ARNST ON THE ZAMBESI.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLVII, Issue 14453, 20 August 1910, Page 6

ARNST ON THE ZAMBESI.

That a New Zealander should hold the sculling championship of the world in a match rowed on the Zambesi is so intensely modern that it gives the impression of unreality. Even our colonial minds have hardly become accustomed to the fact that the march of British dominion has not only reached the Zambesi, but has established itself firmly and comfortably upon the banks of that once savage river. A great railway-bridge now spans the famous gorge of the Victoria Falls, over which trains already rush daily on their way to the northern rail-head which will soon be' linked with the line from Cairo. Great hotels make fashionable one of the most majestic scenes on the planet. The great falls themselves are being harnessed to motors and made to light the streets of Johannesburg, and to lift the stamps of the Rand. It was a wise policy on the part of the Chartered Company managers to subsidise the sculling stakes sufficiently to induce the great oarsmen to row in Zambesi waters, for the advertisement thus given to the region has made the world realise the immense changes which have lately taken place in the true political geography of effective occupation. That a New Zealander has won a match that will become historic, and that our islands thus share the interest of the world with the great African river, gratifies our national pride, and cannot but advance our material prosperity. Arnst has again demonstrated that colonists do not lose in physical strength or athletic prowess by transplantation overseas, and we would suggest, in all amity, that before Home-bred writers bewail the physical degeneration of the colonialborn they might explain why it is that so many of the athletic championships have passed to New Zealanders, Australians, or Canadians, or to New Zealand, Australian, or Canadian teams.