4y6 REPLACEMENT OF THE ANCIENT E. AFRICAN FOREST 



( t\(/., at Makupi's), patches of Chirinda-like forest occur, and 1 

 judge from the statements of natives that other patches of the 

 same kind must occur here and there in the low veld off the 

 beaten tracks. 



4. Evidence of Forest Destruction and Probable Former 



Continuity. 



( I ) From more or less direct observation. I have myself 

 seen a single fire destroy a 10-15 y^i'ds depth of forest along a 

 very limited front, and. in the Chimanimani Mountains, seen 

 where much larger areas than this had been cleared by the last 

 season's fire ; and I have witnessed in the eighteen years I have 

 resided here a more ofradual, yet definite, eating into portions of 

 the outskirts of small forest patches with which I am acquainted, 

 by the annual fires. The evidence of old natives in this connec- 

 tion — at any rate of those who do not live right up beside forest 

 — is apt to h^ unsatisifactory. as they appear not to observe and 

 remember readily gradual events that concern them little ; but 

 one very old man — old even when I first came here — who lived in 

 his youth right beside the Chipungambira patch (near Spunga- 

 bera), and then moved up beside Chipete, tells me that when he 

 was a lad some specially destructive fires destroyed c|uite large 

 ])ieces of each of these forest patches. 



In the case of the " Jihu " — a large, rich, mostly Portu- 

 guese trap-area south of Chirinda — it is possible that 30 or 50 

 years hence no one will be able to say from i)ersonal o'bservation 

 that true forest ever existed there. Yet in iyo6 evidence, in the 

 form of charred tree-bases, the vegetation that immediately suc- 

 ceeds forest, etc., still pointed unmistakably to the recent exis- 

 tence of a good-sized j^atch on the eastern slope of the rise divid- 

 ing the Zona and Kurumadzi rivers, and. near the Zona, a patch 

 of fine mahoganies still stood, but some of their late companions 

 were .sprawling, charred, on the ground just round them, and 

 were surrounded in turn l)y the evidences of i)revioiLs destruc- 

 tion. 



As for the matter of (former continuity it is suggestive that 

 the final destruction of the first-mentioned forest-patch widened 

 by several miles the gap between surviving patches, while the 

 piece of Chipete said to have been destroyed 60 years or so ago 

 continued that forest towards a still-existing outlying strip of 

 Chirinda. 



2. Indirect Evidence. — The position of the majority of the 

 surviving patches is perhaps suggestive. Three of six patches 

 I can see from where I write definitely crown hills, and two 

 others are on a ridge. This verv common position certainly 

 seems to point to the ])robability that fires sweeping from 

 below have gradually eaten up the forest lands till these for the 

 most part occupied only the hills, and have then burned across 

 the " neks," split the forest stretches into i>atches, each occupy- 

 ing the higher parts of a hill, and then continued to eat these 



