Our course from Matindela was north-east—not the most direct route to the Sabi, which is only about twenty miles due east, but we had nobody with us who knew the way, and we had to go to a village for a guide. After a ride of seven miles we reached a curious lofty mountain called Chiburwe, close on 1,000 feet above the plain; it is almost round, and its flanks are decorated with huge granite boulders rising out of euphorbia, baobabs, and rank tropical vegetation. On the side we first reached this mountain the vegetation was too dense to allow us to ascend, so we had to ride to the northern side and go up by a slippery slope of black granite, the ordinary approach used by the natives, whose bare feet cling readily to the rocks, but which was horrible for feet encased in European boots. The summit is flat and grassy like a Brighton down, being covered with a soft small stagshorn moss, delightful to lie upon. This spot is the happy play-ground of two native villages, which are placed on either side of the mountain; here they are sublimely safe and free from the raids of their enemies, and Chiburwe forms a sort of Makalanga outpost in the direction of the Sabi. Amongst other names mentioned by Portuguese writers which are still retained in the locality we find Chiburga as a stronghold, where the Monomatapa’s wives were kept. I think it highly probable that this is the spot. On the summit we found several sets of holes for the Isafuba game, and the inhabitants we came across seemed more than usually timid. Our view was indescribably lovely, with Lutilo and the spots we knew well behind us, and the mysterious blue mountains of Manica before us. In a rocky crevice we found one of the miserable villages of Chiburwe, with no beer, no milk, no fowls and no eggs to be had; it appeared to be solely inhabited by two women grinding millet, who were much afraid of us, and retired into the darkest recesses of their huts. Their ingenuity in utilising bark is exemplified up here, where mud is scarce, for they make their granaries of the bark of the baobab, only covering the edges with mud, and binding them round with withes. For two days after leaving Chiburwe we wandered through trackless forests, guided only by a notion of the direction we wished to go, for we could not annex a native guide. A mile or two from Chiburwe we found a ruined fort of the best period of Zimbabwe work, with courses of great regularity, but much of the wall had been knocked down by the baobab trees which had grown up in it. Nobody could give us a name for this ruin in the wilderness, so we called it Chiburwe, measured it, took notes on it, and rode on.