calico for each basket holding hardly over one pound
that I could not buy any.
At the end of the fourth day’s march we began to hear
the noise of the Victoria Falls, although we were still over
ten miles from them. The next morning we caught the
first sight of three huge columns of what looked like
steam rising up high in the air. The native name given
to the Falls, “ Musia Tunia” (cloud and noise), is most
appropriate. Gradually as we approached the noise
increased, and at last we reached the southern end of the
Falls. Above them the river is over a mile broad; the
water boiled and rushed in a wild way. Right in front of
us, between an island on the brink of the chasm and the
bank where we stood, a huge mass of water, over a
hundred yards broad, rushed madly along, then suddenly
turning to the left seemed to disappear into the bowels of
the earth.
In order to see the Falls properly one has to turn round
so as to get a view from the opposite side of the chasm
into which they fall. After taking a cup of coffee I
therefore decided to go and camp at the place where I
could get the best view, as I intended taking a number of
photographs. How fatal this decision turned out will be
seen presently. We had to make our way through a dense
forest covered with the most luxuriant vegetation, the
place being constantly covered with the shower of water
that drops from the columns of spray rising from the Falls.
I find it an absolute impossibility to describe the Falls
of the Zambezi. All that I had read about them and all
the descriptions that had been given me had created an
impression in my mind quite different from the real thing.
I expected to find something superb, grand, marvellous.
I had never been so disappointed. Of course, to anybody
who passed half his existence in South Africa, like
Livingstone, or who had never been out of his country
before, like Serpa Pinto, it is possible that these Falls
present a wonderful sight. But anyone who has travelled
about in the world cannot help saying, “ After all, other
wonders of nature have impressed me much more than
this.” When reflecting a little on what had more struck
my imagination, I could not help thinking of the Pyramids
of Egypt, of the Taj of Agra in India, of the Temples of
Rangoon in Burmah, and of those of Nikko in Japan.
But I shall be told those are the works of man. Quite so.
Let us take the works of Nature. Can one ever' forget
THE TOP OF TH E VICTORIA FA L L S FROM TH E R IGHT BANK.
the panorama of the Col du Géant in the Alps when seen
on a fine clear day? What is more marvellous than
the Bay of Naples, or more grandiose than the range of
the Kinchunjunga Mountains on the frontier of Thibet in
the Himalaya, or, again, the Yosemiti Valley in California?
Or, to make a closer comparison, what spectacle is more
imposing than the Falls of Niagara?—the more you look
at them the more you are compelled to wonder. The
Falls of the Zambezi produce quite another sort of impression.
It is hell itself, a corner of which seems to
open at your feet: a dark and terrible hell, from the
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