Then his apprehensions disappeared.

Before him stretched a wide, grassy savanna and upon it was grazing a herd of wild cattle, at least fifty in number, stocky beasts with long horns.
Robert looked at them with satisfaction.

Here was enough food on the hoof to last him for years.

They might be tough, but he had experience enough to make them tender when it came to fire and the spit.
"Graze on in peace until I need you," he said, and crossing the savanna he found beyond, hidden at first from view by a fringe of forest, the lake that he had seen from the crest of the hill beside the house.

It covered about half a square mile and was blue and deep.