eral springs of deliciously cold water break out. Less
than an hour's easy work brought us to the highest point of a ridge
which fell northward in a precipice, and our Kafirs declared that this
was the summit of Machacha. But right in front of us, not half a mile
away, on the other side of a deep semi-circular gulf,--what is called in
Scotland a _corrie_,--a huge black cliff reared its head 400 feet above
us, and above everything else in sight. This was evidently the true top
and must be ascended. The Kafirs, perhaps thinking they had done enough
for one day, protested that it was inaccessible. "Nonsense," we
answered; "that is where we are going;" and when we started off at full
speed they followed. Keeping along the crest for about half a mile to
the eastward--it is an arete which breaks down to the corrie in
tremendous precipices, but slopes more gently to the south--we came to
the base of the black cliff, and presently discovered a way by which,
climbing hither and thither through the crags, we reached the summit,
and saw an immense landscape unroll itself before us. It was one of
those views which have the charm, so often absent from mountain
panoramas, of combining a wide stretch of plain in one direction with a
tossing sea of mountain-peaks in another. To the north-east and east and
south-east, one saw nothing but mountains, some of them, especially in
the far north-east, toward Natal, apparently as lofty as that on which
we stood, and many of them built on bold and noble lines. To the
south-east, where are the great waterfalls which are one of the glories
of Basutoland, the general height was less, but a few peaks seemed to
reach 10,000 feet. At our feet, to the west and south-west, lay the
smiling corn-fields and pastures we had traversed the day before, and
beyond them the rich and populous valley of the Caledon River, and
beyond it, again, the rolling uplands of the Orange Free State, with the
peak of Thaba 'Ntshu just visible, and still farther a blue ridge, faint
in the extreme distance, that seemed to lie on the other side of
Bloemfontein, nearly one hundred miles away. The sky was bright above
us, but thunderstorms hung over the plains of the Free State behind
Ladybrand, and now and then one caught a forked tongue of light flashing
from among them. It was a magnificent landscape, whose bareness--for
there is scarcely a tree upon these slopes--was more than compensated by
the brilliance of the light and the