Cherumbila himself is a lithe, active man, a complete contrast to Umgabe; a man of activity both of mind and body, he is feared and respected by his men, and is consequently one of the strongest chiefs hereabouts, and raids upon his neighbours with great success. Years ago, when he was a boy, he told us, his tribe lived on the top of one of the highest mountains overlooking Providential Pass, when a Matabele raid, or impi, fell upon them and drove most of the inhabitants over a steep precipice to their death: the remnant that escaped came here and settled, and have now, under Cherumbila’s rule, grown strong. The chief allotted us his own hut for our night’s lodging. Nevertheless we had much the same experiences as on the previous night, which made us vow that on our prospective trips to the Sabi and northwards we would take our tent and never again expose ourselves to the companionship of rats and other vermin in the native huts. The following day a lovely ride over the mountains, through dense forests and swarms of locusts, which our black men eagerly collected, brought us back again to Fort Victoria and comparative civilisation, where we made preparations for our more extended expeditions away from the road and our waggons, warned but not discouraged by our discomforts with Umgabe and Cherumbila. PART II DEVOTED TO THE ARCHÆOLOGY OF THE RUINED CITIES CHAPTER IV DESCRIPTION OF THE VARIOUS RUINS During our stay in Mashonaland we visited and carefully examined the sites of many ruins, a minute description of which I propose to give in this chapter. As a feature in the country they are most remarkable—ancient, massive, mysterious, standing out in startling contrast to the primitive huts of the barbarians who dwell around them and the wilderness of nature. Of course it was impossible in one season, and in the present undeveloped state of the country, to visit them all; but from accounts given of others which we could not visit, and which consequently I shall only briefly allude to here, there is enough evidence to prove that they were all built by the same race, in the same style, and for the same purpose.