The rarefied air of these highlands conducts sound over long distances, and triangular conversations are constantly in progress between the villagers at Mogabe’s kraal, our boys at the camp, and those working on the Hill Ruins, though each point is at least a third of a mile distant from the others. These conversations are carried on without the slightest straining of the voice or even shouting, the secret apparently being the slight raising of the voice and speaking very distinctly and very slowly. From their vantage position on the hill the boys are always on the look-out for natives passing and repassing between the villages. While the passing natives are, as one would believe, outside the hearing limit a conversation with the boys has for some time been in progress. Our boys will give the usual salutation, and if this be replied to all well and good. But should it not be replied to, or not promptly, the boys will at once start in chorus to slang the passer-by and all his relatives, commencing with his mother. So long as the passer-by is within earshot, so long do these slanging matches continue. Each boy endeavours to cap each previous remark with something more pungent, and as he succeeds the rest cheer him. Natives state that the sound of their voices travels quickest and furthest in the early mornings. [Illustration: THE CAMP MESSENGER, ZIMBABWE] [Illustration: LABOURERS AT THE ELLIPTICAL TEMPLE, ZIMBABWE] The visits of _marungu_ to the ruins are highly interesting occasions for the natives. The news of any approaching arrival is shouted down from Mogabe’s kraal a third of a mile away, for from Mogabe’s Kopje there is a four miles’ view of the road from Victoria. Long before the Cape-cart or horsemen can enter our valley from over the ridge between Rusivanga and Mogabe’s kopjes it is known where we are working, how many visitors are arriving, the description of vehicle, and if there is a lady in the party. Arrivals always attract a score or more naked picaninnies, who accompany the conveyance from the ridge at the foot of the Rusivanga down to the camp. But such visits are infrequent, and three weeks or a month pass without a white man arriving at Zimbabwe, and when, after such intervals, they do arrive, their faces look strange _because they are white_, while the sound of the English language is strikingly odd. On some rare occasions as many as three camps of visitors have been fixed up on the outspan. A patrol of the British South Africa Police calls about once a month, and the troopers generally introduce themselves with some such salutation as “Well, still alive? Not murdered yet?”