4 F . 5 W eller.
CHAPTER IV
' DESCRIPTION QF THE VARIOUS RUINS
D u r i n g our stay in Mashonaland we visited and carefully
examined the sites of many ruins, a minute
description of which I propose to give in this, chapter.
As a feature in the country they are most remarkable—
ancient, massive, mysterious, standing out in
startling contrast to the primitive huts of the barbarians
who dwell around them and the wilderness of
nature. Of course it was impossible in one season,
and in the present undeveloped state of the country,
to visit them a ll; but from accounts given of
others which we could not visit, and which consequently
I shall only briefly allude to here, there is
enough evidence to prove that they were all built by
the same race, in the same style, and for the same
purpose.
From Dr. Fmil Holub’s work (‘Seven Years in
South Africa ’) we learn something about a ruin he
saw on the Shashi Eiver, which consisted of a wall protecting
a hill and formed i of blocks of granite laid
one upon another, without being fixed by cement of
any kind.’ Also at Tati he saw another ruin, forming
a. long line of protection for a hill, roughly put together