AFRICA'S STRANGEST MYSTERIES

Evening Star, Issue 19025, 21 August 1925, Page 12

AFRICA'S STRANGEST MYSTERIES

MASSIVE BUILDINGS OF A LOST RAGE The Prince of Wales had a glimpse at one of the strangest mysteries of Africa—the ruins ol Zimbabwe, so substantial and so intricate that they are manifestly the work of a race wan powers ol organisation and intelligence beyond all comparison superior to the native tribes ol tins region (writes Mr G. Ward Price in the ‘Daily Mail ’). Yet they were left so devoid of the least inscription and so empty of those relics which elsewhere tell the story of vanished ages that no arcineologist 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 walls of this lost people’s temple-fortress rise still strong and substantia! in ibe sunlight. Its narrow passages 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 was afterwards used for building Solomon’s Temple. Though the Ithodesian Government lias had them examined very thoroughly and keeps them well preserved, the origin of Zimbabwe’s massive walls is likely to remain one 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 hero an imperial race constructing massive public buildings for worship and protection with a high degree of skill. What brought their hold ou Africa to an end we may never know, for when the British first arrived here between thirty and forty years ago the Zimbabwe ruins wore 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 tins country are the work of a more 1.b00.000 whites surrounded by an immensely larger ana fast-increasing black population. Were wc, by compulsion or consent, over lo abandon these terrilories widen wo so rc'-ontly rescued from barbarism, would there be 1.000 years Ik-iv<. so much ns Ibe ruins of Zimbabwe to mark our passage? It sound-- fantastic speculation, yet cv°u General Souris once uttered a warning that if White South .-'from neglected to develop its white population the day may yet come when “ little brown children will play among the mins of the Union Government buildings in Pretoria.”