Читать книгу Great Zimbabwe, Mashonaland, Rhodesia. An account of two years' examination work in 1902-4 on behalf of the government of Rhodesia онлайн

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At this moment the “boys” in Havilah Camp are yelling and dancing most frantically. Something unusual must have happened to cause the sudden outbreak of unearthly din. Right in the dazzling glow of the sun, and low down in the sky, and barely discernible by the eye of white men, is the slender silver scimitar of the young moon. A noisy night of beer-drinking, dancing and singing, and tom-tom beating will follow.

But the dank smell of decay has now usurped the place of the sweet-smelling incense of the ancient ritual. The monoliths still point upwards, but who to-day can explain their plan and purpose, or read the silent intimations their shadows were wont to convey?

The associations of the ruins of the Hill Fortress lie even more with the ancient military occupiers than with those of priests and worship. Traverses, buttresses, screen walls, intricate entrances, narrow and sunken passages, rampart walls, banquettes, parapets, and all other devices of a people conversant with military engineering and defence, are in great evidence all over the hill. These in their ingenuity, massive character, and persistent repetition at every point of vantage, baffle and astonish the best experts of modern military engineering science. The ancients were military strategists, and the Acropolis a stronghold, and its most prominent feature was defence.