Dr. Karl Peters reports in the Times of the 17th
inst. that he has discovered some very ancient ruins in a valley through which runs a southern branch of the Zambesi. They are near the great mountain of Furs, in Portuguese territory, and consist of cyclopean walls encircling a hill on which stood buildings, it may be religious, it may also be commer- cial. The walls are of the early Semitic type, and the conquerors who built them were probably attracted by reports of gold said to exist in great quantities in the mountain. There is a possibility that the name of this mountain is identical with the Hebraic name Ophir, though it is more probable that the latter is the word now modernised into Africa, and that gold of Ophir means nothing but African gold. Considering the charm which gold has always had for mankind, it is strange that the tradition of these workings should have been utterly lost, but there is one reasonable way of accounting for it. As the Phoenician power grew weaker the slaves rose, and they may very well have slaughtered out their oppressors so completely that even the tradition of their discoveries dis- appeared. The Phcenicians were always cruel, and there are many signs that the forts they built were intended to overawe their workmen as well as to serve as depots for their treasures. They were, too, very jealous of their trade secrets, and probably handed down the knowledge of their discoveries only from mouth to mouth.
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