The positions of the doorways relatively to the
altars or the centres of the arcs is of interest; and
we find that every important doorway in walls of the
original period, with the exception of the south-eastern
doorway in the temple at the Lundi, and the southwestern
one in the partly circular interior temple at
Zimbabwe, is placed true north of the centre of an
arc or of an altar, and the centre of every arc has had
a doorway or some other means of marking out the
meridian placed north of it. True north of the centre
of the tower itself we have a doorway in the wall of
the sacred enclosure, and although the wall in which
this doorway is made was probably not built at the
original period, yet there probably was a doorway
in a similar position in the wall which it has replaced.
The part of the great outer wall north of the tower
seems also to have been marked, for about this point
we found a great step constructed on its top about
five feet high.
Above the temple at the east end of the fortress
on the hill, a cliff rises perpendicularly for fifty feet,
and poised on its top there stands a most remarkable
great rock which may once have been an object of
veneration to the worshippers in the temple beneath
it. It forms one of the highest points on the hill. A
line drawn true south from this rock and produced
680 yards would pass through the doorway in the
great temple and fall on the altar in the centre of
the decorated arc. Until this line suggested itself we
were puzzled to account for the peculiar character
of the doorway. It passes through a wall sixteen