St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1891-06-11
HAS THE OPHIR OF THE BIBLE
BEEN FOUND?

answer the above question in the
affirmative. For centuries, BlbllOl-
ogists have maintained that Solo
mons ships were sent to India or
Arabia for gold, ivory, peacocks and
almug trees, but the latter country
surely could not have required a voy-
age of three years. The opinion APP
pears to be growing in weight that
Sofala, port on the southeastern
coast of Africa, lat. 81, answered the
required conditions of Scripture bet
ter than any other place. 1t was
once port of great commercial I'M
portance, though at present it has
dwindled to a town OF less than fifty
white people, mostly Portuguese,
and a few hundred Africans. Some
assert that its name is derived from
Ophir. Whether this be true or not,
the country inland for two hundred
miles has been the source from which
gold and other articles of commerce
have been taken. The late Sir Rod
eric Murchison seemed to be conf
dent that the Queen of Sheba had her
dominions there. In a lecture before
the London Geographical society,
besides gold, the country is rich in
ivory and ostrich feathers, and if
Hebrew scholars see no objection to
the supposition that the Biblical
writer might not clearly distinguish
between the feathers of the peacock
and those of the ostrich, another
difficulty in choosing this South AT
rican site of Ophir vanishes." He
alluded to the valuable trees of ebony
growing there, and asked: May
not these have been the famous
almug trees, of which Solomon made
pillars for the house of the Lord and
the kings house, as well as the harps
and psalteries for the singers ?"
Josephus, in his Earthquakes Of the
Jews" when referring to the wood
said that it was larger and finer
than any that has ever been brought
before, but let no one imagine that
these fine trees were like those which
are now so named, for those we
speak of were to the sight like the
wood of the hg-tree, but Witty and
shiny" antiquities of the Jews, book
s, chap. ~ Would not the yellow
wood found in various parts of South
Africa, and used by the colonists of
Natal for furniture, answer the above
description Josephus also made
mention of precious stones that came
to Solomon. Topazes and rubies are
said to be found even now, near So
fala. The Hebrew name "Koph,"
for ape, appears to bear some anal
ogv to "KabO," the word used by
the natives in northeastern Africa for
that animal 1t is interesting to
note the progress of modern explora-
ton in that part of the Dark CONT
nent" Carl Mauch (German) and
Thomas Baines, (English) about
twenty years ago, succeeded, amid
great difficulties, in reaching the ruins
ofan old fortification at Zimbabye
in Mashonaland, respecting which
they had heard from Rev. A. Mer-
ensky, missionary in the northern
part of the Transvaal, and also from
natives who had seen him. The re-
port of their discoveries tended to
strengthen the hypothesis of Sir
Roderic Murchison. But neither of
those gentlemen were allowed to use
Il pick towards removing the debris
which had accumulated for centuries
over the walls. Spies, sent by the
King of the Matabele, who claimed
supremacy over Mashonaland, and
guarded those antiquated ruins with
extreme jealousy, would have sent an
assegai through them at once, had
they transgressed the command,
Thou shalt not dig there" Now
II, l. e II, L,
come under the protectOrate of Eng
land. and that the Queens chartered
company can go about ad libitum.
prospecting for gold or examining
buried cities, the problem will soon
be solved whether the true Ophir has
been discovered. 1t will not be long
ere engines of modern invention are
made to disgorge the gold and pre-
cious stones that may be hidden un-
der those peculiar ruins, and the
world ascerta1ns whether Rider Hag-
CARDS ''Solomon's Mines" are any
thing more than d myth. We get
no light on this subject from Roman
orGrecian literature. DR.. Peterman,
of Gotha, in summing up the results
of Mauch's explorations, said that
ACCORDING 10 the ITau1tlOHS Oh Inc
natives, those ancient buildings owed
their origin to the Queen of Sheba."
1t was not till the sixteenth century
that the Portuguese became aware
of their existence, and when asked
Who lived there ?" invariably reply,
"Solomon's diggers." A few have
conjectured the the Moors or Per-
slams may have built them, but in
that case, the mode of constructing
their Notifications, or some tradi-
tons, would be likely to indicate it.
Certainly no hut-building African
tribe had hand in it Tools that
have been found show that the build