218 
SOUTH AFEICA 
The Victokia Falls of the Zambesi, lat. 18° S., alt. 3000 ft. 
September 12th-19tb. 
This, our furthest point, was the locality from which we expected 
most. Apart altogether from the magnificence of the Falls them¬ 
selves and the geological puzzles that they afford, the locality presents 
certain peculiarities to the botanist and entomologist. 
Picture a rolling sandy plateau a little over 3000 ft. above sea- 
level. Low distant hills bound the view, though the characteristic 
South African fiat-topped kopje is for once absent. Above the Falls 
the banks of the Zambesi are low and almost flat, the country on 
either side of the river resembling much of that passed through in 
the railway journey from Bulawayo. The forests of South Ehodesia 
are chiefly composed of deciduous trees of moderate size, for the most 
part tending to be flat-topped and so harmonizing with the horizontal 
strata and giving the landscape a character of its own. The under¬ 
growth of scrub is, as a rule, scanty and easily traversed, while the 
coarse grass and other herbage is so sparse as to leave much burning 
sand bare; though it must be borne in mind that our visit was 
towards the end of a very dry season. Doubtless during the rains 
much of this sand would be covered with vegetation and gay with 
flowers, but as it was we found loose dry sand extending to within 
a very few feet of the Papyrus growing at the water’s edge. The 
banks above the Falls are fringed with a narrow belt of shady wood 
in which (especially on the right bank) the small date-palm, Phoenix 
reclinata, is the prevailing tree, and a shrubby Ipomoea was at the 
time of our visit the most striking flower. Here and there towered 
the monstrous Baobab tree, Adansonia digitata, with stem like an 
inverted carrot. The first leaves on the commoner forest trees spread 
an emerald tint suggestive of spring and affording a refreshing contrast 
to the parched herbage and scorching sand. 
Opposite to the Falls is the Eain Forest, poetically called by 
the Barotse, “The place where the rain is born.” This stretches 
along the cleft for three-quarters of a mile, not counting the similar 
growths on the Knife-Edge. Between the Eain Forest proper and 
the edge of the chasm, where the spray is most drenching, is a strip 
of coarse boggy grass and herbage looking for all the world like a bit 
of Exmoor into which the bright blue flowers of Lobelia erinus have 
escaped from some parterre. The forest proper, from 50 to perhaps 
300 yards wide, is of varied growth, in which large specimens of 
Ficus with their characteristic fluted stems are a prominent feature; 
