d Cape Guardafui. Thus there are grounds for
believing that a traffic between the Red Sea and the coast south of the
Zambesi may have existed from very remote times. Of its later existence
there is of course no doubt. We know from Arabian sources that in the
eighth century an Arab tribe defeated in war established itself on the
African coast south of Cape Guardafui, and that from the ninth century
onward there was a considerable trade between South-east Africa and the
Red Sea ports--a trade which may well have existed long before. And when
the Portuguese began to explore the coast in 1496 they found Arab
chieftains established at various points along it as far south as
Sofala, and found them getting gold from the interior. Three things,
therefore, are certain--a trade between South-east Africa and the Red
Sea, a certain number of Arabs settled along the edge of the ocean, and
an export of gold. Now all over Mashonaland and Matabililand ancient
gold-workings have been observed. Some are quite modern,--one can see
the wooden supports and the iron tools not yet destroyed by rust,--and
it would seem from the accounts of the natives that the mining went on
to some small extent down to sixty years ago, when the Matabili
conquered the country. Others, however, are, from the appearance of the
ground, obviously much more ancient. I have seen some that must have
been centuries old, and have been told of others apparently far older,
possibly as old as the buildings at Zimbabwye. I was, moreover, informed
by Mr. Cecil Rhodes (who is keenly interested in African archaeology)
that he had seen on the high plateau of Inyanga, in eastern Mashonaland,
some remarkable circular pits lined with stone, and approached in each
case by a narrow subterranean passage, which can best be explained by
supposing them to have been receptacles for the confinement of slaves
occupied in tilling the soil, as the surrounding country bears mark, in
the remains of ancient irrigation channels, of an extensive system of
tillage where none now exists. The way in which the stones are laid in
these pit-walls is quite unlike any modern Kafir work, and points to the
presence of a more advanced race. Putting all these facts together, it
has been plausibly argued that at some very distant period men more
civilized than the Kafirs came in search of gold into Mashonaland,
opened these mines, and obtained from them the gold which found its way
to the Red Sea ports, and th