So they led their horses down the narrow passage where there was
scarcely room for them to pass, and up the steep path beyond. On
the further side of the ancient ditch they remounted them while the
Makalanga watched them from the walls, and cantered away along the same
road by which they had come.
Now this road, or rather track, ran first through the gardens and then
among the countless ruined houses that in bygone ages formed the great
city whereof the mount Bambatse had been the citadel and sanctuary.
The relics of a lost civilization extended for several miles, and were
bounded by a steep and narrow neck or pass in the encircling hills, the
same that Robert Seymour and his brother had found too difficult for
their waggon at the season in which they visited the place some years
before. This pass, or port as it is called in South Africa, had been
strongly fortified, for on either side of it were the ruins of towers.
Moreover, at its crest it was so narrow and steep-sided that a few men
posted there, even if they were armed only with bows and arrows, could
hold an attacking force in check for a considerable time. Beyond it,
after the hill was descended, a bush-clad plain dotted with kopjes and
isolated granite pillars formed of boulders piled one upon another,
rolled away for many miles.
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