A few remarks on the future capital of the Mashonaland gold-fields may not be amiss, by way of sharp contrast, in a work more especially devoted to the study of the past. The same motive, namely, the thirst for gold, created the hoary walls of Zimbabwe and the daub huts of Fort Salisbury, probably the oldest and the youngest buildings erected for the purpose by mankind, ever keen after that precious metal which has had so remarkable an influence on generation after generation of human atoms. These remarks on Fort Salisbury will, moreover, have a certain amount of historical value in years to come, when it has its railway, its town hall, and its cathedral, for we were there on the day on which its first birthday was kept, the anniversary of the planting of the British flag by the pioneers on the dreary upland waste of Mashonaland. It seemed to us a very creditable development, too, for so young a place, when it is taken into consideration [280]that Fort Salisbury, unlike the mushroom towns of the Western Hemisphere, has grown up at a distance of 800 miles from a railway, without telegraphic communication, and for months during the rainy season without intercourse of any kind with the outer world, handicapped by fever, famine, and an unparalleled continuation of rain.

In the space of twelve months three distinct townships had grown up. One was under the low hill or kopje devoted to business men, where indications of brick houses succeeding daub huts had already manifested themselves; solicitors, auctioneers, and a washerwoman had already established themselves there; bars, restaurants, and a so-called hotel had been constructed. Fort Salisbury had already started its mass meetings and revolutionary elements, for it seems that in all new communities the spirit of evil must always come in advance of the good. An enterprising individual had produced a paper called the Mashonaland Times and Zambesia Herald, and two men had brought billiard-tables with them, one of which was hopelessly smashed on the journey, ensuring for the other a successful and paying monopoly. About half a mile from this busy quarter was the military centre, the fort and the Government stores surmounted by Her Majesty’s flag, forming a little village in itself. A quarter of a mile farther were the huts devoted to the civil administration; and farther off still were the hospital huts superintended by some charming Benedictine sisters [281]and a Jesuit Father. Around all this was the wide open veldt of Mashonaland, studded just then by lovely flowers, and grazed upon by many lean, worn-out oxen, the sole survivors of many well-appointed teams which had struggled up the same interminable road that we had, leaving by the roadside the carcasses of so many comrades, which, in process of decay, had caused us many an unpleasant sensation.

On September 12, the anniversary of the arrival of the pioneers, a grand dinner was given to about eighty individuals at the hotel to celebrate the event: representatives of the military, civil, and business communities were bidden; gold prospectors, mining experts, men of established and questionable reputations—all were there, and the promoters underwent superhuman difficulties in catering for so many guests, and gave fabulous prices for a sufficiency of wine, spirits, and victuals properly to celebrate the occasion. It was in its initiative ostensibly a social gathering to celebrate an ostensibly auspicious occasion; but one after-dinner speech became more intemperate than the other: the authorities were loudly abused for faults committed by them, real or imaginary; well-known names, when pronounced, were hooted and hissed; and the social gathering developed, as the evening went on, into a wild demonstration of discontent.

At the bottom of all this ill-feeling was the question of supplies. The previous rainy season had been passed by the pioneers in abject misery; there [282]was no food to eat, and no medicine to administer to the overwhelming number of fever patients. The rainy season was now fast approaching again, when for months the place would be cut off by the rivers from the outer world, and the 400 waggon-loads of provisions promised by the company had not yet arrived. Lucky were those who had anything to sell in those days: a bottle of brandy fetched 3l. 10s.; champagne was bought at the rate of 30l. a dozen; ham was 4s. 6d. a lb.; tins of jam 5s. 6d.; butter, tinned meats, and luxuries were impossible to obtain; and yet when, after a few weeks, the 400 waggons did come, there was a glut in the market of all these things; plenty was ensured for the coming wet season, and there were no more mass meetings or abuse of the authorities.

Probably few cases have occurred in the world’s history of greater difficulty in catering than that which presented itself to the Chartered Company during the first year of Fort Salisbury’s existence. Very little could be obtained from a native source, for the inhabitants here are few. Hungry, impecunious gold prospectors were flocking into the place; the usual tribe of adventurers, who always appear as impediments to a new and presumably prosperous undertaking, were here by the score. Eight hundred miles lay between Fort Salisbury and the food supply, which had to be traversed by the tedious process of bullock waggons. The Pungwe route, which had been confidently looked to as a more rapid means of communication, [283]had so far proved a fiasco, and hundreds of pounds’ worth of provisions were rotting on the other side of the fly belt at Mapanda’s and Beira; so no wonder discontent was rife at the prospect of famine and death during the ensuing wet months, and no wonder just then that the administrators were at their wits’ end, for, though firmly believing that the waggons would come, they could not be sure, for there was no telegraphic communication in those days. One morning we saw Mr. Selous hurriedly despatched to bring up the waggons at any cost. A few weeks later we heard that they had arrived, and the danger which had threatened the infant Fort Salisbury was averted.

At an elevation of 5,000 feet above the sea level, and barely 18° south of the equator, the air of Fort Salisbury is naturally delicious, and it will probably be the healthiest place in the world when the swamps in its vicinity are properly drained, from which, during the rainy season, malarious vapours proceed and cause fever. The question of drainage was exercising the minds of the authorities when we were there, and much probably has now been done in that direction. Searching winds and clouds of dust were about the only discomforts we personally experienced whilst encamped there; these, however, caused us no little inconvenience, as we were preparing our belongings for various destinations, a matter of no small difficulty after seven months of waggon life. We were told to sell everything we could, including our [284]waggons and oxen, as it would only be possible to perform the rest of the journeys before us with horses and donkeys and bearers, necessitating the reduction of our impedimenta to the smallest possible quantity. What promised to be a very interesting expedition was in store for us—namely, to take a present of 40l. worth of goods from the Chartered Company to a chief, ’Mtoko by name, who lived about 120 miles north-east of Fort Salisbury. His country had as yet been hardly visited by white men, and was reported to be replete with anthropological interests. Then we were to make our way down to Makoni’s country, where the existence of ruins was brought before our notice, and so on to Umtali and the coast. This prospective trip would take us many weeks, and would lead us through much country hitherto unexplored, so that ample preparations and a careful adjustment of our belongings were necessary. The best interpreter to be had was kindly placed at our disposal by the Chartered Company, as the language in those parts differs essentially from that spoken at Zimbabwe and the Sabi, a certain portion of which had by this time penetrated into our brains. The interpreter in question was just then absent from Fort Salisbury, so to occupy our time we decided on a trip to the Mazoe Valley, and the old gold workings which exist there.

Having despatched three donkeys with bedding and provisions the night before, we left Fort Salisbury one lovely morning, September 15, and rode [285]through country as uninteresting as one could well imagine until we reached Mount Hampden. Somehow or another we had formed impressions of this mountain of a wholly erroneous character. It has an historic interest as a landmark, named after one of the first explorers of Mashonaland, but beyond this it is miserably disappointing. Instead of the fine mountain which our imaginations had painted for us, we saw only a miserable round elevation above the surrounding plain, which might possibly be as high as Box Hill, certainly no higher. It is covered with trees of stunted growth; it is absolutely featureless; and is alone interesting from its isolation, and the vast area of flat veldt which its summit commands.

Soon after leaving Mount Hampden the views grew very much finer, and as we descended into the valley of the Tatagora, a tributary of the Mazoe, we entered into a distinctly new class of scenery. Here everything is rich and green; the rounded hills and wooded heights were an immense relief to us after the continuous though fantastic granite kopjes which we had travelled amongst during the whole of our sojourn in Mashonaland. The delicate green leaves of the machabel tree, on which, I am told, elephants delight to feed, were just now at their best, and take the place of the mimosa, mapani, and other trees, of which we had grown somewhat weary. The soil, too, is here of a reddish colour, and we enjoyed all the pleasurable sensations of getting into an entirely [286]new formation, after the eye had been accustomed to one style of colouring for months.

As we proceeded down the valley the hills closed in and became higher; occasional rugged peaks stood up out of gentle wooded slopes; and if one had ignored the trivial detail of foliage, one might have imagined that we were plunging into a pretty Norwegian valley with a stream rushing down its midst.

Presently we came upon a nest of native kraals, and alighted to inspect them. There are those who say that these people are the real Mashonas, who have given their name to the whole country. This I much doubt; at any rate they are very different from the Makalangas, with whom we had hitherto been entirely associated, and have been here only for a few years. When Mr. Selous first visited this valley on one of his hunting expeditions in 1883, he found it quite uninhabited, whereas now there are many villages, an apt illustration of the migratory tendencies of these [287]tribes. They are quite different in type to the Makalangas, and, I should say, distinctly inferior in physique. They build their huts differently, with long eaves coming right down to the ground. Their granaries are fatter and lower, and made of branches instead of mud, these two facts pointing distinctly to a tribal variation. They wear their hair in long strings over their face, one on each side of the nose, and the others hanging on their cheeks, giving them quite a sphinx-like appearance. These strings are adorned with beads and cowrie-shells, and must form the most uncomfortable style of coiffure that ever was invented. They have magnificent bowls of hand-made pottery, decorated with chevron patterns in red and black, which colours they obtain from hematite and plumbago; and on all advantageous spots near the villages are platforms raised on stakes for drying grain.

Undoubtedly this race, whoever they may be, have a northern origin, for they call beer Doorah or Doro, the same word used for the same material in Abyssinia and Nubia. This word is also used in ’Mtoko’s and Makoni’s country. Curiously enough, Edrisi, in his geography, when speaking of the Zindj inhabitants near Sofala, makes this statement: ‘Dowrah is very scarce amongst them,’ pointing to the Arabian origin of the word; whereas in Manicaland beer is called Wa-wa, and in Mashonaland, south of Fort Salisbury, it is called ’Mtwala, a word of Zulu origin.

Four miles beyond these villages the valley gets [288]very narrow and the scenery very fine; and the shades of evening found us comfortably located in the huts of Mr. Fleming, a gold prospector, at a distance of twenty-five miles from Fort Salisbury and in the vicinity of the ancient mines. Immediately opposite to us rose a fine rocky mountain in which are caves where the natives hide themselves and their cattle during Matabele raids. It was a lovely warm evening, and as we sat contemplating the scene and resting after the labours of the day, we felt the soothing influence upon us of scenery more congenial to our taste than any we had yet seen in Mashonaland.

The first set of old workings which we visited was only a few hundred yards from Mr. Fleming’s huts, and consisted of rows of vertical shafts, now filled up with rubbish, sunk along the edge of the auriferous reef, and presumably, from instances we saw later, communicating with one another by horizontal shafts below. We saw also several instances of sloping and horizontal shafts, all pointing to considerable engineering skill. It must have been ages since these shafts were worked, for they are all filled nearly to the surface with débris, and huge machabel-trees, the largest in the vicinity, are growing out of them. We then proceeded to visit some old workings about a mile and a half off on the hill slopes. One vertical shaft had been cleared out by Mr. Fleming’s workmen, and it was fifty-five feet deep. Down this we went with considerable difficulty, and saw for ourselves the ancient tool marks and the smaller horizontal shafts [289]which connected the various holes bored into the gold-bearing quartz.

I am told that near Hartley Hills some of these old workings go down even to a greater depth, and that one has been cleared out to the depth of eighty feet, proving incontestably that the ancient workers of these mines were not content with mere surface work, and followed the reef with the skill of a modern miner.

All about here the ground is honeycombed with old shafts of a similar nature, indicated now by small round depressions in straight lines along the reef where different shafts had been sunk; in fact, the output of gold in centuries long gone by must have been enormous.

Since the modern invasion of this gold-producing district a considerable amount of prospecting has been done, but of necessity time has not allowed of a thorough investigation of the country. Wherever the gold prospector has been, he finds instances of ancient working, and these old shafts extend all up the country wherever the gold-bearing quartz is to be found. There are ruins similar to those at Zimbabwe and the old workings in the Tati district. The old workings and ruins extend for miles and miles up the Mazoe Valley. Numerous old shafts are to be found at Hartley Hills, and on the ’Mswezwe River. Near Fort Victoria and in the immediate vicinity of Zimbabwe the prospectors have lately brought to light the same features; everywhere, in short, where the pioneer prospectors [290]have as yet penetrated overwhelming proof of the extent of the ancient industry is brought to light. Mr. E. A. Maund thus speaks of the old workings in the ’Mswezwe district:1 ‘On all sides there was testimony of the enormous amount of work that had been done by the ancients for the production of gold. Here, as on the Mazoe and at Umtali, tens of thousands of slaves must have been at work taking out the softer parts of the casing of the reefs, and millions of tons have been overturned in their search for gold.’

In all these places, too, as in the Mazoe Valley, especially down by the streams, are found crushing-stones, some in long rows, suggesting the idea that the gold had been worked by gangs of slaves chained together in rows, after the fashion depicted on the Egyptian monuments and described by Diodorus; and near Mr. Fleming’s camp we were shown traces of a cement smelting furnace similar to the one we discovered in the fortress of Zimbabwe, showing that all the various processes of gold production, crushing, washing, and smelting, were carried on on the spot.

As we proceeded up the Mazoe Valley we saw plenty of traces of the juvenile enterprise at work on the old hunting-ground; and a little below Mr. Fleming’s camp the Taragona and Mazoe Rivers join, the latter coming down from a valley of higher level, by a Poort or gorge. Established on the old workings along here were numerous settlements bearing [291]modern names—Rothschild’s, Cherry’s, Lockner’s, and others—and soon probably a little township will spring up around the mining commissioner’s hut, where the Mazoe River is lined by fine timber, including lemon-trees, the fruit of which was just then ripe, and deliciously refreshing after our hot morning’s work. These lemon-trees are alluded to by Dos Santos as existing in these parts in his day three hundred years ago.

The mining commissioner, Mr. Nesbit, entertained us most hospitably for our midday repast, and directed us on our way to the Yellow Jacket Mine, near which we were to see more old workings and an ancient ruined fort. By another narrow gorge or Poort, rich in vegetation, and lovely to look upon, we reached the higher valley, and when darkness had already set in, by the aid of the distant glimmering light of a camp fire we made our way to the tents of the Yellow Jacket prospectors, whose abode we had nearly missed in the gloaming. The kindly prospectors hastened to prepare for us an excellent supper of eland steak, for they had shot one of these fine beasts a day or two before, a wonderfully good stroke of luck for us, as we were without meat. The eland is the best beast you can kill in Mashonaland, for not only is it large, but around its heart it has a considerable amount of fat, so that its flesh can be properly served up, and not reduced to lumps of leather for want of grease. They had also shot a [292]fine lion here not long before, and proudly showed us the skin.

The country about here is very thickly wooded, and we had a glorious ride next morning to the ruins we wished to visit, about five miles distant, across rushing streams overhung with verdure, and in which alluvial gold is still found in small quantities. Here we saw specimens of those curious birds with long tail-like feathers at the end of their wings, which can only fly for a short distance, and seem overweighted by nature for some peculiar freak of her own. There are, too, all up this country many varieties of small birds with tail feathers four or five times their own length, which droop as they fly. These birds seem to me to resemble closely the one depicted on the temple of Deir-el-Bahari in the representation of a village in Punt (Mariette’s ‘Deir-el-Bahari,’ plate v.), identified as the Cinnyris metallica, and found all along the east coast of Africa.

We reached the ruin in good time, and halted by it for a couple of hours. It is a small ancient fort, built, as usual, on a granite kopje, and constructed with courses of wonderful regularity, equal to what we term the best period of Zimbabwe architecture. Not much of the wall was standing; enough, however, to show us that the fort had been almost twenty feet in diameter, and to cause us to wonder where the remaining stones could have gone to, as there are no buildings or Kaffir kraals anywhere near it. This is another of the many mysteries attached to the Mashonaland [293]ruins; where the walls are ruined the stones would seem to have entirely disappeared. This difficulty confronted us at several places, and I am utterly at a loss to account for it.

The fort, as it stands now, is exceedingly picturesque, in a green glade with mountains shutting it in on all sides; fine timber grows inside it and large boulders are enclosed within the walls. It was obviously erected as a fort to protect the miners of the district, and is a link in the chain of evidence which connects the Zimbabwe ruins with the old workings scattered over the country.

On our homeward journey we visited a lot more [294]ancient workings, some of which are being opened by the present occupiers, who seemed tolerably well satisfied with their properties, despite the strictures which had been passed by experts, that the gold reefs in the Mazoe Valley ‘pinched out’ and did other disagreeable things which they ought not to do. From a picturesque point of view the Mazoe Valley is certainly one of the pet places in Mashonaland: the views in every direction are exquisite, water is abundant everywhere, and verdure rich; and if the prospectors are disappointed in their search for gold, and find that the ancients have exhausted the place, they will have, at any rate, valuable properties from an agricultural point of view.

Owing to our previous arrangements we were obliged to return to Fort Salisbury the next day, regretting much that we had not time to proceed farther up the Mazoe Valley, where, about forty miles farther on, is another great centre of ancient industry. I was told of another ruin there, probably built for the same defensive purpose; it is near a Kaffir village called Chipadzi’s. About twenty-five miles farther up the valley from the commissioner’s is Mapandera’s kraal on the Sangwe River, a tributary of the Mazoe or Mazowe. Here, on the Inyota Mountain, gold is said to be plentiful and old workings very numerous, as many as seventy-five crushing-stones having been counted on one single claim. Twenty miles south-east of Mapandera’s is Chipadzi’s kraal, and a few miles from here in the mountains is another ruin, [295]described to me as being a circular wall round a kopje from 150 to 200 feet in diameter. This wall is in a very ruined condition, being not more than four feet in height, but the courses are reported to be quite as regular as those of Zimbabwe, which appears to be the crucial test in classifying these remains of ancient workmanship. It has no entrance, and the natives thereabouts did not appear to know anything about it or attach any special interest to it.

The Mazoe Valley is frequently alluded to in early Portuguese enterprise, being easily approachable from the Zambesi, and the river is, I am told, navigable about eighty miles below where we struck it.

Couto, the Portuguese writer, thus speaks of the gold mines here in his quaint legendary style: ‘The richest mines of all are those of Massapa, where they show the Abyssinian mine from which the Queen of Sheba took the greater part of the gold which she went to offer to the Temple of Solomon, and it is Ophir, for the Kaffirs called it Fur and the Moors Afur … the veins of gold are so big, that they expand with so much force, that they raise the roots of trees two feet.’ He fixes the spot which he here alludes to farther on when speaking about the three markets held by the Portuguese in these parts: ‘(1) Luanhe, thirty-five leagues from Tete South, between two small rivers, which join and are called Masouvo; (2) Bacoto, forty leagues from Tete; and (3) Massapa, fifty leagues from Tete up the said River Masouvo.’ Now the Mazoe, which, doubtless, in the native tongue, is the [296]Maswe, like the Pungwe, Zimbabwe, &c., joins the Zambesi just below Tete.

Further evidences of this Portuguese enterprise will doubtless come to light as the Mazoe Valley is further explored. In the vicinity of a new mine called the Jumbo, fragments of old Delft pottery have been found, a few of which were shown to me when at Fort Salisbury. Nankin china is also reported from the same district, an indubitable proof of Portuguese presence; and no doubt many of the large Venetian beads, centuries old, which we saw and obtained specimens of from the Makalangas in the neighbourhood of Zimbabwe, were barter goods given by the traders of those days to the subjects of the Monomatapa, who brought them gold in quills to the three above-named dépôts, collected from the alluvial beds of the Mazoe and other streams. It is rumoured amongst the inhabitants of the Mazoe and Manica that long ago, in the days of their ancestors, white men worked gold and built themselves houses here. This rumour most probably refers to the Portuguese, who at the three above-mentioned places had churches and forts, faint traces of which are still to be found in the district.

Corvo, in his work ‘As Provincias ultramarinas,’ speaks at considerable length about the early Portuguese enterprise and the jealousy of the Arab merchants at their advent, and how these men excited the suspicion of the Monomatapa and brought about the subsequent martyrdom of the Jesuit missionary [297]Silveira and the entire destruction of the Portuguese mission, which had nearly converted the Monomatapa in 1561. He concludes his remarks on this subject as follows:—

[298]

‘The early Portuguese did nothing more than substitute themselves for the Moors, as they called them, in the ports that those occupied on the coast; and their influence extended to the interior very little; unless, indeed, through some acts of violence, or through some ephemeral alliance of no value whatever, and through missions without any practical or lasting results. It is easy to see, by looking at the map, where the Portuguese influence extended to, and that they never left a good navigable river as a basis of operation. They went up the Zambesi, and up the Mazoe as far as they could, where they established the three fairs for trading purposes, and up the Pungwe and Buzi Rivers, establishing themselves in the same way at Massi-Kessi and Bandiri; and beyond this their influence did not extend at all during what may be called the most flourishing epoch of their colonial existence.’

From the Yellow Jacket tents we had a long ride before us of thirty miles back to Fort Salisbury. We arose betimes and found it very cold, with a thin coating of ice on the water-cans, almost the only time we saw ice during our ‘winter’ in Mashonaland, although occasionally the wind was cold and the nights very fresh. Winter in these parts is delightful, with brilliant sun by day; but as evening approaches a coat is necessary, and during our two nights at the Yellow Jacket huts we had to remove rugs, which were sorely wanted below, to procure the necessary warmth above. [299]

One more breakfast off that excellent eland fortified us for our ride, and the sun was not high in the heavens when we bade farewell to our hospitable entertainers. About three hours’ ride brought us to the Mazoe again just before it enters the Poort on its way to the lower valley. At the extremity of the valley we were riding down, just before the hills are ascended to reach the level plateau, there is another nest of Kaffir villages; one of these had incurred the enmity of the officers of the Chartered Company for refusing to recognise its authority by restoring stolen cattle.

A fine of cattle had been imposed on the chief, accompanied by a threat that if the fine was not paid by a certain day the kraal would be burnt down. The fine was not paid, and Major Forbes, with a band of men, rode out to execute the orders, borrowing two of our horses for the occasion. As we passed through the village the ashes of huts and granaries were still smouldering, broken pots and household goods lay around in wild confusion, and all the inhabitants had taken refuge at one of the neighbouring villages. As we passed by this it is needless to say we did not meet with an altogether cordial reception; we dismounted and went amongst them, asking in vain for beer, eggs, and fowls.

‘The Morunko had taken them all,’ they said, and they received our overtures of friendship with silent, and we thought rather ominous, contempt. Accordingly we remounted and rode off, and I think all [300]parties were relieved when we had put a little distance between us and the village. Since then I hear a solitary white man has been murdered in the Mazoe Valley. Luckily our force amounted to three, a number sufficient to overawe any Mashonaland village.

There are some nice-looking farms just started on the slopes of the hills here. Near there we met a wondrous long string of natives in single file, who avoided us and looked askance at us and our animals. Some day or another, when Fort Salisbury becomes a big place, and food supplies are needed, those who have pegged out farms in the Mazoe district will reap a fine profit from their agricultural produce, if I am not much mistaken. [301]