Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-06-11
ZAMBESI, WORLD WONDER.
The Victoria Cataract is Like No Other
Falls on Earth.

From the Century.
The Zambesi valley. for a hundred miles
more in every direction from the cat
aract, is rough and broken plateau. COW
cred with low brush and stunted trees with
here and there an outcrop of somber
basaltic rock, all thoroughly uninte -esting
The heritage is but family green and the
tropical sky only family blue. 1t is a hazy
half-tone landscape, wanting in clear-cut
lines in every direction, and lacking above
every hing else that element we always I'M
consciously seek in a nature pictute-Iife
The absence of this produces in the mind
a feeling of loneliness and often fear
Across this solemn scene appears a river
that in flood time is perhaps half a milo
wide If deaf man Were following down
one of the banks he would notice little but
the quiet water and the odd-looking col
umn of smoke ahead. AS this column was
approached he would eX.ect to see the
river banks bending and the water flowing
away TO one side of the contiagr ion and
might glance to the right and left to note
the direction taken. But the panorama
changes as he gazes. The river is no more
And there, where it should be. is only the
brown plain, as lonely. Undiscovered and
monotonouS as ever. One must go twenty
miles farther before the vanished water
and the surface of the land again commia-
gle before II Will be possible to walk along
sudden and starting Is the transformat ton.
Meantime the pillar Of smoke has re-
solved Itself into a dense mist forced up
ward in terrible puffs from yawnin cash,
stretching directly across the bed of the
river. This fearful abyss is every second
swallowing thousands of tons of green
and white water and be!ching UP blasts of
m'sts that rise hundreds OF feet into the
air and hurry away with the winds as If
rejoicing at Their escape from the inferno
below And somewhere, nearly 4oe feet be-
low, the entrapped river is fighting it's way
between sheer walls of back rock toward
a narrow cleft in the eastern wall whence
1t escapes, foa ming and boiling through
the zigzags and curves of deep gorge
leading off 10 the eastward. One goes 10
an edge of this delivering chasm and looks
down upon the tossing waters ever pressed
from behind by other floods struggling out
OF the narrow black gateway, and perhaps
the most prominent mental sensation is
that of thankfulness that even in such a
grim and CHASTITY way nature has provided
a means by which the fearful slit of O.
throat above that has swallowed the stream
can dlsgorge Ii again without causing an
overwhelming catastrophe.
The Victoria cataract should be visited
at least twice before one is competent to
pass an opinion upon it When the river
is at flood July the scene is simply ter
rible. One sees nothing but enormous
sheet of water disappearing into the bow
els of the earth with noise a Of noun
tains falling upon one another, while from
the awful gash Games back in fierce gusts
and swirls the foamng breath of the tor
tured elements below. But In December
when the water is low, the edge of the
cataract shows as a long, creamy film of
lovely lace; the rising mist flows softly
away through the little rain forest below
the cavern's lip. The gigantic vault itself
becomes a wonderful spectacle. a dream of
neutral tints. cave of beauty. Far down
in its dark depths the waters, gliding along
around the corners toward the narrow out
let. pass gayly and laughingly TO freedom,
For time the demon OF the cataract is
sleeping.