nd) which goes by the
name of the Great Zimbabwye. This Bantu word is said to denote a stone
building, but has often been used to describe the residence of a great
chief, whatever the materials of which it is constructed. It is a common
noun, and not the name of one particular place. Europeans, however,
confine it to this one ruin, or rather to two ruined buildings near
each other. One of these is on the top of a rocky and in parts
precipitous hill, the other in a valley half a mile from the foot of the
hill.

The first, which we may call the Fort, consists of a line of wall, in
parts double, defending the more accessible parts of the eastern and
south-eastern end of the hill or kopje, which is about 500 feet high,
and breaks down on its southern side in a nearly vertical sheet of
granite. The walls, which in some places are thirty feet high, are all
built of small trimmed blocks of granite such as I have already
described, without mortar, but neatly fitted together. They are in
excellent preservation, and are skilfully constructed in a sort of
labyrinth, so as to cover all the places where an enemy might approach.
From the openings in the wall, where doors were probably placed,
passages are carried inward, very narrow and winding, so that only one
person at a time can pass, and completely commanded by the high wall on
either side. Everything speaks of defence, and everything is very well
adapted, considering the rudeness of the materials, for efficient
defence. There is no sort of ornament in the walls, except that here and
there at the entrances some stones are laid transversely to the others,
and that certain long, thin pieces of a slaty stone, rounded so that one
might call them stone poles--they are about five to seven feet
long--project from the top of the wall. Neither is there any trace of an
arch or vaulted roof. None of what look like chambers has a roof. They
were doubtless covered with the branches of trees. Very few objects have
been found throwing any light on the object of the building or its
builders, and these have been now removed, except some small pieces of
sandstone, a rock not found in the neighbourhood, which (it has been
conjectured) may have been brought for the purposes of mining.

The other building is much more remarkable. It stands on a slight
eminence in the level ground between the hill on which the Fort stands
and another somewhat lower granite hill, and is about a third of a mile
from