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.

Down the side of Makuma Kopje, where Mogabe’s kraal is situated, come young men in twos and threes, some of them with musical instruments, such as Makalanga pianos, a flute, and a one-stringed harp with gourd attached to increase the sound, and of course all are singing. These on descending Makuma disappear in the ten-foot grass which fills the valley till they are near the camp. Other young men come from Chenga’s kraal in the opposite direction two miles away. These latter are the boys to work. Our best workmen come from Chenga’s, for Mogabe’s men have not been improved by tips and favours from visitors to the ruins; besides, belonging to the kraal of the paramount and dynastic chief, they deem themselves to be somewhat superior to all direction or reprimand by white men. Though Mogabe’s people know “how to be happy though Makalanga,” Chenga’s people seem to be even more genuinely contented with their environment.

By 7 a.m. the camp is in full life, and all the boys are present with at least a dozen brothers and followers. The trap-owners have returned with rats, small birds, and possibly a rock-rabbit. A boy is given a note to take to Victoria, seventeen miles distant. He places the letter and his pass in a cleft stick, holds it out in front of him, and is off. He will be back in camp an hour after sundown, perhaps bringing a load of 35 lbs. on his head. A thirty-four miles’ journey is preferred to a day’s work in the temple, so that there are always willing runners into Victoria. There are eggs, poultry, milk, honey, melons, pumpkins, rice, and sweet potatoes for sale or barter for salt, and these can always be obtained for half the original price asked for them.

Then there are burns to be dressed, quinine to be administered, or a lung-sick boy to be dosed. The “Parade State of the Malingering Brigade” is carefully kept down to the lowest possible limit. One is amazed at the way the boys bear their injuries. A severe wound which would put an ordinary European on the sick list is to them a mere trifle, and without flinching they will take a burning stick from the fire and rub it up and down inside a gaping flesh wound till the bleeding has ceased. Should any one of them meet with serious injury, the rest will laugh immensely as if it were a huge joke. In this respect they are very callous. Toothache, a cold, or a slight touch of fever renders them most pitiable objects. The soles of their feet resemble hides, and one or two large thorns which would completely lame a European is a matter almost too insignificant for them to notice. They think nothing of standing on hot burning embers while lighting their pipes at a fire. On cold nights they sleep near a fire and will roll into it, but they are such remarkably sound sleepers that it is not until the next morning they discover they have been burnt. How they manage to save their skins from thorn scratches is a mystery, for all day they are walking with naked bodies through bushes and thorn creepers. Yet their skins are beautifully smooth and glossy, and are always without the slightest scratch.

But the pots of rapoka meal under the euphorbia trees are now being stirred, and each pot has its circle of men to whom dyspepsia appears to be utterly unknown. Sometimes the boys bring a sack of dried locusts. Locusts are esteemed as a dainty, and make an occasional change in the menu, or possibly small red beans, or monkey-nuts, or toasted mealie cobs are feasted upon. While the meal is being devoured one could hardly imagine there was a native within a mile. The stillness of skoff-times (meal-times) in camp serves the purposes of a well-regulated chronometer. Teeth-cleaning is their first business of the day. On rising from sleep and after each meal this is religiously performed. Each takes a mouthful of water and rubs his teeth vigorously with a forefinger, using what water is still remaining in his mouth to wet the skin of face, neck, breast, and hands, squirting it out in doles as required. To hurry them back to work before their teeth had been cleaned would cause them to regard the Baba with looks of genuine horror.

At 7 a.m. the ganger, a man who has worked in the ruins for Bent, Willoughby, and Schlichter, comes to the hut door to report that the men are now ready to start work. Then follows the roll-call, each raising his hand and passing on one side to a separate group as his name is read out. A boy absent for two days on account of alleged sickness is reported to have gone to a distant kraal to attend a “beer dance” where he danced the whole night through. A fine is entered against him. Makalanga split on one another in a fashion which English schoolboys would never permit. Our fines are rarely enforced, but the mere entering them in the book has a most wholesome effect.

One feature in the roll-call generally strikes visitors as interesting, that is, the rhythmic sound of the names of the boys. To an Englishman these names would appear to be more suitable for girls than for men. In fact, all the names of the men are pretty, so pretty that it seems inappropriate to apply them to great fellows like some of our labourers. But like their ideally graceful and poetic gestures, while pronouncing each other’s names they unconsciously manage to throw into the pronunciation a delicate softness, rhythm of intonation, and charm of expression that are rather fascinating to the European listener. An Englishman totally unacquainted with the local language, and wrongly pronouncing the names, could not rob them of their poetry.

The roll completed, all set off in Indian file either to the Elliptical Temple or the Acropolis, singing in chorus in a Tyrolese style, one man giving the recitative, which is almost always of a purely extempore and local character. When once within the ruins, blankets are thrown off and the forty boys make, with a background of light-coloured, lichen-draped walls, a dark mass of humanity, for, save their insignificant aprons fastened with a bark string to their waists, and their necklaces of blue beads and amulets, and brass bangles on arm and leg, they are practically naked, and the sun shines on their glossy chocolate-tinted skins as on burnished metal. The Makalanga have exceedingly strong social instincts, and prefer to work together in one mass even in a small area. To separate them into small gangs would mean little or no work done.

On wet days, or for a few succeeding days, the work is confined to carrying out blocks, which have either fallen from the walls or been piled up by the long succession of archÆologists and gold relic collectors who have worked within the ruins. These are carried held up high over their shoulders at arms’ length, or else on the tops of their heads, where natives carry anything from the size of a pill-box to a 40 lb. load. They never carry anything with arms downwards. In fine weather, leaf mould full of roots and seeds, and past excavators’ soil-heaps are removed outside in boxes, the narrow entrances precluding the general use of wheelbarrows. Relics would be lost in the wet and clayey soil were it removed in wet weather. All the boys work en masse, each picks up his box or block, and when all are loaded up they start in one unbroken line for the dÉbris heap outside, singing choruses with recitatives all the way out and on their return. The boxes are carried on one shoulder, a knobkerrie being used as a lever over the other shoulder to hold up the back of the box. The procession of boxes seems interminable—“Milkmaid,” “Armour Beef,” “Lime Juice Cordial,” “Highland Whisky,” “Raisins,” “Coleman’s,” “Mazawattee,” supplemented by buckets, but above all by “Nectar Tea.” Each box has a branded notice uncomplimentary to ships’ boilers. But “Nectar” is the great triumph of Zimbabwe.

It is a huge box, carried on two short poles, with “Nectar Tea” emblazoned on its sides in blue and white. It courtsies and bobs its way to and fro in a most stately fashion, and after it has left the pile which is being removed, a great reduction in the dÉbris remaining can be noticed. The boys have no particular affection for this omnibus. They are believed to bulala (knock about) this box on purpose to ruin it, for several times a day they will bring it with no sorrow on their faces with the information that the box is meningi gura (plenty sick), each time fatally gura, but a few nails cure it of its injuries. Long may “Nectar Tea,” in the interests of archÆology, continue to courtesy and bob its way through the western portal of the Elliptical Temple.

The boys when working well will in a day do about as much work as a quarter of the same number of English labourers. They are inclined to be industrious when the Baba is in sight, but they immediately drop down on their haunches with knees up the moment his back is turned. This is a moral certainty. Then singing ceases, for when working they are always singing. Any excuse for a passing diversion is immediately seized upon. On the shout of inyoga (snake) they drop their tools at once, seize their knobkerries and jump into the jungle heedless for the time being of thorns and creepers. In respect of snakes they are not cowards. Inside the bush a perfect pandemonium is going on which never ceases till either the snake, generally a python or a black mamba, has been slain or has escaped into some pile of ancient blocks.

Another day, after a brief absence from the temple, I found about forty women and girls from Mogabe’s kraal had arrived in the temple to watch their sons, brothers, and sweethearts at work. This they frequently do. The boys on this occasion, believing Baba to be further off than he really was, were chasing the dusky Cleopatras up and down the parallel passages, in and out of the enclosures, and dodging them round the base of the Sacred Cone. One burly Junoesque, bead-and-bangle-bedecked mother was having a most delirious and frantic ride round the temple courts in our only wheelbarrow, which is an iron one. As the barrow bumped along at full tilt against the stones it would each time shake her up terribly. The shrieking, screaming, and laughter of the girls and the yelling of the boys made the temple ring with a noise sufficient to make the priests of the ancient Phallic cult whirl in their graves with horror. But—Baba! and in thirty seconds the boys were all hard at work with most pious looks on their faces, and singing a well-known mission hymn. These great, fine-grown, frank-looking fellows, with their enviable ivories and provokingly pleasant smiles, are far worse than little children to manage. Their characters are perfectly riddled with frivolity, and their minds astonishingly mercurial. Every incident they notice is to them humorous, even the preservation work at the ruins is regarded by them as a sheer waste of time. Not one of them if he tried hard could keep silence for two minutes together. He must either talk, laugh, sing, whistle, or perform some absurd antic. Their utter guilelessness and naÏve simplicity are in many respects both surprising and entertaining. To blame them before their fellows kills what little spirit they possess for work, while praise, even though barely merited, will cause them to redouble their efforts. To be in the slightest degree friendly or familiar with them is to completely destroy one’s influence over them; the granting them any favour is regarded by them as an undoubted sign of the donor’s weakness, and of the virtue of gratitude they are absolutely destitute.

One wonders at the dual character which each possesses. In some respects a Makalanga is more moral than many a European, while in others the depth of his immorality cannot be plumbed. In some matters they are as pure-minded as Adam and Eve in the Garden, and know not that they are naked. In their hands their women’s virtue is safe. But contact with the “educated native,” especially a Cape Kafir, before their minds are prepared to receive even the most elementary education, works on them untold mischief.

But the boys may be divided into two classes, one industrious and honest, the other lazy and thieving. These diverse characteristics appear to run in separate families. M’Komo stole Mrs. Theodore Bent’s honey. Three of his nephews in my employ stole meat, sugar, tobacco, or anything else in the kya (hut) they took a fancy to. Another nephew proved to be a veritable Iago in a moocha (a small leathern apron worn by men), and was always making mischief, not only among the boys, but also between the boys and the Baba. Of course these members of this family, notwithstanding its exalted connections, were warned off the camp, and are not allowed to be seen visiting it. Brothers of unsatisfactory boys are never taken on the works, but should there be any vacancy at the end of a month, and the supply of labour is greater than our demand, the places are offered to the brothers of trustworthy boys, and these always prove a great success.

But to return to the Temple. About eleven o’clock the kya boy arrives with half a dozen wee picaninnies carrying kettle, tea-pot, etc. The kya boy comes in for an amount of chaff from the gang. They call him a “Moccaranga shentilman,” because, for two hours in the morning and for the same time in the afternoon, he can lala (rest), seeing that he starts work at 5.30 a.m. and is not free till about 8 p.m. Further, he has perquisites in the shape of meat, tobacco, and tips from visitors, and also in a diluted form acts as a sort of baas (master). But the kya boy takes all the chaff in good part, and gives back quite as much as he receives. The picaninnies, armed with bows and arrows, indulge in target practice, and make it ruinous to stick up lunch biscuits at forty paces.

Probably Mogabe with his headmen will arrive to watch the boys working, and then I know what to expect. It is bound to come. After a long silence he remarks that he is glad to see the Baba. Another long silence, and then—“A Baba always gives presents to his children.” I assume a complete indifference to his remark. Mogabe is diplomatic, but his diplomacy is very thin. After a long pause he observes—“The Baba will make me a present of money.” I inform him I have none to give. Another long pause ensues, then, pointing to a hatchet, he remarks—“The Baba will give me this.” I explain that the hatchet is the property of the Chartered Company, and not mine to bestow. He fails to see the point of my statement, and bluntly says so. He pauses to consider what else he can ask for, and after a long cogitation says “Salt, Baba.” At last Mogabe is reasonable, and I instruct the kya boy to fetch him half a cup of salt. Mogabe is profuse in his thanks, and his speech is floreated with eulogies of the Baba.

Now my turn begins. Mogabe and the elders of his headmen have a sixty years’ knowledge of the ruins, and he is acquainted with everything that took place at Zimbabwe during the time of Chipfuno his brother, who was the previous Zimbabwe chief. Pointing to a gap in an obviously ancient wall which had been rudely filled in with blocks, I ask him who filled up the gap. After a long consultation with his headmen, he says that the Makalanga did it to keep in the cattle, for this part of the temple was used as a cattle kraal, and that was when Chipfuno was a young man. Another gap was filled up when Chipfuno was a young man. I then hand him over some pieces of pottery with geometrical patterns not at all crudely executed, which we have just unearthed, and ask him if the Makalanga made them. For ten minutes he and his headmen are closely examining the pottery, noting the quality of the clay, the correctness of the pattern, and the glaze on both sides. Yes, the Makalanga made it, but not the Makalanga who are now alive, nor their fathers’ fathers. The pottery was of Makalanga make, but meningi dara (very old). The assertion he emphasises by gesture, manifestly meaning a great age. Mogabe thus confirms the expert opinion of antiquarians that this class of pottery was made by the mediÆval Makalanga. Mogabe comes to see us at every place we work at, and his opinion on “finds” belonging to recent generations of Makalanga may be taken, so old hands affirm, as perfectly reliable. The information so obtained is valuable both as to later walls and to articles found.

Sometimes the chiefs Baranazimba or Chenga arrive at the ruins, and an indaba (conference) as to “finds” and built-up entrances always takes place, but the weekly indaba with Mogabe always commences with the same old rigmarole. It is a sheer waste of time to discuss anything ancient with them, for since the new jail at Victoria has been built they all solemnly declare that the marungu[22] (white men) built the ruins for a “Tronk!” All their old poetic explanations as to the presence of the ruins, such as they were built “when stones were soft” or “when days were dark,” have now gone to the winds. The ruins were prisons!

But the kya boy has arrived with the salt, and Mogabe is happy. He wraps the salt up in the corner of his blanket, and is off to his kraal at once. When any marungu arrives in a Cape-cart at the camp Mogabe is down the side of his kopje a few minutes afterwards, and arrives there also. It is the same old story, only then the visitor is given his opportunity of demonstrating his liberality. “I am glad to see the Baba. A Baba always gives presents to his children.” Mogabe, like his fellows all over South Africa, is a born beggar, and yet he possesses seventy head of cattle, is rich in wives, grain, and labour, rules over a large area of country, receives a monthly allowance from the Government as chief, and a further allowance for warning unauthorised prospectors for ancient relics from the ruins.

Mogabe’s day has gone. Still, notwithstanding his true Kafir fawning nature, there is something about the aged chief one cannot help respecting. He is intelligent, and he looks it, and his face, if white, would be taken for that of an educated European, for, like most Makalanga, he has little or nothing negroid in his features. Before the advent of the Chartered Company he was constantly at war with his neighbours, sacking villages, kidnapping women and children, and generally murdering. His last fight was in November, 1892, when he engaged the Amangwa people, the battle taking place just outside the western wall of the Elliptical Temple. His own people seem to somewhat neglect him, except in some tribal arrangements and in affairs in which he represents the Native Department. Formerly it was the rule that he ate first and his people afterwards; now he comes into our camp at skoff-times and asks the boys for some of their rapoko, porridge, and if they should happen to be mindful of his presence they will pass him a handful, but sometimes he sits there unheeded. He has now sold, perhaps for a mere song, the famous necklace of Venetian beads which Bent failed to induce him to part with. But there is a look in his eyes that gives one the impression that the old man does not at all relish the benefits of civilisation, and that he is pining for a return of the good old days of blood-shedding.[23] Mogabe’s biography would be worth writing.

But Mogabe is in my good books, for he gave me permission to move some Makalanga graves made in certain of the passages on the Acropolis. Bent merely told Chipfuno that he was going to move the selfsame graves, and he at once withdrew all the labourers, and this not only caused Bent considerable difficulty, but he was not afterwards allowed to open the passages. Twelve years later Mogabe gives his consent on the understanding that he is given half a cup of salt, that the remains were to be properly re-interred, and that the boys who did the work should be allowed to go to their kraals to purify themselves. This purification is no mere excuse, but is an actual cleansing of those engaged in this particular undertaking. The boys informed me that until they had washed they could not eat, and that their fellows would keep away from them. The bones were not touched by hand, but were moved with two sticks. Once I picked up a solid copper bangle, which must have come, judging by the presence of scattered human bones, from some grave disturbed years previously by some excavator for relics. The boys were genuinely horrified when I touched it, but more so when I put it on my wrist. They said I must take it off at once and wash myself, and this horror at what I had done possessed them for several days and was a constant theme of conversation.

Tjiya! (cease work!) is sounded, and the boys take up the cry, and spring like chased buck helter-skelter through the western entrance into the hot, sultry atmosphere, singing, laughing, yelling, and caterwauling, just like boys let out of school. The relentlessly broiling heat and glare of noontide make one long for the beautifully cool shade of the huts.

Arrived at the camp, some of the boys lie at full length on the hot boulders and so take sun-baths, others resume their own carving or other work, some make music, or play with dollasses, or fence, while the majority gather round the various sets of game-holes and play isafuba, but there is a camp rule, found by experience to be necessary, that isafuba cannot be played until the cooks state that the pots have commenced to boil. So fascinating is this game that formerly we found the cooking operations often became neglected.

Isafuba is one of a group of games, the origin of which is explained on pages 79, 80 of The Ancient Ruins of Rhodesia. In our camp are several sets of game-holes; one set has four rows of sixteen holes each, and another two rows of twelve holes. This last is generally patronised by the picaninnies. Some of the isafuba games have different moves, numbers of holes and counters, and the games vary slightly in different districts.

From two to five players sit on each side. Each of the partners on either side appears to have an equal right of moving the counters. The two lines of holes near each set of partners is not intruded upon by the counters of the opponents, but opponents clutch up the counters of the opposite side when such counters have no counter either in the hole behind or in front, and this snatching up of counters is governed by rules which in some moves closely resemble those of chess, while double counters in a hole are as influential as kings in draughts.

Some of the moves strongly remind one of “fox and geese,” each side moving in turn, and later in the game, when the holes are full of counters, each side chases the other along parallel lines of holes to the end of the set. This chasing is a cause of great excitement, and is concluded in a perfect babel of shouting, each player as he moves a counter in the chase calling out in-da! and when the final hole is reached, ga!

Always while in camp there is a perpetual shouting of in-da! in-da! in-da! followed by the triumphant shout of ga! The subject of heated discussion during the game is as to the amount of cheating the other side has effected, and the tumult caused by the discussion of this topic, especially with an extraordinarily talkative people like the Makalangas, can only be but partially imagined. The perpetual in-da! in-da! in-da!—ga! trespasses into one’s dreamland. After a week of this never-ceasing in-da! the sets of holes were ordered to be removed to a more reasonable distance from the hut door; still, one cannot even now escape this perpetual and monotonous din. Yet in all their excited disputations they have never once got beyond mere words. The picaninnies sometimes join in at the larger sets, but a prompter always assists them.

It is the custom for the losers, and not the victors, to record the state of the series of games. This is done by placing large stones, one for each game lost, on the side where the losers sit. The losers invariably have to provide the stones. When all the large stones within arm’s reach have been used up as records and the losers have to get up to fetch a stone, there is general laughter in the camp, even from those who are not immediately watching the game. The stakes are for “sisspences,” or for doro (native beer), but both winners and losers share alike. Towards the end of a month, when wages are becoming due, the game causes increased excitement, and plenty of doro is brewed by speculative villagers to meet the probable demands of the boys.[24]

The two most pernicious vices of the Makalanga are their inveterate love of I’daha (wild hemp) smoking, and of doro drinking.

The former acts as opium, and incapacitates for work, dulls the intellect, destroys every atom of will-power, and tends, if persisted in, to shorten life. An I’daha smoker is readily known by the glazed look in his eyes, and by his miserable appearance. On our arrival here I’daha pipes were introduced into the camp, but they were very soon destroyed, and the smoking of I’daha is now an offence punishable by dismissal without mali (money). This rule has effected a great improvement in the general tone of the men and in their capacities for work. So injurious to brain and health is this vice that in some parts of South Africa I’daha smoking is prohibited under a penalty. One of the most distressing features of this practice is the painful fit of loud coughing which always follows the use of the pipe.

Doro, brewed from rapoko (a red millet), is drunk very extensively by the Makalanga in this district, seeing that this part of the country yields grain in such enormous quantities. But the natives do not regard doro as a mere beverage. At new and full moons, or at the rising or setting of the Pleiades, which determine the sowing and harvesting seasons, doro is provided by the native farmers in lieu of wages, and on these occasions it is drunk most extensively by people of all ages. The men delight in gulping it down in quantities with the avowed and deliberate intention of getting drunk as soon as possible. The state of stupefaction induced by doro is one of their most exquisite delights. On Saturday mornings the one topic of conversation of the gang is as to how much beer they will drink on I’zhuba Kuru (Sunday), how soon they will get drunk, and what they will do when they are drunk. On Mondays, in spite of their “large heads” and sodden appearance, discussions take place as to who were the most drunk. The one who lost most control of himself is considered a hero. In their opinion the man who was most intoxicated honours himself, and can afford to boast.

Even those who are in many other respects the most hopeful young men equally delight in getting absolutely intoxicated. The lads from eight years of age imbibe doro most copiously, while boys of twelve get as drunk as their seniors. The brains of the natives are so small that the doro acts upon them speedily, and two hours’ drinking will undo all the benefit of two years’ contact with civilisation. Then all their innate savage nature reasserts itself in every violent form, and their swaggering insolence, inspired by doro, is intolerable. But the evils of I’daha smoking and doro drinking are not of modern origin, but are ingrained in their blood and bone by many past centuries of devotion to these practices.

The rarefied air of these highlands conducts sound over long distances, and triangular conversations are constantly in progress between the villagers at Mogabe’s kraal, our boys at the camp, and those working on the Hill Ruins, though each point is at least a third of a mile distant from the others. These conversations are carried on without the slightest straining of the voice or even shouting, the secret apparently being the slight raising of the voice and speaking very distinctly and very slowly. From their vantage position on the hill the boys are always on the look-out for natives passing and repassing between the villages. While the passing natives are, as one would believe, outside the hearing limit a conversation with the boys has for some time been in progress. Our boys will give the usual salutation, and if this be replied to all well and good. But should it not be replied to, or not promptly, the boys will at once start in chorus to slang the passer-by and all his relatives, commencing with his mother. So long as the passer-by is within earshot, so long do these slanging matches continue. Each boy endeavours to cap each previous remark with something more pungent, and as he succeeds the rest cheer him. Natives state that the sound of their voices travels quickest and furthest in the early mornings.

The visits of marungu to the ruins are highly interesting occasions for the natives. The news of any approaching arrival is shouted down from Mogabe’s kraal a third of a mile away, for from Mogabe’s Kopje there is a four miles’ view of the road from Victoria. Long before the Cape-cart or horsemen can enter our valley from over the ridge between Rusivanga and Mogabe’s kopjes it is known where we are working, how many visitors are arriving, the description of vehicle, and if there is a lady in the party. Arrivals always attract a score or more naked picaninnies, who accompany the conveyance from the ridge at the foot of the Rusivanga down to the camp. But such visits are infrequent, and three weeks or a month pass without a white man arriving at Zimbabwe, and when, after such intervals, they do arrive, their faces look strange because they are white, while the sound of the English language is strikingly odd. On some rare occasions as many as three camps of visitors have been fixed up on the outspan. A patrol of the British South Africa Police calls about once a month, and the troopers generally introduce themselves with some such salutation as “Well, still alive? Not murdered yet?”

Humorous incidents are not absent in the work of excavation in the ruins. For instance, after working for some hours in a trench near the Sacred Enclosure, and passing all soil over boards and through fingers in the search for relics, a common clay pipe of English make was found intact at a depth of over 3 ft. At another spot, after hours of careful but unrewarded work in a trench, at a similar depth a very late brand of soda-water bottle was found. Both these finds delighted the boys infinitely more than had they unearthed a cartload of phalli or other prehistoric relics of value. In some respects the boys are extremely practical. The question “aliquid novi ex Zimbabwe?” can in two senses be answered in the affirmative. Such modern articles found “at depth” afford only another proof that the soil in the interior of the temple, as stated elsewhere, has been turned over and over again by archÆologists, and also by unauthorised prospectors, for ancient gold and other relics.

After tjiya, when the day’s work is done, there is still an hour or so of daylight left, and this is usually occupied in wandering among the kopjes or along sequestered valleys, keeping an eye open for fresh traces of the ancients, or in examining and measuring some one of the minor ruins which stud the valley, or in calling at a village to arrange for labour, or in looking out for buck and guinea-fowl for the pot.

Meanwhile the sun is setting in a gorgeous west, and the golden glow is already fading on the temple walls. Then come the shadows of night, and these settle down rapidly. By the time the hut is reached the kya boy has lit the candles, laid the table, and is ready with the skoff. The boys are sitting round their fire or finishing a game of isafuba in the semi-darkness. Their evening meal is being cooked. One of them has brought a gourd of doro, and another a pot of fat, in which each handful of porridge is dipped before being eaten.

Sitting on the stoep of the hut at this time of the day is a perfect rest. The air is agreeably cooled by a light breeze, which is laden with the scent of verbena. The night is calm and peaceful. Large bats fly swallow-wise, fire flies dart in all directions, glow-worms shine steadily in the grass, and birds, frogs, and insects join in mild choruses. The call of a boy in our camp to some companion up on Mogabe’s Kopje is repeated half a dozen times by the precipices of Zimbabwe Hill, where the echoes die out in a series of sharp raps. The large full moon rises serenely from behind the trees on Beroma Range, and bathes the country in delicate soft light, imparting a greenish-grey tint to the mist-veils which fill the gorges, throwing a deeper suggestion of mystery and awe over the wide expanse of bush where the lion holds his court.

The boys, having finished their meal, now indulge in post-prandial rhetoric, and dialectic ping-pong. The ruddy glow of the fire reddens the huts and shines on the naked bodies and limbs of the crowd, making them resemble polished ebony, while as their tall and well-proportioned figures with kingly walk pass and repass in the flickering lurid light they appear to resemble shades from across the Styx. Such a scene is at least Dantesque, and to many might seem weird. But the boys are as happy as their hearts can wish. Their joviality is irrepressible. Harmony from their instruments, rhythmic chants, peals of laughter, wild recitatives, constant talking, with perhaps a wrestling match and a war-dance executed in simulated form thrown in, fill up two hours, by the end of which they are all under their blankets, sleeping and snoring as only natives can.

“Porridge,” the kya boy’s under-study, and eight years old, has brought in the hut door, which also acts as drawing-board and stoep table, and has gone to the kitchen-hut, where he rolls himself up in his tiny blanket.

An occasional bark of a baboon or wolf, or yelp of jackal, or hoot of owl, is heard in addition to the usual nightjar and frog choruses. The sounds of the village drums, and of singing and dancing at Mogabe’s or Chenga’s kraal, where the full-moon feast is being celebrated, are wafted down to us. The night is perfectly lovely, but for Havilah Camp the day is past and over.

But the moon—itself a dead world—looks down upon the ruins of a dead city and on the graves of a forgotten race, as it has done ever since the stern policeman Fate ordered these ancients to “Pass on!”