GEOGRAPHICAL I'i;<><-i:i:. 



SO.'J 



ni' it kindred inttnrr. . . . That tin- ancient inhabit- 

 ant.* ot'ther-c ruins were ^ivi-n to tin- grosser forms of 



.>orship \\as evident from our tinds \s 



tn tin- little tower liy tlic side of the larger one, we 



It-It uiitliori/.i-il in almost demolishim; it for scientific 



e, and found, a we expected, that it was 1-11- 



nolid. 



There are several points of interest i-onin-<-tfil with 



this sai-iv.l inclosiirc. The inner wall in front of the 

 tower had been decorated with courses of hhu-k slate; 

 K eurioua conduit, about 1 foot square und regularly 

 constructed, runs right through the thickness of the 

 (inter \Mill ut its thickest point Similar and equally 

 inexplicable conduits we found about the temple on 

 the fort res-. Then there is the raised platform, ap- 

 proached liy cement steps, and a gateway just in front 

 of the lower, covered itself with a thick cement, into 

 which a monolith had l>eeii stuck ; this platform must 

 have lieen for the king or officiating priest. . . . The 

 Mimrnit of the wall for this portion only had been 

 den. rated with larire monoliths placed at equal inter- 

 vals. The rest of the inclosure would appear to have 

 been occupied by private buildings also inclosed with 

 circular walls. 



Kvidences were found that the place had been 

 n-id as one of feast and sacrifice, and Karl 

 Maiieh heard traditions of sacrificial feasts that 

 had taken place at intervals of two or three 

 years. The word Zimbabwe, which is of Kaffir 

 and A bantu origin, means "Here is the great 

 kraal,'' and is applied to the head kraal of any 

 chief. The most interesting part of the ruins is 

 the hill fortress, which is protected on one side 

 by the cliff, on another by great granite bowlders, 

 and on the only naturally accessible side by a 

 wall 13 feet thick at the top, and 30 feet high in 

 parts. The flat causeway in the top was deco- 

 rated mi the out side edge by a succession of seven 

 small round towers, about 3 feet in diameter, 

 alternating with tall monoliths. The care with 

 which the approaches are guarded at every turn 

 indicates that the occupants were in constant 

 dread of attack. On a little decorated plateau 

 in-ar the summit of the mountain many crushing 

 stones of diorite were found, and a curious stone 

 having lines carried around it with great regu- 

 larity. The outer wall of the temple in the cor- 

 ner of the fortress was decorated with birds 

 1 on the summit of soapstone beams 5 or 6 

 feet in height, only one of which is perfect, rep- 

 resent ing a vulture. Other carvings were 

 found showing good workmanship and correct 

 geometric figures, with grotesque animal forms. 

 Fragments of pottery of excellent glaze and 

 workmanship and many implements of war 

 were found, among them an assegai with a 

 heavy plating of gold upon it. No coins were 

 found, and no traces of any cemetery. 



Close underneath the temple stood a gold smelt- 

 ing furnace made of verv hard cement, with a chimney 

 of the same material. 1 lard by, in a chasm between 

 two bowlders lay all the rejected quartz casing*, from 

 which the trold-nearing quartz had been extracted by 

 ex|Misiii|_' them to heat prior to the crushing; proving 

 beyond a doubt that these ruins, though themselves 

 far from any ir"l<l reef, are those of the capital of a 

 pold-prodociBg ] pie who had chosen this hill for- 

 tress with its granite bowlders owing to it* peculiar 

 advantage* for strategic purposes. Near the furnace 

 we found many little crucibles of a composition ot 

 clay which had been used for smelting the gold, and 

 in nearly all of them exist small specks of gold ad- 

 hering to the glaze formed by the heat of the procc-s. 

 Then- are tools also for extracting gold, burnishers, 

 crushers, and so forth, and an ingot mold of soap- 



stone of a curious form, which is still in use among 

 the unlives much farther north for itigoto of iron. 



Mr. Bent says that Mashonaland is not the 

 correct name for the country, since all the ]<,- 

 I ile .r >rn the Lundi to Fort Charter and east to 

 the Sabi call themselves Makalangas. He be- 

 lieves the race that built the great Zimbabwe to 

 have been of Arabian origin. 



Great difference of opinion is expressed in 

 reference to the prospects of mineral and agri- 

 cultural returns from I his region. Lord Ran- 

 dolph Churchill traveled through it with a view 

 to examining its resources, and has published a 

 book, " Men, Mines, and Animals in S.nth 

 Africa," giving the results of his journey. His 

 observations led to the belief that the report* 

 concerning gold were greatly exaggerated. Al- 

 fred Beit, a mining engineer, who accompanied 

 him, examined the '-Eiffel" district. "The 

 reefs discovered there may be described as typ- 

 ical of the whole Mashona region ; there is a con- 

 siderable outcrop, much of which when broken 

 up offers an alluring appearance of visible gold ; 

 this, however, when extracted by crushing and 

 panning, is found to be of the finest and thinnest 

 character. Where the gold is of a coarser and 

 better quality, firmly amalgamated with the 

 quartz itself, there the reef is found either to 

 have no appreciable depth, or else at any ap- 

 preciable depth to yield but little gold." 



According to the same report the prospects 

 for successful farming are not much better. 



Australia. Henry Greffrathgave an account 

 in Petermann's for December, 1891, of Mr. Joseph 

 Bradshaw's expedition into the interior of Aus- 

 tralia. The following extracts will give an idea 

 of Mr. Bradshuw's work: 



It was believed earlv in this century that the wholly 

 unknown interior of Australia was watered by a great 

 river system reaching the sea in the deep bays of the 

 northwest part of the continent. It was to establish 

 this supposed fact that Capt. Sir Philip King sailed 

 along this coast in 1820, entering all the deep inleto 

 to find some great river mouth. One day he sailed 

 '2f> miles up Hanover Bay, discovering a large river. 

 The next year he ascended the river for 50 miles and 

 named it trie Prince Regent 



Nearly seventeen years elapsed before another 

 expedition, under the command of Sir George 

 Gray, was sent to Hanover Bay to complete the 

 exploration of the river. The natives fell upon 

 the party and wounded its leader so badly that 

 he hastened back to civilization. From that day 

 until last year no further effort was made to solve 

 the problem of the Prince Regent river. These 

 are the only attempts made to explore this great 

 river previous to 1891. But West Australia was 

 a Crown colony up to Oct. 21, 1890, when it be- 

 came a constitutional state ; and this formed an 

 obstacle to its development. In 1891 Mr. Brad- 

 shawled an expedition, fitted out at his own ex- 

 pense, to examine the fit ness of this northwestern 

 territory for pastoral settlement. Landing at 

 Wyndham, on Cambridge gulf, in March, he 

 found that a tornado, only two days before, had 

 nearly destroyed the little town. The party, 

 consisting of & white men and 2 natives, crossed 

 Kini: river at the head of tide water, and 

 skirted for two days the foot of Mount Coburn, 

 a great sandstone" mass, rising perpendicularly 

 and marked by many deep vertical clefts. Crow- 



