Page:Travel letters from New Zealand, Australia and Africa (1913).djvu/345

 in church, and pays two shillings for a license, he is liable to arrest if he marries another wife.

—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 There is no town at the Falls; only a