This is the story of Southern Rhodesia, from a time of its earliest known inhabitants, the Bushmen, to their displacement by the Bantu; the invasion by the Matabele under King Mzilikaze; the advent of the white missionaries; and the arrival of Cecil Rhodes and his Pioneer Column of early settlers, up to the time of independence in 1980. This is the romantic land of the high veld; of teeming game; of the great river Zambezi and the mighty Victoria Falls, and of enormous mineral wealth. This was the country that Robert Mugabe-its future leader-referred to as `the jewel of Africa'. And yet in this land of plenty, tensions in the mid-twentieth century were mounting between its black inhabitants and the whites, including those of British and Afrikaner stock: tensions which would one day boil over into a civil war in which Southern Rhodesia's neighbours would also become involved. The author has first-hand knowledge of the country, having arrived there with his parents in 1956. He describes what it was like to arrive in a British colony, in the last decades of the colonial era; the wonders of Wankie Game Reserve (now Hwange National Park); a schoolboy expedition to the Eastern Districts in search of the elusive `stone door ruin'; and a personal friendship which developed between himself and his family's black servant Timot, at a time of racial segregation.
Preface; Foreword; 1 Childhood ; 2 The Adventure Begins; 3 Another Continent: Virtually Another World; 4 First Impressions; 5 School; 6 Gwelo, and Further Afield: A Tobacco Farm; 7 Leisure; 8 Flora and Fauna, including Snakes!; 9 Wankie Game Reserve; 10 Timot; 11 A Schoolboy Expedition; 12 Further Topics of Interest: `Judy'; 13 The Matopos: Great Zimbabwe; 14 Advent of the Missionaries; 15 A Latter-Day Missionary; 16 The Victoria Falls: Dr David Livingstone; 17 Cecil John Rhodes: Gold!; 18 The Matabele War and Rebellion; 19 Mrs Jeannie Boggie: A Living Link with the Past; 20 The Afrikaners; 21 The Death of Rhodes: Inyanga; 22 Federation; 23 The Blacks: Health, Education, Apartheid; 24 The Land Issue: The Rise of African Nationalism; 25 Robert Mugabe: Influence of Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana: Nyasaland, Catalyst for Change; 26 Farewell: Aftermath: Independence; 27 Robert Mugabe: Blood and Tears.