cost of timber throughout the southern hemisphere is not without its 

 compensations, as the cheapness of it has been no unmixed blessing to us. 



From Buluwayo, after an interesting trip to the Matoppos Hills and 

 Cecil Rhodes' grave, we started on the ever memorable journey to the 

 Victoria Falls, one of the great spectacles of the world. This excursion 

 we owed to the courtesy of Sir Charles Metcalf, Chairman of the 

 British South African Company, who provided five special trains. We 

 had ample time to study the Falls from every point of view and I secured 

 an excellent series of photographs. I shall not attempt any description 

 of the indescribable, but merely express my extreme gratification that it 

 was my privilege to see and thoroughly enjoy that wonderful place. The 

 country about the Falls, in the dry season, seemed very desolate, the 

 open, scrubby forest looking like the wintry woods of temperate climates, 

 with nothing to suggest the tropics. There was, however, a band of 

 forest, especially in the ravine called Palm Kloof, which was perpetually 

 drenched by the spray of the great cataract, and here there was a 

 luxuriant growth of palms, tree ferns and other tropical plants. The 

 demonstration of the effect produced by a little water was quite 

 astonishing. 



On returning to Buluwayo, the Association divided into two groups, 

 one returning to Cape Town and sailing to England from there, the 

 other proceeding to Beira, in Portuguese East Africa, where a steamer 

 was waiting to take us to Southampton by the Suez Canal and the 

 Mediterranean. At the Rhodesian towns of Salisbury and Umtali, the 

 ladies had prepared cold luncheons for us, a delicious and welcome 

 change from dining-car and hotel fare. The voyage up the east coast of 

 Africa, though very interesting, was most uncomfortable. In marked 

 contrast to the west coast, the weather was very hot, the ship crowded 

 and the table wonderfully bad. The ship had been many weeks out 

 from England and, to a large extent, her perishable supplies had 

 perished, or were at the point of doing so. The stale and, sometimes, 

 mouldy food was most unappetising. Even before we left Buluwayo, the 

 strain of continual travelling was beginning to tell on the older members 

 of the Association, many of whom fell ill and several died. Those who 

 kept in good health were tired out and welcomed the restful life of 

 shipboard. 



I should like to bear my testimony to the admirable way in which this 

 whole great undertaking was managed. I do not know who was 

 responsible for the arrangements; no doubt a great many people in the 

 various towns, cooperating with the British and South African Asso- 



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