re is one thing I may say without conceit I do know--in fact, both
of us know--it is the wily native and his little ways."

Ah, John Ames, so you thought, and so thought many others in those
boding days! But at this moment the man who is in your place is
drinking whisky and water and smoking pipes with the Police
sub-inspector in a circular hut on the Sikumbutana, and you are dallying
beneath a radiant moon upon a fir-shaded road at Wynberg, with more than
one lingering glance into the eyes of the sweet-faced, soft-voiced girl
beside you. But one could almost read a leering derisive grin into the
face of the cold moon, for that moon is now looking down upon that which
would give both yourself and `the man in your place' something very
serious to think about and to do. It is looking down upon--let us see
what.

CHAPTER SEVEN.

THE VOICE OF UMLIMO.

It is probable that the Matopo Hills, in Southern Matabeleland, are, as
a freak of Nature, unique on the earth's surface.

Only a vast upheaval--whether through the agency of fire or of water,
let the geologists determine and quarrel over--can have produced such a
bizarre result. A very sea of granite waves, not smooth and rolling,
but piled in gigantic, rugged heaps; cones of immense boulders, rising
to the height of many hundred feet; titanic masses of castellated rock;
slab-like _mesas_ and smooth-headed domes all jumbled together
arbitrarily side by side; it is as though at some remote age a
stupendous explosion had torn the heart out of earth's surface, and
heaving it on high with irresistible force, had allowed it to fall and
settle as it would. Colossal boulders, all on end, anyhow, forming dark
holes and caves, lead up to the summits of these marvellous cones; and
in such clefts wild vegetation finds abundant anchorage--the acacia and
wild fig and mahobo-hobo. Here a tall rock pinnacle, balancing upon its
apex a great stone, which, to the unthinking eye, a mere touch would
send crashing from its airy resting-place where it has reposed for ages
and ages beyond all memory; there a solid square granite block the size
of a castle, riven from summit to base as completely and smoothly as a
bisected cheese. Grim baboons, of large size and abnormal boldness,
bark threateningly from the ledges, and every crag is a perfect rookery
of predatory birds--hawks and buzzards, and kites and carrion crows--
soaring and wheeling beneath the blue of the heavens. Valleys,