which they add a touch of civilization in the form of
tin ornaments made out of the white man’s discarded
meat tins. The Mashona are by no means without
industry and ingenuity. They grow good crops of
mealies, and some of them are very expert smelters
and ironworkers. They make pottery also with a certain
amount of skill. All the same, I cannot call them an
attractive race, as they are cowardly and incurably given
to pilfering. The country was then very sparsely inhabited,
but it only needs irrigation, for which the many rivers give
great facilities.
The last part of the journey to Victoria leads through
a gorge at the foot of Providential Pass, as it is called,
from the fact that the pioneers on their way up
country discovered it by an accident. The scenery
here is enchanting, richly green, with cool streams
bubbling through the vegetation. The surrounding hills
are less grotesque in their aspect than those of other
parts of the country, and possess a graceful charm,
which, for the most part, is lacking in Africa. The
township of Victoria was represented at that time by
a group of straw huts. It was built on a flat plateau,
and did not seem over healthy; but that was in early
days. There were three public-houses, all doing a rattling
trade. Chief among them was Napier’s bar, kept by its
enterprising owner, whose name has been so often
mentioned since he acted as colonel of the Bulawayo
contingent at the beginning of the Matabele rebellion.
I was put up in a hut in the company of Lord Henry
Paulet and Major Browne; where I spent a fortnight
most enjoyably. From visits which I made to the
neighbouring mines I was greatly impressed with the
future prospects of this country. They were not of
course in full working order, but there was no mistaking
the indications of riches in the samples of quartz and
assays submitted to me.
From Victoria I made an excursion to the famous
ruins of Zimbabwe.* To see these had been one of the
objects that brought me to Africa; but as I found
Mr. Theodore Bent had been before me and made a
thorough examination of the ruins, I visited them rather
to satisfy my own curiosity than from any desire or
expectation of adding anything to the work of an
eminent archaeologist so much more capable of describ-
TH E OLD FORT AT VICTORIA.
ing them than myself. In this place, therefore, I shall
only give a brief sketch of the extent and appearance
of this astonishing phenomenon, referring those who
wish to make a closer acquaintance with it to the
admirable monographs of Mr. Bent.
* The word Zimbabwe, or Zimbabye, as it is called, has puzzled many,
but I think it can be easily explained. The true signification is clearly
“ House of the chief or master.” In Nyasaland the house of a chief is
called Nyumba ya MbuyL The letters y and z are often used one for the
other in the Bantu languages; for instance, the natives call lake Nyasa
either Nyanja or else Nyasa, or again Nyanza. Therefore it is probable
that Nyumba ya Mbuye was pronounced Nzimba ya Mbuye, of which the
first Portuguese who visited the place made Zimbabowe. The proof of this
is that de Barros, in his book published in Lisbon in speaks of the
Simbdoes, or palaces of Benomapata, and all the early Portuguese travellers
call every residence of a chief by this name.