538 REPOET— 1892. 



Association. The Committee therefore recommend that this duty be 

 delegated to the Institute, which, they have ascertained, is willing to 

 undertake it for the Association ; and they further recommend that the 

 Institute be entrusted Avith the distribution of this second edition by gift 

 and by sale in the way it may consider most conducive to the objects for 

 which the work was designed, on the understanding that the sum realised 

 from sales be kept by tiie Anthropological Institute in a sepai'ate account 

 towards defraying the cost of hereafter preparing and publishino- a third 

 edition of the work when necessary. The Committee have, in the mean- 

 time, placed 150 copies at the disposal of the Institute for this purpose, 

 for review, and for presentation to the editors and the authors of Sections, 

 whose labours have been entirely gratuitous. The Anthropological Insti- 

 tute has undertaken to advertise the book gratuitously in its journal. 



Report of the Committee, consisting of Dr. J. Gr. Garson (Chair- 

 man), Mr. J. Theodore Bent {Secrptary), the late Mr. !;[. W. 

 Bates, Mr. Gr. W. Bloxam, Mr. .1. Stuart Glennie, Sir Frederic 

 GoLDSMiD, Mr. W. Pengelly, a?icZ Mr. F. W. Eudler, /or in- 

 vestigating the ruins of Mashonaland and the habits and 

 customs of the inhabitants. (Drawn up by Mr. J. Theodore 

 Bent.) 



The Committee have to report that during the past year a large amount 

 of information has been collected by Mr. and Mrs. Bent during their 

 travels in Mashonaland, and submit the following account of their journey, 

 by Mr. Bent, as their report. 



Report to the Committee on Investigations in Mashonaland. 

 By Mr. J. Theodore Bent, Secretary of the Committee. 



The principal feature of our work in Mashonaland consisted in study- 

 ing, making measurements and plans, and excavating in the ruins called 

 Zimbabwe in Mashonaland. For three months after this work was over 

 we travelled through the country, visiting the native kraals and collecting 

 a large mass of anthropology from the habits and customs we saw around 

 us. In the following report I shall deal more at length on the subject 

 of the rnins, as they formed the main object of our work. 



The ruins of the Great Zimbabwe, which name I have given to dis- 

 tinguish them from the numerous minor Ziuibabwes scattered over the 

 country, are situated in south latitude 20° 16' 30" and east longitude 

 31^ 10' 10", at an elevation of 3,300 feet above the sea-level, and form 

 the capital of a long series of such ruins stretchiug up the whole length 

 of the west side of the Sabaj River, the southernmost which we visited 

 being that on the Lundi and the northernmost in the Mazoe Valley ; there 

 are also many other ruins on the Limpopo, in the Transvaal, in Mata- 

 beleland, at Tati, the Impakwe and elsewhere, all of the same type and 

 construction, which time would not permit of our visiting. Some are 

 equal to the ruins of Great Zimbabwe in workmanship ; others, again, are 

 very inferior, and point to the construction and occupation of this country 

 having continued over a long period, probably centuries ; and then all 

 would seem to have been abandoned at one time in the face of some over- 

 whelming calamity, for all the gateways at the Great Zimbabwe and at 



