come before my notice. The shape of this weapon
is exactly the same as that of the unbarbed spearhead,
which has a coating of gold on it,1 and shows
the same peculiarity of make as the assegai-heads
still made by the natives—namely, the fluting which
runs down the centre' being reversed on either side.
Then there are the tools—chisels, an adze, pincers,
B A T T L E -A X E AND AR ROWS
spades, &c., which are quite unknown to the Kaffir
races which now inhabit this country. Still it is
possible that all these things may have been made
during the time of the Monomatapa, who evidently
had reached a higher pitch of civilisation than that
existing to-day ; so that I am inclined to set aside the
1 Vide illustration, p. 182.
iron implements a s pertaining to a more recent occupation,
though at the same time'there is no actual
reason for not assigning to them a remoter antiquity.
The finds in the fortress of Zimbabwe which touch
upon, perhaps, the most interesting topic of all are
those which refer to the manufacture of gold. Close
B A T T L E -A X E
underneath the temple in the fortress stood a gold-
smelting furnace made of very hard cement of powdered
granite, with a chimney of the same material,
and with neatly bevelled edges. Hard by, in a chasm
between two boulders', lay all the rejected casings’
from which the gold-bearing quartz had been extracted'