Mention should perhaps here be made of Professor Gustav Oppert’s _Tharshish and Ophir_ (Berlin, 1903), in which the learned author claims to offer “a final solution” of the problem. But he leaves the question exactly as it stood over three decades ago, is still lost in the tangle of time-worn etymologies, and takes no notice at all of the revelations made by Messrs. Hall and Neal in the _Ancient Ruins_. The vast body of archæological evidence derived in recent years from the Rhodesian remains is thus completely ignored, and fresh light excluded from the only source whence it might have been drawn. On the other hand, Professor Oppert, rather than admit a Tharshish in the Indian Ocean, suggests that the _Tharshish_ of Kings and Chronicles either means “the sea,” possibly the origin of the Greek word θἁλαττα itself, or else was by the authors of those books foisted into the texts instead of Ophir. Hence where _Tharshish_ occurs as the objective of Solomon’s gold expeditions we are to read _Ophir_, although the original Ophir is allowed to have been where I place it on the south coast of Arabia. Now the Greek word θἁλαττα is Homeric, and when the Homeric poems were first sung there were no Greeks in the Indian Ocean. Hence, even if the wild etymology could be admitted, it would not serve, and this essay cannot be accepted as “a final solution of the old controversy.”[11] It is pleasant to be able to add that my solution has been accepted as final by some of Professor Oppert’s fellow-countrymen—the editor of the _Coloniale Zeitung_ amongst others—who declares that “the problem seems now really solved.”[12] Let me conclude with a question. Those who still reject my solution, who cast about for the gold of Ophir all over the Indian Ocean—Egypt, Arabia, Persia, India—anywhere except South Africa, what do they propose doing with the hundreds of old Rhodesian workings, which are known to have yielded at least £75,000,000 in their time, and with the stupendous Semitic monuments connected with these workings, of which Mr. Hall here presents the public with scores of photographic reproductions, drawn exclusively from the central Great Zimbabwe group? Where does India, the spoilt child of the etymologists, stand beside these remains, which betray such undoubted evidence of their South Arabian origin? GREAT ZIMBABWE[13] CHAPTER I Arrival at Great Zimbabwe—First Impressions—View from Acropolis Hill