Sometimes the chiefs Baranazimba or Chenga arrive at the ruins, and an _indaba_ (conference) as to “finds” and built-up entrances always takes place, but the weekly _indaba_ with Mogabe always commences with the same old rigmarole. It is a sheer waste of time to discuss anything ancient with them, for since the new jail at Victoria has been built they all solemnly declare that the _marungu_[22] (white men) built the ruins for a “Tronk!” All their old poetic explanations as to the presence of the ruins, such as they were built “when stones were soft” or “when days were dark,” have now gone to the winds. The ruins were prisons! But the _kya_ boy has arrived with the salt, and Mogabe is happy. He wraps the salt up in the corner of his blanket, and is off to his kraal at once. When any _marungu_ arrives in a Cape-cart at the camp Mogabe is down the side of his kopje a few minutes afterwards, and arrives there also. It is the same old story, only then the visitor is given _his_ opportunity of demonstrating his liberality. “I am glad to see the _Baba_. A _Baba_ always gives presents to his children.” Mogabe, like his fellows all over South Africa, is a born beggar, and yet he possesses seventy head of cattle, is rich in wives, grain, and labour, rules over a large area of country, receives a monthly allowance from the Government as chief, and a further allowance for warning unauthorised prospectors for ancient relics from the ruins. Mogabe’s day has gone. Still, notwithstanding his true Kafir fawning nature, there is something about the aged chief one cannot help respecting. He is intelligent, and he looks it, and his face, if white, would be taken for that of an educated European, for, like most Makalanga, he has little or nothing negroid in his features. Before the advent of the Chartered Company he was constantly at war with his neighbours, sacking villages, kidnapping women and children, and generally murdering. His last fight was in November, 1892, when he engaged the Amangwa people, the battle taking place just outside the western wall of the Elliptical Temple. His own people seem to somewhat neglect him, except in some tribal arrangements and in affairs in which he represents the Native Department. Formerly it was the rule that he ate first and his people afterwards; now he comes into our camp at skoff-times and asks the boys for some of their _rapoko_, porridge, and if they should happen to be mindful of his presence they will pass him a handful, but sometimes he sits there unheeded. He has now sold, perhaps for a mere song, the famous necklace of Venetian beads which Bent failed to induce him to part with. But there is a look in his eyes that gives one the impression that the old man does not at all relish the benefits of civilisation, and that he is pining for a return of the good old days of blood-shedding.[23] Mogabe’s biography would be worth writing.