The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1898-03-06
The Historical Mystery On Which
ELISA" Is Founded.
The RUINS OF ZIMBABWE
ANCIENT FoRTREsSES THAT
PUZZLE PSYCHOLOGISTS.
Background of the New South Afri-
can Romance Now Appearing in
The Monday Herald-Whence
Came the Powerful RaceP-Repro-
duction of Solomon's Temple,
Queen of Sheba's Palace

the background of Rider Haggard's
new South African romance. now ap-
pearing in the Monday Herald. have ex-
cited much interest among archaeolo-
gists. The New York Sun says of them:
They are not picturesque, nor have they
! cyclopean dimensions, but in the at
| tributes of mystery and suggestiveness
| they are interesting relics of the past
! They constitute a CLEAN from the dark
ness that surrounds South African MS
tory, and as such have puzzled inyes-
| tigators. Whence came the powerful
race that built them? What purpose
did their massive walls and narrow
| winding passages serve? Were they
prisons for the confinement of the
slaves who worked in the gold mines
near by? Were they fortresses built
! by an invading army with view to
permanent settlement in hostile
! country? Were they temples or per
! haps palaces of the aborigines of the
| land? All four theories have found their
| supporters. The first explorer TO ex-
anime them thoroughly, less than ~
years ago, came to the concluslon-noW
! wholly discredited-that one OF the 1ru-
| ms was a reproduction of King Solo
mons temple, and the other copy or
the Queen of Sheba's palace. The lat
est and best theory, very skillfully set
! forth by the late Theodore Bent, holds
! that they are the ruins of a settlement
established and garrisoned by Arabs
| for the sake of the gold they found be-
tween the Zambesi and Limpopo rivers.
Zimbabwe is a Bantu word, and
! means the great kraal," or palace. It
is used to denote any kind of building,
but especially the residence OF a ma
tive chief Among the Kaffirs Zimbab-
we is a common noun. and only Euro
peans use il to denote these particular
ruins in southern Mashonaland. The
ruins lie about 10 miles southwest OF
Fort Victoria, about 200 miles due west
of Beira on the Indian ocean. and about
200 miles north of the Transvaal- They
are the largest and most important.
but not by any means the only ruins
to be found on the rolling tablelandS OF
Matabeleland and Mashonaland. About
10 such relics of the past have already
been discovered in different parts of the
plateau. and as the up-country and
hilly districts are being gradually ex-
plored no doubt more will be met with
These ruins all show similar workman
shin Most of them are simply fraS-
ments of walls built of granite blocks,
hewn or Clipped into fairly uniform
size These blocks, which are usually
about a foot long by six inches high,
are strongly and neatly set together,
cement Why the ancient architects alb
stained from using cement cannot be
conjectured, for the flooring OF many
of the buildings shows they were &C
uuainted with it's manufacture and
properties The buildings are generally
found on the summit of some hill; the
walls are rarely under 40 feet in height,
and always thinner at the top than at
the base. Two more characteristics are
common to them ALL They are found
only near gold mines, and they all show
the same scheme of ornamentauon.
This attempt at decoration is OF the
simplest kind, and consists in placing
some of the layers of blocks at an
acute angle to the layers above and
the layers below, thus producing what
is known as the herring-bone pattern,
and the side of the wall that contains
this ornamental work invariably faces
the rising sun. The majority of these
ruined walls seem to have been con-
structed for purposes of defense,
though a few have possibly religious
significance. According to Theodore
Bent's theory, they constitute a chain
Of forts erected by the conquerors to
overawe the native tribes, culminat-
ing at Zimbabwe.
The Zimbabwe ruins are split up INTO
two buildings, one of which stands on
the top of a rocky and precipitous hill,
and the other on comparatively lever
ground about a third of mile away.
The building on the higher ground was
obviously a fortress. Its outer defences
consist of a series of walls, some sin
gle, some double, stretching from point
to point around the eastern and south
eastern sides of the hill-the only sides,
that is. from which an attack was TO
be feared. The walls, which are built
OF the small granite blocks already
in re IN fact hiph nd
Is feet thick, and decorated along the
top with a succession of monOhths and
small, round towers. From openings in
them, narrow passages, barely wide
enough 10 allow two people to pass, go
zigE3 gging up the side of the hill to-
ward the summit. twisting in and out
among the rocks, joining one gigantic