New-York tribune., 1905-06-11
A WORLD WONDER.
The Victoria Cataract Is Like No Other
Falls on Earth

The Zambesi Valley, for hundred miles more
in every direction from the cataract, is g rough
and broken plateau. covered with low brush and
stunted trees, with here and there an outcrop of
sombre basaltic rock, all thoroughly unnteresting.
The herbage is but family green. and the tropical
sky only family blue. 1t is q hazy, half tone land
scape, wanting in clear-cut lines in every direc
ton, and lacking above everything else that eIe
ment unconsciously seek in nature picture
life The absence of this produces in the mind a
feeling of loneliness and often of fear Across this
solemn scene appears river that in flood time is
perhaps half mile wide If deaf were fol-
lowing down of its banks he would notice little
but the quiet water and the odd looking column of
smoke ahead. AS this column approached he
would expect to the river bank bending and
the water flowing away to one side of the confla-
grafton. and might glance to the right and left to
note the direction taken. But the panorama
changes he gazes- The river is no more. And
there. where should be, is only the brown plain,
as lonely, brush covered and monotonous
One must go twenty miles further before the
shed water and the surface of the land again COM
mingle before it will be possible to walk along
the bank in company with the river. So sudden
and startling is the transformation.
Meanwhile the pillar of smoke has resolved itself
into q dense mist forced upward in terrific puffs
from yawning cash stretched directly across the
bed of the river This fearful abyss is every second
swallowing thousands of tons of green -and-wflite
water and beIchng up blasts of mist that rise
dreds of feet into the air and hurry away with the
winds as if rejoicing their escape from the in
ferno below And somewhere, nearly four hun
dred feet below the entrapped river is fghting its
narrow cleft in the eastern wall. whence It es-
and curves of deep gorge leading off to the east
ward One goes edge OF this delivering chaSm
and looks down upon the tossing waters
pressed from behind by other floods struggling
of the narrow black gateway. and perhaps the
most prominent mental sensation is that of thank
funess that even in such grim and CHASTITY way
nature has provided means by which the fearful
slit OF throat above that has swallowed the
stream can disgorge it again without causing
overwhelming catastrophe:
The Victoria cataract should be visited at least
twice before ore is competent to pass opinion
upon it, When the river is in food Gulyl the scene
is simply terrible. One sees nothing but an enor-
nous sheet of water disappearing into the bowels
of the earth with noise of mountains falling
upon one another, while from the awful cash
back fierce gusts and swirls the foamfng
breath of the tortured element below. But in De-
cember, when the water is low, the edge of the
cataract shows as a long, creamy hlm Of lovely
lace the rising mist flows softly through the
little rain forest below the cavern's lip; the gi
gantic vault itself becomes wonderful spectacle
down in its dark depths the waters. gliding along
the rocky walls and bending gracefully around the
corners toward the narrow outlet. pass gaily and
laughngly to freedom. For a time the Demon or
the cataract is sleeping-(The Century.