Page:Travel letters from New Zealand, Australia and Africa (1913).djvu/353

 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.