Whilst we were speculating about this, Sir Henry
pointed out a flock of large white swans, which were feeding
on the drift some little way ahead of us. Now I had already
noticed swans flying about this lake, and, having never come
across them before in Africa, was exceedingly anxious to obtain
a specimen. I had questioned the natives about them, and learnt
that they came from over the mountain, always arriving at certain
periods of the year in the early morning, when it was very easy
to catch them, on account of their exhausted condition. I also
asked them what country they came from, when they shrugged their
shoulders, and said that on the top of the great black precipice
was stony inhospitable land, and beyond that were mountains with
snow, and full of wild beasts, where no people lived, and beyond
the mountains were hundreds of miles of dense thorn forest, so
thick that even the elephants could not get through it, much
less men. Next I asked them if they had ever heard of white
people like ourselves living on the farther side of the mountains
and the thorn forest, whereat they laughed. But afterwards a
very old woman came and told me that when she was a little girl
her grandfather had told her that in his youth _his_ grandfather
had crossed the desert and the mountains, and pierced the thorn
forest, and seen a white people who lived in stone kraals beyond.
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