Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1908-02-13
"OPHIR" in AFRICA
DR.. PETERS CONFIDENT HE HAS
FOUND FAMOUS LAND.
WeIl-known Explorer Brings Forward
Many Arguments to Prove Claims
of Dark Continent to
Distinction.

DR.. Carl Peters, so well known In
connection with the opening up OF
Africa, has started on a lecturing
tour in Germany with two objects
in view-frst, to win recruits to the
cause of German expansion in the
dark continent; second, to prove that
he has found the famous gold land
of Ophir.
The reader who has forgotten where
the word "Ophir" occurs will find it
in the biblical books of Kings and
Chronicles. One thousand years be-
fore Christ King David and the wise
Solomon, his son, sent to Ophir ships
which brought back from thence gold
and precious stones, ivory and valu-
able timber, which these magnificent
rulers employed in building their gor-
geous temples and palaces.
Peters began to think of this sub
ject after he had discovered an old
Flemish map OF the eighteenth CEN
fury on which he saw the word
"Ophir" printed across one of the
least-known districts of southern Cen
trail Africa. The first thing that
struck him was the similarity of the
names Africa and Ophir. There was
first the Arabic word Afr (Ophir),
which when Latinized became Afer.
1t was an easy translation from Afer
to Africa He thought further and
deeper and began to read Christian
tradition. All pointed to, South AT
RIGA. y.
The ancient literature he read made
Peters also acquainted with the fact
that at all ages since Solomon's time
Ophir had been sought in numerous
parts of the world-in Arabia, Persia,
Mesopotamia, India; 1t had even been
sought in America, and there are an
cient Spanish records which state
that among the early conquistadores
of Peru and Mexico were not a few
who believed that they had found not
only Ell Dorado but Ophir as we'll.
Suddenly it occurred to Peters that
the famous gold land must be in the
neighborhood of Simbabje in southeast
Africa. 1t was an inspiration.
He was attacked for this belief, and
theologians and others with a different
theory cast on him the reproach that
he was not a Semitic scholar.
But he maintained that he was
right. The ships of Solomon, he said,
passed through the Red sea and
skirted the coast of Africa until they
arrived at their port. And they GER
tainly must have brought back mill
lions in gold.
Only Africa could have produced
that quantity of gold. Arabia and In
dia have never produced gold in re-
markable quantities.
In his description of the Zambesi
territory Peters says he has seen in
Vulnerable traces which compel him to
believe that there and nowhere else
was the land of Ophir. Forsaken
mines by the score are there, and no
less than $4,000 places where gold has
been dug at depths of from 80 to 40
feet. Ruins of towns and villages, re-
mains of temple and palaces speak
frequently ssslps' of past s''''s' of the
They point moreover to Pboenician
origin. Mighty terraces and towers
raised by the hand OF man are still
tracsable. These builders were GER
tainjy of race superior to the negro.
One still finds in the graves remnants
of things which point to the worship
of Haal.
But Peters weightiest argument is
that in the Septuagint translation of
the Bible Ophir is called Sofala, and
the Arabs to the present day call the
Zam5esi district indifferently Sofala
and "the land of gold"