extracts will show th is: 4 They beat their’ palms,
which is their mode of courtesy.’1 4 They smelt iron
and make mattocks, arrows, assegai-points, spears,
little axes, and they have more iron than is necessary,
and of copper they make bracelets, - and both men
and women use them for their legs and arms.’ He describes
their indistinct idea of a Supreme Being, their
feasts in honour of their ancestors, their curious
pianos, 4 with bars of iron enclosed in a pumpkin,’
their 4 wine of millet, which the Portuguese could not
bear, but were obliged to drink and make festivity,
for fear of quarrelling.’ 4 They have an infinity of
fowls, like those of Portugal; ’ and also he describes
the days on which they are not to work, appointed
by the king, unknown to them, when they make
feasts and call these days Mozimos, or days of the holy
already dead.2 In fact, this narrative is so truthful
in all its details, that we may safely take from it his
account of the disintegration of the Monomatapa
chiefdom, as it accounts for many things which otherwise
would be obscure. He tells us that a Monomatapa
sent three sons to govern in three provinces,
Quiteve, Sedanda, and Chicanga; on their father’s
death they refused to give up to the heir their respective
territories, and the country became divided into
four. Since then it has been subdivided again and
again; each petty chief fought with his neighbour,
union was impossible, and in their turn they have fallen
an easy prey to the powerful Zulu organisation under
Umzilikatze and his successor Lobengulu. This I
1 Vide Chap. III. a Vide Chap. XI.
take to be, in a few words, the history of the country
and its people during modern times, and as much
probably as will ever be known of them.
Dos Santos calls these people Mocarangas, and in
this too, I think, he is right, for the reasons I have
previously given.1 They are now, as we have seen,
a miserable race of outcasts, fleeing to the mountain
fastnesses on the approach of a Zulu raid, hounded
and robbed until there is no more spirit in them.
Monteiro mentions a Monomotapa, or emperor of
Chidima, very decayed, but respectable, with a territory
to the west of the Zambesi, near Zumbo. This
is probably the same that Livingstone alludes to. An
.interesting fact that Monteiro also gives us is the
number of Zimbabwes north of the Zambesi, as the
head kraals of chiefs, showing the northern origin of
the name.
Having considered the people in whose country
the Great Zimbabwe ruins are, let us now proceed
to cull what "we can from a Portuguese source
concerning the ruins themselves.
De Barros2 gives us the fullest account of the
ruins. Let us take it and see what it is worth : 4 In
the midst of the plains in the kingdom of Batua, in
the country of Toroe, nearest the oldest gold mines,
stands a fortress, square, admirably built, inside and
out, of hard stone. The blocks of which the walls
consist are put together without mortar and are of
marvellous size. The walls are twenty-five spans
in thickness; their height is not so considerable
1 Chap. II. " De Barros, De Asia. Lisbon, 1552.