RETBOSPECT 



WHEN on the voyage home from East Africa early in 1906 

 the many things of great interest I had there seen sug- 

 gested to me the idea of collecting on paper there and then those 

 sights and scenes and Nature's wonders which after my long 

 years of travel seemed the grandest, most remarkable, and the 

 most beautiful of all the many it had been my great privilege 

 to witness. Such pictures, deeply graven into the tablets of my 

 mind and fixed there indelibly, remained unchanged by time 

 however long, when lighter impressions were dulling fast and 

 fading rapidly. 



It was an interesting pastime and the time passed most 

 pleasantly while marshalling in review my frequent wanderings 

 by sea and land, and turning over one by one the numerous 

 leaves which make the book of memory, consisting now of many 

 volumes. The list completed there remained in my mind no 

 doubt but that those named on it were fully entitled to occupy 

 their places of honour ; the task had been successful but sad 

 withal, for was it not all concerned with the past and mostly 

 with the long ago ? 



My intention on this trip had been first to visit the Falls of 

 the Zambezi and then go to East Africa, but fate decided against 

 the former. Arrived near Beira, the weather was stormy and the 

 sea far too high to permit of any approach to land, and after 

 lying off for twenty-four hours with no improvement in the 

 weather, the ship went on to Delagoa Bay. Comparatively easy 

 from Beira in the time permitted me December 23rd to January 

 6th a visit to the Falls now became a heavy task likely to be 

 highly fatiguing ; to reach them from Lorenzo Marques, no less 

 than 132 hours 105 of continued travelling were needed, 

 while from the Zambezi back to Beira meant another eighty. 



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