MAIN ENTRANCE
There are three entrances to this circular building. The principal one, only three feet wide, faces the hill fortress and the north. It has an odd curvature in it, constructed evidently true north, whereas all the other entrances are straight. Below this entrance runs a very substantial substructure wall, and the little space immediately inside it was covered with a thick cement, made out of powdered granite, out of which steps had been formed leading down to the various passages which converge here from the centre of the building. The presence of this concrete in use for [[109]]flooring and steps in buildings constructed without mortar is interesting, showing that dry building was used not from necessity but from choice.
LARGE CIRCULAR RUIN. ZIMBABWE
The entrance to the north-west had been walled up, and we had to climb over a heap of stones to gain admittance until it was opened out. It is narrow and straight, and protected by two buttresses on the inside. The wall here is very inferior to what it is at the main entrance. There was also another entrance between these two, presumably merely a sally-port in the wall, the lintel of which had consisted of wooden beams, which had been burnt, and on their giving way the wall above had also fallen down.
PATTERN ON LARGE CIRCULAR RUIN AT ZIMBABWE
Of the outer wall of the circular building the most interesting portion is decidedly that to the south-east. A few courses below the summit on the outside, from point A to point B on the plan, runs the pattern, formed by two courses having the stones placed chevron-wise, neatly fitted in with smaller [[110]]stones receding a little, so as to make the pattern at a distance appear as if it stood out in relief, whereas it is really flush with the wall. This pattern coincides with the sacred enclosure inside, terminating at point B exactly where the enclosure terminates, and at the other end at point A about half-way down the narrow passage, forming thus an arc of one and a half right angle. Its connection with the sanctity of the place is obvious, and into its relation to the orientation of the temple Mr. Swan will enter fully in the [ensuing chapter]. Along this portion of the wall, and on this only, large monoliths were inserted, most of which have fallen away; but those still standing show that they were equidistant. Here too the top of the wall has been neatly paved with slabs of granite, and must have formed a broad promenade, presumably approached by steps from a point near the main entrance. Here one can still walk with ease, whereas on the inferior portion of the wall it is now scarcely possible to scramble.
The labyrinthine character of the interior will be best grasped by a glance at the plan. Entering from the northern portal, we at once plunge into its intricacies. The great and astounding feature is the long narrow passage leading direct from the main entrance to the sacred enclosure, so narrow in parts that two people cannot walk abreast, whilst on either side of you rise the stupendous walls, thirty feet in height, and built with such evenness of courses and symmetry that as a specimen of the dry builder’s [[111]]art it is without a parallel. The large blocks of cut stone used in Egyptian, Greek, and Roman masonry must have been comparatively easy to deal with as compared with these small stones of rough granite built in even courses in a circular wall of immense thickness and height. The idea at once suggests itself that the people who erected these walls had at one time been accustomed to build in bricks, and that in the absence of this material they had perfected a system of stone-building to represent as nearly as possible the appearance of brick; also another reason for the use of small stones may have been to enable them to construct the tower and curves with greater accuracy. The facings of the stones are all uniform, but most of them run back into the wall irregularly, acting in the same way as throughs in our dry-built walls at home in preserving the building from falling. In this narrow passage, at point S, is the remarkable hole, executed with perfect neatness through the thickest part of the wall, about the actual use of which I am able to give no definite theory. It could not have been used for drainage or defence; and in the fortress above there are two similar tunnels equally inexplicable.