11 feet in height—rough, unhewn blocks of granite,
firmly buried in the ground. On the hill fortress,
and also, as I have said, on the wall of the circular
building, the quantity of monoliths is very marked,
and stone-worship seems to have formed an integral
feature in the ancient cult of this place. MM. Perrot
and Chipiez write (vol. i. p. 58), ‘ We find the worship
of betyke (/SairuXta, bethels, i.e. sacred stones) in
every country reached by Phoenician influence ’
[vide Chap. VI.) Probably we shall be more correct
in considering it an even more remote Semitic
influence, which continued in vogue amongst the
Phoenicians until more recent times. Palgrave in his
Arabian travels also speaks of the many monoliths
he saw in Lower Nejed : 4 Huge stones, like enormous
boulders, placed endways perpendicularly on the
soil. They were arranged in a curve, once forming
part, it would appear, of a large circle. . . . .That
the object of these strange constructions was in some
measure religious seems "to me hardly doubtful . . .
in fact, there is little difference between the stone
wonder of Kaseem and that of Wiltshire ’ (Stonehenge).
The valley between the lower circular ruin and
the fortress on the hill is a mass of ruins J About a
hundred yards from it, and connected by a wall, is
a curious angular enclosure, divided into several
chambers at different levels ; it has three entrances,
all of which are straight, like those at the Lundi and
Matindela, and not rounded off like those in the circular
ruin. The main entrance leads into two narrow
passages: the one going to the left is protected
by an ambuscade; the other, going to the right,
ascends a slope, at the top of which evidently once
stood two round towers, the bases of which we excavated,
and near them we found several long
pillars, presumably fallen monoliths. But here again
the Kaffirs had been living until a recent date, and
consequently we made no discoveries here. Outside
this ruin we opened three kitchen middens, and
came across one or two small articles of interest.
Sloping down from this ruin into the valley below
a narrow passage conducts one through a perfect
labyrinth of ruins. Some of these, notably the large
circular erection just outside the big temple, are of
very inferior workmanship, and would appear to
have been constructed at a much later period;
whereas the wall surrounding a large space at the
bottom of the valley is as good as the best part of
the large circular building. We did not attempt
any excavation amongst these, and if we had I
expect the results would have been unsatisfactory.
All the surface of them has been dug over and over
again by generations of Kaffirs for their mealy fields.
There is a great growth of brushwood, and probably
a considerable depth of soil, which our limited appliances
and inexperienced workmen would have found
it hard to deal with.
Again and again these circular ruins repeat
themselves, always, if possible, occupying a slightly
raised ground for about a mile along a low ridge,
acting, doubtless, the double purpose of temples and