“Thin it must be giving itself a moighty hard whack upon the shtones it falls on, to make it roar like that,” said Dinny in a serio-comic fashion, and he went off to attend to the fire as, the General having pointed out a capital place for a halt, Mr Rogers gave the word, and the camp was rapidly formed.
They had come through plenty of beautiful scenery, but the rich verdure and beauty of the palms, ferns, and other foliage-growths, watered as they were by the soft hazy spray that came from the mighty falls, was beyond anything they had yet seen, and fully justified Mr Rogers’ remark, half made aloud,—
“What a glorious place this world is after all!”
A strong thorn kraal was formed, and after a good feed the horses and oxen were secured, and resisting the temptation to go that night to inspect the falls—a very dangerous experiment in the dark—the fire blazed up, watch was set, and the sight deferred to the following day.
All that night Dick and Jack, when they they were not on watch, dreamed of roaring lions, and falls of water, and then of thunderstorms; but towards morning the heavy dull hum lulled them to sleep, a sleep so sound that Coffee and Chicory amused themselves for ten minutes tickling their noses with strands of grass, before they could get them awake.
Then they both jumped up in an ill-temper, each seizing a dark-complexioned tormentor to punch and bang; but the sight of the Zulu boys’ merry laughing faces, lit up by their bright eyes and white teeth, disarmed all anger, and Dick and Jack rubbed the last relic of the night’s sleep out of their eyes, and went to breakfast.
The General had been at the falls before, and as soon as the camp was considered straight, Dinny, Peter, and Dirk were left behind, and the three bosses, as Chicory called them, went off, with the father to guide, the Zulu boys carrying a basket of food.
The brilliancy of the greens of the various trees around gave an additional charm to what was always a very beautiful landscape, for here it was never dry, and the consequence was that every tree, plant, and tender herb was in the highest state of luxuriance.
They kept a sharp look out for enemies in the shape of large animals, but nothing was seen; and following the General in single file, they went on and on, with the awful thunder in the air growing deeper and louder at every step.
No water was in sight as they went carefully through the trees and huge fronded ferns; nothing but verdure of the richest hues, the sun shining through it, and making the dewy leaves glisten with a sheen like that of many precious stones.