But these thoughts must give way to others that are more pleasant and consoling. How wonderful to be able to revel in this wilderness, to feel in oneself the influence of all these splendours, notwithstanding all dangers and all difficulties, however great! Everything around us undulates and shimmers, bathed in a dazzling sea of light. Gradually the colouring of plain and hills, the dome of the sky and the whole surrounding landscape, changes to duller and less definite tints. The sun-illumined air rises in waves from the earth, and the various strata of it form an ever-changing chaos of reflected light. Over all there is deep peace. A spell that accords with the mood of the moment seems to stream down from the dome of the sky over this solitude, lying so far from the noisy activity of the world. All that I here behold has been going on since those far times, directed by natural law, in ever-recurring succession. But to-day for the first time a member of the complex society of civilisation takes delight in this mountain rising amidst all this primeval beauty. Who could possibly set down this poetry upon paper--the poetry of the velt and its wild inhabitants, the moods of East African Nyíka? The master of colouring has not yet arisen who could give us a picture of these mighty gatherings of wild herds, and of these deserts that seem overcrowded with animal forms, that yet live so peacefully together, nor can the master of the pen, though he may have been able by his words to conjure up some idea of them in the mind. One who has perhaps felt and enjoyed their spell more than any one else is Alfred Brehm. But he has travelled only in regions that had long been under the influence of man and his activity. He has only once seen the king of beasts, and has never looked upon the giraffe--whose beautiful eyes the Arab compares with the eyes of his beloved--and many other forms of the African fauna.[37] Nevertheless he has done wonders, thanks to his deep feeling for his subject, his intimate understanding of it, and his incomparably poetical power of description. He has given us imperishable pictures in words that are among the most beautiful that have ever been written about Nature. Our old famous teacher, Dr. Schweinfurth, has seen and described similar scenes. With these two we may rank in equal honour the name of the German explorer Richard Böhm,[38] who unhappily lost his life so tragically and at such an early age on the shores of Lake Upämba in Southern Urúa, of which he was the discoverer. Many others might also be named who were deeply influenced by these primeval splendours. But the fauna of South Africa has vanished unsung and untamed, before any artist or master of words arose to place in a fitting way its beauties on record for all time! [Illustration: _C. G. Schillings, phot._ TELEPHOTOGRAPH OF A HERD OF WATERBUCK (_COBUS ELLIPSIPRYMNUS_, Ogilb.) RUNNING AWAY.] [Illustration: _C. G. Schillings, phot._