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Zieriksee—Zimbabwe
were spent in travel in the south of France, Italy and the East, where he found the glowing sunlight and the rich colour peculiarly suited to his temperament. His reputation is, however, not based so much on his orientalist canvases as on his pictures of Venice, which are generally characterized by the intensity of the sunny glow on the red sails and golden-yellow buildings under a deep blue sky. Many of his Venetian pictures are purely imaginative, and their appeal is entirely due to their qualities of colour, his architectural drawing being frequently faulty and careless. After “Sunrise at Stamboul,” which Théodore Gautier called “the finest picture of modern times,” he received the Legion of Honour in 1857, and was made an officer in 1878. The majority of his paintings have gone to American private collections, but two of his finest pictures, “The Doge’s Palace in Venice” (1852), and a marine painting, are at the Luxembourg Museum, and a “View of Quai St Jean, Marseilles” at the Marseilles Gallery, whilst many others are to be found in the leading private collections of modern pictures in France, England and Germany. In collaboration with Luc de Vos he illustrated The Death of Paganini.
See Félix Ziem, by L. Roger-Milès (Librairie de l’art, Paris).
Zieriksee, a town in the province of Zeeland, Holland, on the south side of the island of Schouwen. Pop. 6800. It is a very old town, and formerly flourished exceedingly on account of its trade and fishing, and important salt-making industry, and now is the chief market centre and port in the island. Among the principal buildings are the town-hall (15th century); the Great Church, which was rebuilt after a fire in 1832, but retains the lofty tower (1454) belonging to the earlier building; the Little Church, the prison and the exchange. The chief public square occupies the site of a residence of the counts of Zeeland dating from 1048.
Zieten, Hans Joachim von (1699–1786), Prussian general-field-marshal, began his military career as a volunteer in an infantry regiment. He retired after ten years’ service, but soon afterwards became a lieutenant of dragoons. Being involved in some trade transactions of his squadron-commander, he was cashiered, but by some means managed to obtain reinstatement, and was posted to a hussar corps, then a new arm. At that time light cavalry work was well known only to the Austrians, and in 1735 Rittmeister von Zieten made the Rhine campaign under the Austrian general Baronay. In 1741, when just promoted lieutenant-colonel, Zieten met his old teacher in battle and defeated him at the action of Rothschloss. The chivalrous Austrian sent him a complimentary letter a few days later, and Winterfeld (who was in command at Rothschloss) reported upon his conduct so favourably that Zieten was at once marked out by Frederick the Great for high command. Within the year he was colonel of the newly formed Hussar regiment, and henceforward his promotion was rapid. In the “Moravian Foray” of the following year Zieten and his hussars penetrated almost to Vienna, and in the retreat to Silesia he was constantly employed with the rearguard. Still more distinguished was his part in the Second Silesian War. In the short peace, the hussars, like the rest of the Prussian cavalry, had undergone a complete reformation; to iron discipline they had added the dash and skirmishing qualities of the best irregulars, and the hussars were considered the best of their arm in Europe. Zieten fought the brilliant action of Moldau Tein almost on the day he received his commission as major-general. In the next campaign he led the famous Zietenritt round the enemy’s lines with the object of delivering the king’s order to a distant detachment. At Hohenfriedberg-Striegau and at Katholisch-Hennersdorf the hussars covered themselves with glory. Hennersdorf and Kesselsdorf ended the second war, but the Prussian army did not rest on its laurels, and their training during the ten years’ peace was careful and unceasing. When the Seven Years’ War broke out in 1756 Zieten had just been made lieutenant-general. At Reichenberg and at Prag he held important commands, and at the disastrous battle of Kolin (18th June 1757) his left wing of cavalry was the only victorious corps of troops. At Leuthen, the most brilliant battle of the 18th century, Zieten’s cavalry began the fighting and completed the rout of the Austrians. He continued, during the whole of the war, to be one of Frederick’s most trusted generals. Almost the only error in his career of battles was his misdirection of the frontal attack at Torgau, but he redeemed the mistake by his desperate assault on the Siptitz heights, which eventually decided the day. At the peace, General Zieten went into retirement, the hero alike of the army and the people. He died in 1786. Six years later Frederick’s successor erected a column to his memory on the Wilhelmsplatz in Berlin.
See the Lives by his daughter, Frau von Blumenthal (Berlin, 1800), by Hahn (5th ed., Berlin, 1878), by Lippe-Weissenfeld (2nd ed., Berlin, 1878), and by Winter (Leipzig, 1886).
Zimbabwe, a Bantu name, probably derived from the two words zimba (“houses”) and mabgi (“stones”), given to certain ruins in South-East Africa. Its use is not confined to Southern Rhodesia and should not properly be restricted to any one particular site. For, as the medieval Portuguese stated, it is merely a generic term for the capital of any considerable chief, and it has been applied even by them to several distinct places. From about 1550 onwards the Zimbabwe generally referred to by Portuguese writers was at a spot a little north of the Afur district, not far from the Zambezi. There is some reason, however, to suppose that before this the capital of the Monomotapa was situated much farther south, and it may plausibly be identified with the most extensive ruins as yet known, viz. those near Victoria (Mashonaland) to which popular usage has now attached par excellence the name of Zimbabwe.
These ruins were discovered by Adam Renders in 1868 and explored by Karl Mauch in 1871. They became well known to English readers from J. T. Bent’s account of the Ruined Cities of Mashonaland, but the popularity of that work disseminated a romance concerning their age and origin which was only dispelled when scientific investigations undertaken in 1905 showed it to be wholly without historical warrant. Even before this it had been clear to archaeologists and ethnologists that there was no evidence to support the popular theory that Zimbabwe had been built in very ancient days by some Oriental people. Swan’s measurements, which had misled Bent into accepting a chronology based on a supposed orientation of the “temple,” had been shown to be inexact. There was no authentic instance of any inscription having been found there or elsewhere in Rhodesia. Numerous objects had been discovered in the course of excavations, but not one of them could be recognized as more than a few centuries old, while those that were not demonstrably foreign imports were of African type.
The explorations conducted in 1905 added positive evidence. For it was proved that the medieval objects were found in such positions as to be necessarily contemporaneous with the foundation of the buildings, and that there was no superposition of periods of any date whatsoever. Finally from a comparative study of several ruins it was established that the plan and construction of Zimbabwe are by no means unique, and that this site only differs from others in Rhodesia in respect of the great dimensions and the massiveness of its individual buildings. It may confidently be dated to a period not earlier than the 14th or 15th century A.D., and attributed to the same Bantu people the remains of whose stone-fenced kraals are found at so many places between the Limpopo and the Zambezi.
There are three distinct though connected groups of ruins at Zimbabwe, which are commonly known as the “Elliptical Temple,” the “Acropolis” and the “Valley Ruins.” The most famous is the first, which is doubly misnamed, since it is not a temple and its contour is too unsymmetrical to be described properly as elliptical. It is an irregular enclosure over 800 ft. in circumference, with a maximum length of 292 ft. and a maximum breadth of 220 ft., surrounded by a dry-built wall of extraordinary massiveness. This wall is in places over 30 ft. high and 14 ft. wide, but is very erratic in outline and
