Also that lime outcrop proved to be an uninteresting spot overlooking a wide valley which seemed to suggest that there were other valleys of a similar sort beyond it, and nothing more.
Captain Robertson sat stern-faced and despondent at a distance muttering into his beard, as had become a habit with him.

Umslopogaas leaned upon his axe and contemplated the heavens, also occasionally the Strathmuir men who cowered beneath his eye.

The Zulus squatted about sharing such snuff as remained to them in economic pinches.

Goroko, the witch-doctor, engaged himself in consulting his "Spirit," by means of bone-throwing, upon the humble subject of whether or no we should succeed in killing any game for food to-morrow, a point on which I gathered that his "Spirit" was quite uncertain.

In short, the gloom was deep and universal and the sky looked as though it were going to rain.
Hans became sarcastic.