But before dealing with the dilapidations of later years it might be well to examine the history of such of the dilapidations as can be read in the wall débris heaps which line the bases of every wall, for these débris heaps can be read with the same facility as one can read a book. These dilapidations are what might be termed legitimate, being the natural results of the ravages of time, which no means taken could possibly have avoided, and which have extended for very many centuries on end since the latest of the ancient occupiers disappeared. In Tintern, Melrose, and many another old building at Home we have ruins even now incomplete, owing to the dilapidations of but a few hundred years. But the most ancient ruins of Great Britain, excepting, of course, Stonehenge, the round towers of Ireland, the Druidical circles of Wales, the stone circles and cloven stones of the Isle of Man, and the reputed pagan temples found elsewhere, and certain of the Roman remains of which at present little is known, possess histories, and _Domesday Book_, and even much later records, state the names of the actual builders of these castles and abbeys. These buildings have a stamp upon them of modernity which is altogether absent at Zimbabwe, in comparison with the age of which the term “ancient,” as applied to those at Home, elastic as it is, sounds strangely inappropriate. And yet after a comparatively short period of non-occupation of these castles and buildings only sections of them can now be seen. Guides will state that the walls have been quarried for material for farm buildings, most probably for the erection of the adjoining mansion, and that portions were destroyed by lightning.