President's Address CXV 
same species under similar conditions but in widely distant localities’ ! 
As no migration of these subterranean animals is possible, the present 
wide geographical distribution (in Europe and America) is a remarkable 
phenomenon. How much more remarkable would it be if some of 
these cave-dwellers should be found in South Africa as well. I feel 
much inclined to think that such an entomological discovery would 
greatly strengthen the position taken up by Professor Guthrie with 
regard ta independent evolution of the same species in the vegetable 
world. 
In reviewing the progress made in the department of ethnology, 
there is, since the appearance of Fritzsch’s classical work on the 
natives of South Africa, only one other book to be recorded, viz., 
Mr. Bent’s account of his explorations in Mashonaland, published 
in 1892. 
The news which various travellers had brought with them of the 
existence of ancient ruins of great extent in these regions was received 
with amazement, and created numerous hypotheses about their origin. 
They were ascribed to the Portuguese and Arabs, to Egyptians, or some 
unknown race, and some speculative minds thought that the fabulous 
land of Ophir had been discovered. | 
Only the systematic exploration of these mystical buildings could 
solve this fascinating problem, and we are grateful to the liberal pro- 
tectors of the country, who induced Mr. Theodore Bent to undertake 
the promising task. His researches have answered the principal ques- 
tion, for, although he did not succeed in finding any graves, and conse- 
quently no skeletons of the builders of those ancient temples, he 
ascertained that they were of Phallic origin ; that a race kindred to the 
Pheenicians, and perhaps contemporaneous with them, must have 
occupied the country for a long time. 
Some three or four thousand years ago that portion of South-Eastern 
Africa was ruled by a nation which understood the art of mining, gold 
and silver smelting, and left us as imperishable monuments of their 
civilization the finest specimens of dry-building that are in existence. 
When did this occupation terminate? There is no answer, no 
suggestion even, to this question. All that we know at present is, 
that thousands of years afterwards, at the time when Portugal took 
possession of the coast, the powerful Kafir dynasty Monomatapa occu- 
pied the country. And even from that time onwards we possess only 
fragmentary information concerning the races and tribes which followed 
each other in the occupation of the country. The best source from 
which more light could be thrown on the history of these ages would 
be the reports of the missionaries of the sixteenth century, especially 
of the Jesuits. Hence it is a matter for congratulation, that the 
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