The Sunday News
Phineas Chauke
SOMEWHERE within the Matopos National Park lies a spectacular hill, for many years known to the African natives who inhabited the area, as Malinda-ndzimu meaning “the resting place of the benevolent spirits”.
It was indeed sacred and worth of reverence ahead many of its peers in the granite-decorated terrain of the Matobo hills. It certainly held a special position in the religious beliefs of the locals. When Cecil John Rhodes then chairman of the British South Africa Company (BSAC) — famed for colonising this country — set his eyes on this marvel of a hill, as he was riding among the hills, he fell in love with it.
Rhodes developed a serious affection with the hill and re-named it “The View of the World”. Now, you certainly will not view the whole world from the top of the hill and it is not by any chance the highest of the Matobo hills but Rhodes must have named it as he did in anticipation of the global attention the hill would attract.
The View of The World or the World’s View, as the name has been adapted, is without any doubt quite awesome as a geological landform. It is a literally “breathtaking” ascend but the average person can make the apex. Once at the top the breeze is refreshing, the view is certainly fit for the eyes of the “Very Important Person” spirits who were believed to inhabit the hill.
One is able to see very far in all directions thereby taking in the granite adorned and pristinely vegetated terrain of the Matobo hills. The natural arrangement of the rotund boulders on top of the hill is not only tremendously alluring but also very inspiring.
The surface of the rock is stained with yellow and brown lichens. Undisputedly, the rewards of reaching the top of this hill far outweigh the little labour associated with hiking the sloping ascend.
Rhodes is said to have loved to visit the hill frequently when he was in the country and he would reminisce over his life, go over his expansionist plans which included “painting Africa red from Cape to Cairo”. He is also said to have confessed that he was immensely inspired whenever he was on that hill.
If you really have to worry, I believe it is possible to worry “peacefully” at such a place. Inspired by the Malinda-ndzimu hill among a plethora of other phenomena associated with the Matobo hills, Rhodes declared that that part of his estate (within which the hill lies) was to be instituted into a park “for the recreation of the people of Bulawayo from Saturday to Monday”.
He also expressed in his will that upon his death he would like to be buried in the Matobo hills in Rhodesia, “on top of the hill that I re-named the View of The World, in a square cut in the rock with a plain brass plate on top, with these words there-on, “here lie the remains of Cecil John Rhodes”.
The man wanted his affection and attachment to the hill to continue beyond death. His wish was fulfilled when he died in 1902. Despite dying in Cape Town, Rhodes’ corpse was ferried by rail all the way to Bulawayo, 14 days on the way and to The View of The World, two more days.
Rhodes is not the only person who was buried at The View of The World, his friend and personal doctor whom he assigned the administration of his Rhodesian territory was also buried there at the behest of Rhodes. The remains of Allan Wilson and his 33 patrolmen who perished at the hands of Ndebele warriors by the banks of the Shangani River were finally interred at The View of The World following exhumation from two other sites where they had initially been mass-buried.
The man who led the legal defence of the autonomy of Rhodesia from being annexed to South Africa as its fifth province, Sir Charles Patrick John Coghlan, who was subsequently elected the first Prime Minister of Rhodesia in 1923, became the last person to be buried on the hill.
The hill, that same hill, that was originally dedicated to the important spirits of the natives, had at this point essentially been turned into the Rhodesian heroes acre. Standing on that hill, the story of a nation being agonisingly pieced together, the story of deception, conquest and ambition, the story of determination, restoration and redefinition can be told, among other stories.
True to Mr Rhodes’ prophecy, people are coming in their numbers from different parts of the world to The View of The World even more than a century later. If not to savour the intriguing natural features characterising the site, visitors get an opportunity to travel back in time and explore the thought-provoking story of Cecil Rhodes and both the pre-colonial and colonial history of the great nation of Zimbabwe. The hill affords the visitor priceless sunset views not easily matched, and it is certainly one of the major tourist attractions in Zimbabwe.
– Phineas Chauke is a Tourism Consultant, Marketer and Tour Guide. Contact him on +263776058523, [email protected]
