Another interesting find in connection with this early civilisation is a Roman coin of the Emperor Antoninus Pius (A.D. 138); it was found in an ancient shaft near Umtali at a depth of 70 feet, and forms a valuable link in the chain of evidence as to the antiquity of the gold mines in Mashonaland. Concerning the more recent ruins discovered in Matabeleland, north of Buluwayo, we have not much definite detail to hand at present. Mr. Swan writes that he has seen photographs of them, and that ‘many of the ruins are of great size. One can clearly see that in most cases the mason work is at least as good as that at Zimbabwe, and the decorations on the wall are at least as well constructed and are more lavishly used. In one ruin you have the chevron, the herring-bone, and the chessboard patterns.’ J. THEODORE BENT 13 Great Cumberland Place: October 31, 1894. PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION In looking over this work for a second edition, I find little to add to the material as it appeared in the first, and next to nothing to alter. Sir John Willoughby has kindly supplied me with details concerning five weeks’ excavation which he carried on the summer following the one which we spent there, the results of which, however, appear only to have produced additional specimens of the objects we found—namely, crucibles with traces of gold, fragments of decorated bowls, phalli, &c.—but no further object to assist us in unravelling the mystery of the primitive race which built the ruins. No one of the many reviewers of my work has criticised adversely my archæological standpoint with regard to these South African remains: on the contrary, I continue to have letters on the subject from all sides which make me more than ever convinced that the authors of these ruins were a northern race coming from Arabia—a race which spread more extensively over the world than we have at present any conception of, a race closely akin to the Phœnician and the Egyptian, strongly commercial, and eventually developing into the more civilised races of the ancient world. Professor D. H. Müller, of Vienna, endorses our statements concerning the form and nature of the buildings themselves in his work ‘Burgen und Schlösser’ (ii. 20), to which he kindly called my attention; and Mr. W. St. Chad Boscawen has also favoured me with the following remarks on certain analogous points that have struck him during an archæological tour in Egypt this last winter:— The Hawks Gods over the Mines in Mashonaland.