Nxumalo’s skepticism he led him along a path to a spot from which a valley could be seen. “Now will you believe the greatness of Zimbabwe?” And for as far as his eye could travel, Nxumalo saw a vast herd of cattle moving between the hills. “The king’s smallest herd,” the man said. Nxumalo, who had been reared in a society where a man’s status was determined by his cattle, realized that the King of Zimbabwe must be a man of extraordinary power.
When Sibisi and the outpost headman settled down with their gourds of beer, Nxumalo, uninformed on the topics they discussed, wandered off, to find something that quite bewitched him: one of the herdsmen, with little to do day after day, had caught a baby eland to rear as a pet. It was now full grown, heavier than one of Nxumalo’s father’s cows and with twisted horns twice as long and dangerous, but it was like a baby, pampered and running after its mother, in this case the herdsman, who ordered it about as if it were his fractious son.
The eland loved to play, and Nxumalo spent most of one day knocking about with it, pushing against its forehead, wrestling with its horns and avoiding its quick feet when the animal sought to neutralize the boy’s cleverness. When the file moved north the eland walked with Nxumalo for a long time, its handsome flanks shining white in the morning sun. Then its master whistled, called its name, and the big animal stopped in the path, looked forward to his new friend and backward to its home, then stamped its forefeet in disgust and trotted back. Nxumalo stood transfixed in the bush, staring at the disappearing animal and wishing that he could take such a congenial beast with him, when the eland stopped, turned, and for a long spell stared back at the boy. They stayed thus for several minutes, consuming the space that separated them, then the animal tossed its head, flashed its fine horns, and disappeared.
Nxumalo now carried only two bundles of wire, for Sibisi had said quietly, “I’ll take the others. You must prepare yourself for the Field of Granite.” In the middle of the plains, blue on the far horizon, rose a line of mountains, and marking the pathway to them stood a chain of ant hills, some as high as trees, others lower but as big across as a baobab. They were reddish in color and hard as rock where the rains had moistened them prior to their baking by the sun.
On the twenty-ninth day as they neared Zimbabwe they saw ahead of them two mighty granite domes surrounded by many-spired euphorbias, and as they walked, bringing the domes ever closer, Sibisi pointed to the west, where a gigantic outcropping looked exactly like some monstrous elephant resting with its forelegs tucked under him. “He guards the rock we seek,” Sibisi said, and the men moved more quickly to reach this vital stage in their progress.
Between the twin domes and the sleeping elephant lay a large field of granite boulders, big and round, like eggs half buried in the earth. Nxumalo had often seen boulders that resembled these, but never of such magnificent size and certainly none that had their peculiar quality. For all of them were exfoliating, as if they wished to create building blocks from which splendid structures could be made; they formed a quarry in which nine-tenths of the work was done by nature, where man had to do only the final sizing and the portage.
The rounded domes, fifty and sixty feet high, had been laid down a billion years ago in layers, and now the action of rain and sun and changing temperature had begun to peel away the layers. They were like gigantic onions made of rock, whose segments were being exposed and lifted away. The result was unbelievable: extensive slabs of choice granite, a uniform six inches thick, were thrown down year after year. Men collecting them could cut them into strips the width of a building block and many yards long. When other men cut these strips into ten-inch lengths, some of the best and strongest
When Sibisi and the outpost headman settled down with their gourds of beer, Nxumalo, uninformed on the topics they discussed, wandered off, to find something that quite bewitched him: one of the herdsmen, with little to do day after day, had caught a baby eland to rear as a pet. It was now full grown, heavier than one of Nxumalo’s father’s cows and with twisted horns twice as long and dangerous, but it was like a baby, pampered and running after its mother, in this case the herdsman, who ordered it about as if it were his fractious son.
The eland loved to play, and Nxumalo spent most of one day knocking about with it, pushing against its forehead, wrestling with its horns and avoiding its quick feet when the animal sought to neutralize the boy’s cleverness. When the file moved north the eland walked with Nxumalo for a long time, its handsome flanks shining white in the morning sun. Then its master whistled, called its name, and the big animal stopped in the path, looked forward to his new friend and backward to its home, then stamped its forefeet in disgust and trotted back. Nxumalo stood transfixed in the bush, staring at the disappearing animal and wishing that he could take such a congenial beast with him, when the eland stopped, turned, and for a long spell stared back at the boy. They stayed thus for several minutes, consuming the space that separated them, then the animal tossed its head, flashed its fine horns, and disappeared.
Nxumalo now carried only two bundles of wire, for Sibisi had said quietly, “I’ll take the others. You must prepare yourself for the Field of Granite.” In the middle of the plains, blue on the far horizon, rose a line of mountains, and marking the pathway to them stood a chain of ant hills, some as high as trees, others lower but as big across as a baobab. They were reddish in color and hard as rock where the rains had moistened them prior to their baking by the sun.
On the twenty-ninth day as they neared Zimbabwe they saw ahead of them two mighty granite domes surrounded by many-spired euphorbias, and as they walked, bringing the domes ever closer, Sibisi pointed to the west, where a gigantic outcropping looked exactly like some monstrous elephant resting with its forelegs tucked under him. “He guards the rock we seek,” Sibisi said, and the men moved more quickly to reach this vital stage in their progress.
Between the twin domes and the sleeping elephant lay a large field of granite boulders, big and round, like eggs half buried in the earth. Nxumalo had often seen boulders that resembled these, but never of such magnificent size and certainly none that had their peculiar quality. For all of them were exfoliating, as if they wished to create building blocks from which splendid structures could be made; they formed a quarry in which nine-tenths of the work was done by nature, where man had to do only the final sizing and the portage.
The rounded domes, fifty and sixty feet high, had been laid down a billion years ago in layers, and now the action of rain and sun and changing temperature had begun to peel away the layers. They were like gigantic onions made of rock, whose segments were being exposed and lifted away. The result was unbelievable: extensive slabs of choice granite, a uniform six inches thick, were thrown down year after year. Men collecting them could cut them into strips the width of a building block and many yards long. When other men cut these strips into ten-inch lengths, some of the best and strongest
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