^ Pepper and Gold 



In Spain. It is truly marvellous to think of the instinct, the 

 sixth sense that must have led these Minasans, Saba^ans, and 

 Himyarites to coast along the savage shores of Eastern Africa 

 some two thousand to one thousand years ago, at a time when 

 the navigation of the high seas by sailing vessels was only just 

 beginning ; and that this instinct should have led them on and 

 on, not merely along the coast of East Africa to the regions 

 south of the Zambezi, but have prompted them to ascend that 

 river and to make great journeys inland on foot from swampy 

 landing-places like the present Beira, through countries which 

 so far as we can tell do not in their coast regions offer any 

 signs of gold. 



It is as yet one of the unexplained mysteries in the history 

 of the human race how the Arabs learnt that gold was to be found 

 alluvial and in the rock at distances of from one to five hundred 

 miles from the coast of South-east Africa. Moreover, from 

 the little we know of the conditions of Africa at that period, 

 the Arabs were exploring a country sparsely inhabited by Negro 

 races of low development, Bechuana and Makaranga Bantu, 

 and others, practically identical with the modern Hottentots, 

 Bushmen, or Berg Damara — a population caring little for 

 gold or any other metal. Did these same pre-Islamic Arabs 

 or kindred Semites or Hamites explore the regions west of 

 Egypt, say, through Darfur towards the Niger Basin } Were 

 the gold-bearing rocks of the Fula and Mandingo Highlands 

 and of the interior of Ashanti known in any way to the 

 Semitic world before the Christian era and before the birth 

 of the Muhammadan religion sent wave after wave of Semitic 

 conquest over North Central Africa .? That is also a problem 

 as yet unsolved, and one which again reverts for solution to 

 the Agri (Aggry) beads. These Agri beads, as already stated, 

 offer types which might be traceable equally to Egypt and 



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