The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1909-08-22
GLIMPSEOF AFRICA'S
GREAT RAIN FOREST


Untils few years ago the greatest
wonder of the world lay hidden away in
one of the most savage parts of Africa
The natives of that region, terrified by
its mysterious columns of vapor and it's
subterranean thunder, did not venture
within many miles of it. The white men
who had looked upon it could be counted
on the fingers of one hand.
And yet, more than fifty years have
passed since the explorer Livingstone,
Journeying eastward along the Zambesi
first beheld that rainbow mist rise above
the forest. OF its cause he could learn
nothing from the savages; and SO, ex-
cept for his own conJectures. he came
quite unprepared upon his splendid dis
covery. He approached 1t by the river,
which above the falls is a mile wide, and
below them runs for fifty miles at the
bottom of a gorge between four and five
hundred feet deep, whose trim walls of
black, precipitious rock show for all that
distance scarcely a ledge or slope where
the smallest plant may cling. So, after
peep downward at the falls, from the
island on their brink which now bears
his name, he left his newly found marvel
less than half seen, and departed whence
he came.
And the loneliness of those vast soll-
tudes brooded once more over forest ana
river, to be broken only at rare inter-
walls by some wandering hunter, or per-
haps by O party of men adventuring
through endless toll and danger to behold
a wonder whose fame, even then, spread
as far as that tiny portion of South AZ
RIGA where white men dwelt and civiliza-
I ton held sway. So things remained I'M
til the day of Cecil Rhodes, under whose
auspices went forth the voortrekkers, or
pioneers, to colonize the vast land now
called Rhodesia, in the heart of which
Victoria falls lie. Many of those voor-
trekkers, and their wives and children
died at the hands of the savage ANA
tabele tribe of natives but the survivors
in the end were victorious, and the coun-
try became their own.
Cecil Rhodes died and was laid in his
lonely grave among the Matopo Hills on
rocky summit which looks far out over
the land he loved. But his wishes were
remembered. the greatest and the least
of them; and still, year by year, the Cen
trail African railway grows, every year
a little, northward through the forests.
And now it has reached the Zambesi,
and over that hitherto unconquerable
gorge has been thrown one of the most
wonderful railway bridges ever built;
tel, so that the Victoria Falls and their
surroundings are attainable at last by all
the world.
For many days the approaching travel
er has been flying through a mighty
tropical forest. in which a path has been
| cut for the railway line, but which is 9TH
erwise so undisturbed, SO vast and silent
and lonely, that 1t is hard to believe
white men can ever make home in it.
Here the lion prowls at his own sweet
will, and legions of anteopes, great and
small, Craze on the sweet veldt. And here
elephants wander in troops of fifty or
more, and In the swamps the hippopot-
anus plows his way through the papyrus
reed and the ten-foot Rhodesian grass.
The little iron shanties of the railway
men are the only signs of civilized life.
The natives of the country are few and
far between;s their kraals with the CO.
meal huts peculiar to this race of Afri-
cans, look down from the rare, slight
eminences
There is no change In the scenery, lit
tie to give warning of the wonder that
one approaches. Only, above the noise
Of the train, o far-off murmur of sound
grows upon the ear; and a little while az
ter. floating upward from out of the for
est, there comes In sight long line of
snowy vapor, which, as the low sun
touches 1T, CLOVIS with soft, many-col-
ored lights This mist-cloud is caused by
the sudden narrowing of the great Fam
best river in the chasm not 200 yards
wide, which receives the falls at the end
of their leap. This cloud rises at times
as much as 500 feet into the air and
there condenses into rain. which falls in
eternal showers glorious In this thirsty
land and makes in the country close
about I've falls one perpetual spring.
This tract of land is known as the rain
Nd mir mo-
its soft and delicate beauty, can surely
be surpassed by nothing on earth.