VOYAGERS OF OLD.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXII, Issue 19061, 4 July 1925, Page 2 (Supplement)

VOYAGERS OF OLD.

SOUTH AFRICA'S EARLY DAYS. SURPRISING DISCOVERIES. VERY ANCIENT MARINERS. Professor Raymond Dart,- who gave the world the first description of the skull of a inan-a,pe lately discovered in South Africa at Taungs, near Kimberley, has written a very interesting article on certain discoveries which make it probable that South Africa was in contact with the outside world from an early date. These discoveries take the form of ancient rock paintings by the Bushmen. Some of these pictures show the usual naked figirres of the Bushmen accompanied by other people, dressed in tunics and peculiarly shaped caps, such as were worn in ancient Phoenicia and Babylonia. There also exist certain figures in these paintings which appear to be wearing Chinese peaked hats, and the discovery of Chinese porcelain in the great ruins at Zimbabwe in Rhodesia is held to support, the evidence of the paintings. It is also pointed out that Borne of the women of Natal to-day dress their hair in a way very similar to that which the

ancient Egyptians favoured, and Professor Dart concludes that South Africa was visited in early times by the Phcrnicians, Babylonians, Egyptians, and Chinese. If this is the case, then it is clear that these people must have li.'vi a considerable knowledge of navigation even in those early days. For many years Rhodesia has been examined by arclueologists and others, and there cannot bo much doubt that this area was the centre of a vast system of ancient mining for gold, copper, tin, and other tilings. The presence in South Africa of these necessities for tho ancient world would provide a reason for the visitations of the people mentioned, a;:;d Professor Dart suggests that the fabled Land of Punt of the Egyptians also lay in South Africa, somewhere south of the Zambesi.

Herodotus relates that the servants of the Mediterranean King Necho of Phoenicia had encircled Africa, and Professor Dart mentions the discovery, during the laying out of a cemetery near Cape Town, of an ancient boat buried six feet from the surface. If these conclusions are true many strango discoveries of evidences of a civilised people in distant and savage parts of the world will be explained. It will mean that the Egyptians were seamen in their very early days, and that the Chinese were travellers before history heard of the existence of China.