These cliffs in front of them rose into the most fantastic shapes and pinnacles. They were of all shapes and sizes, some exactly like ruins of castles, some like pyramids and obelisks. To our heroes, as they looked up, they appeared like a range of deserted keeps and fortifications set there to guard the borders of a strange domain. Trees jutted out of each crevice, while gigantic creepers swung like rope-ladders over the front of these strangely heaped-up boulders. The long and twisted lines reached from the top to where they stood, some of them as thick as a man's thigh and others no thicker than a finger. It was not at all difficult to climb the cliffs with those tough tendrils to hang on by, and our adventurers, without a pause, began the ascent. At length they stood on the crest of one of these castle-like broken walls, and found that they were entirely the work of freakish nature. They were rewarded, however, for their exertions by the magnificent prospect that spread all round them. Under them they could see the forest which they had traversed, sloping downwards and reaching away until it became a blur of blue haze in the distance. The fierce African sun was pouring down its rays and heat on this vast mass of vegetation, from which rose a film of unwholesome gas, that softened the tops of the trees until they seemed like a great ocean of blended tones. A mighty silence seemed to brood over this vast sea of quivering colours--the pulsing silence of sleeping life. Above them stretched that wide vault of atmosphere, the glad sight of which they had so long been denied. One and all spread out their arms as if to embrace the welcome light and pure air. Like the sun-worshippers, they experienced a kind of adoration for the glowing orb which was so softly sinking towards the west. In front of them extended a flat prairie land dotted here and there with mounds and kopjes and devoid of trees, excepting near the banks of the stream, which they could trace as it flowed across the plateau from a far-distant range of mountains. These mountains were so faintly outlined against the sky that they might almost be mistaken for a low-lying bank of clouds. Only their peaks showed them to be land and not vapour. Not a sign of human life could they perceive, either on the plain or on the banks of the river. No kraals, no huts showed up even, although Ned looked most carefully through his field-glasses. "Have we discovered a new tract of country, I wonder," he said, "as yet uninhabited? I see not the slightest signs of cultivation, although it looks as good as Rhodesia or the Transvaal." "It appears like it," answered Fred. "Only I wish we had our horses." "Yes, that would be fine, for this seems to be a happy hunting-ground. Look yonder at the peaceful herds of giraffes and zebras. I bet no white man has been here, this generation at least, with his gun," cried Clarence, who had now quite recovered his spirits.