ing explorer, the
late Mr. Theodore Bent. Some short account of them seems all the more
needed, because the first descriptions published gave the impression
that they were far more considerable than they really are.

Scattered over the plateau of southern Mashonaland and Matabililand,
from its mountainous edge on the east to the neighbourhood of Tati on
the west, there are to be found fragments of walls built of small blocks
of granite resembling paving stones (usually about a foot long by six
inches high), but often larger, not cut smooth, but chipped or trimmed
to a fairly uniform size. These walls are without mortar or other
cementing material, but the stones are so neatly set together, and the
wall usually so thick, that the structure is compact and cohesive. The
walls are mostly thinner at the top than at the base. The only
ornamentation consists in placing some of the layers at an acute angle
to the other layers above and below, so as to produce what is called the
herring-bone pattern. Occasionally a different pattern is obtained by
leaving spaces at intervals between the horizontal stones of certain
layers, making a kind of diaper. In some cases this ornamentation,
always very simple, occurs only on one part of the wall, and it has been
said that it occurs usually if not invariably on the part which faces
the east. I heard of ten or twelve such pieces of wall in different
parts of the plateau, and saw photographs of most of these. Probably
others exist, for many districts, especially in the hills, have been
imperfectly explored, and trees easily conceal these low erections. One
was described to me, where the walls are the facings of seven terraces,
rising one above another to a sort of platform on the top. This I have
not seen; but it is probably similar to one which I did see and examine
at a place called Dhlodhlo, about fifty miles south-east of Bulawayo.
This group of ruins, one of the most interesting in the country, stands
high among rocky hills, from which a superb view is gained over the wide
stretches of rolling table-land to the north and north-west, a charming
situation which might have attracted the old builders did they possess
any sense of beauty. On a low eminence there has been erected such a
wall of such hewn, or rather trimmed, stones as I have just described.
It is now about twenty feet in height, and may have originally been
higher. On the eastern side this wall consists of three parts, each
ab