New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1891-09-13
BRITISH AFRICA.
TIE OLD opH1R AND THE NEW Ell DORADO

Londcn: King, Sch q Ration, Limited.
Collatitious" is the queer old word the author
digs out of limbo to describe the character of
many, If not most, of the pages wherein he deals,
and deals well, with the latest aspects of land
always old and always new. One may therefore
he excused frem limiting that in the work OF
authorship paste and scissors have been mishtier
than the pen The book is as Frenchman might
say if minded TO translate himself literally,
Everything that there is of most Nineteenth Cen
tury"; end of the century at that Once allow
for the fact that it is big advertisement for
the British South African Company with hne
boom for Mr.. Cecil Rhodes in tow, and you may
alternately read and skip to the close with H.
terest and comfort. For Mr.. Mathers Is more than
the mere geologist and geographer the letters
tackled to his name imply; more even than the
author of trilogy of earlier books on South Africa
the country; he is the editor OF South Africa
the newspaper, and thus IL is that he knows wha5
you wish to know and just how to tell it to YOU
This he does mot carelessly and perfunctorlly as
is the fashion with most authors or editors OF
works of this commercial nature, but with an
earnestness and vigor that pleasant as
they are unlocked for Two capital maps, the
one of Zambesia on good large scale,
the other of South Africa in outline complete
the attractions Of the book, unless one cares Tor
unlimited cheap cuts by the mosquito-net process
for a stiff jaundice cover, and for general ar
and odor that plainly say colonial market"
The sort Of thing London has all along persuaded
itself every colonist likes Very likely your con-
servative LOndoner-so conservative that he is
sometimes driven TO manufacture his own con-
servatism-began shipping books like this about
the time he stopped shipping glass beads, the sale
of these strangely beginning TO flag
Just as Mark Twain boosted that he was the
only writer that had ever written sixteen pages
let lis say, about Rome without once saying
"butchered TO make Roman holiday" and. there
upon made haste to say it, so naturally enough IL
is impossible for any author or editor to compose
OF compile 400 pages Of African lore without
pausing to mention the Queen of Sheba and the
ruins Of King Solomon. Impossible, even now not
TO respect the hole or holes in the ground whence
some 5000 years ago. the royal treasury oil lsrael
drew its four or five thousand million dollars
worth more or less, Of virgin gold Mr.. Manners
places the half-mythical land of ophir on the
high watershed between the river Zambesi on the
north and the Limpopo on the south. In this
Sir Roderick Murcheson is with him. Aur1ferous
quartz is there, with abandoned gold workings OF
great antiquity, and against the hypothesis there
is really nothing If ancient Ophir was not
in MonomOtapa and if MOnomotapa OF
the middle ages did not take In
the Zambesa of our day and Mr.. Mathers' and
Mr.. Cecil Rhodes'S and the great Chartered
Companys," then where was Ophir, please Not
only are gold and gold-bearing quartz there, but
the remains Of smelling works have been found
with Stag and scoriae, and among them even traces
of lead ore.
Immense as must be our respect for the empty
places whence past generations have taken SO much
solid wealth, it is even more interesting to be
told of the curious ruins lately discovered near
~ onIr'cp nil
structed specially to carry British ambition British
enterprise British trade and British power, north
ward from Cape Town directly into the heart of
Newfoundland Fort Victoria one Of the companys
strongholds, stands in south latitude 90 degrees
s5 minutes, and longitude 81 degrees east; among
the hilltops fifteen miles TO the eastward are the
ruins of Zimbabye, first discovered in 1871, per
baps earlier, but more thoroughly examined In
1880 Outer walls ten feet thick and twenty feet
high around the ruins of buildings of hewn stone
attest the existence in the remote past of de-
gree Of civilization not commonly accredited TO
this part of unknown Africa Like our own
Indians dwelling along historic ruins, the
native Kaiirs neither know nor care q rap
about any one that lived or anything that
happened before their time This is what
The Times" correspondent with the pioneer force
of the British South Africa Company says of the
ruins:
"The ruins themselves lie at the base Of
striking and precpitous granite 'kOpie' inhab-
tied by one of the Mashona tribes. under chief
called Moghabi The first feature to be noticed
on approaching the kopje' is the existence of an
outer wall, about It. high, running apparently,
right around the entire 'kopie Next come indi-
cations of a second and inner wall then, amid
perfect labyrinth of remains of small circular
outer wall, about #. high running apparently
without some plan-sOuthwest of the 'kOpie' and
800 yards from its base we find ourselves con-
fronted with the startling and main feature OF
these remains-namely, a high wall of circular
shape, from 80 it. 10 35 #. high, forming a COM
pete enclosure of an area of so yards in diameter
This wall labout 10 #. in thickness at the base,
and tapering TO about II. or #. at the top is
built of small 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 a single atom OF
either mortar or cement. This strange enclosure
is entered on it's eastern side by what at first
sight appears 10 he mere gap in the wall, but
which closer examination reveals TO be what was
once evidently q well-dcfned narrow entrance,
as shown clearly by the rounded-of courses.
Inside the building itself. which is most diff
ficult to examine thoroughly, owing both to the
dense underground and presence of quantities of
trees hundreds of years old, which conceal traces
Of seemingly series OF further circular or clip
Tical walls and close 70 the entrance and outer
wall here so IT, high, stands cOnical shaped
tower or turret, 35 fl. in height and Is fl. in
diameter at the base, built of the same granite
blocks and consisting OF solid masonry Lastly,
the remaining feature of this building to be
touched upon in this brief account is that on
the southeast front of the wall, and 20 IT, from
its base runs double zigzag scroll, one-third OF
the distance round composed Of the same sized
granite blocks placed in diagonal positions On
the kopje' and hillside itself, too, there are nu-
merous traces of remains of a similar character
circular buildings wedged in among boulders of
rocks, walled terraces, at least nine in number
and. built on the very summit, an enormous mass