They told him that in their day they had never seen a white man,
although their fathers' fathers (an expression by which they meant their
remote ancestors) had known many of them. They added, however, that if
we went on steadily towards the north for another seven days' journey,
we should come to a place where a white man lived, one, they had heard,
who had a long beard and killed animals with guns, as we did.

Encouraged by this intelligence we pushed forward, now travelling down
hill out of the mists into a more genial country. Indeed, the veld
here was beautiful, high, rolling plains like those of the East African
plateau, covered with a deep and fertile chocolate-coloured soil, as
we could see where the rains had washed out dongas. The climate, too,
seemed to be cool and very healthful. Altogether it was a pity to see
such lands lying idle and tenanted only by countless herds of game, for
there were not any native inhabitants, or at least we met none.

On we trekked, our road still sloping slightly down hill, till at length
we saw far away a vast sea of bush-veld which, as I guessed correctly,
must fringe the great Zambesi River. Moreover we, or rather Hans, whose
eyes were those of a hawk, saw something else, namely buildings of a
more or less civilised kind, which stood among trees by the side of a
stream several miles on this side of the great belt of bush.

"Look, Baas," said Hans, "those wanderers did not lie; there is the
house of the white man. I wonder if he drinks anything stronger than
water," he added with a sigh and a kind of reminiscent contraction of
his yellow throat.

As it happened, he did.