I rose and went to look at the antelope, for I was not certain.  It was about the size of a donkey, with large curved horns.  I had never seen one like it before; the species was new to me.  It was brown in colour, with faint red stripes, and grew a thick coat.  I afterwards discovered that the natives of that wonderful country call these bucks “inco.”  They are very rare, and only found at a great altitude where no other game will live.  This animal was fairly hit high up in the shoulder, though whose bullet brought it down we could not, of course, discover.  I believe that Good, mindful of his marvellous shot at the giraffe, secretly set it down to his own prowess, and we did not contradict him.

We had been so busy satisfying our hunger that hitherto we had not found time to look about us.  But now, having set Umbopa to cut off as much of the best meat as we were likely to be able to carry, we began to inspect our surroundings.  The mist had cleared away, for it was eight o’clock, and the sun had sucked it up, so we were able to take in all the country before us at a glance.  I know not how to describe the glorious panorama which unfolded itself to our gaze.  I have never seen anything like it before, nor shall, I suppose, again.

Behind and over us towered Sheba’s snowy Breasts, and below, some five thousand feet beneath where we stood, lay league on league of the most lovely champaign country.  Here were dense patches of lofty forest, there a great river wound its silvery way.  To the left stretched a vast expanse of rich, undulating veld or grass land, whereon we could just make out countless herds of game or cattle, at that distance we could not tell which.  This expanse appeared to be ringed in by a wall of distant mountains.  To the right the country was more or less mountainous; that is, solitary hills stood up from its level, with stretches of cultivated land between, amongst which we could see groups of dome-shaped huts.  The landscape lay before us as a map, wherein rivers flashed like silver snakes, and Alp-like peaks crowned with wildly twisted snow wreaths rose in grandeur, whilst over all was the glad sunlight and the breath of Nature’s happy life.

Two curious things struck us as we gazed.  First, that the country before us must lie at least three thousand feet higher than the desert we had crossed, and secondly, that all the rivers flowed from south to north.  As we had painful reason to know, there was no water upon the southern side of the vast range on which we stood, but on the northern face were many streams, most of which appeared to unite with the great river we could see winding away farther than our eyes could follow.

We sat down for a while and gazed in silence at this wonderful view.  Presently Sir Henry spoke.

“Isn’t there something on the map about Solomon’s Great Road?” he said.

I nodded, for I was still gazing out over the far country.