We were much struck by the courteous manners of the natives here. One man, on receiving a present, bowed low and scraped the ground with his feet. There is something about these people which points distinctly to a higher form of civilisation having existed amongst them at a former time; and when one reads Dos Santos’s account of the Mocarangas of Monomatapa of his day, one cannot help feeling that they are the remnant of that higher civilisation about which the early Portuguese travellers tell us so much.
‘The Portuguese,’ says Dos Santos, ‘did not enter the king’s presence, like the Kaffirs, with deep obeisance, only with bare feet;’ and in a curious old treaty published in the Portuguese Yellow-book, and purporting to have been made between the Monomatapa chief Manuza and Manuel Gomes Serrao in 1629, the following stipulation is inserted:—
‘The ambassadors who shall come to speak with him shall enter his Zimbahe covered and shod (with boots on their feet) and with their arms at their sides, as if they were before the King of Portugal. He shall give them chairs upon which to sit, and they shall not be submitted to the ceremony of the clapping of hands.’ [[353]]
Chipunza has another name, Chipadzi. The exact relation between these two names we were unable to ascertain; Chipadzi, however, I believe to be the old dynastic name of the chief. His Zimbabwe, or place of sacrifice, is about a mile from the present village, at a spot called Chittakette, or the Chipadzi’s old town. To this place we were to be taken on the morrow. We found it an interesting old spot, buried in trees and with tomatoes and tobacco plants all amongst the ruined walls. It evidently had had a wooden palisade around it, which had sprouted and produced the venerable trees, and it had an inner fortress with walls encircling it, and low gateways through, with large stone slabs over them. It is an excellent specimen of this rough style of fortress: the walls are from six to eight feet thick, with loopholes out of which to shoot, built with no attempt at keeping even courses, and with mortar. Within the fortress are the remains of huts and granaries, as if the place had not been abandoned for very many years.
Just outside is Chipadzi’s tomb, with a tall stone erected over it, and the surrounding ground is covered with tombs. This spot is called the Zimbabwe by the natives, where they sacrifice annually to the Maklosi of their ancestors.
We spent two days wandering amongst the granite locks around Chipunza’s kraal, and we found evidence of a vast population having lived here at some period. Nearly every one of the granite kopjes is fortified with walls, and on some of them we found [[354]]graves of cement similar to those we saw at Nyanger rock; and on the hill just behind Chipunza’s kraal a tall stone is erected on a pile of stones, the object of which nobody seemed inclined to tell us.
How long ago it is since these walled towns were inhabited, and who inhabited them, is, of course, a mystery. There is, however, no evidence of any great antiquity about them; the mortar may have stood for a few centuries, but not more; and from the evidence given us by the Portuguese, above quoted, from the continuity of certain names and many customs, and from the fact that the present inhabitants still retain a certain knowledge of stone building, I think it is a very reasonable assumption that this was one of the great centres of the so-called Monomatapa Empire.
After leaving Chipunza’s kraal, and crossing the River Rusapi, a ride of two hours brought us to Makoni’s kraal. Makoni, chief of the Maunga tribe, is still one of the most powerful potentates in this district. He, too, calls his town Zimbabwe, and it is doubtless the same spot occupied by Makoni, chief of the Maungo, one of the great vassals of the Monomatapa that Antonio Bocarro tells us about three centuries ago.
It is probably the highest inhabited spot in Mashonaland, being 5,200 feet above the level of the sea, just at the edge of the high plateau, where it breaks into the serrated ridges of Manicaland. The town covers a very large area of ground, being a [[355]]conglomerate mass of huts and granaries surrounded by a palisade. We spent about an hour resting there at a sort of public meeting-place surrounded by a wall, where the inhabitants collected in crowds to stare at us. Most of the men had very large holes pierced in the lobes of their ears, into which they would insert snuff-boxes of reeds, decorated with black geometric patterns, and other articles. The women are all girt with the same bark-fibre garments which we had seen worn in ’Mtoko’s country. Accompanied by a swarthy rabble, we climbed a rock behind the town, from which we got an exquisite view down into the valleys of Manica, bearing eastwards—a view of rugged mountains tumbled together, of deep valleys and running streams—a view such as one would get when descending from the Alps into the plain of Italy. Chief Makoni never came to see us, and as our time was limited we had to hurry away without making his acquaintance.
Almost immediately on leaving Makoni’s our road began to descend, and we entered upon a series of richly wooded gorges, flanked by gigantic granite cliffs. On one of these pinnacles, about the height of Makoni’s own kraal, is perched Chigono’s village, occupying a most wonderful position. How they ever manage to drag up here a sufficiency of water and the necessaries of life is a marvel. One thing they have in perfection is climate. We found it hot and stuffy in the valleys, but in their mountain eyries the Kaffirs enjoy the most perfect air that it is possible to breathe. [[356]]