SOUTH AFRICA: The Skull of Lobengula

No white man knew where or how King Lobengula of the Matabele had met his end. A bull elephant of a man, 6 ft. 2, and burdened with 200 wives, Lobengula was the last of the Zulu chieftains to make a stand for black independence. He vanished 50 years ago after a disastrous clash between his fierce native warriors and the colonists of Cecil Rhodes. The battle secured Rhodesia for the white men, blasted the last barrier to their march across Africa. In after years, white men heard that Lobengula had killed himself, that he had died of smallpox, that his grave was a cache of buried treasure. But the Matabele kept silence: the king’s body and grave were never found until a rain-goddess gave the secret away last month.

Place of Spirits. This rain-goddess is a familiar figure in Rhodesia: a well-shaped, fearless Matabele woman of 55 with a jolly face, a searching gaze, a European taste in clothes, and (according to her people) a proved ability to make rain. A white prospector who believed the old legends of buried treasure persuaded her to lead him to the secret burial cave of Lobengula.

She took the prospector to the banks of the Manyanda River, north of Bulawayo. There, on high ground where elephants feed and the waters divide to flow toward the Zambesi and the “great, grey-green, greasy Limpopo River,” the rain-goddess showed the prospector a great stone. She rolled away the stone, and entered the cave of Lobengula. With the rain-goddess and the prospector was a Matabele named Ginyilitshe. The desecration of the cave filled Ginyilitshe with fear, and he ran straightway to Bulawayo, to a white man trusted by the Matabele: Arthur Huxtable, District Commissioner for Native Affairs.

Commissioner Huxtable knew the legends. He gathered some old men of the tribe who had known the king and set out by car. Ginyilitshe led them through the Lubimbi Valley, an unfriendly place of salt pans, hot springs and emerald rushes, to the cave. Huxtable saw that a stone had indeed been rolled from the mouth of the cave, that intruders had left footprints. He inspected the cave, then called forward the old men of the tribe, standing silent and afraid in this place of spirits. Would they not tell him, now, how Lobengula had died?

Place of Death. The old men said: “It was our wish that the grave should never be found, but why should we remain silent now?” They told how Lobengula fled only when the battle was clearly lost. By his order, his tribesmen did not follow, lest their spoor disclose the king’s whereabouts to the white man. When Lobengula learned that his people had surrendered, he built a great fire and threw upon it the leather ring of his authority, his girdles, his sporran of blue monkey skin. Then he said to the chosen few who were with him:

“Now I am an outcast. … Go now all of you to Rhodes and seek his protection. He will be your chief and your friend.” The king turned to Magwegwe, the next in rank, and said: “Do you remember your words?” And Magwegwe answered: “Yes, King. When you die, so shall I die.” Lobengula took a small bottle and drank. Magwegwe did likewise. They both died that day.

Friendly Place. In the cave, when Commissioner Huxtable saw it last month, were some old rifles, a bullet mold, a saddle, an ornate chair which had been a gift to Lobengula from Queen Victoria. A skull and a few cracked bones were all that jackals and hyenas had left of Lobengula. Of treasure there was no sign. Then & there, Huxtable proclaimed the cave a national monument.

When Huxtable returned to Bulawayo, he told the story and said: “Lobengula was also called ‘Ndhlovu,’ meaning elephant. There are elephants everywhere in that far place. I feel he is not lonely.”