The Eldorado of the Ancients (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1902 edition. Excerpt: ...saw the natives wash a few grains of gold out of a bucket of river-mud. They had dreamt of Inca treasures, but forgot that also the gold of the Peruvian Children of the Sun " was obtained a grain at a time." We newcomers are not frightened by this method of going to work. When we call to mind that the modern miners on the Rand fetch up hard ore from more than a thousand feet, out of the bowels of the earth, which ore mostly yields no more than 6 to 8 dwts., or not even half an ounce; when we consider that the companies that undertake this work still manage to show large profits, we shall be better able to appreciate the riches of Manicaland. If the old works go down to modern times they still go back in parts to times prehistoric. To the east of our Count Moltke Mine we found old underground buildings just like those in Inyanga. Throughout Manicaland one finds ancient Phoenician gravestones. The religious views of the Manicas are those of the Makalangas. From the Zambesi down to this region of the Upper Pungwe we find one and the same civilisation. And this reaches, as I discovered later, unbroken, down to the Sabi and the Lundi. In fact, I believe that everywhere where one finds the negro washing gold to-day, one may conclude that his first impulse to do so was derived from other races. PHOENICIAN GRAVESTONE IN MANICALAND. The negro himself is much too indolent and lazy to obtain any metal grain by grain through labour, when there is not the prospect of receiving something for his belly in exchange. It would never occur to him to wash or dig for gold, not even to satisfy his own desire for ornaments, if strangers had not come who had offered him something to eat and drink for it. I find it altogether superfluous to follow here every...