The Portland daily press., 1894-02-28
IN CENTRAL AFRICA.
Ruins of Ancient Cities Discovered There
BY Carl Mauch.
[From the Ashton Reporter.l

For many years rumors of cities ID
ruins in Central Africa have been rife
The country of Monomotapa, in whose
western portion lies Mashona, has been
considered the Ophir of the Bible, and
here was rumored to be the castle OF the
Queen of Sheba, whose fleets, conveyed
her treasures of gold down the Zambesl
to Arabia. A German explorer, Carl
Mauch, devoted himself to the task Of
unraveling these rumors, and discovered
certain ruins at Zambabye, latitude 20
degrees ~ minutes south, and longitude
81 degrees As minutes east of Greenwich.
Writing from Pixies Kraal, Sept.13, 1871,
he stated: "It is accepted as certain
that white men have formerly peopled
this country, for there are constant traces
met with of dwellings and of iron i'm
handiwork of the blacks. On hasty
visit to the widely spread parts OF these
ruins 1-2 miles from Pixies Kraal,
was not able to light upon any inscrip-
tions. picked UP no implements which
would enable one to determine the age
Of the ruins. "The ruins may be divide
ed into two parts-the one upon gram
ite prominence of 400 feet high. the other
upon more elevated terrace. The two
are separated by a gentle valley 800
yards wide. The western side of the
rock is covered from top to bottom with
ruins. All the walls are built without
mortar, of hewn granite, more or less
about ths size of our bricks. The walls
vary in thickness: at foot, about 10
feet thick; at bottom, to feet. One
wall is in perfect preservation to a
height of 60 feet In any places beams
of stone to 10 feet in length project
from the wall, in which they must be
inserted to depth of several feet. At
in thickness, and consist of a compact
stone with metallic ring and of green
;sh black color. l found one stone beam
ellipsoid in section, 8 feet in length,
upon which ornaments were engraved.
The ornaments consisted Of lozenge
shaped figures, one within another, sepa-
rated by horizontal bands OF diagonal
lines.
"Under great mass of rock | found a
broken vessel shaped like a wooden Kaffir
basin of talcose gneiss, extremely soft
is inches in diameter and inches deep,
/ 10 in thickness at the edge and IL all
inch in the bottom. Best preserved OF
all is the outer wall of all erection OF
rounded form, situated in the plain and
yards from the mountain and seems to
have been connected with it by earth
works. This oval has but one entrance
three feet in width and five feet high
facing the mountain. Inside tower
330 feet high is in perfect preservation,
and the narrow passages are disposed as
a labyrinth. The tower is cylindrical
to a height of 10 feet, then upwards
conical in form. At the foot its diameter
is Is feet, at the top feet, and shows
no trace Of having had an entrance. The
outer walls show an attempt at orna-
menting the grantee; 1t represents
doub BILE row Of zigzags between horizon
from the ground. Everywhere else is
rubbish, fragments and dense bush.
some great trees, three feet in diane
ter, lift their leafy canopy to nearly
twice the height of these walls. and
many trees of vigorous growth have in
closed the blocks within their own sub
stance. From this we may infer the
guese, who had no fortified trading
station here before the sixteenth century,
must have found these buildings already
in existence. DR.. Petermann OF Gotha.
to whom Carl Mauch sent his letter and
maps and plans, came to the conclusion
that the evidence pointed to this land
as being Ophir. 1t is essentially aurifer-
ous the Portuguese when they reached
Scala in the sixteenth century found
rich gold mines, which had evidently
been worked for ages. and besides the
mines were buildings and ruins, which,
according to the traditions of the natives
owed their origin to the Queen of Sheba
Lopez states that the old inhabitants of
Sofala boasted they possessed old books
which confirmed the expeditions of Solo
mon to Ophi. The ornamentation points
to the fact that they are neither Arabian
nor Portuguese in origin, but in all
probability wrought by the Phoenicians.