But afterwards a very old woman came and told me that when she was a little girl her grandfather had told her that in his youth _his_ grandfather had crossed the desert and the mountains, and pierced the thorn forest, and seen a white people who lived in stone kraals beyond.
Of course, as this took the tale back some two hundred and fifty years, the information was very indefinite; but still there it was again, and on thinking it over I grew firmly convinced that there was some truth in all these rumours, and equally firmly determined to solve the mystery.

Little did I guess in what an almost miraculous way my desire was to be gratified.
Well, we set to work to stalk the swans, which kept drawing, as they fed, nearer and nearer to the precipice, and at last we pushed the canoe under shelter of a patch of drift within forty yards of them.

Sir Henry had the shot-gun, loaded with No.

1, and, waiting for a chance, got two in a line, and, firing at their necks, killed them both.

Up rose the rest, thirty or more of them, with a mighty splashing; and, as they did so, he gave them the other barrel.