J. Theodore Bent

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

“ The natives, living as they do in their hill-set villages on the top of the granite kopjes, are nimble as goats, cowardly yet friendly to the white stranger. They are constantly engaged in intertribal wars, stealing each other’s women and cattle when opportunity occurs, and never dreaming of uniting against the common enemy, the Zulu, during whose periodical raids they perch themselves on the top of their inaccessible rocks, and look down complacently on the burning of their huts, the pillaging of their granaries, and the appropriation of their cattle. ”

“ Chief Makoni never came to see us, and as our time was limited we had to hurry away without making his acquaintance.
Almost immediately on leaving Makoni’s our road began to descend, and we entered upon a series of richly wooded gorges, flanked by gigantic granite cliffs. On one of these pinnacles, about the height of Makoni’s own kraal, is perched Chigono’s village, occupying a most wonderful position. How they ever manage to drag up here a sufficiency of water and the necessaries of life is a marvel. One thing they have in perfection is climate. ”

“ It is curious to see a set of natives asleep, like sardines in a box, one black naked lump of humanity; if one turns or disturbs the harmony of the pie they all get up and swear at him and settle down again. One man is always told off to watch the fire to keep off wild beasts, and then when morning comes they pack their belongings, their treasures of bark, mice, and caterpillars, and start off along the narrow path in single file at a tremendous pace, silent for a while, and then bursting forth into song, looking for all the world like a procession of black caterpillars themselves. ”

“ Mapanda’s is, indeed, a sorry place: not a tree to give one shade, only a store or two, built of that unsightly corrugated iron so much beloved by the early colonists of South Africa, and a few daub huts. It is a paradise only for those who arrive weary and worn from the interior, and for the sportsman, affording him a pied-à-terre in the very midst of the land where ‘the deer and the antelope roam.’ It has, however, certain points on which it justly prides itself. ”

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

“ The labyrinthine character of the interior will be best grasped by a glance at the plan. Entering from the northern portal, we at once plunge into its intricacies. The great and astounding feature is the long narrow passage leading direct from the main entrance to the sacred enclosure, so narrow in parts that two people cannot walk abreast, whilst on either side of you rise the stupendous walls, thirty feet in height, and built with such evenness of courses and symmetry that as a specimen of the dry builder’s [111] art it is without a parallel. ”

“ At an elevation of five hundred feet above our waggons were the mud huts of the people, and up here every night they drive their cattle into extraordinary rock stables for safety. Perched on the rocks are countless circular granaries, constructed of bright red mud and thatched with grass. One would think that a good storm of wind would blow them all away, so frail do they seem. ”

“ On the top of a strangely serrated ridge of mountains behind the village is a deserted Portuguese fort, and a flagstaff with nothing floating therefrom.
Beyond Chimoia’s the streams grow more sluggish, and emit more fœtid odours, suggestive of fevers. Ragged-leaved bananas, bamboos, and tree-ferns luxuriate in all these streams, which work their way in deep channels, or dongas, across the level country. ”

“ Now Sechele is very old and very crippled, and he lies amid the wreck of all his European grandeur; chandelier, sideboard, gazogene, are all in ruins like himself, and he is as big a heathen and as big a sinner as ever wore a crown. So much for the influence of women over their husbands, even when they are black.
Sebele, the heir apparent, does all the executive work of the country now, and the old man is left at home to chew his sugar-cane and smoke his pipe. Around the villages and in the hollow below the native gardens or fields are very fertile ”

“ The lion of ’Mtoko is the totem of the tribe. We asked the old priest if we should get into trouble if we shot a lion whilst in his country. ‘If a lion attacks you,’ he replied, ‘you may shoot it, for it could not be one of ours; our lions will do the white man no harm, for they are our friends.’ There was a charming amount of dignity and sophistry about the old Mondoro. We felt that he was a far better man to rule the country than his nervous, superstitious nephew. ”

“ But the greatest parody of all is at Sarmento itself, a Portuguese settlement on the banks of the Pungwe. Here two handsome coaches, made expressly in New Hampshire, in America, for the occasion, lie deserted near the Portuguese huts. They are richly painted with arabesques and pictures on the panels; ‘Pungwe route to Mashonaland’ is written thereon in letters of gold. The comfortable cushions inside are being moth-eaten, and the approaching rains will complete the ruin of these handsome but ill-fated vehicles. ”

“ On one of the few flat spaces in the village is kept the village drum, or ‘tom-tom,’ constantly in use for dances. One day we found the women of the village hard at work enjoying themselves round this drum, dancing a sort of war dance of their own. It was a queer sight to see these women, with deep furrows on their naked stomachs, rushing to and fro, stooping, kneeling, shouting, brandishing battle axes and assegais, and going through all the pantomime of war, until at last one of these Amazons fell into hysterics, and the dance was over. ”

“ In the centre was an erection for our cocks and hens, but even from here the jackals occasionally contrived to steal one or two. Around the whole camp ran a skerm, or hedge, of grass, which latter adjunct gave a comfortable and concentrated feeling to it all. Outside our circle the native workmen erected for themselves three or four huts, into which they all huddled at night like so many sardines in a tin. Around us in every direction grew the tall, wavy grass of the veldt, rapidly approaching the time when it can be burnt. ”

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

“ Far up the ravine is the missionary’s house, itself a ruin overlooking the ruined town. Baboons, and owls, and vicious wasps now inhabit the rooms where Moffat lived and Livingstone stayed. There is not a vestige of human life now to be seen within miles of Shoshong, which was, three years ago, the capital of one of the most enlightened chiefs of South Africa. ”

“ On another occasion, [76] whilst visiting some ruins in a lovely dale about eight miles from Zimbabwe, we were treated to another sort of dance by the women of a neighbouring village. The chief feature in the performance was a grotesque one, and consisted of smacking their furrowed stomachs and long hanging breasts in measured cadence with the movements of their feet, so that the air resounded with the noise produced.
As for the men, they are for ever dancing, either a beer drink, the new moon, or simple, unfeigned joviality being the motive power. ”

“ At nightfall they cut grass and branches to make a shelter from the wind; they eat snakes, tortoises, and roots which they dig up with sharp bits of wood, and the contents of their food bags is revolting to behold. They pay tribute in kind to the above-mentioned chiefs—skins, feathers, tusks, or the mahatla berries used for making beer—and if these things are not forthcoming they take a fine-grown boy and present him to the chief as his slave.
Sechele is the chief of the Ba-quaina, or children of the quaina, or crocodile. ”

“ These forests around Zimbabwe are lovely to wander in, with feathery festoons of lichen, like a fairy scene at a pantomime; outside the forests are long stretches of coarse grass, towering above our heads in many cases, and horrible to have to push through, especially after a fall of rain. ”

“ It was immediately on crossing the Lundi River, the threshold of the country as it were, that we were introduced to the first of the long series of ancient ruins which formed the object of our quest. By diligent search amongst the gigantic remains at Zimbabwe we were able to repeople this country with a race highly civilised in far distant ages, a race far advanced in the art of building and decorating, a gold-seeking race who occupied it like a garrison in the midst of an enemy’s country. ”

“ Chimoia’s kraal is a sort of half-way halt, where all waggons are now left before entering the much-dreaded ‘fly belt;’ and here my wife parted reluctantly with her horse, and transferred herself and her saddle to the back of one of the three loose asses which accompanied our cart. Most people seem to have two or three asses in their train, for fear of being utterly helpless in case of the desertion of their blacks, and all are prepared for their ultimate demise, either by the violence of the lion or the bite of the fly. ”

“ Crowds of men and women from Zamopera came to visit us; wild-looking people they were—the men with long matted hair hanging like a fringe over their faces, and hung with beads and cowrie-shells, whilst the women here cut off all their hair except a circle in the middle, which is short and threaded with beads in seven rows, four of white outside and three of red in the centre, looking exactly like round bead mats on the top of their heads. ”

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

“ These mountains are regular and beautiful in outline, and refresh the eye after it has grown wearied of the grotesque forms of the granite hills. The soil on the stratified rocks is more fertile than it is on the granite, and the vegetation is more charming; the very coarse grasses of the granite soils being replaced by many flowering plants.
The ruins which have just been described are all built on granite, but are generally within a short distance of the quartz formation; and the ruins at Zimbabwe are situated four miles from the southern edge of the quartz belt. ”

“ Deer of every conceivable species are to be seen still quietly grazing within shot of the road; buffaloes, zebras, lions, hyenas, wild pigs, nay, even the elephant, may be found in this corner of the world. Disappointed as the sportsman may have been with the results of his exploits in Mashonaland and the high veldt, he will be amply rewarded for the fatigues of his journey to Beira by finding himself in a country which would appear to produce all the kinds of wild animals that came to Adam for their names. ”