A P PRO A CH TO T H E FO R T R E S S BY T H E C L E F T . Z IM BA BW E
been, my fate to look upon. Vainly one tries to
realise what it must have been like in the days before
ruin fell upon it, with its tortuous and well-guarded
approaches, its walls bristling with monoliths and
round towers, its temple decorated with tall, weird-
looking birds, its huge decorated bowls, and in the
innermost recesses its busy gold-producing furnace.
What was this life like ? Why did the inhabitants so.
carefully guard themselves against attack P A thousand
questions occur to one which one longs in vain
to answer. The only parallel sensation that I have had.
was when viewing the long avenues of menhirs near
Carnac, in Brittany, a sensation at once fascinating
and vexatious, for one feels the utter hopelessness of
knowing all one would wish on the subject. WTien
taken alone this fortress is sufficiently a m arvel; but
when taken together with the large circular building
below, the numerous ruins scattered around, the other
ruins of a like nature at a distance, one cannot fail to
recognise the vastness and power of this ancient race,
their great constructive ingenuity and strategic skill.
About eight miles from Zimbabwe, standing alone
in a fertile valley, there is another ruin which we
visited, presumably of a later and inferior date, for
the courses and stones are irregular and correspond
to the later constructions at Zimbabwe. It too stands
on a flat granite rock, and its. structure is equally
intricate, as will be seen from the plan. ■ The natives
know it by, the name of the Little Zimbabwe, but for
purposes of investigation into the origin of the constructing
race it affords us no special point of value,