Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1890-11-29
AN ANCIENT CITY.
1t is Located in Southeast Africa-Some-
thing About 1t.

From the Baltimore sun
Some members of the British South
Africa Company have Just confirmed the
story of Mauch, well-known German ex
plorer, of the existence of the ruins Of
what must have been an extensive city on
the Mashonaland plateau, some twelve or
fourteen miles southeast of the company's
camp. When Mauch reported his discov-
cry, and had drawings made OF the ruins
from his description of them, it was be-
lieved that he had a good deal exaggerated
what he had seen and had drawn consider
ably upon his Imagination for his facts. 1t
turns out now, from the report made TO
the London Times, that Mauch's descrip-
tion of these marvellous remains was not
exaggerated at all. One of the members
of the expedition to Zinbabye from the
South Africa Company's camp gives 4
brief but accurate description of what
they had actually seen. The ruins them
selves, he says, lie at the base of q precip-
itous granite konje," or hill. The first
feature noticed on approaching the hill
was the existence Of an outer wall, about
four feet high. running apparently right
around the entire hill, but which, owing
to the dense jungle, could not be traced
more than half a mile. Next came traces
of an inner wall, which it was impossible
to follow on account of the jungle. Then,
amid a perfect labyrinth of remains OF
small circular buildings, they came to
third wall of circular shape from thirty to
thirty-five feet high, forming a complete
inclosure of an area eighty yards in diam
ter.
The remarkable thing about this wall,
which is ten feet thick at the base, taper
ing off to seven feet at the top, is that it is
built of granite blocks about twice the
size of an ordinary brick, beautifully
hewn and dressed, laid in perfectly even
courses, and put together without the use
of either mortar or cement. Inside the
inclosure, which is entered by narrow
slit in the wall, were quantities of trees,
hundreds Of years old, springing out of the
jungle, which conceal traces Of other cir
cular walls, and close to the entrance and
outer wall, at a point where it is still
thirty feet nigh, stands a conical- shaped
tower thirty-five feet high and eighteen
feet in diameter built solidly throughout
of the same dressed granite masonry. On
the hill and the hillside itself are numer-
Gus traces Of remains of a similar charac-
ter, circular buildings wedged in among
powders or rock, and at least nine walled
terraces, while on the very summit Of the
bill was an enormous mass of granite
blocks, intended, apparently, to be used as
a fort"
By whom this fortified city in Southeast
Africa was built is altogether matter of
speculation. The writer describing it
seems inclined to ascribe it to prehistoric
times, but the dressed and perfectly fitted
granite blocks and the hight and solidity
Of the walls preclude the entertaining of
such an idea Most of the remains of pre-
historic walls that have come down to US
are of rough, massive, unhewn blocks, to
which the name Cyclopean has been given.
Whether prehistoric or not, says the wri-
ter, ait is certain that the area covered by
the numerous walls and circular buildings
points clearly to the existence at some
time of a large and semi-ciyilized popula-
ton at the time when slave labor was pro-
curable to an uRlimited extent" All this,
however, is mere conjecture, and the story
of this city buried in the jungle Of an
African wilderness may adniit of another
explanation, of which We are already getting
glimpses. From the natives nothing can
be learned of these ruins of Zinbabye.
A remote native tradition gives the in
depreciation OF Zinbabye as meaning a
royal residence, and the Portuguese have
suggested "that these ruins form portions
of the remains of the city and palace of
the Queen of Sheba in the land of Ophir"
That they are in the rich gold beds of
Southeastern Africa has been demonstrated,
and at the time when the earlier explora-
tions Of this portion of Africa were made
by Portuguese adventurers ancient Portu-
guese records refer to people whom they
found to be established there, and whom
they represent to be working for gold in
the far interior. That the Portuguese
should thus have been melted to prospect
for gold in that region follows naturally,
and matter-of-fact Englishman, Major
Erskine, formerly Colonial Secretary OF
Natal, points ont that the Portuguese did
go there and extracted from the mines in
Manica four millions of gold annually
until they were driven out by the natives.
His theory is that Zinbabye was one OF
the places fortified by the Portuguese to
protect them while working for gold from
the more warlike tribes by whom they
were ultimately driven out, and that in
the lapse of centuries the memory of these
things has been lost.s
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