One evening, after three days' march through some difficult bush in
which lions carried off a slave woman, killed one of the donkeys and
mauled another so badly that it had to be shot, we found ourselves
upon the edge of a great grassy plateau that, according to my aneroid,
was 1,640 feet above sea level.
"What place is this?" I asked of the two Mazitu guides, those same men
whom we had borrowed from Hassan.
"The land of our people, Chief," they answered, "which is bordered on
one side by the bush and on the other by the great lake where live the
Pongo wizards."
I looked about me at the bare uplands that already were beginning to
turn brown, on which nothing was visible save vast herds of buck such
as were common further south. A dreary prospect it was, for a slight
rain was falling, accompanied by mist and a cold wind.
"I do not see your people or their kraals," I said; "I only see grass
and wild game."
"Our people will come," they replied, rather nervously. "No doubt even
now their spies watch us from among the tall grass or out of some
hole.
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