about
two o'clock in the afternoon
The evening of the sixth day after we had crossed the Limpopo found us outspanned upon the left bank of the stream which we had been closely following from the moment of our passage of the river , with a lofty , flat-topped mountain range , some fifty miles long , on our left hand , springing from the plain close to the opposite margin of the stream , and on our right two enormous mountains , some twenty miles apart from peak to peak , and remarkable for their exceptional height -- which I estimated at fully fourteen thousand feet -- as well as from the fact that they were identical not only in shape , but also apparently in size and altitude . In shape they were almost hemispherical , and to add to their similarity each bore on its very summit a protuberance very much resembling in appearance a beehive-shaped Kafir hut , but much larger , being probably quite two hundred feet in height . The tops of these remarkable mountains were covered with snow for a distance of about two thousand feet from the summit , and very beautiful they looked , blushing a soft , delicate pink in the last rays of the setting sun . The ground between the two mountains -- which I took to be a pair of long-extinct volcanoes -- and the range on our left rose steadily , and therefore somewhat retarded our progress when we continued our trek on the following day ; but about two o'clock in the afternoon we reached the summit of the slope and saw before us a valley or basin , roughly circular in shape and some twenty miles in diameter , hemmed in on all sides by hills , some of which were lofty enough to be snow-capped on their summits ; and in the very centre of this valley lay Gwanda , the Kraal or Place of Lomalindela , the king of the Mashona nation . It was an immense place , far exceeding in dimensions the biggest native kraal that I had ever yet seen . It was circular in plan , like the other Mashona kraals that I had passed on my way , and , also like them , it was intersected by two main roads or streets , crossing each other at right angles in the centre of the kraal , one road running due north and south , while the other ran east and west . Each of these roads was about two and a half miles long , with a great gate at either extremity , pierced in the high and strong circular palisade which completely surrounded the kraal ; and at the point where these two main roads intersected in the centre of the kraal each was widened in such a manner as to form a great square about one hundred and sixty acres in extent , this doubtless being the spot where all business of a ceremonial character was conducted .