LORD CURZON DES= CRIBES VICTORIA FALLS.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2574, 7 August 1909, Page 3 (Supplement)

LORD CURZON DES= CRIBES VICTORIA FALLS.

THE EX-VICEROY TELLS OF THE WONDERFUL WATERS OF THE ZAMBEZI, WHICH LIVINGSTONE DISCOVERED.

Lord Curason recently visited the Victoria Falls of the Zambesi River, and in the “Times” he tells with much vividness his impressions of that magnificent spectacle: “The Victoria Falls of the Zambesi 1 Bver are among the great sights of the world. Where only ten years ago they had been seen by a few hundred Europeans at the most, perhaps only by a score, now that the railwaylias been opened and that express and excursion trains are run from the great cities and the coast, they are attracting, and will continue to attract, a yearly increasing stream of visitors, until it will become as much a' mark of cultured travel to have been to the Victoria Falls as to have seen Niagara. AN AMAZING LAKE.

“One of the glories of Niagara is the great sweep of water, deep and swift and irresistible, in the bed of the river above the cataract. The Zambesi presents a very different spectacle. Although at a short distance above; the falls it expands into a broad lake, where regattas can be held and sailing is a safe and agreeable pastime, as it approaches the hidden chasm it becomes parcelled up into innumerable channels and rapids running through boulders and between grassy tufts and islets, and is in many parts fordable in dryweather. A canoe can then take the sightseer with perfect safety to any of the larger islands, and will probably run aground on the way. TWO INCOMPARABLE FEATURES. “The two islands most commonly visited. because they are on the lip of the fall, are Cataract Island and. Livingstone Island. On the latter the tree upon which the great missionary-travel-ler cut his initials still exists (although no trace of tlie inscription now survives), and is not by any means dying, as the guide-books say. “The edge once passed, the Victoria Falls appear to the writer to excel in grandeur any spectacle of the same kind in the world. For they possess two incomparable features. In the first place, the cliff-wall down which they- are hulled is sheer from top to bottom, -,oft to 400 f- of perpendicular descent, uninterrupted save where in some places gigantic masses of basalt, split off or eroded by the same nrocess as has formed the chasm itself, ’lie at the base and shatter the descending columns into a tempest of foamM Conceive a black wall, as high as Shakespeare’s Cliff at Dover, nearly as high as' the Cross of St. Paul’s, and over a mile in length, and over fhe top of this tremendous precipice a c\ ntinuous cataract of water toppling down from the sky, save in the three places where larger islands, carrying their growth of jungle right to the edge of the abyss, have protected a section of the cliff and interposed a gleaming surface of ebon rock between the snowy flec-ees of the falls on either side.

WONDERFUL PLATFORMS. “The second feature is more remarkable still. The majority of falls can only be seen at an angle from the banks cf the river below, or from a considerable distance, should the river make a bend, or from some convenient artificial standpoint, like the Suspension Bridge at Niagara. But here, at the Zambesi, Nature herself has supplied the most wonderful .platforms which it is possible to conceive, with belvederes or outlook towers built out at convenient points for the spectator to take bis view. “The formation of the gorge is responsible for this astonishing feature. Although the river discharges itself in an almost straight line (unlike the great curve of the Horseshoe Fall at Niagara) into the chasm below, there is only one outlet from this chasm, and that is about three quarters of the way across from the left or southern bank, where the entire water that has come oyer the fall forces its way through a single ajierture only 100yds. wide into the whirlpool known as the Boiling Pot. and commences its zigzag descent through the forty-five miles of canon towards the sea. The consequence is that, except at this spot, the entire volume of water as' it falls is pent up in the chasm, which is seldom more than 150yds. in width, and has to flow from left to right to make its way out by the solitary gap; and here c-omes Nature's unique gift. AN EXTRAORDINARY SCENE. “From left to right or from right to left we can walk along the near side of the chasm from end to end, save at the point of exit, and gaze at the falls immediately opposite as though we were standing in some showman’s panorama and were looking across an intervening hollow, devised to assist tlie illusion, at the painted canvas beyond. Only here is no artificial' picture, but the living masterpiece of a more than human showman ; tangible, because the scud of the spray-storm lashes us in the face; throbbing with movement, because the heaven above and the earth beneath appear to be equally in travail; audible, because in our ears is the rattle of eternal thunder. THE RAIN FORE6T. “Tho main. portion of the bank which provides this great natural stage or platform—-stretching from the southern end of the Falls, where is the Devil’s Cataract, to the gap through which the entire fiver charges into the Boiling Pot—is the well-known Rain. Forest. The name is appropriate as well as picturesque, for the spray from, the falls, rising in a stupendous column from the chasm below, falls in an iuecssant rain-sliower on this tongue of land—three-parts tree-jungle and onepart grass;, a rain so overpowering that it drips in torrents from every branch and leaf, rustles in the coarse grass, lies in pools on tho ground, and in a very few minutes soaks the sightseer to the skin. THE ETERNAL SPRAY-STORM. “Along this strip of land, which constitutes dhej eastern boundary wall of the chasm, and is exactly on a level with the lip of the Falls* a pathway lias been made through the sodden grass and the dripping trees; and from this pat.lnvav, at the distance of every 50yds to 100yds,, smaller tracks strike out to the vantage points at the edge oi the chasm, which I have likened to belvederes. At any of these bastions a man can walk to the'very brink; immediately opposite him, and so close that he can almost pitch a stone into it, is the descending wall <of foam; and from the pit below there- leaps up in volleys like small-shot, and with a fury that Winds and stubs’, the eternal spray-storm. ’