510 RTIODESTAN RUINS. 



di^ tho yold, and Lobengula refused. He went back, and Lol)engula sent 

 an impi after Iiim and had him killed, because he was spying out the 

 mines. Jena and uld IMakaranga told me this at my home (Mount 

 Silinda). He died last year (rgi,^). These Arabs wrought the mines, and 

 used to light fires, and then when the rock got heated picked it out 

 with picks, and then they made a lire and the metal ran ;0ut. The ^laka- 

 ranga were working with the Arabs, and when the Portuguese came the 

 Makaranga worked the mines for them. The chief of Monomotapa 

 ( Mambo) paid the Portuguese elephants" teeth for their trade goods, 

 cloth, and so on. The Alakaranga called the Arabs Mugaiig' aiitare. which 

 means the "' iron wearers,"' because their clothes looked like iron, and 

 tlie Portuguese were called Klaiicaiii, because, like the fish, they came 

 from the sea. The Arabs were not long away before the Portuguese 

 came. Just after the Portuguese were awaj', the Amaswazi came, 

 and since they came there have been three kings of the latter, Nyamande. 

 Umzila, and Gungunyama. The Arabs came from the north, and mar- 

 ried the Makaranga women, and when they went away, left their families 

 and servants ^lazungu (white people) to this day. 



Thi.s statement contains several most important items of 

 information. We are told that the Arabs got the natives to dig 

 the gold for them, and that the Portuguese did the same; that 

 the natives got the Arabs to build the walls for them to worship 

 their Amadhluzi or ancestral spirits in. Regarding the state- 

 ment that the natives dug the gold under the supervision of, and 

 for the Arabs, and subsequently for the Portuguese. Ave have 

 the >tatements of the old Portuguese writers themselves in con- 

 firmation thereof, quoted by Wilmot. 



The Emperor prayed the Portuguese to take possession of the gold 

 and silver mines. The expedition could not proceed to seize these 

 sources of wealth. Leather ^lonclaios (1572) says pointedly, "Others 

 have written descriptions of the great quantities of gold and silver in 

 the mines, but in the main all that we know is much less than is announced 

 in Portugal. They are digged out when people intend to buy stuffs for 

 clothing: the King of Alonomotapa had given such mines to some Portu- 

 guese who had gone to his court, but they soon abandoned them, as 

 the trade in stuffs and Indian mantles was far more important and profit- 

 able." Father Manuel Barreto says ( aliout 1550), "All Mokaranga is a 

 perpetual mine of gold."' He says that the gold from the rivers was pre- 

 ferred to that from the mines. Pits were made and at certain times a 

 ladder was let down, and the Jvaffirs extracted quartz gold. When an 

 irruption of water took place the work was suspended.* 



Yet in spite of all this Hall, in his " Prehistoric Rhodesia," 

 quotesf a formidable array of Portuguese writers in support 

 of his statement, that in the time of the Portuguese the natives 

 knew nothing whatever about digging gold from the mines, and 

 only knew of washing the gold-dust from the river sands. It is 

 certainly strange that he should have overlooked these and 

 other similar passages, if he had read his authorities with care, 

 but the fact is Hall was too prone to accept statements without 

 verification, and was thus led into grave errors. In fact, many 

 of his references have been borrowed from other writers. That 

 the natives did actually extract gold from the rock until com- 

 parativel}- recent times is a fact according to Mr. F. C. Selous 



* Wilmot : " Monomotapa," 209. 



t Hall : " Prehistoric Rhodesia," 32. 



