ON THE EUINS OF MASHOXALAND. 539 



Matinclela, the second ruin in importance, eighty miles north-east of it as 

 the crow flies, have been carefully walled up as for a siege, and a forcible 

 entry had been effected into the Great Zimbabwe by a gap in the weakest 

 part of the large circular building. Doubtless at this captui-e of the 

 fortresses a wholesale massacre of the inhabitants took place, and a com- 

 plete destruction of the people and their objects of art. 



The Great Zimbabwe ruins cover a vast area of ground, and consist 

 of the large circular building on a gentle rise, with a network of inferior 

 buildings extending into the valley below, and the labyrinthine fortress 

 on the hill, about 400 feet above, naturally protected by huge granite 

 boulders and a precipice running round a considerable portion of it. 

 From the plan and model exhibited a fair idea of the lower building can 

 be obtained. It is built of small blocks of granite broken with the 

 hammer into a uniform size, but bearing no trace of chisel-marks what- 

 soever, and no mortar had been used in the construction. In parts this 

 encircling wall is 30 feet high and between 16 and 17 feet in thickness, 

 and the courses of small stones are carried out with surprising regulai'ity, 

 arguing an excessive amount of labour, at a time when slave labour was 

 abundant and time no object, and an accurate knowledge of levelling. 



There ai'e three entrances on the north side of the circle, carefully 

 rounded off and protected on the inside with buttresses : that to the north, 

 facing the fortress on the hill, would appear to have been the principal 

 one, the small space inside being floored by strong reddish cement. 

 Five passages led away from this entrance amongst the labyrinthine 

 buildings inside : the one to the left went down some cement steps, and 

 was carefully protected by a doorway consisting of two buttresses with 

 apertures on either side to receive some form of door, which seems to 

 have been universally employed in the buildings, but which at the time 

 of the siege had been removed and their places supplied by walls carefully 

 constructed of the same kind of stones as the outer walls ; then it led 

 into the long narrow passage which conducted between high walls to the 

 sacred enclosure. 



When we got to the Great Zimbabwe all the entrances were closed 

 up. By climbing over fallen debris we reached the interior, only to find 

 ourselves impeded by a maze of thick tropical vegetation which entirely 

 concealed the ground plan of the building, and which took us some days 

 to clear away. 



The above-mentioned long mysterious passage led, as I have said, to 

 the sacred enclosure, where stand the two towers ; the largest is now 

 32 feet high, with a girth of 53 feet 10 inches, and had presumably a few 

 more courses ; a few courses below the summit ran a pattern formed by 

 the stones in one course being placed edgeways. This tower is really a 

 wonderful structure, of perfect symmetry, and with coui'ses of unvarying 

 regularity. By working underneath it and by extracting as many stones 

 as we dared from two holes in the side, which we afterwards replaced, we 

 satisfactorily demonstrated that it was solid ; it was built on no other 

 foundation but the hard clay of the place, and covered nothing, and the 

 foundations only go down about two feet below the present level and a foot 

 below a floor of cement which presumably covered this enclosure. It 

 has been preserved to us simply by its solidity and the way in which the 

 stones have supported one another. Its religious purport would seem to 

 be conclusively proved by the numerous finds we made in other parts of 

 the ruins of a kindred nature. 



