Zuma Rock is a dome of dark stone heaving almost 300 metres out of the flat plain of Niger State, in central Nigeria, three kilometres around at its base. You cannot take it in from anywhere close to it. The place to stand is a few hundred metres out on the open flat, where the whole dome fits in one view, with nothing for miles near its height. From there the southern wall resolves into a face. Eyes, a nose and a mouth come out of channels that rain has worn down the stone, and they line up for you only from one angle, and only when the sun is low. That wall faces the road north from Abuja, which is how the country knows it: the rock is printed on the hundred-naira note. The stone itself is gabbro that cooled deep underground and then stood while the softer plain wore away from around it, streaked black and white by the run-off of centuries.
There is no gate here and no park. Village lanes run right up to the rock, with compounds and farm plots pressed against the base, standing in the wall's shade for half the day, so you walk in among people going about their morning. This is also where the rock stops making sense. From directly underneath, the top is simply gone: the dome leans away out of sight and what you have left is the near wall going up from the back of a courtyard. The name is traced to the Zuba, who are said to have found the rock in thick forest in the fifteenth century and called it Zumwa, the place of catching guinea fowl. They and the neighbouring Gbagyi came to hold it sacred and made offerings to the face. Through the rainy season Gbagyi elders say flames show at the summit, from the spirits inside the stone. The face that the whole country carries in its pocket belongs to the highway. From the courtyards at its foot there is only wall.