about eleven o'clock
These trees , Pousa added , were sometimes employed instead of the monkeys as a means for the disposal of criminals . `` A truly charming country and people , '' thought I , `` apparently abounding in the most delightful characteristics ! '' About half an hour before sunset we reached the foot of the mountains toward which we had been trekking all through the afternoon , and outspanned on the veld at the entrance to a pass which had revealed itself about an hour earlier . The scenery in this pass , when we entered it on the following morning , proved to be very similar in character to that of the gorge through which we had passed on the previous day , before encountering Pousa and his troopers , but , if anything , even more wild , gloomy , and sombre ; and I was not sorry when , about eleven o'clock , we emerged from it into a kind of basin , hemmed in on all sides by hills . Through the centre of this basin a narrow road ran , bordering a tiny rivulet which had its rise somewhere among the adjacent hills ; and on either hand the ground was cultivated , maize , sugar cane , cassava , and fruit of various kinds being among its products , while the far end of the basin consisted of pasture land , upon which a herd of quite a thousand cattle were grazing . There were a few people at work in the field and orchards , pygmies , like Pousa and his band , but at sight of us they hastily retired , having been previously ordered -- as I subsequently learned -- to keep well out of our way and not intrude their presence upon us . There was no sign of buildings of any description , but when I questioned Pousa on the subject he drew my attention to a large number of almost invisible openings in the rocky sides of the encircling hills , which he told me were the entrances to the cave dwellings of this extraordinary people ; and when I examined them through my telescope I discovered that the reason why these openings were so difficult to detect was because they were each choked with people staring intently out at us as we wound our way through the valley far below them .