B02 ~ REPORT—1905. 
irrigation-trenches. The pit-dwellings are not subterratiéan, but are 
structures built up from the ground level. Placed on the slope of a hill 
they contain, besides the pit with its corridor, a regular series of low stone 
circles (ordinarily six in number) on the surface of the artificial platform 
within which the pit and corridor were made. These circles were the 
foundations of huts, and in them, as well asin the pit, were found articles 
which proved them to have been inhabited, and that by a Kaflir people. 
The evidence of many different dwellings, scattered over a great extent of 
country, from which the results were all consistent, disproves the com- 
monly received idea that such objects were due to casual modern occupation. 
The explanation of these peculiar structures was furnished by the Niekerk 
Ruins, an immense settlement over fifty square miles in extent, where 
they constantly occurred on the tops of hills surrounded by a great 
system of concentric rings of intrenchment. ‘They are, in brief, minia- 
ture citadels. 7 
Of hill-forts there are four on the Rhodes estate and two on the 
Niekerk Ruins. They are built, like the pit-dwellings, of undressed stones 
without mortar, and their positions crowning steep kopjes have been 
admirably selected from the military point of view. The ground plans 
vary, but the unit of construction is the ellipse, often very unsymmetrical, 
as it has been adapted to all the irregularities of the ground. The most 
elaborate of the forts is one on the Rhodes estate, which is interesting as 
being the prototype of such more elaborate buildings as Dhlo Dhlo. 
Another, on the Niekerk Ruins, shows the origin of the famous ‘ Parallel 
Passage’ at Zimbabwe ; the wooden bolts of its doors were found, one of 
them in position and still intact. Pit-dwellings, hill-forts, and irrigation- 
trenches are all contemporary with one another. Many objects were 
found in excavating them, viz., iron tools and weapons, copper and bronze 
ornaments, pottery, &c. These are all of types very similar to those used 
by modern Kaffirs, and nothing was found which an archeologist can 
recognise either as ancient or as of foreign manufacture. There are no 
foreign characteristics in the style of the building, but on the contrary 
there are very close resemblances of detail to Kaftir work. 
It should be mentioned that at the Niekerk Ruins was found a most 
interesting place of offerings which yielded many objects, including stone 
implements, which were proved in this case to be contemporary with the 
iron. 
Umtali forms the last link in this chain of sites, which seem to be 
graduated in type as we progress southwards from the Zambesi. For 
while the most northern region was strongly fortified the necessity for 
defence seems to grow less further south until at Umtali, though the 
plans of the buildings are derived from those of Inyanga, yet there are no 
intrenchments, citadels, or forts. It was at Umtali, near a structure 
which may be provisionally termed an altar, that Mr. E. M. Andrews 
discovered an extraordinary collection of magical objects carved in soap- 
stone, including figures of men and women, birds, beasts, &c. 
From Umtali the lecturer, accompanied by Mr. E. M. Andrews, proceeded 
to explore the four other places mentioned, which are more generally 
known than the northern sites, though not in reality of a different class. 
The difference is merely that on the more southern sites the buildings 
are more finished and elaborate. Dhlo Dhlo, for instance, is simply a 
fortified kraal, the outlying parts of which are built of undressed stone in 
a style almost as rough as anything at [nyanga, in spite of the fact that 
