The Coolidge examiner., 1936-06-26

| uIdue lOSetner. tie ana ms native
boys have built the house, planning
1t around big central room with
a wide hearth. She has made it
bright with gay curtains, with the
rugs brought from overseas, with
| the hOmeland's flowers.
And the smart furniture? Well,
RhOdesia has it's teak, and it is
astonishing what carpentry native
'bOyS" can achieve with the assist
ance of designs cut from household
| magazines, and the vicariOus elbow
grease of your constant presence.
Across the broad acres the reaped
corn stands in regimented stacks.
There's farm store where the set
tier sells to his native boys" For
amusements, there are horseback
riding, hunting, fishing, books from
public libraries, and maybe a radio
set.
AS for educating the regional set
! tiers children, minimum of ten
| pupils calls for the establishment
of a governmental school. Failing
that number, in sparsely peopled
| sections, there will be an "aided
farm school," with a government
grant for each child.
Heading eastward from Salisbury,
you soon find yourself nearing those
mountains beyond which extends
Portuguese territory. Completely
cupped within their foothills lofty
profiles lies Umtali, eastern outpost
| of the Rhodesias. Nothing could
reveal itself as a more charming
surprise than this neat little town,
tucked away on the cOlOny's remote
| verge, its streets lined with tall
fiamboyant trees that rear their
masses of scarlet blossoms against
the mountain-rigged valleys vast
ness of overhead blue.
A 250-mile swing around a circle
centering on Umtali reveals it as
RhOdesia's gateway to the wild
heart of things, where waterfalls
plunge over precipices, and primi-
tive forests clOthe the land with
silence, and nude peaks pile their
shapes against the sky.
The Matopo Hills.
At times you traverse 80 miles of
wild woodland that offer no more
guiding features than a dry stream
bed or some cement causeway, built
at low level to allow seasonal tor
rents to sweep across instead of un-
der it. Brilliantly plumaged birds
flash past, groups of rock-perched
baboOns discuss family affairs. Is
suance into the open, with mission
church ahead, is an experience,
while the passage of some other car
is a downright sensation.
Yet, though you would not have
guessed it, there are often kraals
near the road, and thus you get a
glimpse of native cOrngrinding, snuff.
making, hairdressing (as cOmplicat-
ed a process as permanent-waving)
and listen to a fat old grandmother
telling Uncle Remus stories in the
| original version.
Near Bulawayo you visit the
Matopo hills. After a few hours
drive, the land begins heaping it
self into a wide series of rocky
kOpjeS. Here nature seems to have
worked haphazard, fiinging so many
great powders atop of so many pin
nacles that one might we'll call the
place the Valley of Balancing Stones
Now you Chamber up the vast
smooth slant of a massive formation
and find yourself on rocky plateau
feeling antlike beside the huge, glOb
ular powders that are percheG
there over Worlds View"
The powders Immediately encir
cling you are vivid with lichen, ir
reds, green's, and gold. A chile
would call this a fairy place, anC
dream of entertainments. Then sud
denly one severe slab, imbedde(
over what was laid to rest in the
blaSted-Out heart of the rock, tells
you that here has been high burial
''This Power that wrought on u:
and goes
Back to the Power again :"
All, power! Far better than an!
cathedral aisle does this "View O
the World" Rhodes self-chOseI
burial place, suit with the rugged
power of the man. The gnarled pin
nacles are his cathedral's spires, the
richly hued powders his stained
glass windows.
Once, when Rhodes was boy, HI
asked a gray-haired man why ht
should thus be busted planting oaks
| since he would never live to SCI
them full grown. UnfOrgettably fOI
Rhodes, the veteran replied that HI
had the vision to see others Sitting
under the trees shade when he him
self had gone. And well ma!
RhOdesia be likened to an EnglisI
oak, springing by like vision from
the dust now resting under the Slal
in the MatopO hills.