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.

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.

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.

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).

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.