THE RAIN FOREST.

Clutha Leader, Volume XXXVI, Issue 51, 7 December 1909, Page 2 (Supplement)

THE RAIN FOREST.

Until only a few years ago the greatest wonder of the world lay hidden away in one of the most savage pans >f Africa. The natives of that region, terrified by its mysterious columns m' vapor and its .subterranean thunder, did not venture within many miles of it. The white men who had looked upon it could be counted upon tin.' lingers of one hand. And yet, more than 50 years have passed since the explorer Livingstone, journeying eastward along the Zambesi, first behold that rainbow mist rise almve the forest. Of its cause lie .-mild learn nothing from the savages; and so, except for his own conjectures, no came unprepared upon his splendid discovery. Ho approached it by the river, which above the falls is a mile wide, and below them runs for 50 miles at the bottom of a gorge, between HHI and 500 feet deep, whoso twin walls of black, precipitous rook show for all that distance scarcely a ledge or slope where tho smallest plant may cling. So, after a peep downward at tho falls, from tho island on their brink which now boars his name, ho left his newlyfound marvel less than half seen, ami departed whence he caille. And the loneliness of those vast solitudes brooded once more over forest and river, to be broken only at rare intervals by some wandering hunter, or perhaps by a. party of men adventuring through endless toil and danger to behold a wonder whoso fame, even thou, spread as far as that tiny portion of South Africa where white men dwelt and

civilisation held sway. So things remained until the day of Cecil Rhodes undjy whose auspices went forth tin* voortrekkers, or pioneers, to colonic' the vast land now called Rhodesia, in the heart of which Victoria Falls lie. Many ol these voortrekkers, and their wives and children, died at the hand* of the savage Aniatahele tribe of natives; but the survivors in the end were victorious, and the country became their own.