Near the river Chimbi, which we crossed shortly before reaching Chipunza’s kraal, there is a particularly interesting specimen of this class of ruin. The rocky kopje is fortified with walls, all the nooks and crannies being carefully walled up, and below this is a curious half-underground passage which evidently connected the fortress with its water supply; it has a wall on either side of it—one four feet thick, and the other eight feet thick; and the passage is roofed over with large slabs of stone, some four and some five feet long. This passage can now be traced for about fifty feet; it is nearly choked up with rubbish, but the object for which it was originally constructed is obvious, as it leads down to low swampy ground, where water could be obtained. A mile or two beyond this we alighted for a short time at a pretty village called Makonyora, which had been surrounded by a palisade which had taken root and grown into shady trees of considerable size. The inhabitants seemed numerous and well to do. In this village there are many instances of walls constructed like those we had seen in the ruined villages; the foundations for the huts and granaries also are of stone, so that the air may pass underneath, forming neatly executed stone circles. The various gullies between the rocks are carefully walled up, and you pass from one collection of huts to the other through low entrances in these walls. There is no doubt about it, that these people here possess an inherited knowledge of stone building which exists nowhere else in Kaffirland, unless it be amongst the Basutos, who, I am told, are skilled in stone building, and who, at a not very remote period, are believed to have migrated from this very country. It seems to me hardly possible that the gigantic buildings of Zimbabwe and places in this country can have existed in their midst without the inhabitants making some attempt to copy them; and here we have an imitation, though a poor one, in the heart of what was the strongest chiefdom of the country.