CHAPTER III.
THE SURROUNDING COUNTRY OF THE VICTORIA FALLS.
While the Zambezi in many places flows through plains, the country surrounding the Victoria Falls is a pleasant and hilly landscape, especially the part bordering on the southern bank.
It belongs to one of the most agreeable landscapes which I have had, until now, the opportunity to observe in my travels in Africa, and is watered by a great many rivers and rivulets which unite with the Zambezi abore and below the Victoria Falls. The western part belongs to Khama, the Bamanquato Chief, the eastern to La Bengola, the King of the Matabele, and is inhabited by a small tribe, which alternately acknowledges the latter and Khama, sometimes both and sometimes neither, but Sepopo, as ruler.
If the traveller advancing from the south towards the Zambezi is weary of the monotony of scenery of the Sandy Pool Plateau, his servants and span worn by the deep sand and the obstacles of the almost uninterrupted forest, they are suddenly most agreeably surprised on their arrival at the source of one of the rivulets above-mentioned. A certain poisonous plant, which is dangerous to the cattle of the traveller in the months of October, November, and December, and scarcity of water, tend to make the traveller still more averse to the Sandy Pool Plateau, so that the hilly country might appear most welcome to him for many reasons, were it not for the two great obstacles which here conspire both against man and beast—the tsetse and fever. The latter rages mostly from the month of November until the end of April, while only the western part of the country (the source of the Dejkha River and that of the Pandama-Tenka River) can be traversed by cattle without danger of being affected by this destructive insect.
This country would be well adapted for colonization, if these two oppositions did not present themselves. Yet I hope, when opportune, to treat this matter more in detail, and show the means which I think will mitigate these two evils. This country would become a fine colony; and, because embellished by the “Victoria Falls,” the name of “Albert Colony” would be appropriate for it. It is very fertile, and indisputably qualified for the cultivation of rice or cotton.
