onous voice, certain words the meaning of
which I could not comprehend.

For a few minutes nothing particular seemed to happen: the disk
continued to shine strongly in the midst of the deep shadow, and
Mafuta's low, monotonous song went on. Then, so gradually that I knew
not when the change began, I lost consciousness of everything except the
gleaming disk and the sound of Mafuta's voice, from which all semblance
of words had passed. Then the disk seemed slowly to fade out of sight,
Mafuta's voice died away to silence, and I found myself seemingly
standing upon gently rising ground, with a native village, of such
dimensions that it deserved rather the name of a town, about a quarter
of a mile distant on my left front. The first thing that I particularly
observed about this place, apart from its exceptional size, was that it
was built in the shape of a circle, and was entirely fenced in with a
strong, high palisade. There was a gate in the fence, nearly opposite
me, and a number of people, mostly men, were coming and going through
the gateway. They were splendid specimens of the South African savage,
but, look as I would, I could discover nothing either in their cast of
features or in their trappings by which to identify them.

The town was built upon the top of the slope on which I stood, and about
a quarter of a mile distant from it I noted a rather remarkable kopje
which I thought would surely enable me to recognise the place if ever I
should chance to set my bodily eyes upon it. It was perhaps seventy or
eighty feet high, and at its summit it measured, as nearly as I could
guess, about two hundred yards long. It was hog-backed in shape, and
was strewn here and there with great, tumbled masses of dark-coloured
rock, among which grew a few straggling bushes. The most remarkable
thing about this particular kopje, however, was that, notwithstanding
its close proximity to the town, it appeared to be the haunt of
innumerable vultures, some forty or fifty of which were perched upon the
rocks at that moment. The landscape on which this unknown savage town
was set was of the usual South African type, namely, gently undulating,
the hills retiring one behind the other into the extreme distance until,
toward the west--I got my bearings from the sun, of course--they merged
into what might almost be termed mountains, while eastward the land
stretched away in a vast plain. The soil was densely covered with long,
thick gr