AFRICA'S STRANGEST MYSTERY.

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 52, 29 August 1925, Page 16

AFRICA'S STRANGEST MYSTERY.

On 3rd July the Prince of Wales had a glimpse at one of the strangest mysteries of Africa —the ruins at Zimbabwe, so substantial and so extricate that they are manifestly the work of a race, with powera of organisation and intelligence beyond all comparison superior to the native tribes of this region. Yet they were so devoid of the least inscription and so empty of those relics which elsewhere tells the story of vanished ages that no archaeologist will advance more than a conjectural theory of their origin and every theory differs from the others.

In the midst of a beautiful valley the straight sheer grey walla of this lost people's temple-fortress rise still strong and substantial in the sunlight, states G. Ward Price in a dispatch, to the "Daily Mail." Its narrow patches and cramped gateways make it seem to have been designed that no one should move about it except in single file. Some authorities believe that these singular constructions represent a fortified town where Arabs or Phoenicians collected gold which waa afterwards uaed for building Solomon's Temple. Though the Ehodesian Government has had them examined very thoroughly and keeps them well preserved, the origin of Zimbabwe's massive walls is likely to remain oho of the unsolved riddles of the world. One thing alone is certain, that long before this part of Africa was even. remotely known to Europeans there existed hers an Imperial I'ace constructingmassivo public buildings for worship and protection with a high degree of skill. What brought their hold on Africa to an end we may never know, for when the British first arrived here between 30 and 40 years a§o the Zimbabwe ruins were almost buried beneath the accumulated rubbish left by many generations of kaffir encampments. And though it may be straining comparison, one cannot help remembering that monuments of European culture spread about this country are the work ■of a mere 1,500,000 whites surrounded by an immensely larger and fast-increasing black population. Were we, by compulsion or consent, ever to abandon these territories which we so recently resound from barbarism, would there be 1000 years hence so much as the ruins of Zimbabwe to mark our passage. It sounda .fantastic speculation, yet even General Smuts once uttered a warning that if white South Africa neglected to develop its white population the day may yet coma when "little brown children will play among the ruins of the Union Government buildings in Pretoria."