`He was very interested in the ruins of Zimbabye (Zimbabwe), and any facts that I could get together relating to the early history of that part he greedily read....The romance of it all just suited Mr Rhodes' temperament, and it opened a new world in Mashonaland remote from its savage life. The ruins were evidently not only the monuments of a religious cult, but formed a garrison for the protection of a gold producing race....'
Sir T.E. Fuller
`The archaeology of Rhodesia cast a great spell over his romantic mind. He clung to the belief in its historical connection with the early northern civilisations of Egypt or Phoenicia, linked directly or indirectly by some seafaring nation of the Arabian sea. Evidence of such a link existed, he thought, in the birds carved in soapstone, reminiscent of the Egyptian hawk, on the tall stone posts which stood like sentinels round the ramparts of the ruins at Zimbabwe....'
Sir Herbert Baker
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