Читать книгу Great Zimbabwe, Mashonaland, Rhodesia. An account of two years' examination work in 1902-4 on behalf of the government of Rhodesia онлайн

6 страница из 98

ssss1

The secluded valleys, and also the caves in hills, for a distance of six miles, and in some cases as far as ten miles, from Zimbabwe have been systematically searched in the hope of discovering the burial place of the old gold-seekers. The neighbourhood of Zimbabwe contains several extensive ranges of granite hills each enclosing many secluded and Sinbad-like valleys and gorges, where natives state white men had never previously entered. Such spots on the whole of the Beroma Hills to the east of Zimbabwe, the south end of the Livouri Range to the west, the Bentberg Range to the south, and several hills in the Nini district, as well as several parts in the Motelekwe Valley, have been systematically searched without avail, though there are in certain of these secluded places traces of walls and artificially placed upright stones and other signs of human presence which require some explanation. The siltation of soil from the steep hillsides of many of these most romantically situated valleys has been very extensive. These searches could only be carried on after veld fires had swept the district of the rank grass which here grows to a height of 12 ft. Mr. Bent and other writers have shown that the old Arabians religiously preserved their dead, burying them in secluded spots at some considerable distance from any place of occupation. The writer is not without hope that these burial-places may yet be found. The population of Zimbabwe at several different periods must have been immense, and, judging by the remains found near some of the oldest types of ruins in other parts of the country where the amount of gold ornaments buried with each corpse ranged from 1 oz. to 72 oz., the discovery of such places in the Zimbabwe district would yield important results, especially as, for many reasons, Zimbabwe undoubtedly appears to have been the ancient metropolitan capital and the centre of gold-manufacturing industry of the original and later Arab gold miners, and the place so far has yielded the richest discoveries of gold in every form.