all
low and broken and with nothing inside. One of these joins on to the
main wall of the great inclosure.

This is all that there is to see at Zimbabwye. What I have described
seems little, and that little is simple, even rude. The interest lies in
guessing what the walls were built for, and by whom. Comparatively
little has been discovered by digging. No inscriptions whatever have
been found. Some figures of birds rudely carved in a sort of soapstone
were fixed along the top of the walls of the Fort, and have been removed
to the Cape Town museum. It is thought that they represent vultures, and
the vulture was a bird of religious significance among some of the
Semitic nations. Fragments of soapstone bowls were discovered, some with
figures of animals carved on them, some with geometrical patterns, while
on one were marks which might possibly belong to some primitive
alphabet. There were also whorls somewhat resembling those which occur
so profusely in the ruins of Troy, and stone objects which may be
phalli, though some at least of them are deemed by the authorities of
the British Museum (to whom I have shown them) to be probably pieces
used for playing a game like that of fox-and-geese. The iron and bronze
weapons which were found may have been comparatively modern, but the
small crucibles for smelting gold, with tools and a curious ingot-mould
(said to resemble ancient moulds used at tin workings) were apparently
ancient.

What purpose were these buildings meant to serve? That on the hill was
evidently a stronghold, and a stronghold of a somewhat elaborate kind,
erected against an enemy deemed formidable. The large building below can
hardly have been a place of defence, because it stands on level ground
with a high, rocky hill just above it, which would have afforded a much
stronger situation. Neither was it a mining station, for the nearest
place where any trace of gold has been found is seven miles away, and in
a mining station, even if meant to hold slave workers, there would have
been no use for a wall so lofty as this. Two hypotheses remain: that
this was the residence of a chief, or that it was erected for the
purposes of religious worship. It may have been both--a palace, so to
speak, with a temple attached. The presence of the inner inclosure,
guarded by its separate wall, and with its curious tower, is most
plausibly explained by supposing a religious purpose; for as religion is
the strangest of all human