The first set of old workings which we visited was only a few hundred yards from Mr. Fleming’s huts, and consisted of rows of vertical shafts, now filled up with rubbish, sunk along the edge of the auriferous reef, and presumably, from instances we saw later, communicating with one another by horizontal shafts below. We saw also several instances of sloping and horizontal shafts, all pointing to considerable engineering skill. It must have been ages since these shafts were worked, for they are all filled nearly to the surface with débris, and huge machabel-trees, the largest in the vicinity, are growing out of them. We then proceeded to visit some old workings about a mile and a half off on the hill slopes. One vertical shaft had been cleared out by Mr. Fleming’s workmen, and it was fifty-five feet deep. Down this we went with considerable difficulty, and saw for ourselves the ancient tool marks and the smaller horizontal shafts which connected the various holes bored into the gold-bearing quartz. I am told that near Hartley Hills some of these old workings go down even to a greater depth, and that one has been cleared out to the depth of eighty feet, proving incontestably that the ancient workers of these mines were not content with mere surface work, and followed the reef with the skill of a modern miner. All about here the ground is honeycombed with old shafts of a similar nature, indicated now by small round depressions in straight lines along the reef where different shafts had been sunk; in fact, the output of gold in centuries long gone by must have been enormous. Since the modern invasion of this gold-producing district a considerable amount of prospecting has been done, but of necessity time has not allowed of a thorough investigation of the country. Wherever the gold prospector has been, he finds instances of ancient working, and these old shafts extend all up the country wherever the gold-bearing quartz is to be found. There are ruins similar to those at Zimbabwe and the old workings in the Tati district. The old workings and ruins extend for miles and miles up the Mazoe Valley. Numerous old shafts are to be found at Hartley Hills, and on the ’Mswezwe River. Near Fort Victoria and in the immediate vicinity of Zimbabwe the prospectors have lately brought to light the same features; everywhere, in short, where the pioneer prospectors have as yet penetrated overwhelming proof of the extent of the ancient industry is brought to light. Mr. E. A. Maund thus speaks of the old workings in the ’Mswezwe district: [31] ‘On all sides there was testimony of the enormous amount of work that had been done by the ancients for the production of gold. Here, as on the Mazoe and at Umtali, tens of thousands of slaves must have been at work taking out the softer parts of the casing of the reefs, and millions of tons have been overturned in their search for gold.’