een. His servants tracked him to this spot, and from there no trace of
him could be found. It's a mystery I cannot fathom. He could not
possibly have climbed this way."

We looked up at the dark grim rock walls above us, narrowing so that a
foot or two of pale blue sky could alone be seen, and the thing seemed
an impossibility. No living man could have made his way up that
terrible chimney.

Retracing our steps from this dark ravine, we tried in another
direction. All the remainder of that day, and for four long days
thereafter, we explored with infinite care and toil the mass of mountain
on the south-east, east, and northern side of the place where, from the
movements of the pelicans, the lost vlei apparently lay. We had to
leave our horses behind on these expeditions; we toiled, climbed,
descended, struggled, and fell, often at the risk of our necks and
limbs, but were met everywhere by precipices and ravines which
absolutely barred us in these directions. The mass of mountain, which
trended away to the north-east for some miles, was, although much broken
up, accessible with great labour, until we had approached within less
than half a mile, as we reckoned, of the mysterious place we sought.
Here, sheer and perfectly hopeless precipices shut us out, exactly as
had been the case on the open part of the mountain we had first
examined. It seemed clear that Verloren Vlei lay within a ring-fence of
utterly inaccessible cliff wall.

On the fifth evening after our arrival, we lay wrapped in our sheepskin
karosses by the fire, stiffened, sore, and thoroughly disheartened; and
yet, evening after evening, just at the glorious time of sunset, the
pelicans had come swinging over in their majestic hundreds from the
south-east, had skeined and circled in the glowing sky, and had sunk
into the heart of the mountain, and at dawn of day as regularly had they
departed. The vlei _must_ be there; it was heart-breaking to be baffled
in this way.

I lay long that night in my wagon, thinking out some solution of the
puzzle, until sleep at last overcame me. While I lay asleep, I had a
very singular dream. I dreamed that I sat upon a high cliff of rock,
looking down upon a fair lake of water, which lay girt in part by a
sandy shore, and surrounded by a ring of mountains. It was sunset, and
one end of this lake was white with pelicans. At other parts were
gathered flocks of wild-duck, and round about flew bands of the swift
d