This immediately gave rise to rumors: Losikeya - once a beloved wife, and now the widow of the ruler of the Ndebele people Lobengula - unexpectedly appeared in the Bulawayo market and paid with old gold sovereigns.
Traders willingly accepted the rare money, but were quick to report it to local authorities. Was it possible that the last monarch in South Africa handed over his untold treasures to his wife before his death?
Diamond tribute
It would seem, where did the head of the small state of Matabeleland, lost in the African wilderness, between the Zambezi and Limpopo rivers (now this is the territory of Zimbabwe) have huge wealth? In fact, at the end of the 19th century, Great Britain, Germany and the Transvaal considered this hinterland a very tasty morsel and in every possible way tried to get their hands on it. However, everything in order.
The throne went to Lobengule after a two-year war with his brother Mangwane, who, against the will of his father, Mzilikazi, who died in 1868, decided to seize power by force, but was defeated. As a legacy, the newly-made ruler received large reserves of ivory - the main wealth of the African tribes of that time. True, in the 1880s, Europeans began to visit him more and more often, from whom Lobengula learned that nowadays gold and diamonds are in price.
As a wise ruler, he bought the latest equipment for those times and founded his own gold mine. Diamonds flowed into his treasury in a very peculiar way. Lobengula allowed his subjects to go to work with the British in the area near the city of Kimberley, where the precious stone was mined. The owners of the mines paid the ruler with diamonds for such an attraction of labor, but the main income was … stolen stones. Since there were no effective means of control at that time, there was an unspoken law: upon returning home, every Ndebele worker was obliged to bring at least one diamond to Lobengula. Well, since hundreds of people worked in the mines, the ruler's safe was replenished very significantly.
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For 100 sovereigns
As a result, the income with all the costs of maintaining the yard, the army, and more than 20 wives far exceeded the costs. Lobengula even prescribed white doctors for himself, and became addicted to expensive French champagne. John Jacobe told him about secular luxury. Half-breed (father - European, mother - Negro), he learned to read and write from missionaries in southern Africa, and then the priest Lewis Esse-len took him with him to the capital of Scotland, Edinburgh, where the young man continued his education in theological seminary.
Returning to Kimberley, South Africa, missionary John was not interested in a career. First, he was caught buying up stolen diamonds, then went to jail for rape. With such a track record, it is problematic to find a job somewhere, so Jacobe moved into the possession of King Lobengula, who, according to rumors, was very peaceful towards enlightened strangers. The ruler of Ndebele courteously received the guest, and later, at the suggestion of his beloved wife Losiqueya, offered him the position of personal secretary. Further events developed rapidly. In 1888, Cecile Rode himself, the largest South African industrialist, one of the founders of the De Beers diamond company, visited Lobengoula. The ruler of Matabeleland agreed to give a part of his land to the British South African Privileged Company (BYUAPK) in concession. The agreement provided for a monthly payment of 100 gold sovereigns. Lobengula, who did not know how to write, simply stamped the document with an elephant instead of an autograph.
The only witness
Alas, the ruler soon became convinced that the British were exceeding their powers. By 1890, they had established four forts in the domain of Lobengula: Victoria, Tuli, Salisbury and Charter. In fact, these were military bases, since the BYUAPK created numerous mounted police to protect the gold prospectors. Nde Bele's cattle began to disappear, they were forced to work in the mines. The cup of patience was overflowing when the aliens allowed the Shons not to pay tribute - this tribe from time immemorial was in the role of vassals to the Ndebele. In May 1893, an army led by Lobengula launched an attack on the rebellious tributaries.
Cecile Rohde offered the ruler of Ndebele to settle the conflict peacefully, but he did not agree. A series of battles ensued, in which the army of Lobengula was on the one hand, and on the other - the army of the Shons and the detachments of the British. On October 24, Ndebele were defeated on the Shangani River, on November 1 they lost the battle on the Bembesi River, a day later - on the Ramakwaban River.
Realizing that defeat was inevitable, Lobengula, even before the start of the armed conflict, loaded 12 large carts with treasures: gold, diamonds, ivory. The guard was carried out by 1,200 soldiers, and the ruler appointed John Jacobs to lead the expedition under the supervision of his brother. The detachment advanced several tens of kilometers northwest of the capital Bulawayo. Then a group of warriors moved the treasure deep into the jungle, where they cleared an area and dug a vault. Moreover, explosives were also used to make a notch in the rock pound, and then, after placing the treasures, again lay it with stones.
On the way to Bulawayo, the warriors of the convoy were destroyed, and as a result, only two knew about the place of hidden wealth: Jacobe and the brother of the ruler. However, in one of the first battles, taking advantage of the turmoil, Lobengula's secretary shot and killed his brother.
On November 4, 1893, the British occupied the village of Bulawayo and founded the city of the same name under the British flag.
A few months later, 57-year-old Lobengula died of smallpox and was buried in a cave 230 miles from Bulawayo. The eldest son tried to regain his father's possessions in 1896, but his detachment was defeated. The remaining sons Cecile Rode took to the capital of the Cape, Cape Town, where they were able to get an education.
Scout's Trail
What is the fate of the treasure? Of course, John Jacobe, who soon surrendered to the British, did not forget about them. But in 1903, two Englishmen learned about the hidden riches from the spilled out Losiqueia, who at one time snatched several hundred sovereigns from the treasury.
The hunters for easy prey found Jacobs and forced him to go with them to show the place of the treasure. I had to agree. But, having overheard that, having found the treasure, his partners wanted to kill him, Jacobe led the British in the other direction and surrendered to the representatives of the colonial authorities of Northern Rhodesia near the Angolan border.
He was expelled from the country, but in 1911 he returned with a group of reliable assistants. However … Jacobe did not find the place where he hid the treasures. In 1918, another attempt failed: he was identified at the border checkpoint and sent back. From then until his death, John Jacobe, who died in 1937 at the age of 105, did not try his luck.
But intelligence officer Friedrich Leipoldt, who worked in German South-West Africa in 1915, received information about the gold. He calculated the approximate coordinates of the treasure. In 1921, Leipoldt and his companions managed to follow the route of the Lobengula caravan. They found a half-overgrown patch cut in the jungle with a large rock in the middle. The hired workers dug up the ground, but … Three more Lei-poldt expeditions in the 1920s turned out to be unsuccessful.
Finally, using the experience of an intelligence officer, in 1936 he sought out John Jacobs in Johannesburg. He introduced himself as the grandson of Lewis Esselen - the same one who took the young man with him to Edinburgh. The deeply emotional Jacobe indicated more accurate coordinates and added that only about 4 tons of gold were hidden there. Arriving at the scene, Leipoldt discovered that it was a fairly large clearing with a radius of 45 meters. In addition, trees marked by Jacobs, made in the fall of 1893, were destroyed by a forest fire. Metal detectors have also proved to be useless due to the presence of iron ore in the pound. In addition, Leipoldt fell ill with malaria and nearly died. After that, he vowed to go in search.
***
… Will it be possible to find Lobengula's riches or are they irretrievably lost? There is still hope, and it is connected with the development of high technologies. Experts are confident that soon there will be devices that can easily look into the depths of the earth for tens of meters, which will allow discovering the gold and diamonds of the last independent ruler in southern Africa. Given the cost of hidden wealth - about a billion dollars at current prices - the search will pay off with interest.
Oleg Nikolaev