RETROSPECT 327 



Most of this would have had to be done during the eight days 

 of Christmas and New Year holidays, when, owing to general 

 rejoicing and untiring attempts at quenching an apparently 

 unquenchable thirst, things and trains were not likely to run 

 smoothly. So the trip was most reluctantly abandoned. 



May the space which the Victoria Falls were expected to fill 

 among the elect in Memory's gallery be yet occupied by them 

 and take their place alongside that Canadian-American wonder, 

 the lovely Falls of Niagara ! 



To pass the time while waiting for the boat a trip to Pretoria 

 during the holidays seemed preferable to so dreadful a scamper, 

 unsatisfactory though it proved, with everything closed except 

 bars for eight whole days and nothing to eat but frozen meat 

 and tinned vegetables a truly disgraceful want of enterprise ! 

 My inquiry as to why the engine never ceased whistling while 

 passing through Portuguese East Africa was met by the state- 

 ment that only by such hideous noises was it possible to scare 

 away the mosquitoes, which here in their swampy paradise were 

 said to attain the size of locusts and be dangerous to life ! 



Steaming northward from Lorenzo Marques' s busy harbour 

 and bright crimson soil we passed moribund Beira, visited 

 Zanzibar and arrived at Mombasa Island ; and very hot and 

 picturesque it is, the door to those wonderful regions inland now 

 opened to the public by England's engineering skill and enter- 

 prise. What marvellous changes here in a few years ! A com- 

 fortable railway 583 miles long takes one to Victoria Nyanza, 

 where a 600-ton steamer, lighted and ventilated by electricity, 

 awaits the traveller to carry him either across to Entebbe, 

 capital of Uganda, or on a trip round the lake. The " Uganda " 

 Railway, which is nowhere in Uganda, leaves hot Mombasa with 

 its beautifully green mango, wonderful baobab-trees, and lovely 

 crotons for the adjoining mainland and soon ascends the plateau 

 of the interior with altitudes varying between 2 and 8,000 feet ; 

 after a run of about 500 miles it descends to the Lake, which 

 lies 3,650 feet above sea-level. The country passed through is 

 infinitely varied : tropical forests with their dense and tangled 

 vegetation, huge swamps, the home of hippos ; endless grassy 

 plains, deep valleys and high mountains everything on the most 

 extensive scale. The natives along the line and crowding the 

 stations offer an interesting study : Suahelis, Kikuyus, Masai, 



