El Masoudi alludes to the ancient stone-worship of Arabia, and leads us to believe that at one time this gross fetichism formed a part of the natural religion of the Semitic races. Marinus of Tyre says they honoured as a god a great cut stone. Euthymius Zygabenus further tells us that apparently ‘this stone was the head of Aphrodite, which the Ishmaelites formerly worshipped, and it is called Bakka Ismak;’ also, he adds, ‘they have certain stone statues erected in the centre of their houses, round which they danced till they fell from giddiness; but when the Saracens were converted to Christianity they were obliged to anathematise this stone, which formerly they worshipped.’ [18] Herr Kremer, in his account of the ancient cult of Arabia, makes frequent allusions to the stone-worship. In the town of Taif a great unformed stone block was worshipped, identical with the goddess which Herodotus calls Urania; and one must imagine that the Kaaba stone at Mecca resembles the black schistose block which we found at Zimbabwe; it is an exceedingly old-world worship, dating back to the most primitive ages of mankind. The next series of finds to be discussed are the numerous fragments of decorated and plain soapstone bowls which we found, most of them deeply buried in the immediate vicinity of the temple on the fortress; and these bring us to consider more closely the artistic capacities of the race who originally inhabited these ruins. The work displayed in executing these bowls, the careful rounding of the edges, the exact execution of the circle, the fine pointed tool-marks, and the subjects they chose to depict, point to the race having been far advanced in artistic skill—a skill arrived at, doubtless, by commercial intercourse with the more civilised races of mankind. Seven of these bowls were of exactly the same size, and were 19·2 inches in diameter, [19] which measurements we ascertained by taking the radii of the several fragments. The most elaborate of these fragments is a bowl which had depicted around its outer edge a hunting scene; it is very well worked, and bears in several points a remarkable similarity to objects of art produced by the Phœnicians. There is here, as we have in all Phœnician patterns, the straight procession of animals, to break the continuity of which a little man is introduced shooting a zebra with one hand and holding in the other an animal by a leash. To fill up a vacant space, a bird is introduced flying, all of which points are characteristic of Phœnician work. Then the Phœnician workmen always had a great power of adaptability, taking their lessons in art from their immediate surroundings, which is noticeable all over the world, whether in Greece, Egypt, Africa, or Italy. Here we have the same characteristic, namely, a procession of native African animals treated in a Phœnician style—three zebras, two hippopotami, and the sportsman in the centre is obviously a Hottentot. The details in this bowl are carefully brought