Chapter XII: Part 12

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 26.—The distance from Mafeking to Bulawayo is 485 miles, and our train made it in twenty-four hours. If there is a town between Mafeking and Bulawayo, we passed through it during the night; we stopped at a good many lonely stations, but saw no towns. And we passed but one train on the way: a passenger train coming from Victoria Falls.... We arrived at Bulawayo this morning at 9:30, on time to the second, although we left Johannesburg and Mafeking late. We were taken to the Grand Hotel in an automobile, of which the hotel porter was the driver, and the manager met us with the question: “Mr. and Miss Howe?” You travel by schedule here, and your coming is known in advance.... Last night the weather was chilly, although the afternoon was almost insufferably hot and dusty. All day yesterday we traveled through a country covered with scrubby trees; trees so bent and twisted that they looked as though they had rheumatism in every limb and joint. This morning we awoke in Rhodesia, and the country improved in character, though the land was still of the Arizona kind rather than of the Iowa or eastern Kansas kind. In Rhodesia we saw larger cornfields than we saw yesterday, but the fields were many miles apart. Corn is the staple crop all over Africa, but the corn I have seen was small.... Africa is an enormous country; when it comes to size, we must take off our hats to it. But nine hundred miles in the interior, you do not find a city like Chicago; the fourth or fifth city in the world, and built up from agriculture. Africa was known before Columbus discovered America; had it been as rich agriculturally as North America, the negroes would have been chased out by farmers as promptly as the Indians were chased out of North America. In Africa today there are negro tribes as wild as were the wildest tribes hundreds of years ago. There is here a tribe known as the Bushmen. Their language is a collection of clicks and grunts, these last, absent in the other African dialects, being said to bear a resemblance to the different cries of the baboon. The Bushman is so much like the baboon that he has no conception of right or wrong; it is as impossible to civilize him as it is impossible to civilize the monkey. He is the missing link between the monkey most like man, and the human animal. He can no more understand the rights of property than can the lion or the jackal; theft is not a crime with him, because he cannot appreciate that theft is wrong. So it has been found necessary to drive him to the wildest and most inaccessible sections of the country, and, when he appears in civilization, is hunted as ruthlessly as are cunning and dangerous wild animals. No Bushman has ever been known to cultivate a field; he lives entirely by hunting animals, wild berries, roots, etc., and no white man has ever been able to understand the Bushman’s language.... Africa is behind us in civilization because its land is poorer. In many of our best states it was possible in early times, before fences were introduced, to plow a furrow hundreds of miles long, and every foot of the land represented a rich, deep, black soil that would produce marvelous crops without irrigation or fertilizing. There is no such land in Africa; the abundance of such land in North America explains why it has a hundred million progressive people, and is everywhere known as the best country the sun shines on. Possibly modesty should cause us to boast less, but the big talk we use in Fourth of July addresses is not far from the truth.... Do Americans boast a good deal? On the contrary, I sometimes fear they habitually deny nearly every good thing that may be said about their country. In Johannesburg I was given a big bundle of American newspapers and magazines, and read them in coming here. I saw no boasting; on the contrary, I read dozens of sensational scandals that were in the main baseless. One worthy and useful old gentleman, I read, is being harassed by an impudent investigating committee, although so ill that he cannot speak above a whisper. I read that a prominent American manufacturer, who certainly deserves well of his country, has been sentenced to jail and fined $50,000, on a charge that seems trifling. I read of a case wherein a negro assaulted a worthy white woman in the South. The papers are determined to make out that the woman was assaulted and cut with a knife by her husband, who caught her flirting with another man. The woman and her husband, and all their friends who were about them at the time, swear in court that the assault was committed by a mulatto, whom none of them knew; there is no sworn evidence whatever to the contrary. It was rumored for months before the trial began that a newspaper reporter was smuggled into the office of the prosecuting attorney when the husband and wife were examined, soon after the assault, and that the reporter heard the husband say incriminating things to his wife, during the temporary absence of the prosecuting attorney; but at the trial, the reporter was a witness, and swore to no such incident. At this distance, it looks as though the gossips have the assistance of the courts and the newspapers in making good their vicious and untruthful tales.... Is this boasting? Is it not, on the contrary, making ourselves mean when we are usually creditable and decent?... To a hurried visitor, Bulawayo seems even handsomer, and duller, than Bloemfontein, the old Dutch town in the Orange Free State which I admired so much. The Grand Hotel here is excellent, and the town clean and handsome, but I see little business going on. It may be that the farmers come in some other day in the week, but I wonder at and enjoy the quietness in Bulawayo. So far I have seen no great number of pretty women, who always distinguish a dull town, but possibly they have been kept in by a rain which began falling soon after my arrival. Work is in progress here on a government building which would do credit to a state capital in America, but this not the capital of Rhodesia; that honor belongs to Salisbury, three hundred miles away. The new building will be occupied by officials of the British company which owns Rhodesia, and the postoffice.... When the Union Pacific Railway was built, in the days immediately following the Civil War, the government gave the company a strip of land on both sides of the track, as a reward for developing the country. In like manner, the English government gave Rhodesia to certain capitalists, except that in this case the capitalists govern the country; they collect taxes, try criminals, hang them when necessary, collect customs, and otherwise administer public affairs. The police and militia of Rhodesia serve the Rhodesia company; when a man buys public land, he buys it of the Rhodesia company; but back of the Rhodesia company, John Bull is a silent but powerful figure, and nothing can be done without his approval and consent. India was governed many years by the East India company, but finally Victoria was made Empress of India. Rhodesia will eventually become a member of the South-African union, certainly; it may be even closer than that to the British crown.... Flies and mosquitoes terrorize me in Africa. There is a fly here which gives the dreaded Sleeping Sickness with its bite, and there is a mosquito which gives you typhoid. I strike at both insects as promptly as the average man strikes at a moth miller when around home. I never knew a man so dignified that he wouldn’t take a smash at a moth miller.... The Bulawayo newspaper, issued this morning, tells of the depredations of lions in the surrounding country. Several cattle and one native were killed. Let American country editors think of exciting country correspondence of that kind.

THURSDAY, MARCH 27.—Thirty miles from Bulawayo is a district known as the Matopo Hills, one hundred miles long by twenty-five broad. During the Matabele rebellion of 1896‒7, these rough hills of granite proved impregnable when occupied by the natives, as they are full of passes and gigantic caves, and occasional fertile but almost inaccessible valleys. Cecil Rhodes loved this district, because of its wildness, and one of his last requests was that his body be buried on top of the highest of the Matopo Hills. We visited his grave today, during the course of an automobile ride. There is no monument over his grave; a simple flat stone covers it. Two hundred feet away, and on top of the same hill, is a monument “In Memory of Brave Men.” It is a huge affair of granite, in memory of Major Allan Wilson and his party, who fell on the Shangaui river in 1893. It is a common habit of discreet men to erect handsome monuments over the graves of foolhardy adventurers, and call them brave. Thousands of men lost their lives in order that Cecil Rhodes might become noted, and be the subject of statues at Kimberley, Johannesburg, Bulawayo, etc. Other noted men have sacrificed the lives of their followers with equal recklessness.... On the four sides of the notable monument near Rhodes’s grave are bronze panels showing scenes from various campaigns in Rhodesia; the figures are of heroic size, and executed with so much faithfulness by John Tweed that many of the faces may be recognized.... From Rhodes’s grave, the Matopo Hills may be seen in all their remarkable desolation. The place looks like hell with the fires out; like the world upside down. Rhodes had a model farm of 115,000 acres just outside the Hills, and spent $150,000 on an irrigating dam. He expected this dam to irrigate 2,000 acres, but it actually irrigates less than 700. Rhodes spent considerable time on this farm, and frequently went to the high hill where his body was afterwards buried. In moods of despondency, when he knew his illness must soon result in death, he spent several moonlight nights on the spot where his grave is now located. Several attendants accompanied him, but he said little to them; he silently looked around at what is probably the most majestic scene of desolation in the world. Rhodes was less than fifty when he died, and his thoughts about the vanities of life would have been exceedingly interesting in print. He was one of the remarkable characters of recent history, and I shall long remember him; especially because of a statue erected in his memory at the crossing of two principal streets in Bulawayo. This statue is a wonderfully lifelike reproduction of a man, and I have repeatedly looked at it with more interest than I usually look at works of art.... On the journey to the Matopo Hills, we saw frequent bunches of wild baboons; in one lot there must have been twenty or thirty. These animals are a nuisance to farmers, as they kill sheep; it is therefore necessary to hunt them with dogs.... On the way to the Matopo Hills is a hotel. We ate lunch there on our return trip, and a bride and groom started out ahead of us, in an automobile. We finally overtook them, but the bride and groom were utterly unconscious of our presence, and hugged and kissed most of the way to Bulawayo. A mother and daughter, traveling acquaintances, accompanied us, and the daughter was particularly interested in the actions of the bride and groom. Later, when we punctured a tire, and stopped for repairs, the girl confessed that she is to be married in a few weeks. She is the daughter of a big farmer in the Transvaal, and will marry a young banker. A banker is as particular about marrying a rich woman as an army officer. Ever know a banker or an army officer to marry a poor girl?... The bride and groom in front of us greatly interested our party, and we laughed until our sides ached. They were fooling the driver of their automobile, but utterly unconscious of five spectators in the rear. In fooling one man, you are usually unconscious of several others who are watching you.

Entrance to Suez Canal

Native children, South Africa

Native Village, Rhodesia

An African King meeting with his Cabinet]

FRIDAY, MARCH 28.—The mother and daughter with whom we have been traveling several days, Mrs. and Miss Meek, live fifteen miles off the railroad between Durban and Johannesburg, on a farm of twenty thousand acres. Mr. Meek, the husband and father, goes in principally for sheep, of which he has many thousand head, but he does general farming as well, and has two hundred and fifty natives on his farms, counting women and children. These live in small villages or kraals on the land, and both Mrs. Meek and her daughter speak the Kaffir language. Some of the Kaffir men on the Meek farm have six wives; the farm foreman has that number, and Mrs. Meek says he is a very reliable and capable man, in spite of his love affairs. The foreman has twenty-eight children, and each of his six wives lives in a different hut. When he takes a new wife, there is no marriage ceremony; he simply invites his friends to a wedding feast, which the other wives prepare. He buys his wives, usually paying ten head of cattle each; there are no love preliminaries, except that occasionally a young girl comes to the foreman’s kraal, and remains until he takes her as his wife. He is a prosperous man, and prosperous men are everywhere popular with the girls. The wives of the foreman get along very well together; they have always been accustomed to the system of plural wives, and do not seem to object to it. The children living in the kraals, Mrs. Meek says, are very healthy; more so than white children living in modern houses in the same vicinity. The grass-covered huts in which the natives live are less liable to leak in rainy weather than the houses of the whites, which are almost universally covered in South Africa with corrugated iron. Mr. Meek pays his native workmen about $2.50 per month, and board, providing they are reliable and steady. Their board consists of a certain amount of shelled corn; about all they eat is corn-meal porridge, and their idea of luxury is to have brown sugar to sprinkle over it. Most of them have gardens, and Mr. Meek loans them oxen and plows for cultivating them. A young native boy who herds cattle gets seventy-two cents a month. The native workmen employed on the Meek farm have their porridge ground and cooked by a native employed for the purpose, who never gives them too much, because the work of grinding corn in a handmill is a considerable task, and this task falls to the cook. The natives on the farm go to church once on Sunday, but they seem to attend the services as a means of seeing and being seen rather than because they are religious. A railroad is building toward Mr. Meek’s farm, and lately he refused $20 an acre for it. I am somewhat confused about the yield of corn per acre in South Africa, as the people always say a field yields so many bags per morgen; a morgen being a little over two acres, and a bag holding a little less than three bushels. But it may be safely stated that the yield of corn in no part of South Africa is equal to the yield in the corn belt in our section. Disastrous drouths are also very common; corn has been almost a failure for the past three seasons. I have not seen a good field of corn in South Africa. But Mr. Meek is a very prosperous farmer, because of his sheep, cattle and horses. He also milks a good many cows, and sends the cream to the railroad, “five hours” from his farm: distances are always computed here by hours, and not by miles. Five miles from his farm-house is a country village without a railroad, and there he does his “trading.” He is making an exhibit of stock at the Johannesburg fair, and his wife and daughter are very anxious to know whether they took any prizes.... Mr. Meek was born of English parents, but has never been to England. During the war he would not fight the English, and he would not fight the Boers, as his wife is of Dutch descent. So he left home, and went into Natal. His wife remained on the farm throughout the war, and was constantly surrounded by troops of the contending forces. Once, when they had an artillery battle, the shells flew over her house for hours; some of the shells fell in her door-yard, and, exploding, tore down fences and outhouses. Her children were away at school when the war began, and did not come home for eighteen months. Mrs. Meek managed to smuggle a good deal of the farm live-stock into Natal, where her husband received it and cared for it on land rented for the purpose. In smuggling sheep and cattle out of the country, Mrs. Meek’s main reliance was the native foreman, the wretch who has six wives; he was as faithful and efficient as it is possible for a servant to be. Occasionally the English talked of sending Mrs. Meek to the concentration camp, and burning her house, but she was always able to coax them out of the notion.... She has a native cook, a man, and pays him a dollar a week. The native women do her washing and ironing, and do it very well, for a dollar a week; in addition, they clean and sweep.... Mrs. Meek has never heard of a divorce among the natives on the farm where she lives. The men of some native tribes are married in church, by a negro preacher; in such a case, they are compelled to pay two shillings for a license, but this civilized plan is so expensive and troublesome that it is not popular. Besides, when a man is married in church, and pays two shillings for a license, he is liable to arrest if he marries another wife.

SATURDAY, MARCH 29.—We are at the far-famed Victoria Falls today, and traveled here from Bulawayo at the terrific pace of fourteen miles an hour. The conductor on the train wore a natty white suit, but did not make up the beds, though he sold the bedding tickets; the actual chambermaid was a very black native boy. I do not understand why sleeping-car porters are permitted on some night trains, and not on others.... I was in a sleeping compartment with a captain in the English army, who is on his way to a station in the interior, seventy miles from Victoria Falls. There, in company with another army officer, he will rule a district, assisted by a few native police. He says hunting is excellent where he is going, and he showed me his assortment of guns; including one specially intended for elephants.... The country between Bulawayo and Victoria Falls (280 miles) looks superior to that between Mafeking and Bulawayo, but we ran into the inevitable desert, and suffered considerably from dust. As we approached the falls the country became rougher, and an hour before we finally left the train we could see a cloud of mist hanging over the great cataract. When the train stopped at Victoria Falls station—the railroad runs four hundred miles beyond this point—we could hear the roar which will be in our ears constantly until we leave next Wednesday at 1 P. M.... There is no town at the Falls; only a hotel, a rambling, comfortable affair which can accommodate two hundred people. The charge is $5.25 per day each. Five miles away is the town of Livingstone, capital of North-west Rhodesia, but it has only a handful of inhabitants. From my room at the hotel I can see the famous railroad bridge which spans the Zambesi river just below the falls, and passing my window are wet and bedraggled people who have been through the Rain Forest. In order to see the falls to best advantage, it is necessary to go through the Rain Forest and get a ducking. Many of those who arrived on our train at 7 o’clock this morning will return at 1 o’clock this afternoon, thus avoiding a delay here of four days; after the train leaves this afternoon, there will not be another train until next Wednesday.... I doubt if anyone has ever seen, or ever will see, all of Victoria Falls. It may only be seen in pieces, and the spray will always hide much of the great spectacle from the most industrious visitor; whereas Niagara may be seen in a single glance, in all its majesty. Victoria Falls is a mile long; about twice as long as Niagara, and four hundred feet high, whereas Niagara makes a leap of only 162 feet.... Every time I looked at Victoria Falls, there was usually an Englishman present to inquire: “Well, what about it?” Meaning, “How does it compare with your Niagara?” The two falls are not alike, and cannot be compared; both are wonderful in a different way. Niagara is situated within a few miles of Buffalo, New York, one of the largest and busiest cities of the United States, and surrounded by a fertile and well-settled country. Niagara is in the center of parks, hotels, mills, street-railways, and civilization of many other varieties; an American bride who is not taken to Niagara on her wedding trip, may get a divorce on that ground, if the fact is presented to a court of proper jurisdiction, but Victoria is in a wild country in the mountains of Africa, seventeen hundred miles from Capetown, and Capetown is nineteen days from London, and twenty-nine from New York. Niagara makes a straight leap, whereas Victoria is more of a cataract. At Niagara, a great solid wall of sea-green water pours over a precipice; here, the force of the fall is broken in many places by huge rocks—at one place the fall is separated by a wooded island, and there are many other smaller breaks. At Niagara, the river above the fall is clean and swift, with no rocks. At Victoria, the river above the fall is broken into a thousand different islands; it looks like a shallow river overflowing in brush and timber land after a torrent of rain, and much of the water pouring over the falls is yellow and dirty.... Victoria Falls is in shape like a huge capital T; the falls represented by the top of the letter, and the outlet by the stem. The water pours into a great pool a mile long, and escapes by a narrow outlet not more than 150 feet wide in places. The water pours into the pool with a roar that may be heard twenty-eight miles, and stirs up a spray that causes constant rain to fall in its immediate territory. This spray is so great that it looks like a cloud against the sky, and may be seen before you hear the roar of the falls.... Yet the water from this great pool escapes almost as quietly as water from an undisturbed lake. After the water escapes from the great pool below the falls, through the stem of the letter T, it makes a turn at right angles, and sweeps around like the capital letter U; yet there is no great disturbance in any part of the outlet from the falls. At Niagara, the whirlpool rapids is one of the world’s wonders; at Victoria, the river a few hundred feet below the falls seems to be navigable—it does not look unlike the Waunganui river in New Zealand, down which we traveled in boats. I believe one of the Waunganui river boats could come up the gorge below Victoria Falls.... Every visitor, after looking at the wall of water pouring over the falls, asks the same question: “What becomes of the water?” Dr. Livingstone, who discovered the falls, asked the question. I was with a party of four when I first saw the falls, and all agreed that, in places, the river a few hundred feet below was not more than fifty feet wide, although the guidebooks say the width is greater. And this narrow river is not greatly disturbed a few yards below the great Victoria Falls; there is no swirling, leaping rapids, as may be seen four or five miles below Niagara. When looking at Victoria Falls, very much more water seems to pour over the brink than at Niagara; when looking at the river below, you are disposed to think the quantity is much less—as a matter of fact, the quantity is about the same, with Niagara a little in the lead.... At Niagara, you may see the falls from an electric car, and go down the Niagara river on top of the hills, and return beside the whirlpool rapids; but seeing Victoria is much more difficult. For nearly a mile you walk in what seems a pouring rain, but which is actually spray from the falls. Most visitors put on old clothes at the hotel, and quietly submit to the ducking; on their return, they take a hot bath, put on dry clothing, and sit on the verandas, and talk about the wonderful trip. During this walk of half a mile in pouring rain from the spray of the falls, you pass through what is called the Rain Forest. As rain is always falling, the vegetation is luxuriant, but not as luxuriant as I had expected. The path through the rain forest is always wet; sometimes you step into water over your shoe-tops, and the trees are always dripping; you cannot see the falls to the best advantage without passing through this Rain Forest, and you cannot make this trip without becoming as wet as though you had plunged into a lake with your clothes on. During this trip you frequently stand not a hundred feet from the falls, and the spray coming up from the pool is so thick that you cannot see a hundred feet beyond you. And all the time the great roar is in your ears, and the rain shifting with the wind. The sun nearly always shines here, and on this trip along the edge of the falls you may see a thousand rainbows; I am sure I saw that many today.... The Rain Forest is not down in the canyon, as one might imagine; it is on a level with the top of the falls, and sometimes not a hundred feet away from it. Imagine a street one mile long, and 400 feet below sidewalks on either side. One sidewalk represents the Rain Forest. Opposite you is Victoria Falls pouring into the chasm below, and causing a spray which shifts with the wind, and not only drenches you, but hides much of your view. The Rain Forest is simply the other side of the falls, and, to travel its entire length, you must make a detour, and cross the narrow outlet of the falls chasm by means of the rail road bridge.... The bridge below the falls is the highest in the world, and in walking across it you are 420 feet above the water in the gorge below. When it was being built, in 1903‒5, it was frequently described in the magazines as one of the great wonders of engineering. The bridge is of one span only, of the cantilever type, and 610 feet in length. From the bridge, the hotel, a half-mile away, and near the edge of the canyon, is in plain view. The bridge-tender is a negro boy, and visitors pay him a shilling each to cross and return.... The present is known as the wet season, and, the Zambesi river being at a high stage, the falls is rather more gorgeous now than it will be later on, when the river is lower. The Zambesi is one of the great rivers of Africa, and is referred to in a big way as we refer to the Mississippi or Missouri; citizens here frequently refer to “the vast territory south of the Zambesi,” as the Mississippi and Missouri rivers are dividing-lines in the United States.... The falls were discovered by Dr. David Livingstone in 1854, and named in honor of Queen Victoria. Livingstone died in Africa, of the fever. He had faithful friends among his native followers, and when they found him dead, they embalmed his body as best they could, and carried it fifteen hundred miles to the sea, whence it was taken to England, and buried in Westminster Abbey.... The hills around Victoria Falls are covered with a growth of inferior timber, and this continues until the end of the railway is reached, 400 miles to the north.... It is estimated that nearly a million and a quarter of visitors see Niagara every year; barely two thousand see Victoria Falls annually, owing to its location far in the interior of Africa. In order to reach the falls from the sea at Durban, we were compelled to travel five days and nights by railroad train.... It is said the fall is 420 feet. It does not seem so great, because the lower part is hidden in the spray arising from the chasm into which the water drops. But while you cannot appreciate the unusual fall, you can easily appreciate that the fall is a mile wide, although broken all along the edge by islands and huge rocks. In thinking of Victoria Falls don’t imagine it a solid sheet of water a mile long, falling 420 feet. The falls are broken into a thousand different streams, and some of them strike rocks in the wall and break into spray.... I was not greatly moved when I first saw the falls, but felt that the sight was worth coming a long distance to see. Pictures of the falls are deceiving, as are pictures of everything. In taking pictures of Victoria Falls, photographers look for the fine views; the commoner aspects of the cataract are rarely photographed. I recall a noted photograph of the falls which is one of the most majestic things I have ever seen in pictures; but in order to take it, the photographer was compelled to climb down a cliff by means of ropes; so the picture is really unnatural.... There are thirty or forty guests at this hotel, and I have talked with most of them. They all seem to be well satisfied with the trip, but none of them rave about the falls as do the writers in the guidebooks.... No one seems to know the depth of water in the narrow gorge through which the water from the falls is discharged; soundings of 150 feet have been made without touching bottom.

Rhodes’ Grave

Victoria Falls Bridge

Naval Station, Pago Pago

Rhodes Statue, Bulawayo]

SUNDAY, MARCH 30.—Today we again walked to the Falls from the hotel, a distance of half a mile. Captain Mosley, of the British army, who shared a sleeping apartment with me on the train coming here, accompanied us. The captain is changing his station, and has with him four hunting-dogs and a black boy who has been his cook seven years. This black boy accompanied us on the walk, to exercise the dogs, and on the way, the dogs in ranging about, encountered a bunch of baboons. The captain and black boy ran into the woods, toward the big noise the fight stirred up, and I followed them, arriving just in time to see the dogs whipped, and the baboons scamper up the trees. The captain says the dogs would have been killed had they found full-grown male baboons, instead of small-sized females and young ones. Baboons are a great nuisance all over this section. They have almost human intelligence, and are very adroit thieves. I have been told that baboons will attack a woman, if they find her alone, but that they have great respect for men, whom they associate with a gun. Near the hotel is a camp of soldiers, and they have a tame baboon. They also have a tame deer of a variety not much larger than a jack rabbit. The soldiers pick up the deer, and stand it on a table. There are dozens of different kinds of buck here, ranging from the size of a rabbit to the size of an ox. The soldiers told me that plenty of reed buck may be found within four miles of the Falls, but this is the closed season, and one of the duties of the soldiers is to protect the game. Last night one of the soldiers saw a leopard prowling around the camp. A few days ago a lion was killed within a few miles of the falls; the man who killed it brought in the skull and hide, and received a bounty of $7.50. Lions destroy a great deal of game, and the government pays for their destruction. The soldiers patrol a district 100 miles square, and say they rarely hear of lions attacking a man; they hear lions nearly every night, but rarely see them, as the animals are as sly as our foxes. The corporal with whom I talked says that during an experience of seven years in this section, he never personally knew a lion to attack man. He has heard of such cases, but you all know how common it is to hear stories that are not true.... The British captain with whom I spend a good deal of time, walking about, or sitting on the hotel veranda, is one of the quietest men I have ever known. He has always lived among soldiers, having been born in Benares, India, where his father was an officer in the English army. He lived there until he was twelve years old. Benares is as old as Babylon; when old Babylon was a flourishing city, Benares was in existence, and has remained a city continuously ever since, while Babylon has been completely destroyed, and its location almost forgotten. The captain tells of his experiences, when I question him, but is very reticent in speaking of the numerous forays in which he has engaged. I have no doubt he has had many thrilling experiences as a big-game hunter, but I cannot induce him to say much about them.... Another Englishman, named Green, who is with us a good deal, talks enough for half a dozen. He is a business man at Sheffield, England, and says that in case of war between England and Germany, the United States should assist England. Indeed, Mr. Green thinks the United States should even now present England with a battleship, and assist in “bluffing” Germany, as New Zealand has done. One of the ladies present asked me:

“What are England and Germany quarreling about?”

“They have no quarrel,” I replied. “They are simply bullies strutting around and daring each other to fight. I have forgotten the exact number, but we will say for illustration that England had a hundred battleships, and Germany fifty. Germany ordered two additional battleships built, and England immediately ordered four new dreadnoughts. And this ridiculous proceeding has been kept up for years; England is pledged to build two warships for every one built by Germany. The two countries have nothing to quarrel about, but the English declare they must have twice as many battleships as Germany, and the Germans say they must have as many battleships as England. And an apparently intelligent Englishman named Green says that in case this foolish contest finally results in war between the two countries, the United States should quit agriculture, and mining, and manufacturing, and trade, and assist England, simply because the Americans and English read the same language, although they understand each other with difficulty when they talk.”

The Victoria Falls Hotel is owned by the railroad company, and when you visit the falls you will have no fault to find with it. Two hundred guests could be easily entertained, but I doubt if there are two dozen here now, as this is the dull season. Fall begins in this section with April, and visitors are most numerous during the cool weather. The most terrible cold-weather story I have heard here is that ice sometimes forms at night during the terrific cold prevailing in July and August.... The present temporary buildings of the Victoria Falls Hotel are to be replaced shortly with permanent buildings to cost $150,000. But in the present temporary buildings, guests willing to pay the price may have rooms with private bath, and during the worst weather the nights are cool. My bed is covered with a mosquito netting, as is the universal rule here, instead of putting netting at the windows and doors, but I have heard no mosquitos.... The Mr. Green referred to above has been looking at land in Africa with a view of buying for friends in England. English people have a great deal of cold, damp, foggy weather, and they hear much of the glorious sunshine of Africa; so Mr. Green’s report as to the possibilities of farming here will influence a good many. His report will not be very favorable. He has spent weeks in the different farming districts, and says he found farmers suffering from a three-years drouth. One man had a splendid prospect for corn, and thought the harvest would make him rich. Suddenly the hot winds came on, and in a few days the crop was ruined. This man offered his farm of 7,000 acres for sale at a dollar an acre; Mr. Green says he can buy millions of acres at that price, but will not advise his friends to take it, as the rainfall is uncertain, and the country infested with ants, ticks, flies dangerous to stock, etc. Possibly these pests will disappear in time; certain districts formerly dangerous are now free from the cattle-fly.... Mr. Green says that in many of the best sections of England, agricultural land can be bought at $50 an acre; the choicest at from $100 to $150 per acre. This statement particularly interested me because that is about the range at which land sells in the district where I live. I had always imagined that land in England sold at much higher prices than in Atchison county, Kansas, fifteen hundred miles west of the sea at New York.... Mr. Green says that last January, in his section of England, there were only five days without rain; last summer, he saw only fourteen bright days. There is plenty of sunshine and plenty of dry weather in Africa, but Mr. Green says he will not recommend the country to his neighbors.

MONDAY, MARCH 31.—This morning a dozen guests from the hotel, including the two travelers from Kansas, took a boat trip of fifteen or twenty miles on the Zambesi river above the falls. After a walk of half an hour we embarked in a large gasoline launch, and ascended the river until about noon, when we went ashore on an island, and explored it until lunch was ready at 12:30. A Hindu servant, with a native helper, accompanied us from the hotel, carrying two large hampers, and they prepared tea, and served an excellent lunch.... The Zambesi river above the falls is a wide, rambling affair, full of islands, and so shallow that the course of our launch was marked for several miles. When we finally landed, it was because we could go no further on account of a rapids. The river contains more water than the Missouri or Mississippi river, I should say, but is not navigable. At places it is said to be a mile and three-quarters wide. A river in this dry country is a novelty, and people make long excursions to see the Zambesi. On either side there is a line of hills which do not look unlike the hills bordering the Missouri river, but the valley is covered with trees and brush, as was the case in the Missouri “bottom” fifty years ago. On the Zambesi, the river valley seems to shift from one side to the other, instead of being confined always to the east side, as is the case with the Missouri river in its entire course. The trees along the Zambesi are of a stunted variety; along the African railways, a fairly large tree attracts almost as much attention as a river. The African trees are not large and graceful, as are our maples, oaks, walnuts, etc. One of the wonders here is a cream-of-tartar tree which measures ninety-eight feet in circumference. It is actually a dozen stunted trees growing in a bunch, but it is regarded as a wonder, and every visitor carves his initials in the bark.... Hippopotami are quite dangerous above the falls, as they upset boats in a spirit of mischief. They are being shot, and two were killed the day before we went up the river. Some time ago four tourists rowed on the river, in small boats. Hippos upset both boats, and two of the tourists went over the falls; the other two drifted against islands, and were rescued. It was a man and a woman who were rescued, strangers to each other, but the tragedy made them friends, and a few days ago they were married.... There are also crocodiles in the river, and they are also a nuisance. The man who ran the launch lives on the hotel farm, and says that since August last, crocodiles have captured twenty of the farm cattle. The cattle go to the river to drink, or to stand in the water during the heat of the day, and the crocodiles, some of which are eighteen feet long, drag them in. One of the soldiers from the camp near the hotel shot a crocodile while we were on the river.... I heard a curious discussion while we were eating luncheon on the island. An Englishman, a church member, had great respect for missionaries. All the others were residents of Africa, and their testimony was against them. One man said the superintendent of a penitentiary told him recently that ninety per cent of the convicts had been “converted” by missionaries. A mining man testified that negroes who had been under the influence of missionaries were nearly always less honest and less useful than natives who had had no such experience. A woman who lived on a South-African farm of 20,000 acres gave similar testimony, as did an army man who had served in Africa since the Boer war. Wherever I have gone, I have heard the missionary experiment denounced by white residents. I am taking no part in the controversy, but record as a remarkable fact that in Africa, China, Japan, India, etc., the testimony of white residents is nearly always against the missionary experiment. Every traveler remarks this, and comments on it.... This morning at 3 o’clock a rifle-shot rang out back of the hotel; one of the soldiers in the camp saw a leopard prowling around, and shot at it. A photographer living near the hotel has a cow, a calf and a donkey, and every night these are carefully locked up in pole fences that are leopard-proof.... This morning, when I awoke, I found a gentle rain falling in front of my room at the hotel. It turned out to be mist from the falls. This mist shifts with the wind, and in whatever direction we walk we run into it occasionally. At points quite distant from the falls it amounts to only a mist, or a very gentle rain, but at other places there is a heavy downpour. Along certain walls of the canyon below the cataract, dozens of waterfalls may be seen, and these are fed by the mists rising from the falls. There is seldom an hour during the day that a rainbow may not be seen from the hotel veranda. During moonlight nights a lunar rainbow may be seen which, experts say, shows one color not seen in the rainbow in daylight.... I was looking over the hotel register today, and ran across this entry: “Mrs. Annie E. McConnell, U. S. A.” I made some remark about finding a visitor from home, and the clerk said, laughingly:

“That woman became lost, and fourteen of us spent half of one night hunting her.”

The paths around the hotel and falls are very well defined, but travelers may easily become confused after nightfall.

TUESDAY, APRIL 1.—On a public desk at the Victoria Falls Hotel is kept a book marked “Suggestions.” Visitors are expected to write in it how they liked the falls, and suggest improvements of the service. I suggest that the average visitor does not care to spend four days here, as he is now compelled to do. I have found the last two days hanging heavily on my hands. The hotel at the falls is excellent, considering that it is a long way from its source of supplies, but trains are slow, and the cars dusty and crowded. The average train is composed of compartment cars, with a corridor running along one side. These corridors are so narrow that two persons cannot pass in them, and it is quite a task to go through a train in reaching the dining-car. I have never in my life seen such dirty cars as they have in South Africa, but this is partly owing to the terrible dust which prevails everywhere; another explanation is that, as a rule, one porter is expected to clean all the cars, and in some cases there is no porter. But the trainmen are always polite, and the tracks good. The dining-cars would be satisfactory were they not overcrowded. Traveling in South Africa has been easier than I expected, and the hotels better, but some of the dust in the railway cars might be easily removed; the addition of one Kaffir and one broom to each train would prove a great help.... Near the railway station live two men who deal in curios. Both are hunters, and both are interesting, and I spend a good deal of time with them; but they hate each other in a way that is scandalous. There never was such a thing as rivals in business getting along. They try hard not to say anything against each other, but their enmity crops out in every conversation. One of them is married, and has his wife and baby here, and a bishop will arrive tomorrow to baptize the baby. The other man is a bachelor, and is trying hard to catch a leopard while I am here, in an American steel trap. Leopards prowl about the hotel every night, and several hunters have told me that a leopard is a more dangerous animal than a lion. A leopard is like a bulldog: he hasn’t sense enough to know about danger.... The dreaded tsetse-fly is found in this vicinity, and cases of sleeping sickness are not unknown. I had always imagined that a man suffering with sleeping sickness became drowsy, and slept a great deal, but residents say that, while the patient is drowsy, he cannot sleep, and is very restless. They describe sleeping sickness as resembling consumption in many ways.... In the vicinity of the curio shop is a police camp, in charge of a corporal. The police patrol this district, and this morning I saw a white soldier start out on a trek to last two weeks. He rode a mule, as horses do not thrive in this country. Two pack donkeys were led by two natives; one a cook, and the other an enlisted police officer. The two natives will walk during the entire journey, and one of them will carry a gun. The patrol officer told me he would travel about eighteen miles a day, starting every morning about five, resting from nine to three, and then traveling from three until nightfall. He rarely makes more than three miles an hour, as the donkeys are slow, and the sand deep. Wherever you walk here, you are compelled to wade through sand; sand is the soil in most parts of Africa.... The patrol officer calls at every house he encounters, and asks the owner to report any disorder in his neighborhood. The patrol officer did not carry a tent, and I asked him why. “Because,” he answered, “we don’t need it; there will be no rain.” After the short rainy season, the welcome patter of rain is not heard for nine months.... The engineer who attends to the electric-light plant at the Victoria Falls Hotel is an intelligent young fellow who, with a brother, tried farming in a remote district in Rhodesia. They are about starving; they would have starved had not this brother gone to work. The other brother lives alone on the farm, and at intervals comes to the hotel for supplies provided by his brother. They will eventually desert their farm, without much doubt.... The young soldiers at the police camp are industrious hunters, and one of them says he lately killed a crocodile on the railroad bridge which crosses the Zambesi river below the falls. Crocodiles often travel considerable distances from the river; in returning to water, this one by accident struck the railroad track, and was following it across the bridge. The soldiers at the camp have all sorts of pets, including monkeys, which they pick up when young, and tame. They irrigate a considerable garden with water carried from the river by natives. This section must be a terrific place when the weather is at its worst; it is at its best now, and we stand it with difficulty.