A LONG MOTOR TOUR

Waipa Post, Volume 52, Issue 3705, 10 January 1936, Page 7

A LONG MOTOR TOUR

ATTRACTIONS OF AFRICA. SEEING BIG GAME AT CLOSE QUARTERS. 'Wild animals of every sort in their natural surroundings, majestic mountain scenery, thriving mining centres, fertile agricultural areas, and great stretches of semi-desert were among the variety of differing sights seen on an unusual and interesting tour by Mr Justice Ostler, a judge of the New Zealand Supreme Court bench, who, accompanied by Mrs Ostler, returned to Wellington by the Monowai last Tuesday after being away from the Dominion for a year. In the course of a chat with friends who met Mr and Mrs Ostler soon after arrival Mr Ostler gave some most interesting particulars of the main features of the trip. After a month in England they made a motor tour through South, Central, and East Africa, going north as far as the White Nile. The car had an enclosed front seat, with a covered box body at the back, which enabled them to take a complete camping outfit and, for most of the way, two native servants. WHERE FEW SPEAK ENGLISH. They then passed through Bloemfontein, still a sleepy Boer dorp, and through many towns and villages in which Dutch is the prevailing language, and it was difficult to find anyone who understood English. In the Free State, with its miles of rolling plains, so vast that for days of travel no hills are sighted, is some of the richest country in the world, and if the rainfall were only certain and adequate the farming possibilities would be wonderful.

« Unfortunately, the country suffers from a deficient and uncertain rainfall. Every second or third year there is a drought. The profits made in the good years are thus eaten up. Last season, however, was a good one, and the travellers saw mile after mile of waving maize crops, most of which have now gone to feed the Italian troops in Abyssinia, to the great profit of the Free State farmers. The travellers came to the Vaal River, which they crossed on a magnificent steel bridge, which was also a barrage, damming back the river in order to create a huge lake from which Johannesburg derives its water supply. Several days were spent at Johannesburg. The city -was in the midst of a feverish boom of prosperity: money seemed to flow there like water.

At the Kruger National Park they saw one of the great sights of the world. An area of 9000 square miles of low veldt and tropical bush has been set aside as a game reserve. It is heavily stocked with every species of wild animal common to that part of A.rica. Motor roads have been cut through it, and the animals have become so used to them that they take no notice of cars so long as the occupants remain in them. No one is allowed to get out of a car for any reason. It is there that most of the great animal films have been taken in recent years. For many years the lions had to be kept down in order to allow the other animals to increase. For the last nine years, however, no lions have been shot, and the theory of Colonel J Stevenson-Hamilton, the creator and warden of the park, that the lions are necessary in order to maintain the balance of nature, has been amply borne out. The travellers spent a pleasant day drjving about the roads, observing and photographing many species of wild animals. The first night in Rhodesia was spent at the Lundi River, a tropical stream still full of hippopotami and crocodiles. The next day, by making a slight detour, the Limbabwe ruins were reached; an interesting afternoon was spent in examining and photographing these ruins. The latest archaeological investigations have proved, beyond any reasonable doubt, that these ruins are not nearly so old as was at first supposed. Their prob- , able date is about the eleventh century A.D. They were being built at the time that William the Conqueror was subjugating the tough Saxons. Moreover, it has been proved that they are not the work of a foreign race, but of some conquering race of Bantu natives. “ABSOLUTELY IN THE WILDS.” Southern Rhodesia is widely auriferous, but the quartz generally contains only a small amount of gold, Mr Ostler said. It is only here and there that it is rich enough to work, even at the present high price of gold. Many mines are working and showing a profit on rock that yields no more than 3 dwt of gold to the ton. On the way to Victoria f alls the tourists first struck patches of thoroughly bad road, but they got through without mishap, and spent two wonderful days at the Victoria Falls Hotel, which is only half a mile from the Falls. This hotel is run by the Rhodesian Railways, and is one of the finest in the world. In Northern Rhodesia, however, they were “ absolutely in the wilds.” It was thence some 700 miles to Abercorn, on the southern end of Lake Tanganyika. This distance was done in three days and a half, with no mishap beyond one puncture. It was during this trip that wild animals became fairly plentiful. Several snakes were observed crossing the road. Going further north, they stopped at a Scottish mission station at Mwenzo, on the Tanganyika border, where they were hospitably entertained by Dr Chisholm, a grand old medical missionary, who had been in the district for 35 years, and had civilised the surrounding tribes. At Mbeya, in Tanganyika, a stopping place for Imperial Airways from London to Capetown, two of the great four-engined aeroplanes were seen, i Nearby is the Lupa goldfield, which promises to become one of the great goldfields of the world. Although discovered only a few years ago, it already contains some 2000 whites and 25,000 natives, and more white people and a large amount of machinery are pouring into the area to develop and work the rich reefs which have been opened. There are also large areas of alluvial diggings. On the way to Arusha they crossed vast plains on which were great herds of game of many sorts. At one place

they surprised a herd of 20 giraffes close to the road, and excellent pictures were taken of them as they cantered away with their peculiar rocking-horse gait.

Arusha lies in an oasis of fertile and well-watered country between the mountains of Meru and Kilmanjaro. The hundred miles over the Kapiti and Athi plain provided one of the most enthralling days of the whole trip. On one occasion the car was stuck in the mud for over two hours, and the animals drew close in a circle to satisfy their curiosity. There must have been over 2000 animals in the circle. At a low estimate, on that day the travellers saw some 20,000 wild animals. BIG GAME AT CLOSE QUARTERS. A long run took the visitors out of Kenya into Uganda, where they reached the pretty town of Tinja, on the shores of a deep inlet from Lake Victoria, which narrows in front of the town to leap over the Ripon Falls and form the source of the Nile. There is a magnificent railway and traffic bridge spanning the river, 200 yards below the falls, and carrying the railway on to Kampala. The scene was truly African. Canoes were dotted over the water, and here and there were schools of hippopotami disporting themselves only a little way above the falls. At night these huge creatures come ashore and wander about on the banks, cropping the grass. One was heard close underneath the hotel window. At Butaba, on the shores of Albert Nyanza, the travellers chartered a small steamer, which took them 40 miles up the lake and 30 miles up the Nile, cloSe to the foot of the Murchison Falls. This journey affords easily the most ■wonderful view of big game at close quarters in all Africa. On both sides the banks slope down to the river, and both banks are a game reserve. Not only does the river support thousands of hippopotami and crocodiles, but also on the banks are to be seen at all times of the day literally hundreds of elephants and smaller game of all sorts. A large herd of buffalo came down to drink as the steamer passed. Elephants, some of them grand old tuskers, were drinking all along the bank, and a herd of some 25 of these huge animals swam'; the river in front of the vessel. In order to reach the Murchison Falls the last two miles must be walked in the heat of the day, accompanied by a hunter armed with a heavy rifle, lest elephants or lions should be met on the track. The travellers visited the southwest corner of Uganda, in the neighbourhood of the Virunga, or Mfumbird Mountains, a region containing some 15 high volcanic cones, rising to as high as 15,000 feet, some of them still actively erupting lava. The mountains are forest-clad almost to their tops, and are the home of the great mountain gorillas. “ BEWARE OF RHINOS.” On the road to Nanyuki, near Mount Kenya, there was a notice board bidding people to “ beware of rhinos.” Two days earlier three rhinos had attacked a car on the road, tearing off the spare wheel, the running boards, and the mudguards. They did not succeed, however, in overturning the car, and the driver escaped by quick acceleration.

Kenya contains some 17,000 settlers, and has many thousands of acres of as fertile land as there is in the world, and also a good climate, and in most places an ample rainfall. Nevertheless, the farmers were being very badly hit by the world depression; maize was selling at 3s per large sack, and coffee at £4O per ton, at which prices their production is uneconomic. The only crops at present paying in Kenya are tea and sisal, which are limited in area.

The Abyssinian war caused a temporary boom, and the prices of all farm produce commenced to rise, but probably the application of sanctions has spoilt this market. A night was spent beside Lake Manyara, in the Rift Valley. This was a paradise for game, and, the moon being full, the night was spent in a tree platform observing the game coming to drink. The next day, after much climbing through heavy forest, the Ngoro Ngoro Crater was reached. The camp was situated at over 8000 feet. The crater, a circle 12 miles across, lay 2000 feet lower, bathed in sunshine and dappled with cloud shadows. It is perfectly flat, and contains two lakes, one a soda lake and the other of fresh water, in which there are many hippo. The surface of the crater is covered with a wonderful clover, and it is estimated that there are never less than 100,000 head of game of all varieties grazing there. It was a wonderful experience to sit on the rim with glasses and pick out the various herds of animals. Five lions were observed lying out in the open in the sun, and within 200 yards of them grazed some hundreds of zebras. THE GREAT RIFT VALLEY. The Great Rift Valley is a gash in the earth, in many places 40 miles wide and extending from the Red Sea for 4000 miles down to Lake Nyasa. The road descends 1500 feet, in two miles, to the floor of the valley, where an entirely different climate is reached—dry and warm. It passes over great plains, large areas of (Which were waving with wheat and barley, and over other large areas of which roam many thousands of Merino sheep. The road then passes over an old lava flow from the still-active volcano of Longonot, which has risen to some 9000 feet on the floor of the valley. Then Lake Naivasha is reached, a large fresh-water lake which is itself the crater of an extinct volcano; later the road passes the Lakes Elem, Enteita, and Nakuru. These two lakes are entirely different. They are strongly impregnated with soda; they are both shallow, and are rapidly drying up, leaving a wide rim of white round their edges.

The travellers stayed for five days on a coffee plantation, 12 miles from Nakuru, and situated on the very edge of the great Meningai crater. The crater is seven miles across, and has been active in quite recent times, throwing out . enormous streams of lava. It is still active in the centre, and it is thought that its period of active eruption has not yet ceased. Geologists are united in stating that the forces which caused the Great Rift Valley are still actively at work. Three years ago there was an earthquake of the first magnitude along the edge of the Rift, a few miles

north of Nakuru. It left a crack' many feet wide extending for 30 or 40 miles. The locality was, however, very sparsely populated, and, though considerable damage was done to the homesteads along its track, no loss of life occurred. It is confidently predicted that there will be other seismic disturbances along the edges of the Rift Valley.