Note 15 — Chapter XVI

"Barros, describing the ruins of Zimbo, mentions an inscription over the gateway of a fort built with well-cut stones and no lime, whose surface was twenty-five palms long and a little less in height. Around this building, which, like the Ka'abah, might have been a pagan Arab temple, are bastions—also of uncemented lime—and the remainder of a tower, seventy feet high. The inscription was probably in the Himyaritic character, as 'Moors well versed in Arabic' could not decipher it. This was repeated to Mr. Lyons M. M'Leod ('Travels in Eastern Africa,' vol. i. chap. x.) at Mozambique. Dr. Livingstone ('Travels in South Africa,' chap. xxix.) discovered Zumbo in lat. 15° 37' 22" S., long. 30° 32' E., about 8° W.N.W. of Kilimani. At the confluence of the Loangwe and Zambeze, he found the remains of a church, a cross, and a bell, but no date and no inscription. The people of Rios de Sena also state that there are remains of large edifices in the interior; unfortunately they place them at a distance of five hundred leagues, which would lead them nearly to the equator north, and to the Cape of Good Hope south.

"Dr. Livingstone ('Travels in South Africa,' chap. xxx.) explains the word Monomotapa successfully, I think, to mean the 'Lord' (mone, muene, mona, mana, or morena, are all dialectic varieties, synonymous with the Kisarahili muinyi, which means master, sir, kyrios, etc.), and 'Mtapa,' the proper name of the chief. The ancient Portuguese assigned to the Monomotapa the extensive regions between the Zambeze and the Limpopo rivers, 7° from north to south. The African traveller, however, is not so successful in explaining the corrupted term, Monomoizes, Monemuiges, and Monomaizes—for which see Journal of Royal Geographical Society, vol. xxix. pp. 166 et seq.

"Dr. Beke ('On the Mountains forming the Eastern Side of the Basin of the Nile,' p. 14) defends, against Mr. Cooley and Captain Burton, M. Malte Brun's 'Mono-emugi, ou selons un orthographie plus authentique Mou-mimigi.' The defence is operated by enclosing after the latter, in italics, another version in parenthesis, and with an interrogation, thus (Nimougi?); and the French geographer's orthography 'being fortunately based on the theoretic root,' is pronounced 'more authentic than any hitherto proposed in its stead.' How often will it be necessary to repeat, that Mono-emugi and Mou-mimigi are merely corruptions of M'nyamwezi, a man or individual of the land Unyamwezi?"