The abundance of gold in the country was amply testified by the fact that all adorned themselves more or less with ornaments, such as belts, bracelets, armlets, or necklaces, made of the metal, many of the women wearing, in addition, small plaques or bosses of hammered gold stitched to the hems of their dresses, while others wore a kind of coronet, formed of hammered or chiselled gold, in their hair. A rather sinister feature which quickly attracted my attention was that, with scarcely a solitary exception, the men went armed, each with a heavy, murderous-looking knife of hardened gold thrust into his belt. Diamonds also now came in evidence, a few of the women wearing the rough, uncut stones set in gold, as necklaces, in their belts, or as adjuncts to their coronets. And now, too, for the first time, I had an opportunity to see the kind of vehicle in general use among the Bandokolo, this consisting of a rough kind of sleigh, usually drawn by a single elephant, although I encountered, here and there, sleighs big enough to need, when fully loaded, two elephants to draw them. The horse was a hitherto unknown beast among them, and it was amusing to note the wonder and admiration which my animals excited among the people as we passed. But they had contrived completely to domesticate the zebra, which seemed to be quite common among them, although it was used exclusively as a saddle animal.
Up to the present I had been afforded no opportunity to view the interior of the rock dwellings of this extraordinary people; but as we drew ever nearer to the capital I could not help feeling impressed by the increasing elaboration of the decoration of the entrances, and the high degree of artistic taste displayed. Some of the dwellings, indeed, seemed to be wholly artificial, that is to say, the owner appeared to have chosen a particular spot on the face of the living rock, and, attacking it, had begun work by hewing out first the entrance—which was usually rectangular in shape, ornamented with columns supporting a sculptured pediment—and thence proceeding to excavate inward as many apartments as were needed for the accommodation of his family. Such a structure would, if executed by the members of the family alone, require many years of continuous labour to complete; but Pousa informed me that the usual practice was for a young man to start his house as soon as he attained the age of two hundred and thirty-four moons (eighteen years), leaving the exterior ornamentation quite rough, to be completed at his leisure, and, hewing out a central passage, to employ others to help him in excavating the interior apartments, adding to their number from time to time as the need for them arose.
About mid-afternoon on the eleventh day after Pousa and his detachment had taken charge of us, we reached the city of Masakisale, the capital of Bandokolo; and after what has already been said with regard to this remarkable people, the reader will not be surprised to learn that it was far and away the most extraordinary city that I had ever seen or heard of. It was situated in a kind of basin about eight miles wide by about twenty-two miles long, hemmed in on every side by precipitous mountains, and approached through one of the weirdest, wildest, and most forbiddingly picturesque gorges that it is possible for the mind of man to imagine. A mountain torrent foamed and raged over a rocky bed through this gorge into the basin, and finally discharged itself into a gloomy tarn, about two miles wide by three and a half miles long, which occupied the whole of the lower or northern end of the valley. A wide, straight road ran lengthwise through the valley from end to end, and was intersected, at intervals of about a mile, by cross roads, between which the whole of the valley was under cultivation, except for a patch of about five miles long adjoining the tarn, one-third of which was pasture land, while the remainder was devoted to the raising of hay, four crops of which were cut every year. A road, with which the intersecting roads communicated, ran right round the valley, at the base of the precipitous mountain slopes which formed the sides of the basin, and from it other roads zigzagged up the slopes to the very summit.
These zigzag roads gave access to the rock dwellings honeycombing the mountains, the sculptured entrances to which were clearly discernible through the variegated colours that splashed the slopes, these variegated colours being due to the fact that the mountain slopes had been terraced from base to summit, filled with earth where required, and converted into gardens and fruit orchards.
The industrial portion of the city was situated at the northern end of the valley, the prevailing wind here being from the south; thus the smoke of the factory furnaces was carried away out of the valley at its northern end, which obviated all nuisance. The population of Masakisale numbered fully twenty thousand, according to Pousa; and I afterward had reason to believe that he was very far within the mark, for I roughly estimated that there must be nearly that number of dwellings in the valley, and they would accommodate, on an average, at least four persons each. There appeared to be nearly or quite five thousand people at work in the fields when we entered the valley, assisted by some forty or fifty elephants, which seemed to be employed here and there in ploughing up the land and preparing it for a new crop. There was also a considerable amount of traffic, pedestrian and vehicular, on the various roads; and when the news of our arrival spread through the valley—which it appeared to do with marvellous celerity—this traffic increased a hundredfold at least, so that within an hour of our arrival it seemed as though every man, woman, and child in the valley had turned out to stare at us. And I confess that I was by no means favourably impressed with the manner in which the men at least of Masakisale regarded my appearance among them, for if I correctly interpreted the expression of their countenances it was made up, in about equal proportions, of hatred and fear; while that of the women, on the other hand, seemed chiefly to indicate wonder, probably at my stature, for, compared with their fifty-four inches, my seventy-four must have appeared gigantic.
There was no difficulty at all in identifying the royal palace; for whereas most of the other dwellings in the valley were indicated merely by a more or less elaborately sculptured doorway hewn out of the living rock, the abode of Queen Bimbane measured—judging by the eye alone—at least five hundred feet long by sixty feet high, the whole surface of which was sculptured into the form of a house front, consisting of a doorway with window openings on either side of it, and, above that, two other tiers of window openings giving upon wide projecting balconies, the whole very elaborately decorated with mouldings, balusters, architraves, pediments, columns, entablatures, and other architectural features, in a style quite strange to me, yet very handsome and impressive, and representing, I should say, the life’s work of several hundred masons. Moreover, there was a banner flying over the centre of the building, consisting of a replica, upon a very much larger scale, of that borne by the standard-bearer who accompanied my escort.
This remarkable building—if indeed it may so be called—was situated about three miles down the valley, on its western side and consequently facing east, so that for the greater part of the day it was in shadow, while every one of its window openings was shaded from the morning sun by awnings of some material (which I afterward found was silk) arranged in alternate stripes of green and white. I sighted and identified it at a distance of more than a mile away; and when we arrived opposite it I found that, as of course might be expected, one of the intersecting roads crossing the main road led up to it. But there was this difference between that particular road and all the others, that whereas the others had cultivated fields on either side of them, this road was bordered on either hand by beautiful smooth grassy lawns, kept cut quite close, interspersed at frequent intervals with great, fancifully shaped beds of flowers, while here and there enormous shade trees had been left, beneath which quite a large number of handsomely attired men and women were lounging. These were, of course, the palace gardens; and when I enquired, Pousa informed me that the loungers belonged to the queen’s retinue, the general public being rigorously excluded from them. Upon our arrival at the point where the road leading to the palace branched off from the main road, Pousa informed me that I must now bid a temporary adieu to the wagon and my followers, these being destined to the lower end of the valley, where the pasture was situated, while, by command of the queen, I was to be lodged in the palace; therefore if I would indicate such of my personal belongings as I wished to have taken to my new quarters, he would see that they were duly conveyed thither. I rather demurred at this, not caring to be separated from Piet and ’Mfuni; but upon learning that the arrangement had been ordered by the queen, and could not now be altered, I yielded, with the best grace I could muster, and gave instructions that all my spare guns and a plentiful supply of ammunition should be conveyed to my destined quarters with the utmost circumspection, and there deposited.