapts the rules and customs and ideas and forms of
worship of far greater antiquity than the Mosaic times. So the new
faith of every age borrows from the old, and the mighty processions of
civilisations and faiths which have encircled this earth from very far
back beyond the days of Abraham go on their even course.
But we must leave the temple and return to camp. There is still the
great Zimbabwe owl sitting on his favourite bough near the “high
place.” The six-foot python crawls in and out of the stones of the
ancient altar. Brightly coloured lizards bask on the once consecrated
walls. Blue jays, honey-birds, and doves here find a shelter. The
trees, orchid-clad and lichen-festooned, throw a weird shadow over all.
Possibly ancients are sleeping near.
As one passes out through the entrance into the full glare of an
African noontide, one feels as if one had just returned from the far
distant mystic past to modern life, for a naked Makalanga waits there
with the message that Sunday lunch was cooked and waiting.
• • • • •
_Midnight in an ancient temple._—It was the night of the full moon
nearest to Midsummer Day in the Southern Hemisphere, and towards
midnight the large population of Makalanga round Zimbabwe would be
celebrating the feast of the full moon with dancing, singing, and
_doro_ drinking. This was evidently a special feast, for its advent
had been the theme of conversation among our labourers for the past
fortnight, and, unlike the other feasts, it was held simultaneously in
each kraal, and not at different kraals in turn on alternate occasions.
At nine o’clock all was still and restful. There were no signs whatever
of the forthcoming festivities. Passing through Baranazimba’s kraal,
on the way to Havilah Camp at Zimbabwe, one found the population had
retired to rest. At Mogabe’s kraal the only sign of active life was
shown by the village dogs. The night was hot and close, and outside
the huts natives were sleeping, each in his blanket. Arrived at
Havilah Camp, one found a score of labourers, sublimely free from all
anxieties, sleeping on the bare granite outside their huts, but so
oppressive was the air that in their slumbers they had thrown off their
blankets, and were lying in every conceivable posture, and snoring and
talking in their sleep as if dancing and beer-drinking were matters
that had not the slightest interest for them. The large full moon
was yet some distance from its zenith, but the valleys were flooded
with a greenish-grey mistiness, which lay over the high grass and
ran up into the kloofs and gorges. The light made distant objects
distinctly visible, throwing a mantle of romance over every clump,
ridge, and kopje, while it was possible to read tolerably small print
without the aid of artificial light.
[Illustration: CONICAL TOWER AND PLATFORM (LOOKING SOUTH), ELLIPTICAL
TEMPLE, ZIMBABWE]
[Illustration: THE BALCONY, EASTERN TEMPLE, ACROPOLIS
THE PARAPET IS BUILT UPON THE SUSPENDED BOULDER]
For fully another hour the silence was unbroken. At last the desultory
beating of a village drum at Mogabe’s kraal was heard. Later a drum
was sounded at Chenga’s kraal, and another at Bingura’s kraal. The
villagers were waking up for the feast. One of our labourers sat up,
stretched himself and yawned, and commenced shaking his sleeping
comrades. Within a few minutes Havilah Camp was all life. One native
reached for his leggings of large nuts with dried kernels inside,
others a horn, flute, piano, or harp, but all took two knobkerries,
some having assegais. Those who possessed strings of wild-cat tails
tied them round their waists. The early hours of evening had been
devoted to greasing their bodies and limbs, and in the light of the
moon their skins shone like burnished metal. Then began a general
practising of dance steps, leapings, war-cries, and most hideous
howlings. Meanwhile quite a dozen drums were being sounded up on
Mogabe’s Kopje, and these were answered by similar numbers at Chenga’s
and the other kraals. Horns were blown, parties of Makalanga, singing
and shouting, were passing along the native tracks in front of our
camp, each party going to its own kraal. Soon our labourers left
in gangs for their respective villages and disappeared in the long
mist-covered grass. Being all young men with a superabundant fund
of spirits, they made a most fearful din in the course of their
progress homewards. By this time the Zimbabwe kopjes resounded with
singing, especially of girls’ singing, for the women-folk started the
festivities with screams and yells, and the loud beatings in three-two
time of innumerable drums. The great full moon was now fast approaching
its zenith. Our camp, save for the watch-men, the _kya_ (hut) boy, and
the picaninni, once more became still and lifeless.
Theodore Bent saw in these new and full-moon feasts some connection
with the cult of Nature Worship of the ancient Semites, who are
believed to have built these ruins and to have mined for gold in
Southern Rhodesia, as it is conjectured, some three thousand years
ago. The women, who at this moment are dancing in the villages,
have on their bare stomachs, worked into the skin, a “breast and
furrow pattern,” identical to that found on many of the oldest of
the prehistoric relics discovered in our ancient ruins, an undoubted
emblem, Bent contended, of the ancient conception of Fertility. The
men who will be dancing have worked in their skins, mainly in bands
round their waists, the three radiating bars, similar in form to the
Welsh bardic emblem of the Origin of Life. The articles they will
wield in their dancing are carved with chevron pattern, one of the
most ancient of all emblems of Fertility. But although the flesh
decorations are now merely luck signs, neither man nor woman would on
any account be without them. With these signs they say they will not
be sick, will have plenty of wives and boys to work for them, and many
girls on account of whom to receive _lobola_ (marriage present to the
father—practically purchase money). Anon, in the pauses of the dance,
they will drink beer from pots with herring-bone pattern encircling the
lips, a beer made of red millet, prepared, says Bent, in the same way
and known by the same name as the beer prepared in Arabia to-day, where
its methods of preparation and its name have been handed down from
immemorial age.
But to-night will be the finest opportunity for the next twelve months
of seeing the Elliptical Temple by moonlight. Sleep this hot, close
night is impossible, especially with the sounds of noisy revelry
proceeding simultaneously from all points of the compass. My native
boy is disinclined to follow me to the temple, but after bargaining
with him for an _Isi-hle_ (present), he at last grudgingly consents.
He mutters something about the place being bewitched, that there are
many horrid things there, and alludes to the _M’uali_, the chief spirit
of Makalanga awe and dread; but as within the two years’ residence at
Zimbabwe I have only discovered two natives, and these elderly men, who
would willingly go into any of the ruins, especially the temple, after
darkness had settled down, I am not at all surprised at his reluctance
to follow me there. However, he is mindful to take his stoutest
knobkerries with him.
Looking back at the Acropolis Hill, and at its long line of precipice,
one sees the ancient walls on the summit gleaming white in the
moonlight, while the tall monoliths stand clear against the sky. In
the passages on the hill one might almost expect on such a night to
come face to face with Rider Haggard’s She at any corner, or to see
her draped form issuing from one of the numerous caves which still
pierce the cliffs. But we must turn our backs on the Acropolis Hill,
and make for the Elliptical Temple, passing the little graveyard
where the remains of Major Alan Wilson and his Shangani heroes rest
in their granite tomb in the grove of euphorbia trees, whose branches
cast black, sharp-cut shadows on the ground. Then across an open
granite space, and up the long parallel passage on the east side of
Ridge Ruins, out through its intricate southern entrance, and on to
the level ground which runs up to the foot of the temple walls. The
clumps of tall, old-world-looking aloes and euphorbia trees lining the
walls of No. 1 Ruins on the left of our path appear strange even by
daylight, but in the midnight radiance of the full moon they assume
intensely weird and fantastic forms thoroughly in harmony with the
outlines of the ancient buildings. The lonely grave of Thomas Bailey,
an Australian gold prospector, lies close to the right-hand side of
the path. He died in 1893 while searching for relics within the temple.
The temple walls covered with white lichen appear to have been
whitewashed for centuries, and these gleam brightly with light in
distinct contrast to the dark veld and bush from which they rise; and
so white are they that at a fair distance one can see every course,
block, and joint in their dry masonry. The broad bases of the walls
in comparison with the widths of their summits—though a full-sized
wagon and a team of sixteen oxen could stand upon the top of the more
substantial portion of the walls—their sloping sides, and the utter
absence of any feature of any style of architecture known in Western
Europe, lend a strikingly Eastern appearance to the building, which is
sufficient in itself to forcibly take one’s mind back some two or three
thousand years. Meanwhile the noise of village drums, the blowing of
horns, and the deep wild choruses of crowds of men, mingled with the
voices of women and girls, were waxing louder and more incessant as
midnight approached.
Standing in No. 5 Enclosure, just within the west entrance, the
interior of the temple is seen to be full of light and shadow. But all
is serenely calm and still as if possessed by the silence of the grave.
The high, massive walls encircling the temple deaden to faintness the
voices of the villagers. The close air, heavy with the scent of verbena
wafted in from the veld, is oppressive in the extreme. An inexplicable
sensation of trespassing in forbidden precincts possesses one. The
native looks scared. Midnight visits to ruins are not his particular
fancy.
Certainly the many visitors who travel hundreds, if not thousands, of
miles to view these ruins, and who only see them by the glare of day,
miss nine-tenths of the charm, fascination, and inspiration which the
walls of the temple at Zimbabwe have in store for those who walk its
courts in the stillness of the night when the midsummer moon is at the
full. This is the time to see Zimbabwe aright, for Zimbabwe by day and
Zimbabwe by night presents two entirely different aspects.
Trees throw gigantic shadows on the walls and darken the inner
courts, and the floors are chequered by moonbeams shining through
the foliage overhead. One somehow becomes possessed with the idea
that these walls are peopled with the spirits of prehistoric age,
who are moving, as of old, about the temple floors and passages,
still performing their ancient priestly offices. The movement of
every shadow against the walls suggests the passing from point to
point of some three-millenniumed spectral form, too engrossed in its
sacred avocations to heed the mortal presence of two strangers of the
twentieth century after Christ. Would that these hoary-aged walls could
speak and tell us of the scenes which took place here when the Great
Zimbabwe was in all its glory! Assuredly a midnight hour spent in this
ancient temple overwhelms one with most novel sensations, some slightly
queer and shivery, others awe-inspiring and soul-stirring.
While still standing just inside the west entrance some thoughts
suggest themselves. The ancients being Nature worshippers of one of
the earliest cults, so says Bent, had sought in the erection of their
temple to compel the concentration of thought on the heavens alone, for
even the reduced heights of the summits of the walls, averaging from 22
ft. to 31 ft., shut off, except for gaps, all views of the surrounding
landscape. Nothing is visible save the moon and a skyful of silent,
glittering stars. The Pleiades, by the rising and setting of which the
Makalanga mark their sowing and harvesting, are sinking towards the
W.N.W. horizon, and Orion, which is prominent in the star-pictures
of the natives, is following down in their wake. A large area of the
sky is hidden by the bright radiance of the full moon. But such high
massive walls enclosing the temple, and limiting the view to the sky
alone, strike the mind of the stranger unread in the lore of ancient
Semitic faiths as the purposed design of the ancient architects,
especially so when it is recollected that some of the ancient floors
are at a much lower level than the interiors as seen to-day. And just
as Britishers in Rhodesia unconsciously turn their gaze at night
towards the stars which lie low near the northern horizon, so in the
contracted view afforded by the temple walls we can well imagine that
during their midnight vigils the eyes of the ancient colonists from
the north would, as naturally, frequently and lingeringly glance over
the northern wall to gaze on stars known to them in their Homeland. It
may be noted, too, that the ancients, as conjectured by Bent and other
writers, do not appear to have been greatly interested in the alien
stars of the Southern Hemisphere, for in all the ruins in Rhodesia,
so far as discoveries have been made, there are no massive stone arcs
surmounted with monoliths with mural decorations of old-world emblems
of fertility on their outer faces, and with the raised platforms
approached by steps, facing towards the south, for all such that are
known are directed to some other point of the compass.
Small fragments of granite chips from ancient blocks lie about the
floor, and these gleam like stars on the dark ground, and have
light-haloes of their own. These suggest the splendid sight these
ancient walls must have been when all the newly dressed granite
blocks in the faces of the walls sparkled as they must once have done
as the fragments gleamed in this glorious moonlight. The walls must
have glittered like a fairy palace, as did the castle walls of lordly
Camelot. To-day we approach the temple on the same level as the veld,
the ground outside having been raised to this level by the silt of
ages, but the recently discovered granite cement floors outside the
building show that the ancients had to ascend some five feet or more
to gain the threshold of the entrance. With such higher elevation for
its walls, the temple, when freshly built, or perhaps for centuries
afterwards, must have been on moonlit nights a most bewitching sight of
splendour. But its glories to-night are those which it has gained from
the hand of Time.
But on gaining the central area of the building the inexplicable
sensations awakened by the weird and strange surroundings and past
associations are intensified, and one’s nerves are forced to be more
alive to anything unusual happening. Large bats and night-moths fly
unpleasantly close to one’s face. Treading on a rotten stick, and the
falling of large dry leaves which rattle on the stones below, make
noises sufficient to cause one to turn round expecting the approach
of some ancient spectre. A frog in some dark and dank corner startles
one with a loud croak of “_Work!_” The hoot of an owl makes the native
start. A low moaning, soughing wind now springing up sweeps round the
temple and rustles in the upper branches of the trees.
The temple is now lovely in the extreme. The shadows on the walls are
now in quick movement. Fireflies swing their tiny lamps over dark
enclosures. The white radiance of the moonlight completely invests the
conical tower, its intense whiteness being heightened by the large,
thick, and dark-foliaged trees on either side. If but Time’s hour-glass
were turned back for some long centuries’ space, what tales could not
this tower unfold, what secrets of ancient faiths disclose!
One passes down the ancient stairs, lately uncovered, which lead into
the Sacred Enclosure, and finds the long, deep-sunk Parallel Passage
wrapt in sepulchral darkness, and realises the force of the dark lore
of ancient priestcraft and of prayers muttered at midnight. It is
pleasant to regain the interior of the temple, where broad streams
of moonlight flood its surface. Seated on the east wall of No. 10
Enclosure, and immediately facing the conical tower, one has a good
view all round the temple. Under the dark shades of walls and trees
a hundred spectres might be lurking unseen. Amidst such surroundings
a score of ancient scenes are pictured in one’s mind—the approaching
priests with processional chant emerging through the north entrance
from the Sacred Enclosure, the salutation to the emblems of the gods,
the light of altar fire and torch reflected upon the walls and upon
the sacred golden fillets bound round the brows of the priest, the
incense-laden air, the subdued murmurings of the waiting crowd of
worshippers, the invocations of the deity by priests who stand upon the
high raised platform in front of the conical tower, the mystic rites,
dark enchantments, and the pious orgies. The very air feels as if it
were teeming with mystery and midnight loneliness. Here appear to rise
“_the thin throng of ghosts ... with beckoning hands and noiseless feet
flitting from shade to shade_.”
The rising wind now wafts into the ancient shrine the confused
shouting, singing, tom-tom beating, and general clamour of the natives
dancing in the villages on the hills around. The air has become
decidedly cooler. One is glad to have visited the temple at this hour.
It is one of the experiences of a lifetime.
• • • • •
_The Acropolis at sunset._—In the soft sunlight of a glorious late
afternoon, when calm broods over all and a profound solitude invests
the immense panorama of valley, mountain, and sea of jagged kopje
ranges as beheld from the summit of the Acropolis Hill some 300 ft. at
least above the Zimbabwe Valley, one views a scene of indescribable
loveliness. The sharp-cut ranges of hills, deep gorges flanked by
cliffs, great crags of rock, and the long and broad Moshagashi Valley
with its scattered kraals and patches of native plantations are all as
silent as sleep.
The Acropolis itself is still. The long and labyrinthine passages give
back no echoes. The temple courts are empty. The tall monoliths, like
ghostly sentinels, point upwards to the sky, and the sunlight is fast
fading on the ancient dentelle pattern at the Western Temple. These
massive ruins, once teeming with a dense and busy population of Semitic
colonists of prehistoric times, with their innumerable evidences of
Phallic worship and extensive gold-smelting operations, are as quiet as
the grave. The cry of a baboon, or scream of an eagle returning to its
eyrie high up on the cliffs above the Eastern Temple, alone break the
impressive silence enfolding one of the greatest archæological wonders
of the Southern Hemisphere.
At this height and on a hill so isolated from its neighbours, and
just at sunset when shadows are already gathering in the deep defiles
in the cliffs upon its summit, an inexpressible sensation of intense
loneliness and solitude asserts itself. No other human foot will tread
these ancient approaches to the Acropolis till the sun has risen once
again. There is no white man round about for miles, and the natives
will not venture near the ruins after sunset. Two hours ago the herd
was mindful to drive the goats from the high points on the face of
the hill down into the valley. The natives will solemnly inform the
stranger that as night approaches the spirits of their departed
ancestors buried in the caves of the hill awaken, that the ruins are
then bewitched. It may be easily understood that in minds made craven
with centuries of slavery to a succession of invaders, and haunted,
till the last decade, with constant dread of Swazi and Matabele raids,
the standard of Makalanga valour is low indeed, and that at nights they
shun these scenes of ancient life is not in the least surprising.
Ascending the hill through the sunless Rock Passage, the air is cool
and draughty, but on emerging at the upper end one is faced by the rich
blinding glow of the setting sun, and here the air is still warm. As
we pass through the Western Enclosure and through the gap in the main
west wall of the Western Temple, a view down the sheer drop of the
hill into the valley below presents itself. The Elliptical Temple is
just losing its last faint touches of the golden tint of sunset. The
“Valley of Ruins” is already in shadow, and its chaos of walls looks
now even more chaotic and bewildering than it did in the full light of
day. Mogabe’s cattle wending their way up Makuma Kopje to the kraal for
the night, the bleating of sheep and goats already penned, the far-away
talk of women and girls returning from collecting firewood with their
bundles on their heads, and the laughter of small parties of natives
returning homewards from their plantations, all speak of departing
day. The lofty lichened sides of Lumbo Rocks are still bright orange
in the sunset, but the nearer side of the Bentberg has become dark and
black in shadow, showing up the walls of the Elliptical Temple in the
foreground with striking clearness. The long ravine of Schlichter Gorge
is now blurred in grey distances, while the Motelekwe and Mowishawasha
valleys have already lost the sun for some minutes. The kopjes cast the
same backgammon-board-shaped shadows across the valleys just as they
did three and four thousand years ago when the tired ancients watched
the drawing-in of day.
But turning a glance round to the Western Temple, still at this height
bathed in golden sheen, one sees only the ancient walls and passages
silent and deserted. This area might have been a busy spot for the
ancient occupiers at this hour of the day, for monoliths, decorative
mural patterns, and conical towers are now all aglow with sunset
brightness, and here at this time of day, as the shadow of the slanting
granite beam fades on the dentelle pattern on the platform, they might
have read as on a dial face, in light and shade, the progress of
the season of the year. The call to prayers and the chanting of the
evening hymn of the devout at sunset might at this same hour very many
centuries ago have rung round the selfsame hallowed walls which look
down sphinx-like and blankly upon the modern visitor.
It is easy to fashion a tale of ancient scenes in such a spot and ’mid
such surroundings. Such a scene may have been—the parties of ancient
worshippers approaching the temple up the Higher Parapet or by the
sunken passage in the Platform Enclosure, or along the East Passage,
filling the amphitheatre and watching the bringing of the sacred
vessels possibly from the now dank and evil-smelling Platform Cave to
some spot near the centre of the temple, perchance at the centre of the
arc of the great curved wall, which is directed towards the setting
sun; the disappearance of the priests through the Covered Passage and
their reappearance on the Platform, which faces west and overlooks
the interior of the temple, or listening to priestly orations, the
announcement of the actual sunset to the worshippers. Possibly, too,
the chief priest may have announced the commencement of the “Feast of
the New Moon.”
At this moment the “boys” in Havilah Camp are yelling and dancing most
frantically. Something unusual must have happened to cause the sudden
outbreak of unearthly din. Right in the dazzling glow of the sun, and
low down in the sky, and barely discernible by the eye of white men,
is the slender silver scimitar of the young moon. A noisy night of
beer-drinking, dancing and singing, and tom-tom beating will follow.
But the dank smell of decay has now usurped the place of the
sweet-smelling incense of the ancient ritual. The monoliths still point
upwards, but who to-day can explain their plan and purpose, or read the
silent intimations their shadows were wont to convey?
The associations of the ruins of the Hill Fortress lie even more with
the ancient military occupiers than with those of priests and worship.
Traverses, buttresses, screen walls, intricate entrances, narrow and
sunken passages, rampart walls, banquettes, parapets, and all other
devices of a people conversant with military engineering and defence,
are in great evidence all over the hill. These in their ingenuity,
massive character, and persistent repetition at every point of vantage,
baffle and astonish the best experts of modern military engineering
science. The ancients were military strategists, and the Acropolis a
stronghold, and its most prominent feature was defence.
At this sunset hour no companies of ancient soldiery descend from
the fort (East Ruins), at the foot of the Ancient Ascent, to relieve
guard and take up their night watches on the wall barriers. In the
now dim and scanty twilight one can wander at will through the two
hill temples, the residential quarters, and into the caves which once
might have held the gold stores of this part of the country. There is
no officer on duty to challenge one’s approach. The sentry recesses
in the narrow passages and at the entrances appear singularly empty.
Fate finally came to relieve guard many centuries past, eventually
permitting some semi-civilised Abantu people, such as the Makalanga, or
“People of the Sun,” to desecrate the ancient temple floors with their
copper and iron furnaces and bone and ash débris heaps. But the lively
bustling crowds of ancients and of mediæval Makalanga, who both in
turn, and for very long periods, densely populated Zimbabwe Hill, are
no more.
One passes along shoulder-wide and tortuous passages, where at every
corner one might expect to come face to face with Rider Haggard’s She,
and enters some enclosure whose sides are formed by the perpendicular
flanks of cliffs and boulders, where the ancients fashioned their gold
into beads, wire, plates, and ingots. The intricate entrance still
guards the spot where gold crucibles, beaten gold, and gold burnishing
tools of the ancient artificers have been found in profusion. There is
now no sound of hammering the precious metal on the rounded dolorite
anvils, nor reddish glow of light on the cliff sides, as when the
furnace was uncovered for the removal of the heated crucibles. The
prehistoric workshop is now desolate and damp, and a fitting spot for
the loathsome, crawling creatures which inhabit its dark recesses.
But daylight is dying fast. Glancing down through the gaps in the outer
walls are seen specks of firelight at near and remote kraals where the
evening meal is being prepared, and round which the advent of the new
moon will soon be celebrated. An adjoining cave with yawning depth
and dense blackness does not now appear particularly inviting to the
visitor, and yet here relic-seekers unanimously declare was where the
ancients kept large stores of gold dust. The Eastern Temple is in
semi-darkness, but as one crosses its floor one sees the hole from
which some fifty phalli were taken, and the exact spots from which
soapstone birds were removed. Here was the site, as Bent conjectured,
of the ancient altar. In this temple, it is believed, the ancients
celebrated their daybreak ritual, for the arc of the main wall
decorated with dentelle pattern, and on which once stood some of the
soapstone birds, faces the rising of the sun. Passing along Central
Passage, which is perpetually in shadow owing to huge tall boulders
on either side, but is now in deepest blackness, crossing Cleft Rock
Enclosure, and descending the sunken passage to the outer face of the
great west wall of the Western Temple, one arrives where a slight
afterglow of the sunset still lingers over the brow of Rusivanga.
Again one enters into the deep shadow of a sunken and earth-smelling
passage with high side walls, and so rapidly descends the north-west
face of the hill, glad to emerge once more into the cool fresh air
at a lower level of some 100 ft. High in the west is Venus, the
evening star, shining brightly—Venus, or _Almaq_, “illuminating,”
the goddess of the earlier star-worshipping Sabæans of Yemen, whose
worship the best-qualified scientists believe was practised by the
original builders of Zimbabwe. She complacently shines down upon her
ruined shrines, and wonders doubtless why these natives should convert
the sacred emblems of her worship into pipe-bowls for smoking hemp.
The Pleiades have set, for the harvest time is almost over. Orion is
sinking towards the western horizon as if with disgust at the land
where mere Kafirs[21] call him “The little pig and two dogs.”
CHAPTER III
A DAY AT HAVILAH CAMP, ZIMBABWE
Early to bed, our Makalanga labourers are proportionately early to
rise, and as soon as there is sufficient light to enable them to see
they are up, stretching their limbs, waking the echoes of the valley
with their noisy yawnings, which jar on the lilt of the dawn-anthems of
the birds, and sit crouching round fires with their blankets over their
shoulders.
The sun will soon be coming up behind the blue Beroma Range, just
over the romantically shaped rocks at Chenga’s kraal. The peaks of
the range are already edged with the fire of the coming light. At
last a notched portion of the sun appears over the distant mountain
heights. Now everything is coloured crimson. The granite cliffs and
massive boulders, the tall grass, the ruined walls, even the mules
outspanned in the valley in front of the camp, are all crimson. The
usually dirty-coloured grass roofs of the huts are for some minutes
most gorgeously beautified. For the only time in the day the dentelle
pattern on the conical tower and on the eastern face of the Eastern
Temple, the chevron pattern on the Elliptical Temple, and the huge
herring-bone pattern on the ancient water gate, and certain of the
slate and granite monoliths, are fully bathed in rich sunshine. Other
ancient decorative patterns on the walls will have the full sun shining
upon them only at midday, while others will only be fully sun-bathed as
the sun is setting.
But at present everything is crimson. The wreaths of mist which lie
over the tall grass filling the valleys, and which just before were
blue, now connect kopje and kopje, making the Acropolis and other
summits crimson isles rising from out a crimson sea. The only objects
that decline to take on the prevailing tint are some old-world-looking
trees with green, metallic leaves. Were the picture of Zimbabwe with
this misty colouring resting over it reproduced on canvas the artist
would at once be condemned as extravagant. But Nature has more than one
colour on her palette. The crimson melts in a rich golden hue which
succeeds it. The cliffs, grass hut-roofs, and mist-wreaths become
golden. The mules are transformed to gold, and the battered old wagon
looks for once quite respectable with its golden buck-sail. But the
gold in its turn also fades, the mist-veils lift and melt away, and
the land once more regains its wonted tawny, sun-bathed appearance so
suggestive of lions.
Day has not yet had a fair chance to become commonplace, but in
Havilah Camp life is beginning to stir. Three naked boys have gone to
the spring for water, others collect wood, clean the pots, and draw
_rapoka_ meal and salt from the stores, while a tall pillar of bright
blue smoke ascends in the still air from the boys’ fire. From our
height can be seen a score of native villages, each with its column of
blue smoke.
Two or three sit by the _Isafuba_ game-holes, and of course
disputations at once ensue. Others settle down to work of their own,
such as grass-hat making, carving sticks with chevron patterns, drying
tobacco leaves, crushing snuff, dressing skins, or performing the
duties of barbers. The boys are most industrious when engaged upon
their own work. Others are off to inspect their bird and game traps, of
which they seem to have at least a hundred within a short distance from
the camp, while the rest sit and watch whatever happens to be going on.