Democratic Sentinel, Volume 20, Number 24, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 June 1896 — , SOUTH AFRICAN RUINS. [ARTICLE]

, SOUTH AFRICAN RUINS.

Buildings at Zimbabwe that May Be at King Solomon’s Time. It would seem that, at some far distant date, a people more civilized than any of the present Kafir tribes had penetrated Into the region we dow call Masbonnland. and had maintained itself there for a considerable period. Remains of gold-workings are found Id many parts of that country, and evea as for as the southwestern part of Matabeleland—remains which show that mining must have been carried on, by primitive methods, no doubt, but still upon a scale larger than we can well deem within the capabilities of the Kafir tribes as we now see them. There are, moreover, in these regions, and usually not far from some old goldworking, pieces of ancient building executed with a neatness and finish, as well as with an attempt at artistic effect, which are entirely absent from the rough walls, sometimes of loose stones, sometimes plastered with mud, which the Kafirs build today. These old buildings are, with one exception, bits of wall enclosing forts or residences. They are constructed of small blocks of the granite of the country, carefully trimmed to be of one size, and are usually ornamented with g simple imttern, such as the so-called "herringbone” patern. The one exception Is to be found in the ruins of Zimbabwe, in the southern Mashonaland. Here a wall thirty feet high, and from six to twelve or fourteen feet thick, Incloses a large elliptical space, filled with other buildings, some of which apparently were intended for the purpose of worship. There are no inscriptions of any kind, and few objects, except some rudely curved heads of birds, to suply any indication as to the ethnological attinlties of the people who erected this building, or as to the nature of their worship. Buch indications ns we have, however, suggest that it was some form of nature worship, including the worship of the sun. We kuow front other sources (including the Egyptian monuments and the Old Testament) that there was from very early times a trade between the Red Sea and some part of East Africa; and us we know also that the worship of natural forces and of the sun prevailed among the early Semites, the view that the builders of Zimbabwe were of Arab or some other Semitic stock. Is at least highly plausible. Two things are quite clear to every one who examines the ruins, and compares them with the smaller fragments of nnclont building already mentioned. Those who built Znmhubwc were a race much superior to the Bantu tribes, whose mud huts nre now to be found not far from these still strong and solid walls; and those other remains scattered through the country were either the work of that same superior race, or, at any rate, were built in imitation of their style nnd under the Influences they had left. But whether this race was driven out, or peaceably withdrew, or became by degrees absorlied and lost in the surrounding Bantu population, we have no data for conjecture. If they come from Arabia they must have come more than twelve centuries ago, before the days of Mohammed; for they were evidently not Musselmans, and It Is Just as easy to suppose that they came In the days of Solomon, fifteen centuries earlier.—Century.