midday
The one thing that , after the spreading , well-tilled fields surrounding every village , the great herds of cattle , and the general aspect of prosperity everywhere met with , most impressed the two travellers during their progress through the Makolo country , was the extraordinary courtesy and deference uniformly extended to them by the natives . These people were savages , pure and unadulterated , a fierce and warlike race , who had been obliged to fight for their very existence throughout countless ages , ignorant and superstitious to a degree , with all the virtues and most of the vices of the primeval savage , unspeakably cruel and relentless as enemies , absolutely fearless in battle , and , above all , intensely suspicious of strangers ; yet , although white men were practically unknown to them as a people , they never annoyed the travellers by any display of undue curiosity , every man deferentially saluted them , and all were willing , even eager , to do them service . The character of the country , although it could not by any stretch of the imagination be described as mountainous , maintained its rugged character almost to the end of the journey , consisting of a constant succession of low hills , or ridges , mostly of granite formation , divided from each other by broad , fertile , well-watered valleys , dotted here and there with villages which , as the travellers advanced , gradually drew closer together and increased in importance . It was as the travellers surmounted a certain ridge , about an hour and a half before the time of their midday halt , that they caught their first glimpse of the sea since losing sight of it on their departure from Lourenco Marques . It stretched away to right and left and in front of them , a narrow , faint , grey streak , softly shimmering under the beams of the noontide sun ; and between it and the observers lay a wide - stretching , level , grassy plain , in the midst of which appeared numberless irregularities that , viewed through their powerful glasses , assumed the aspect of architectural ruins of enormous massiveness and strength . But they were some ten miles distant , and through the highly rarefied atmosphere that intervened it was impossible to obtain any very clear conception of their character , except that they were undoubtedly of human origin and of quite unexpected extent . One thing , however , was certain , in the light of Menzies ' story , as recounted to them by his and their friend Mitchell , those enormous ruins could be none other than the remains of the ancient Ophir mentioned in Holy Writ ; and the two friends sent up a shout of irrepressible exultation at the thought that they had advanced thus far upon their difficult journey without mishap of any kind .