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.
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 2.—We said good-by to Victoria Falls this afternoon
at 1:10, and left by train for the East Coast. Captain Moseley came
to the station to see us, bringing all his hunting-dogs with him.
Tomorrow morning at 3 o’clock he leaves for his new station in the
interior, traveling in a wagon drawn by eight yoke of oxen and driven
by two negroes. One of the negroes will sit up all night, to watch the
grazing cattle, and guard the camp, and every afternoon he will sleep
in the wagon. Ox teams travel very slowly, and the captain will walk
most of the way, and hunt as he goes along. A negro servant accompanies
him as cook, and will remain with him at the new station. His nearest
white neighbors will be sixty miles away, and he does not expect to
receive mail more than once in three months.... The train is not
crowded, for a wonder, and we were given a double compartment thrown
into one. Our traveling acquaintances, Mrs. Meek and her daughter
Bettie, are still with us, and they have equally good accommodations.
The South-African railway men take good care of you when it is
possible.... The Bishop arrived at the Falls this morning, and
baptized the photographer’s baby. A young curate came with him, and sat
on the veranda and drank five highballs in quick succession. But the
incident, like women smoking cigarettes in public, attracted no comment
here. The Bishop is a genial man, and was soon surrounded by the women.
The women dearly love an ordinary preacher, but to talk to a Bishop is
an event in a church-worker’s life she never forgets.... During the
dry season, full-grown cattle may be bought in parts of South Africa at
$10 a head.... When I went into the hotel dining-room for breakfast
this morning, the head waiter informed me in a whisper that a few fresh
eggs had just been received from the hotel farm, and advised me to
order soft-boiled eggs. This head waiter was born in the West Indies,
and some of the men under him are Hindus, some of them negroes, and
some of them Portuguese.... This is written on a piece of railroad
track seventy-four miles long without a single curve, which is not a
very big story: in Argentine, South America, there is a similar piece
of track twice as long.... Possibly the reader imagines that ‘way
over here I am a stranger in a strange land. As a matter of fact, I
know nearly every passenger on this train; also, the conductor, and
the waiters in the dining-car. I came up with the trainmen, and I
spent four days with the passengers at Victoria Falls. All of them are
either English or Colonials; no Americans except ourselves. Awhile
ago, the conductor came into my compartment to visit awhile. He is an
Englishman, but astonished me by saying that he likes German ships
better than English ships. On English ships, he says, visitors are
looked at with suspicion, whereas visitors are always welcome on a
German ship. The conductor will go through with us to Beira, from
Bulawayo, and has promised to do his best for us in the way of securing
accommodations on the train. Englishmen who live out here soon have
their sharp edges worn off, and become more agreeable.... There
are certain American things that seem to be universal. Wherever we
go, we see Eastman’s kodaks, National cash registers, Selig’s moving
pictures, Colgate’s perfumes and soap, Chamberlain’s cough syrup, the
_Ladies’ Home Journal_, Robert Chambers’s books, and Mr. Rockefeller’s
gasoline.... It costs a good deal of money to have washing done
over here, and we are wondering over the fact that the most reasonable
laundry bill we have paid was at the Victoria Falls Hotel, where we
expected nothing but highway robbery. When we registered at that
hotel, the manager said he had two rooms reserved for us. They were
double rooms, excellently located. Mrs. Meek and her daughter slept in
one room, on two small beds, and they are grumbling because they were
charged exactly what we were charged. It is so unusual for me to get
the best of it that I am rather enjoying their indignation.... I
have often heard of the extreme brightness of the nights in Africa. I
cannot see that they are any brighter than the nights at home, except
that there are a good many more prominent stars. In the north, we hear
a great deal of the Southern Cross. We see it every night, but consider
it insignificant. We are on the opposite side of the earth from Kansas,
and the constellations we see there cannot be seen here. Pope, the
Englishman, in describing great distance, wrote: “Far as the polar walk
or milky way.” The people in Africa don’t understand the sentence: the
milky way cannot be seen here, nor is our big dipper visible....
Tonight at ten o’clock, before going to bed, I went forward into the
dining-car to get a drink of water, and found the car full of men
drinking; a custom more common in this country than at home. The
English laugh at our American habit of drinking ice-water. There is a
certain Hot Water much worse, known as John Barleycorn, and Englishmen
drink too much of it.... Poor Mrs. Atterbury, who has lived in South
Africa nineteen years without a sight of her old home in St. Joseph,
Missouri, says she longs to go home in order that she may again see
pretty girls and babies. Mrs. Meek, our traveling acquaintance, who has
always lived in the Transvaal, admits that pretty girls and babies
are scarce here. They do not seem to thrive in this climate. Another
peculiarity is that nearly all the women have black hair; a blonde with
blue eyes is a great rarity in Africa. When a woman’s hair isn’t black
in Africa, it is a fiery red.... The country between Victoria Falls
and Bulawayo seems to be better developed than the country between
Bulawayo and Mafeking. This afternoon, eighty or a hundred miles from
the falls, we stopped at quite a coal-mining town, and saw great rows
of coke ovens.