From this point the ascent is continued in the same direction between the main cliff of the hill on the inner side (which at this elevated level of the ascent is only 50 ft. above the passage) and a colossal boulder on the outer side. This boulder beetles inwards towards the cliff and over the heads of passers-by. The outside height of the boulder appears to be some 80 ft. or 90 ft., and at one time before the occupation of the hill by the ancient builders it formed part of the main cliff from which it had fallen away for some feet, both outwards and downwards; the depression in the face of the cliff from which it slipped is still the exact shape of the boulder. In the Rock Passage the height of the inside face of the boulder above the artificially made raised floor is about 40 ft. to 20 ft., according as the ascent rises. The ancients are believed to have filled in the split opening between cliff and boulder to the needed height to carry their ascent. This practice was a common one with the ancients, and a good instance of this work is seen in the Buttress Passage in the Acropolis ruins.
LOWER ENTRANCE TO ROCK PASSAGE, SOUTH-EAST ASCENT, ACROPOLIS
VIEW DOWN ROCK PASSAGE, SOUTH-EAST ASCENT, ACROPOLIS
Once inside the Rock Passage the path rises rapidly till it reaches the open at the 200 ft. level of the hill. The passage is 48 ft. long, and its average width is 2 ft. 6 in., but at one point it is barely 1 ft. 10 in. wide. Where the boulders end on the higher side a wall runs up on the outer side for 8 ft., and this is 4 ft. to 1 ft. higher, lessening as the path ascends. The cliff here still forms the inner side for this distance, and at the top end is a rounded buttress jutting out from the cliff for 3 ft., and below it, and on the south side, are several well-defined large steps of the undoubtedly ancient type ascending on the outer side of the buttress for 12 ft.
At the end of this 12 ft. length the passage turns north and north-east for 21 ft., and passes on the west side of the wedge-shaped-ended wall, which forms the division where the path to the Higher Parapet leaves the ascent. At the end of the 21 ft. length the walls of the ascent appear to terminate, but the path to the Western Temple and to the other ruins on the hill is continued through a gap made recently, for the sake of visitors, in a Makalanga-built wall erected on ancient foundations. This reconstruction of the wall by Makalanga without leaving any entrance downwards to the ascent deliberately blocked it up. This bears out the Zimbabwe headmen’s statement that within the last fifty years they rarely used the ancient ascent in climbing up to their kraal on the summit of the hill. Passing through the gap in the Makalanga wall one enters the Western Enclosure, which lies at the foot of the west face of the west wall of the Western Temple.
But the description so far given of the ascent is incomplete, for on the east side of the wedge-shaped buttress, which is on the west side of the Rock Passage, is a passage to the Western Temple by the Higher Parapet.
(c) THE HIGHER PARAPET
The length of this parapet, which extends from within 9 ft. 6 in. of the summit of the ancient ascent, is 78 ft., and it runs in an easterly direction from the right-hand side of the ascent at the point where is the upper wedge-shaped buttress and the outer parapet wall is built along a narrow ledge at the very utmost edge of the cliff. Its front foundation stones are wedge-shaped to suit the declivity of the rock on which they are placed. At certain points this parapet wall has fallen over the brink into the Rock Passage below, but the foundations remain. This dilapidation is more apparent at the eastern end of the parapet, where it passes on the precipice side of the face of a projecting boulder and also of a rounded buttress 7 ft. high, which is very well built. The boulder is erected up against the bottom part of the rounded end of the main west wall of the Western Temple on its southern extremity. This rounded buttress is 4 ft. west of the point where the Higher Parapet joins the Parallel Passage, which is a still more easterly and more elevated extension of the ancient ascent to the Western Temple.