Part 27

FRIDAY, MARCH 28.—The mother and daughter with whom we have been traveling several days, Mrs. and Miss Meek, live fifteen miles off the railroad between Durban and Johannesburg, on a farm of twenty thousand acres. Mr. Meek, the husband and father, goes in principally for sheep, of which he has many thousand head, but he does general farming as well, and has two hundred and fifty natives on his farms, counting women and children. These live in small villages or kraals on the land, and both Mrs. Meek and her daughter speak the Kaffir language. Some of the Kaffir men on the Meek farm have six wives; the farm foreman has that number, and Mrs. Meek says he is a very reliable and capable man, in spite of his love affairs. The foreman has twenty-eight children, and each of his six wives lives in a different hut. When he takes a new wife, there is no marriage ceremony; he simply invites his friends to a wedding feast, which the other wives prepare. He buys his wives, usually paying ten head of cattle each; there are no love preliminaries, except that occasionally a young girl comes to the foreman’s kraal, and remains until he takes her as his wife. He is a prosperous man, and prosperous men are everywhere popular with the girls. The wives of the foreman get along very well together; they have always been accustomed to the system of plural wives, and do not seem to object to it. The children living in the kraals, Mrs. Meek says, are very healthy; more so than white children living in modern houses in the same vicinity. The grass-covered huts in which the natives live are less liable to leak in rainy weather than the houses of the whites, which are almost universally covered in South Africa with corrugated iron. Mr. Meek pays his native workmen about $2.50 per month, and board, providing they are reliable and steady. Their board consists of a certain amount of shelled corn; about all they eat is corn-meal porridge, and their idea of luxury is to have brown sugar to sprinkle over it. Most of them have gardens, and Mr. Meek loans them oxen and plows for cultivating them. A young native boy who herds cattle gets seventy-two cents a month. The native workmen employed on the Meek farm have their porridge ground and cooked by a native employed for the purpose, who never gives them too much, because the work of grinding corn in a handmill is a considerable task, and this task falls to the cook. The natives on the farm go to church once on Sunday, but they seem to attend the services as a means of seeing and being seen rather than because they are religious. A railroad is building toward Mr. Meek’s farm, and lately he refused $20 an acre for it. I am somewhat confused about the yield of corn per acre in South Africa, as the people always say a field yields so many bags per morgen; a morgen being a little over two acres, and a bag holding a little less than three bushels. But it may be safely stated that the yield of corn in no part of South Africa is equal to the yield in the corn belt in our section. Disastrous drouths are also very common; corn has been almost a failure for the past three seasons. I have not seen a good field of corn in South Africa. But Mr. Meek is a very prosperous farmer, because of his sheep, cattle and horses. He also milks a good many cows, and sends the cream to the railroad, “five hours” from his farm: distances are always computed here by hours, and not by miles. Five miles from his farm-house is a country village without a railroad, and there he does his “trading.” He is making an exhibit of stock at the Johannesburg fair, and his wife and daughter are very anxious to know whether they took any prizes.... Mr. Meek was born of English parents, but has never been to England. During the war he would not fight the English, and he would not fight the Boers, as his wife is of Dutch descent. So he left home, and went into Natal. His wife remained on the farm throughout the war, and was constantly surrounded by troops of the contending forces. Once, when they had an artillery battle, the shells flew over her house for hours; some of the shells fell in her door-yard, and, exploding, tore down fences and outhouses. Her children were away at school when the war began, and did not come home for eighteen months. Mrs. Meek managed to smuggle a good deal of the farm live-stock into Natal, where her husband received it and cared for it on land rented for the purpose. In smuggling sheep and cattle out of the country, Mrs. Meek’s main reliance was the native foreman, the wretch who has six wives; he was as faithful and efficient as it is possible for a servant to be. Occasionally the English talked of sending Mrs. Meek to the concentration camp, and burning her house, but she was always able to coax them out of the notion.... She has a native cook, a man, and pays him a dollar a week. The native women do her washing and ironing, and do it very well, for a dollar a week; in addition, they clean and sweep.... Mrs. Meek has never heard of a divorce among the natives on the farm where she lives. The men of some native tribes are married in church, by a negro preacher; in such a case, they are compelled to pay two shillings for a license, but this civilized plan is so expensive and troublesome that it is not popular. Besides, when a man is married in church, and pays two shillings for a license, he is liable to arrest if he marries another wife.

SATURDAY, MARCH 29.—We are at the far-famed Victoria Falls today, and traveled here from Bulawayo at the terrific pace of fourteen miles an hour. The conductor on the train wore a natty white suit, but did not make up the beds, though he sold the bedding tickets; the actual chambermaid was a very black native boy. I do not understand why sleeping-car porters are permitted on some night trains, and not on others.... I was in a sleeping compartment with a captain in the English army, who is on his way to a station in the interior, seventy miles from Victoria Falls. There, in company with another army officer, he will rule a district, assisted by a few native police. He says hunting is excellent where he is going, and he showed me his assortment of guns; including one specially intended for elephants.... The country between Bulawayo and Victoria Falls (280 miles) looks superior to that between Mafeking and Bulawayo, but we ran into the inevitable desert, and suffered considerably from dust. As we approached the falls the country became rougher, and an hour before we finally left the train we could see a cloud of mist hanging over the great cataract. When the train stopped at Victoria Falls station—the railroad runs four hundred miles beyond this point—we could hear the roar which will be in our ears constantly until we leave next Wednesday at 1 P. M.... There is no town at the Falls; only a hotel, a rambling, comfortable affair which can accommodate two hundred people. The charge is $5.25 per day each. Five miles away is the town of Livingstone, capital of North-west Rhodesia, but it has only a handful of inhabitants. From my room at the hotel I can see the famous railroad bridge which spans the Zambesi river just below the falls, and passing my window are wet and bedraggled people who have been through the Rain Forest. In order to see the falls to best advantage, it is necessary to go through the Rain Forest and get a ducking. Many of those who arrived on our train at 7 o’clock this morning will return at 1 o’clock this afternoon, thus avoiding a delay here of four days; after the train leaves this afternoon, there will not be another train until next Wednesday.... I doubt if anyone has ever seen, or ever will see, all of Victoria Falls. It may only be seen in pieces, and the spray will always hide much of the great spectacle from the most industrious visitor; whereas Niagara may be seen in a single glance, in all its majesty. Victoria Falls is a mile long; about twice as long as Niagara, and four hundred feet high, whereas Niagara makes a leap of only 162 feet.... Every time I looked at Victoria Falls, there was usually an Englishman present to inquire: “Well, what about it?” Meaning, “How does it compare with your Niagara?” The two falls are not alike, and cannot be compared; both are wonderful in a different way. Niagara is situated within a few miles of Buffalo, New York, one of the largest and busiest cities of the United States, and surrounded by a fertile and well-settled country. Niagara is in the center of parks, hotels, mills, street-railways, and civilization of many other varieties; an American bride who is not taken to Niagara on her wedding trip, may get a divorce on that ground, if the fact is presented to a court of proper jurisdiction, but Victoria is in a wild country in the mountains of Africa, seventeen hundred miles from Capetown, and Capetown is nineteen days from London, and twenty-nine from New York. Niagara makes a straight leap, whereas Victoria is more of a cataract. At Niagara, a great solid wall of sea-green water pours over a precipice; here, the force of the fall is broken in many places by huge rocks—at one place the fall is separated by a wooded island, and there are many other smaller breaks. At Niagara, the river above the fall is clean and swift, with no rocks. At Victoria, the river above the fall is broken into a thousand different islands; it looks like a shallow river overflowing in brush and timber land after a torrent of rain, and much of the water pouring over the falls is yellow and dirty.... Victoria Falls is in shape like a huge capital T; the falls represented by the top of the letter, and the outlet by the stem. The water pours into a great pool a mile long, and escapes by a narrow outlet not more than 150 feet wide in places. The water pours into the pool with a roar that may be heard twenty-eight miles, and stirs up a spray that causes constant rain to fall in its immediate territory. This spray is so great that it looks like a cloud against the sky, and may be seen before you hear the roar of the falls.... Yet the water from this great pool escapes almost as quietly as water from an undisturbed lake. After the water escapes from the great pool below the falls, through the stem of the letter T, it makes a turn at right angles, and sweeps around like the capital letter U; yet there is no great disturbance in any part of the outlet from the falls. At Niagara, the whirlpool rapids is one of the world’s wonders; at Victoria, the river a few hundred feet below the falls seems to be navigable—it does not look unlike the Waunganui river in New Zealand, down which we traveled in boats. I believe one of the Waunganui river boats could come up the gorge below Victoria Falls.... Every visitor, after looking at the wall of water pouring over the falls, asks the same question: “What becomes of the water?” Dr. Livingstone, who discovered the falls, asked the question. I was with a party of four when I first saw the falls, and all agreed that, in places, the river a few hundred feet below was not more than fifty feet wide, although the guidebooks say the width is greater. And this narrow river is not greatly disturbed a few yards below the great Victoria Falls; there is no swirling, leaping rapids, as may be seen four or five miles below Niagara. When looking at Victoria Falls, very much more water seems to pour over the brink than at Niagara; when looking at the river below, you are disposed to think the quantity is much less—as a matter of fact, the quantity is about the same, with Niagara a little in the lead.... At Niagara, you may see the falls from an electric car, and go down the Niagara river on top of the hills, and return beside the whirlpool rapids; but seeing Victoria is much more difficult. For nearly a mile you walk in what seems a pouring rain, but which is actually spray from the falls. Most visitors put on old clothes at the hotel, and quietly submit to the ducking; on their return, they take a hot bath, put on dry clothing, and sit on the verandas, and talk about the wonderful trip. During this walk of half a mile in pouring rain from the spray of the falls, you pass through what is called the Rain Forest. As rain is always falling, the vegetation is luxuriant, but not as luxuriant as I had expected. The path through the rain forest is always wet; sometimes you step into water over your shoe-tops, and the trees are always dripping; you cannot see the falls to the best advantage without passing through this Rain Forest, and you cannot make this trip without becoming as wet as though you had plunged into a lake with your clothes on. During this trip you frequently stand not a hundred feet from the falls, and the spray coming up from the pool is so thick that you cannot see a hundred feet beyond you. And all the time the great roar is in your ears, and the rain shifting with the wind. The sun nearly always shines here, and on this trip along the edge of the falls you may see a thousand rainbows; I am sure I saw that many today.... The Rain Forest is not down in the canyon, as one might imagine; it is on a level with the top of the falls, and sometimes not a hundred feet away from it. Imagine a street one mile long, and 400 feet below sidewalks on either side. One sidewalk represents the Rain Forest. Opposite you is Victoria Falls pouring into the chasm below, and causing a spray which shifts with the wind, and not only drenches you, but hides much of your view. The Rain Forest is simply the other side of the falls, and, to travel its entire length, you must make a detour, and cross the narrow outlet of the falls chasm by means of the rail road bridge.... The bridge below the falls is the highest in the world, and in walking across it you are 420 feet above the water in the gorge below. When it was being built, in 1903‒5, it was frequently described in the magazines as one of the great wonders of engineering. The bridge is of one span only, of the cantilever type, and 610 feet in length. From the bridge, the hotel, a half-mile away, and near the edge of the canyon, is in plain view. The bridge-tender is a negro boy, and visitors pay him a shilling each to cross and return.... The present is known as the wet season, and, the Zambesi river being at a high stage, the falls is rather more gorgeous now than it will be later on, when the river is lower. The Zambesi is one of the great rivers of Africa, and is referred to in a big way as we refer to the Mississippi or Missouri; citizens here frequently refer to “the vast territory south of the Zambesi,” as the Mississippi and Missouri rivers are dividing-lines in the United States.... The falls were discovered by Dr. David Livingstone in 1854, and named in honor of Queen Victoria. Livingstone died in Africa, of the fever. He had faithful friends among his native followers, and when they found him dead, they embalmed his body as best they could, and carried it fifteen hundred miles to the sea, whence it was taken to England, and buried in Westminster Abbey.... The hills around Victoria Falls are covered with a growth of inferior timber, and this continues until the end of the railway is reached, 400 miles to the north.... It is estimated that nearly a million and a quarter of visitors see Niagara every year; barely two thousand see Victoria Falls annually, owing to its location far in the interior of Africa. In order to reach the falls from the sea at Durban, we were compelled to travel five days and nights by railroad train.... It is said the fall is 420 feet. It does not seem so great, because the lower part is hidden in the spray arising from the chasm into which the water drops. But while you cannot appreciate the unusual fall, you can easily appreciate that the fall is a mile wide, although broken all along the edge by islands and huge rocks. In thinking of Victoria Falls don’t imagine it a solid sheet of water a mile long, falling 420 feet. The falls are broken into a thousand different streams, and some of them strike rocks in the wall and break into spray.... I was not greatly moved when I first saw the falls, but felt that the sight was worth coming a long distance to see. Pictures of the falls are deceiving, as are pictures of everything. In taking pictures of Victoria Falls, photographers look for the fine views; the commoner aspects of the cataract are rarely photographed. I recall a noted photograph of the falls which is one of the most majestic things I have ever seen in pictures; but in order to take it, the photographer was compelled to climb down a cliff by means of ropes; so the picture is really unnatural.... There are thirty or forty guests at this hotel, and I have talked with most of them. They all seem to be well satisfied with the trip, but none of them rave about the falls as do the writers in the guidebooks.... No one seems to know the depth of water in the narrow gorge through which the water from the falls is discharged; soundings of 150 feet have been made without touching bottom.

[Illustration: Rhodes Memorial, Kimberley

Rhodes’ Grave

Victoria Falls Bridge

Naval Station, Pago Pago

Rhodes Statue, Bulawayo]

SUNDAY, MARCH 30.—Today we again walked to the Falls from the hotel, a distance of half a mile. Captain Mosley, of the British army, who shared a sleeping apartment with me on the train coming here, accompanied us. The captain is changing his station, and has with him four hunting-dogs and a black boy who has been his cook seven years. This black boy accompanied us on the walk, to exercise the dogs, and on the way, the dogs in ranging about, encountered a bunch of baboons. The captain and black boy ran into the woods, toward the big noise the fight stirred up, and I followed them, arriving just in time to see the dogs whipped, and the baboons scamper up the trees. The captain says the dogs would have been killed had they found full-grown male baboons, instead of small-sized females and young ones. Baboons are a great nuisance all over this section. They have almost human intelligence, and are very adroit thieves. I have been told that baboons will attack a woman, if they find her alone, but that they have great respect for men, whom they associate with a gun. Near the hotel is a camp of soldiers, and they have a tame baboon. They also have a tame deer of a variety not much larger than a jack rabbit. The soldiers pick up the deer, and stand it on a table. There are dozens of different kinds of buck here, ranging from the size of a rabbit to the size of an ox. The soldiers told me that plenty of reed buck may be found within four miles of the Falls, but this is the closed season, and one of the duties of the soldiers is to protect the game. Last night one of the soldiers saw a leopard prowling around the camp. A few days ago a lion was killed within a few miles of the falls; the man who killed it brought in the skull and hide, and received a bounty of $7.50. Lions destroy a great deal of game, and the government pays for their destruction. The soldiers patrol a district 100 miles square, and say they rarely hear of lions attacking a man; they hear lions nearly every night, but rarely see them, as the animals are as sly as our foxes. The corporal with whom I talked says that during an experience of seven years in this section, he never personally knew a lion to attack man. He has heard of such cases, but you all know how common it is to hear stories that are not true.... The British captain with whom I spend a good deal of time, walking about, or sitting on the hotel veranda, is one of the quietest men I have ever known. He has always lived among soldiers, having been born in Benares, India, where his father was an officer in the English army. He lived there until he was twelve years old. Benares is as old as Babylon; when old Babylon was a flourishing city, Benares was in existence, and has remained a city continuously ever since, while Babylon has been completely destroyed, and its location almost forgotten. The captain tells of his experiences, when I question him, but is very reticent in speaking of the numerous forays in which he has engaged. I have no doubt he has had many thrilling experiences as a big-game hunter, but I cannot induce him to say much about them.... Another Englishman, named Green, who is with us a good deal, talks enough for half a dozen. He is a business man at Sheffield, England, and says that in case of war between England and Germany, the United States should assist England. Indeed, Mr. Green thinks the United States should even now present England with a battleship, and assist in “bluffing” Germany, as New Zealand has done. One of the ladies present asked me:

“What are England and Germany quarreling about?”

“They have no quarrel,” I replied. “They are simply bullies strutting around and daring each other to fight. I have forgotten the exact number, but we will say for illustration that England had a hundred battleships, and Germany fifty. Germany ordered two additional battleships built, and England immediately ordered four new dreadnoughts. And this ridiculous proceeding has been kept up for years; England is pledged to build two warships for every one built by Germany. The two countries have nothing to quarrel about, but the English declare they must have twice as many battleships as Germany, and the Germans say they must have as many battleships as England. And an apparently intelligent Englishman named Green says that in case this foolish contest finally results in war between the two countries, the United States should quit agriculture, and mining, and manufacturing, and trade, and assist England, simply because the Americans and English read the same language, although they understand each other with difficulty when they talk.”