Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1888-02-25
BURIED CITIES.
THE HOMES OF UNKNOWN AN.
GENT PEOPLES.
A Lore that is Full of Food for
Reflection and of Undeci-
pherable Pages.

ing given to unearthing the remains OF
ancient cities. The results derived from
these excavations are doing much to con-
firm the truths of recorded history and
not unfrequently furnish new additions to
facts and events previously known. The
! statement that the Italian Government
has decided to appropriate money for the
excavation of the buried city of Sybaris
will be received with pleasure by every
one who remembers the valuable results
which followed upon the unearthing of
Pompeii. For Pompeii was after all but a
village as compared with Sybaris. Max
ing all due allowances for the exaggera-
tion of ancient writers, says an exchange,
| the latter city was undoubtedly one of the
wealthiest and most luxurious of which we
have any record in the past. When the
Cortonian army, over 500 years before
Christ, vanquished its enervated populace,
they turned the river Crais upon its site
with view of wiping the town from the
face of the earth. For 2,400 years it has
lain buried beneath the silt which the
river deposited upon it
With the aid of the Athenians the sur
yivors some years later founded the town
| of Thurii near the place, but from that
day no trace of the buried city has ever
| been discovered. Doubtless the CONQUER
ors carried off with them many articles of
golden and silver luxury, but there must
yet remain countless art treasures gath
cred by a people who in their day were
the business masters of population num-
bering several millions. The tabled beds
of rose leaves have long since nodded
into dust, but there possibly exists many
! imperishable monuments of the cunning
artiticers whose skill in catering to the
wealthy inhabitants has made the name OF
| Sybarite synonymous with luxurious
beauty.
| PREHISTORIC CENTRAL AFRICA.
Ruined and buried cities are now known
TO have existed near the central regions of
Africa, of which the modern world has
until quite recently had no knowledge
whatever. The ruins of very ancient
cities upon the seacoast just south of IAN
zibar have of late been discovered.
The most indubitable evidence has re-
Gently been found that more than 1000
Years ago there must have existed along
the central portion of Eastern Africa a
people who had advanced to very high
degree of civilization.
Some wav south of the Zambesi river
there is large region extending from the
sea nearly 400 miles inland and 800 to 400
miles toward the south, in which ruins are
constantly being discovered, proving that
in prehistoric times the country was in
habited by civilized people To-day only
the rudest black tribes inhabit this land,
save in few places where the Portuguese
have established stations. The little bee
hive huts of the natives are seen among
massive ruins betoklng a degree of archi-
tectural skill which rivals that of the
ancient Aztecs. Our knowledge of these
ruins are far from perfect Our earliest
records of travel and trade on the East
African coast, extending back to the begin
ming of the Christian era, do not mention
them. Only in recent years have the travels
of Selous, Erskine, Mauch, Baines, Mohr
and ONeill revealed to us the monumental
evidence this country contains.
THE COAST TOWN, soFALA,
Is shown on all maps of East Africa. Neal
that town Carl Mauch found extensive
ruins remarkable for their enduring ma.
ture and strange shapes. There are partly
ruined walls, still thirty feet high and
twelve feet wide at the base, built of small
hewn blocks of granite. In these walls
sometimes fifteen or twenty feet from the
ground, are embedded one end of blocks Of
stone eighteen TO twenty feet long, which
were evidently used to support galleries
Here and there, built in the walls or stand
ing by themselves, are round stone towers
which evidently rose to nights of thirty
to fifty feet. Similar masses of masonry
are found as far as $50 miles inland and a
little north near the coast.
1t is not positively known yet who built
these ancient structures. No trained
arch;eologist has visited them, and nc
search has yet been made for Inscriptions
though O'Neill says he has no doubt from
what he has recently heard that there are
numerous inscriptions on
THE RUINS ABOUT MANGA.
All these ruins are surrounded by sur
face gold mines. 1t is believed that all
this country was occupied some time before
the Christian era by a great colony, prob
ably OF Pheniclan origin, and that its CHIEF
occupation was gold mining.
Mr.. ONeill says that these numerous
ruins are nearly as well preserved as those
of ancient Egypt, and better than those OF
Assyria. Some day, no doubt, they will be
Systematically studied. Their existence
| shows conclusively that large region in
inner Africa, now given up to savage men
and wild beasts, was subject many centuries
ago to the control of people who were
considerably advanced in the arts of
civilization.
LATE DISCOVERIES IN ANCIENT EGYPT.
Very important discoveries have been
made during the past year among the ruins
of the ancient cities of Egypt. The re-
suit of these explorations were recently
recounted by NJ. Naville, the famous dis
coverer of the treasure city of Pithom in
an address before the Society of Arts in
I London
The excavations at Tel-el- Y ahoodieh
were designed chiefly to corroborate the
account given by Josephus of the construc-
ton of a Hebrew temple by Onias in the
time of Ptolemy Philometer and his half
sister, Cleopatra. NJ. Naville's subsequent
work at Bubastis, which was more success
| full, brought to light the columns and
foundations of the great temple described
by Herodotus as the most beautiful in
Egypt. The ruins here were very ancient,
columns with palm and lotus capitals point
ing as far back as the twelfth dynasty. The
Oldest monument was a cartouche of Pepi
l., a Pharoah of the sixth dynasty of the
remote pyramid period, and very large
number Of most interesting descriptions
were disclosed. Only one-third of the
work of turning the massive blocks of
stone in the search for inscriptions was
done.
These results, while tending to confirm
the historical accuracy of Josephus and
Herodotus rather than to throw light upon
mooted problems of the Pentateuch, are Of
the highest archaeological Importance, and
amply justify the recent appeals of the
Egypt Exploration Society for financial
aid in prosecuting the work
Seen and Judged.
Jenny Dreese came home from school
many years ago with new purpose in life.
She belonged to large, disorderly family
of adults. The men were journalists, the
women artists Their wit was bitter and
sharp; there was constant clashing OF
tastes and opinions each lived for him.