The Lost City of Solomon and Sheba (7 page)

The British High Commissioner approved. At the meeting Rhodes had been careful to refer to his party as ‘miners' which appears to have been naively accepted by some (Moffat) and derided by others. Sir John Kirk is recorded as saying: ‘It is a matter of course that we have granted a charter with a view to driving the Matabeles out of the country across the Zambesi and settling the whole country with “volunteers” whose services were paid for by free land grants. Of course this is quite contrary to the provisions and spirit of the charter.'

Not to mention Lobengula's concession.

Everyone knew that Rhodes was assembling in Mafeking a pocket invasion army. Along with the recruits (who had been deliberately enrolled from influential families in the Cape in case the column needed rescuing) came equipment which left nothing in doubt: military-style uniforms, revolvers, rifles, Maxim, Gatling and Nordenfeldt machine-guns and a powerful steam-driven searchlight. The men were formed into three troops, two of mounted infantry, one of artillery. The accompanying police force had been doubled to 500 men and there were now 186 wagons.

The column crossed into Matabeleland in July and was immediately shadowed by an impi of between 200 and 300 men. Lobengula sent protesting notes to the commander of the military force, Lieutenant-Colonel Pennyfather, ordering him to turn back. Pennyfather replied that he was a servant of the Queen and only she could order him back but he allowed Lobengula's note to be taken on to Rhodes. This all used up valuable time as the column moved on. The plan had been to form a defensive ring of wagons (a laager) every night but the column was spread out over two miles and this proved impractical. Thereafter, the column was split in two and advanced in parallel, forming a square laager at night. The searchlight was turned on and swept the bush, and explosive charges were laid outside the square and exploded throughout the night.

In the Cape, Rhodes had become Prime Minister.

Why did Lobengula not attack, as the majority of his young warriors were urging? The answer is still anyone's guess. By now the King knew of the tenacity of Rhodes and his minions and probably realised that his options were cooperation or bloody confrontation, if not with Rhodes then, almost certainly, with the Boers. Lobengula was aware of Zulu history and the inevitability of having to face a massive British army should British subjects die. The Guards had given him a foretaste of that and his envoys to Queen Victoria, still men of influence, had seen it in action at Aldershot. He knew of the fate of his Zulu relative, Cetewayo, who had also sought alliance with the British to forestall Afrikaner encroachment on his domains. The British still found an excuse to invade Zululand and while routed in the famous Battle of Isandhlwana (1879), a huge British army was then sent to Zululand to crush the Zulu nation and depose Cetewayo. Restored to power he was again deposed by rivals and died a fugitive.

Uncannily, Lobengula's eventual fate would be a tragic echo of this.

But in my view the overlooked factor in Lobengula's story and one which bears on ours is his attitude to gold. Astute and sophisticated in many other ways the King seems genuinely not to have recognised that gold was driving this army of treasure hunters. He must, therefore, have found it very difficult to believe that they were prepared to risk dying for it. Lobengula apparently knew nothing of ancient Ophir and the lost gold mines of Mashonaland and appears to have had little or no interest in the ancient Zimbabwe culture created by the power of gold. Land, slaves, and particularly cattle he would go into battle for, but not gold. This mistake essentially cost him his kingdom.

It has also been variously suggested that Lobengula, like his ancestors, still had a nomadic streak and he had already made plans to move his kingdom north to the Zambesi. That may indeed have been the purpose of extensive raids made to the far north by his impis throughout the time he was dealing with Rhodes. Be that as it may, for this little band of ‘Pioneers', soon to be lauded as archetypal Victorian heroes, it was still an enormous gamble to take on Lobengula's huge, tactically adept army; indeed, I am certain it was only the King's restraint which saved them. Rhodes may even have assessed this risk and ‘factored in' the real chance of a devastating Matabele attack. Applicants for the ‘Pioneer Column' were very deliberately chosen from the sons of the most influential Cape families who would swiftly have demanded revenge and retribution had their scions been massacred by the natives in the north. As with the Zulus, a British army would inevitably have followed such a massacre, just as one did with Cetewayo after Isandhlwana.

Lobengula saw this threat. By clever manoeuvring through the indunas leading his regiments the young warriors were held in check, although it was often a close call. When, for example, the Bechuanaland contingent tried to turn back, the force returned in a panic after running into 2,000 advancing Matabele.

On 1 August the Pioneers spotted the low-lying hills which marked the start of the Shona plateau and Selous rode ahead to see if he could find a suitable pass for the wagons: ‘My feelings may be better imagined than described when I say that [having ridden up a promising-looking pass] I saw stretched before me, as far as the eye could see, a wide expanse of open grassy country, and knew that I was looking over the south-western portion of the high plateau of Mashonaland. . . . A weight of responsibility, that had at times become almost unbearable, fell from my shoulders and I breathed a sigh of relief.' They named it Providential Pass.

On 14 August the column debouched onto the plateau and a halt was called for rest and recreation. Selous told them that they were just a short ride from the Queen of Sheba's much vaunted palace, and King Solomon's mines were all around them. Virtually every commercial mining operation these prospectors would now set up would be based on the evidence of gold-bearing reefs from ancient workings. In fact over the next decade it would be recognised that there were all but
no
worthwhile reefs which had not, to a greater or lesser degree, been worked by the ancients.

Ophir was theirs.

They laid the foundations of Fort Victoria, which grew into a thriving little agricultural town by the time I stayed there half a century later. A game of rugby was played and Sir John Willoughby led a party to the ruins and spent the day searching for treasure. None was found, but Sir John was captured by the magic of the place and would return to spend a great deal of time here; indeed, he would be the second European to dig seriously among the ruins.

One man,
The Times
correspondent, left the others and made a careful and thoughtful tour, filing the only objective early description of the lost city. Hereafter, Great Zimbabwe would be seen either through the rose-tinted glasses of the Romantics or the clinical gaze of the archaeologists.

The Ruins themselves lie at the base of a striking and precipitous granite kopje, inhabited by one of the Mashona tribes under a chief called Moghabi.

The first feature to be noticed on approaching the kopje is the existence of an outer wall, about 4 ft high, running, apparently right round the entire kopje; but owing to the tall grass and dense jungle-like undergrowth it was found impossible to trace this wall more than half a mile.

Next came indications of a second and inner wall, which it was also impossible to trace for any distance for the same reasons. Then amid a perfect labyrinth of remains of small circular buildings – a mighty maze, but not, apparently, without some plan – south-west of the kopje and 300 yd from its base, we find ourselves confronted with the startling and main feature of these remains – namely a high wall, of circular shape, from 30 ft to 35 ft high, forming a complete enclosure of an area 80 yd in diameter.

This wall, about 10 ft in thickness at the base, and tapering to about 7 ft or 8 ft at the top is built of small granite blocks, about twice the size of an ordinary brick, beautifully hewn and dressed, laid in perfect even courses, and put together without a single atom of mortar or cement.

This strange enclosure is entered on its western side by what at first sight appears to be a mere gap in the wall, but which closer examination reveals to be what was once evidently a well-defined, narrow entrance, as shown clearly by the rounded-off courses.

Inside the building itself, which is most difficult to examine, owing to the dense undergrowth and presence of quantities of trees hundreds of years old, which conceal traces of, seemingly, a series of further circular or elliptical walls, and close to the entrance an outer wall, here 30 ft high, stands a conical shaped tower, or turret 35 ft in height and 18 ft in diameter at the base, built of the same granite blocks and consisting of solid masonry.

Lastly, the remaining feature of the building to be touched upon in this brief account is that on the south-east front of the wall, and 20 ft from its base, runs a double zigzag scroll one-third of the distance round, composed of the same-size granite blocks placed in diagonal positions.

On the kopje and hillside itself, too, there are numerous traces of remains of a similar character, circular buildings wedged in amongst boulders of rocks, walled terraces, at least nine in number; and, built on the very summit, an enormous mass of granite blocks, to be used apparently as a fort, and which owing to the complete absence of any disintegrating forces in this climate, is in an almost perfect state of preservation. The view obtained from the summit of the kopje commands a panorama probably unrivalled in South African scenery.

What may be the origin, history, and intention of these curious ruins and, in particular, of the large circular building with its cone-shaped turret, is, as far as the members of the present expedition are concerned, a perfect mystery.

The more scientific and learned element is mute in the presence of these prehistoric remains and stand in silent amazement at their magnitude and solidity. No one, so far, has been bold enough to come forward and suggest some solution of the problem they present, or offer some explanation of the sermons they most infallibly preach.

One thing is certain, however, that the area covered by the numerous walls and circular buildings points clearly to the existence at some time – perhaps ‘before the ages' – of a large and semi-civilised population, at a time when slave labour was procurable to an unlimited extent.

From the natives themselves, as is invariably the case with all South African natives in similar circumstances, we can glean no information whatever respecting these ancient relics under whose shadows they dwell; nor do they appear to entertain any superstitious reverence for them.

They found them there, as did their forefathers, and there their interest in them and information about them begin and end.

Perhaps upon the advent of the expected white they will begin (and judging from our experience the process seems to have already begun) to recognize their value as a medium of obtaining blankets, limbo and beads from the grateful and enthusiastic visitor. Then, at any rate, they will be led to regard them, at least from a practical and business point of view, much as the Egyptian Arabs regard their Pyramids, the Swiss peasant his glaciers, or the English verger his cathedral. It is satisfying to learn that efficient steps have been taken to protect them from both the thoughtlessness and the Philistinism of any prospector or adventurer.

The Portuguese have suggested that these ruins form portions of the remains of the city and the palace of the Queen of Sheba, ‘in the land of Ophir'. Again ancient Portuguese records refer repeatedly to people in this part of Africa, whom they found to be established long before their own arrival, and whom they represent to work for gold in the far interior. To these people they give the name of Morisco [Moors?].

With regard to the word itself – Zimbabye – its etymology and orthography, like most native names, it can be variously and equally correctly spelt Zinbawe, Zinboaoe, and Zinbabye. The Portuguese traveller Lacerda, in his journey through the Zambesi region in 1797, speaks of a tribe, Cazembe (near Lake Nyassa), who in answer to his enquiries regarding the course of a certain river, described it as running close by their Zinbawe, or royal residence. This fact, taken in conjunction with the existence of another Zimbabye in the Manica country, together with the ruins in this neighbourhood, would seem to fix the meaning of the word as palace or royal residence.

Be this, however, as it may, whether these ruins are to be attributed to either Moorish or Phoenician origin, or whether the circular building was a temple or a palace, and the conical tower the Queen of Sheba's tumulus, are questions which only the skilled antiquary and those versed in such matters should presume to decide.

In the meantime, many of us have been privileged to set eyes upon a spectacle which, with the exception of Mauch, as far as we know, no white man has ever hitherto been fortunate enough to behold.

This, by the standards of the time, was very balanced coverage – but it still left origin theorists with quite a narrow field of choice: Moors, Phoenicians or Solomon and Sheba.

Other ‘considered' articles of the time were much more decided. Great Zimbabwe was: ‘A fortified camp or station, established, it had hardly to be doubted, to control the enslaved population which worked the gold mines, and to protect the abler but scanty people which coerced and directed them and took away, like the Spaniards in Peru, all transportable fruit of their labour. Who they were may remain uncertain but there is no reason which makes it peremptory that they should have been indigenous.'

Of all the contenders for this title – and over the next few months the Hindus who conquered and held Java for generations, the Malays who conquered Madagascar, and the Arab people who founded the Sabaean kingdom were nominated – the outright favourite was the Phoenicians, given their history of long sea journeys in search of minerals.

For a truly Romantic view of the lost city, however, one only had to turn, then as now, to the ‘tabloids':