Ascending the hill through the sunless Rock Passage, the air is cool and draughty, but on emerging at the upper end one is faced by the rich blinding glow of the setting sun, and here the air is still warm. As we pass through the Western Enclosure and through the gap in the main west wall of the Western Temple, a view down the sheer drop of the hill into the valley below presents itself. The Elliptical Temple is just losing its last faint touches of the golden tint of sunset. The “Valley of Ruins” is already in shadow, and its chaos of walls looks now even more chaotic and bewildering than it did in the full light of day. Mogabe’s cattle wending their way up Makuma Kopje to the kraal for the night, the bleating of sheep and goats already penned, the far-away talk of women and girls returning from collecting firewood with their bundles on their heads, and the laughter of small parties of natives returning homewards from their plantations, all speak of departing day. The lofty lichened sides of Lumbo Rocks are still bright orange in the sunset, but the nearer side of the Bentberg has become dark and black in shadow, showing up the walls of the Elliptical Temple in the foreground with striking clearness. The long ravine of Schlichter Gorge is now blurred in grey distances, while the Motelekwe and Mowishawasha valleys have already lost the sun for some minutes. The kopjes cast the same backgammon-board-shaped shadows across the valleys just as they did three and four thousand years ago when the tired ancients watched the drawing-in of day. But turning a glance round to the Western Temple, still at this height bathed in golden sheen, one sees only the ancient walls and passages silent and deserted. This area might have been a busy spot for the ancient occupiers at this hour of the day, for monoliths, decorative mural patterns, and conical towers are now all aglow with sunset brightness, and here at this time of day, as the shadow of the slanting granite beam fades on the dentelle pattern on the platform, they might have read as on a dial face, in light and shade, the progress of the season of the year. The call to prayers and the chanting of the evening hymn of the devout at sunset might at this same hour very many centuries ago have rung round the selfsame hallowed walls which look down sphinx-like and blankly upon the modern visitor.