Metemo, Matindela, Chilonga, and Chiburwe, and the
fort In the Mazoe gold fields, all of which belong to
the same period, and were built by the same race, and
agree in character with those described by Messrs.
Philips and Maund on the Tati, Impakwe, and elsewhere,
and are quite distinct from the more modern
structures in Mangwendi’s and Makoni’s countries,
which we visited towards the end of our tour and
which I shall describe in Chapter XI.
The circular ruin erected on a low granite eminence
of about five hundred yards from the Lundi
Eiver is of exceeding insignificance when compared
with those of Zimbabwe and Matindela: it is only
fifty-four feet in diameter, and the original wall was
only five feet thick; the courses are very regular and
neatly put together without mortar, and the stbnes,
of granite, are of a uniform size, broken into blocks
about twice the size of an ordinary brick. It had
two entrances, one tb the north and another to the
south-east, the latter being carefully walled up with
an inserted structure in which the courses are carried
out with a carefulness similar to the walls of the rest
of the building. The interesting features of this ruin
are the patterns in three tiers beginning at a few feet
from the northern entrance, the two lower ones consisting
of a herring-bone pattern, formed by the
stones being placed obliquely in contrary directions
in'each tier, whilst the upper pattern is produced by
regular gaps of two inches being left between the
stones in two of the courses. Nearly facing the
rising sun at the equinox is a curious bulge, about