WHO BUILT TilK RUODESIAN RUINS? 493 



than we do both to trade with and to make the jewels and ornaments 

 which they wear. The Monomotapa gave some mines to the Portuguese 

 who were in those parts, but they left them the trade in cloth being 

 more profitable, especiallj' that in machiras, as has been said.* 



This and the following extracts are taken from the Records of South- 

 Eastern Africa, in ix volumes, London, 1890-1903, which have only since 

 then been made generally accessible to the public by the ardour and 

 industry of Dr. G. M. Theal, and are justly described by Dr. Randall- 

 Maciver as " a work of sterling scholarship." 



The above form.s the last paragraph of the Report in question, 

 and probably the author of " Monomotapa "' had no oppor- 

 tunity for making- himself acquainted with what preceded it 

 up to the time that he wrote. Accordingly I venture to 

 submit further extracts not only relative to gold-mining, but also, 

 on the subject of the ruins of Zimbabwe and the architecture of 

 the negroes who are supposed by Mr. Dornan to have built them 

 in the 14th and 15th centuries, i.e.. a hundred years before Father 

 Monclaro's arrival in the empire of the Monomotapa. 



The gold mines are near Monomotapa, and within his dominions. 

 There are many of them, and he gave some to several Portuguese who 

 were there but because the expense of extracting the gold was so great, 

 and so little was taken out every day, they would not have them as 

 commerce was more profitable. The negroes dig the earth and make 

 high and deep trenches, in the which the ground sometimes falls upon 

 them and kills them. When the Monomotapa wants gold, he sends a cow 

 to those of his people who are to dig for it, and it is divided among them 

 according to their labour, and the number of days they are required to 

 work; each one extracts at most a cruzado or a cruzado and a half a 

 day. If they find a large piece of gold they hide it that it may not be 

 discovered, and the mine is ordered to be closed, as they say has some- 

 times been done, after laying charms that no one may be able to dig 

 there again. In this there is something strange, the reason of which is 

 unknown, as they have a great love for gold, and make different things 

 of it, which they wear round their necks like beads, and also use it for 

 trading with.f 



Of 'the " vassals of Monomotapa " he says : — 



Since they have inhabited the country — which must have been 

 thousands of years — they have never raised a stone upon a stone to 

 build a house or wall. Their only houses are small straw huts plastered 

 with clay.t 



The first part of this statement is general, and doubtless may 

 be regarded as founded on tradition. But the second comes under 

 Father Monclaro's personal observation, and there is absolutely 

 no justification for rejecting his evidence as untrustworthy or 

 false, especially seeing that it is embodied in an ofificial report to 

 the Superior of his Order. Blue-Books, it is said, never lie, but 

 whether that is so or not, the veracity, if not the accuracy, of these 

 reports is beyond dispute. Similar " Relations " furnished by the 

 Jesuit Fathers in New France a few years later " hold," says the 

 historian Francis Packman, "a high place as authentic and trust- 



* Records S.E. Africa. 3, pub. Lond. (1899), 253. Cf. Wilmot's 

 "Monomotapa." Lond. (1896), 209. and Rcpt. S.A.A.A.S. (iQiS), Pre- 

 toria, 5X0. 



t Ibid., 3, 233-4. 



X Ibid., 3, 231. 



