Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-07-03
THE VICTORIA CATARACT.
Great Falls in South Africa Unlike Amy
Other on the Entire Globe.


The zambesi valley, for 100 miles or more
In every direction from the cataract. is a
rough and broken plateau, covered with low
brush and stunted trees, with here and
there an outcrop OF somber basaltic rock,
all thoroughly embarrassing. 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
thing else that element we always uncon-
sciously seek in a -picture-life. The
absence of this produces in the mind a feel
ing OF loneliness and often fear. Across
this solemn scene appears river that in
food time is perhaps half mile wide. II
a deaf man were following down one of its
banks he would notice little but the quiet
water and the odd-looking column Of smoke
ahead. As this column was approached, he
would expect to see the river banks bending
and the water flowing away to one side of
the confagration, 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 1t should
be is only the brown plain, as lonely, brush
covered and monotonous as ever. One must
go twenty miles further before the vanished
water and the surface OF the land again
commingle, before 1t will be possible TO walk
along the bank In company with the river.
So sudden and startling is the transforma-
ton.
Meantime the pillar of smoke has resolved
itself into a dense mist forced upward in
terrific puffs from yawning cash stretch
ing directly across the bed of the river.
This fearful abyss is every second swal-
lowing thousands of tons of greenland
white water and belching up blasts of mist
that rise hundreds of feet into the air and
hurry away with the winds as If rejoicing
at their scape from the inferno below. And
below n
trapped river is fighting its way between
sheer walls of black rock toward narrow
cleft in the eastern wall, whence ii escapes
foaming and boiling through the ZigZa gs
and curves of deep gorg leading off to
the eastward. One goes to 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 prom
inent mental sensation Is that of thankful
ness that even in such grim and CHASTITY
way nature has provided a means by which
the fearful slit of q throat above that has
swallowed the stream can disgorge it again
without causing an overwhelming catastro-
phe.
The Victoria cataract should be visited at
least twice before one Is competent to pass
an opinion upon Ii. When the river is In
flood July) the scene is simply terrible. One
sees nothing but an enormous sheet of
water disappearing into the bowels of the
earth, with noise as of mountains falling
upon one another. while from the awful
cash comes back in fierce gusts and swirls
the foaming breath of the tortured element
below.s 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 gil
gantic vault itself becomes a wonderful
spectacle, a dream of neutral tints, a cave
of beauty. Far down In its dark depths the
waters, gliding along the rocky walls and
bending gracefully around the corners to-
ward the narrow outlet, pass gayiy and
laughingly TO freedom. For time the de-
mon of the cataract is sleeping.