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

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Mogabe’s day has gone. Still, notwithstanding his true Kafir fawning nature, there is something about the aged chief one cannot help respecting. He is intelligent, and he looks it, and his face, if white, would be taken for that of an educated European, for, like most Makalanga, he has little or nothing negroid in his features. Before the advent of the Chartered Company he was constantly at war with his neighbours, sacking villages, kidnapping women and children, and generally murdering. His last fight was in November, 1892, when he engaged the Amangwa people, the battle taking place just outside the western wall of the Elliptical Temple. His own people seem to somewhat neglect him, except in some tribal arrangements and in affairs in which he represents the Native Department. Formerly it was the rule that he ate first and his people afterwards; now he comes into our camp at skoff-times and asks the boys for some of their rapoko, porridge, and if they should happen to be mindful of his presence they will pass him a handful, but sometimes he sits there unheeded. He has now sold, perhaps for a mere song, the famous necklace of Venetian beads which Bent failed to induce him to part with. But there is a look in his eyes that gives one the impression that the old man does not at all relish the benefits of civilisation, and that he is pining for a return of the good old days of blood-shedding.[23] Mogabe’s biography would be worth writing.