Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 68.djvu/11

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BRITISH ASSOCIATION IN SOUTH AFRICA
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accompanying map will show. The Union-Castle line steamers Kildonan Castle and Durham Castle, leaving Southampton on July 22, and the Saxon, leaving on July 29, carried the members over the 6,800 miles which separate that port from Cape Town. From there the party traveled by sea or rail to Durban and thence by rail to Johannesburg, making stops at Pietermaritzburg, Colenso and Ladysmith. The scientific meetings were divided between Cape Town and Johannesburg, and four or five days were accordingly spent in each of those towns. After a short visit to Pretoria, the regular program involved a long journey of 1.374 miles to Bulawayo viá de Aar Junction, the only possible all-rail route; on the way, stops of a day or two were made

General View of the Victoria Falls from a Point near the West End.

at Bloemfontein and Kimberley. From Bulawayo five special trains conveyed the oversea party, with the addition of many others living in South Africa, to the Victoria Falls, where a couple of days were spent. On the return to Bulawayo about half the party proceeded direct to Cape Town, whence the regular steamers carried them by the west-coast route to England. The remainder went by rail through Salisbury and Umtali to Beira, where the Durham Castle awaited them for the east coast route. On the return journey, Mozambique, Mombasa and Cairo were visited; the presence of plague at Zanzibar and Niarobi upset the arrangements for seeing those two places, but the unexpected block in the Suez Canal enabled the party to spend much more time in Egypt than had been expected. Several members whose duties