which is the case also with most of the other ' rums
which we visited, and nothing need he said about
them except to point out their existence. These
remarks refer to the ruins marked on the map
Metemo, Chilondillo, Chiburwe-and in the Mazoe
valley, all of which were obviously erected as forts
to protect a surrounding population. Some of them
are of the best period of workmanship, notably those at
Chiburweandinthe Mazoe valley; others are of inferior
workmanship, with uneven courses and irregularly
shaped blocks of granite, proving that, as we find the
two periods side by side at the Great Zimbabwe, also
we have them scattered over the country.
T h e g r e a t r u i n a t M a t i n d e l a i s s e c o n d o n l y m
im p o r t a n c e t o t h e G r e a t Z im b a b w e i t s e l f , a n d m e r i t s
a close description.
The circular building at Matindela encloses an
area not far short of that enclosed by the large circular
building at the Great Zimbabwe; it crowns a low
sloping granite kopje about 150 feet m heig t. e
place is full of huge baobab trees, two of which m
their growth have pushed down and grown up imthe
walls themselves. There are those that tell us about
the fabulous age of the baobab, attributing an age
of 5,000 years to the larger ones. The Director o
Kew Gardens, Mr. Thiselton Dyer, tells me that this is
grossly exaggerated, and that a few centuries is probably
all that can be attributed to the very larges^
Be this as it may, the baobabs have grown up and
arrived at maturity long after the building o e
Matindela ruins and their subsequent abandonment.
The best built portion of the wall has the same
aspect as that at the Great Zimbabwe ; but the other
side, corresponding to the worst built part of the
Zimbabwe wall, has never been completed at Matindela
; the fact that the south-eastern side has been so
strongly built and so much trouble has been spent on
its decoration, and that the nôrth side is compara-
tively'open and neglected, and that the hill is equally
BAOBAB T R E E IN M A T IN D E LA R U IN S
assailable from' both sides, leads one naturally to infer
that the idea of a temple is here more prominent than
that of a fortress.
The walls at Matindela are nowhere’more than
fifteen feet in height, nor are the courses nearly as
regular as those at the Great Zimbabwe; but the
great feature of interest is here the arrangement of
the patterns, which establish beyond a doubt that they
I 2