The Mount Holly news. [volume] (Mount Holly, Burlington Co., N.J.) 1891-1942, 1905-09-05
VICTORIA CATARACT
1T Is ONE OF THE NOTABLE WON
DERS OF THE WORLD.

OCtO vt iFlG WOhGC
There Is No Other Falls Earth
just Like 1t. and There Is No Pos
sibility of Comparison Between 1t
and Our own Niagara.
1t was on the 22d of November, 1855,
that the friendly natives with whom he
was travelling brought DR.. David Liv-
ingstone for the first time within sight
and sound of the wonderful cataract |
on the Zambezi river, now known as
the Victoria falls. Before finding it,
the good missionary had journeyed for
nearly two years, and from his point
of departure at Kuruman in Cape Col
ony, had traversed quite 1000 miles of |
hitherto unknown country.
Today one takes the train at Cape |
Town on Wednesday, passes through !
Kimberley on Thursday, reaches Bulu-
wayo on Saturday, and late in the aft
ernoon Of Sunday begins to see ia the !
distance the rising pillar Of mist from
the great cataract.
The natives call 1t "Mosi-oa- tuni,"
meaning 1.-The roaring smoke" Twenty
miles away the spray thrown back
from the depths of the tremendous cav
ern into which the river tumbles ap-
pears like a column of smoke rising
from a burning village, and during the
last mile of the railway journey the
roar of the falling water becomes no
ticeable. Finally when the edge of
the chasm is reached, if the river is In
food, the eye and ear are assailed by
combination of phenomena that prob
ably cannot be duplicated as marvels
anywhere else on the planet.
The first question that Is asked of an
American who has seen this African
wonder generally is, How does it com
pare with Niagara?" There is no pos
sibility OF comparison. The two are as
different as day and night. Niagara Is
a perfect picture in a lovely natural
| framework. Every point and line and
curve of motionless rock. trembling
verdure and gliding water is touch OF
majestic beauty. Victoria is simply a
phenomenon, terrific cash In the floor
of an apparently unending plain, which
as one gazes simply swallows a river
in manner that produces almost a
thrill Of horror.
! The Zambezi valley for a hundred
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 basaltlc rock, all
thoroughly uninteresting. 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 everything else, that element
we always unconsciously seek In
nature picture-life. The absence of
this produces In the mind feeling of
loneliness and often Of fear Across
this solemn scene appears a river that
in food time Is perhaps half a mile
wide. If 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 farther be-
fore the vanished water and the sur
face Of the land again commingle, be-
fore 1t will be possible to walk along
the bank in company with the river
So sudden Is the transformation.
Meantime the pillar of smoke has re-
solved itself into a dense mist forced
upward in terrible puffs from a yawn
ing 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
belching up blasts of mist that rise
hundreds of feet into the air and hurry
away with the winds as If rejoicing
at their escape from the inferno be
low. And somewhere, nearly 400 Zee
below, the entrapped river Is hghtint
its way between sheer walls of blacl
rock toward a narrow cleft In thu
eastern wall, whence it escapes, foam
ing and boiling, through the zigzag
and curves of deep gorge leading of
to the eastward. One goes to an edg
of this delivering chasm and look
down upon the tossing waters, eve
pressed from behind by other food
struggling out of the narrow blacl
gateway. and perhaps the most prom
inent mental sensation is that of thank
fulness that even In such grim an,
CHASTITY way nature has provided
means by which the fearful slit of
throat above that has swallowed tn
stream can disgorge it again withou
causing an overwhelming catastrophe
The Victoria cataract should be visit
ed at least twice before one Is compe
tent to pass an opinion upon it. Whe
the river is In food July) the scene
simply terrible. One sees nothing bu
an enormous sheet of water disappear
ing into the bowels Of the earth wit
a noise as of mountains falling upo
one another, while from the awful gas
comes back In fierce gusts and swirl
the foaming breath of the tortured eli
ment below But in December, whe
the water is low, the edge of the catt
ract shows as a long, creamy film c
lovely lace: the rising mist flows sof
ly away through the little rain fore:
b low the cavern's lip; the giganti
vault itself becomes a wonderful spe
tacle, dream of neutral tints, cav
of beauty. Far down In Its dar
depths the waters, gliding along tt
rocky walls and bending GRACEFUL
around the corners toward the mario
outlet pass gayly and laughingly
freedom. For time the demon Of Il
cataract is sleeping. Theodore F. Va
Wagenen In Century.
1t Sometimes Happens.
= OF loo