and it makes me jealous for them. I feel I cannot
bear anyone to throw doubt upon their antiquity."

"It is not easy to explain in a few words, without a great many facts
and a lot of detail, but I can tell you one or two salient points. For
one thing, Zimbabwe was evidently connected with a gold industry on a
very large scale. Mr. Telford Edwards, a well-known and able mining
engineer in Rhodesia, measured up, about fourteen years ago, the
length, breadth, and depth of most of the then known old workings in
Rhodesia, and calculated the cubic contents of what had been taken
out. And taking the assay value in each old working to be per ton the
same as it is in the reef in each case now, he estimated that at the
present value of gold more than one hundred million pounds' worth had
been taken out. Even two hundred years ago gold was worth very much
more than it is now; so that it is inconceivable that such an amount
had been produced within the last two thousand years without any
mention of it anywhere. Such a production of gold would have upset the
markets of the world."

"Yes," she said eagerly as he paused; "please go on."

He did so, but without withdrawing his gaze from the distance.
"Another point is that the workings are so widely dispersed and so
numerous, requiring such an enormous amount of time and labour, that
it seems only reasonable to believe that the gold-mining went on for
many hundreds of years, probably before the age of writing at all. I
am not prepared to agree offhand that Zimbabwe is probably the ancient
Havilah of the Scriptures, but I see no very good reason why it should
not be. On the other hand, the ancient workings and fortifications and
temples may have been the work of Phoenicians or Mongols several
thousand years ago. Certainly against Mr. McIver's theory, that the
Temple was the work of Bantus a few hundred years ago, I think we may
put the fact that an admirable drainage system has been
unearthed;--drainage systems of any kind being more or less unknown to
black races of a low order. In the meantime, we can but await fresh
clues, which may put us upon the track of proofs, and hope that the
day is not very far distant when much of the mystery will be cleared."

"O, I hope so," she said; "and thank you so much for telling me all
that you have. I shall think of it often when I am back in 'the cities
of the plain,'" and she smiled a little wistfully.

He did not answer, and she wondered w