Bent, unfortunately, discovered only one of these platforms, and this was the one on the north side of the Sacred Enclosure (west), and when he saw it the platform was covered with débris, evidently débris, judging by its age, put there by Dr. Mauch, who had been exploring in this portion of the enclosure. This débris was foreign to this particular spot and had evidently been removed from nearer the Conical Tower. Bent therefore conjectured that these blind steps once led to the summit of the south wall of The Platform. The height of the wall here, 12 ft., could not have been surmounted by these steps, for if carried upwards with the same class of step as below, they would have failed to reach half-way up the wall. These erections might have served a similar purpose for the enclosures in which they were erected, as did the large Platform immediately in front of the Conical Tower for the whole of the Temple. The best examples are in the north-east corner of No. 12 Enclosure, the south corner of No. 7 Enclosure, both in the Elliptical Temple, and in the south-east corner of the Western Temple and in the north, east, and west angles of the Eastern Temple, both on the Acropolis. Possibly the platform and steps in the South Passage of the Elliptical Temple were used for a similar purpose, for this latter structure, though not built into any angle of walls, is of exactly similar construction to the others. • • • • • _Ancient walls at a distance from any main ruins are of a less superior construction._—There is another class of building found in walls erected at a distance from any main ruins, and these, though constructed in a somewhat rougher form, are otherwise all built upon the principles of the First Period of Zimbabwe architecture. These walls can be clearly shown to have formed part of the original purpose, plan, and construction as the main ruins, and prove that the original ancient builders, while devoting their best skill to the temples and residential portions of the building, were satisfied with a somewhat inferior quality of workmanship for their more distant walls, and for such of their outlying buildings as were used for some purpose, judging by the finds, other than those of workshop or residence, most probably as forts, workshops, stores for grain, or as the housing places of slaves. The close connection between the well-built walls of the main ruins and these outlying walls and buildings is, in many instances, easy to establish, and this may be shown as follows:— 1. The sole difference between the construction of the main ruins and the outlying buildings lies in the quality of workmanship and material, these outlying walls showing all other features of first-period architecture to the exclusion of any feature of the second or later periods of construction.