TREKKING IN RHODESIA.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 85, 30 September 1911, Page 1 (Supplement)

TREKKING IN RHODESIA.

A FAMOUS SPORTSMAN'S VIEW OF THE NEW COUNTRY. (By Sir Henry Seton-Karr, C.M.G.) Bulawavo, July 2. Twenty years ago Kimberley was the northern limit of civilisation from the Cape. It wns thence a six months' trekto reach the great Zambesi river and view its magnilieent Victoria Falls, and more likely than not the adventurer in those days would have left his bones in the land of the Barotse or Mashakaltimbwe tribes, who looked upon the white men as undesirable aliens, to be summarily wiped out and disposed of on arrival.

But now times have changed. First the .Maxim gun and then the railroad — these have been the agencies of peace and civilisation. Leaving Waterloo Station by the special boat express one fine morning in May, a few hours after the traveller finds himself steaming down the Channel in a great liner, like unto a floating hotel—seventeen days of enjoyable ocean travel, if the weather be propitious in the Bay, and almost certainly after leaving Madeira. Straight from the steamer to the train at Capetown, and in four days we are at Victoria Falls, one of the, natural wonders of the world, having been conveyed thither in a modern, fairly up-to-date Pullman express train, with (lining-car attached, and all the conveniences and comforts of civilised railway transport. The salient fact, then, is that Victoria Falls, roughly a convenient geographical centre of Rhodesia, and a sight well worth a long, long journey to see, can now be reached in three weeks from London, and view in comfort, without hardship, dangerous travel, or unreasonable expense. I have seen Niagara and much wild scenery in various out-of-the-way corners of the globe, but I have, never seen avthing like the great Falls of the Zambesi river. The few days at my disposal I found all too short to fully appreciate their grandeur and awe-inspiring magnificence. They are on a scale so great and unprecedented that it is not possible for the ordinary mortal at once to grasp and realise their beauty. They grow upon one day by day. The chief, and, in fact, only criticism that it is possible to make is this, that one cannot see the whole of them at once—falls over a mile wide, and some 400 ft high—and must, in fact, view them in parts, a piece at a time. First the south side, and then the view from the railway bridge that in, one graceful span connects Northern ■and Southern Rhodesia. Then the north bank and its cataracts. Then the Palm Grove and the bottom of the gorge, whence the railway bridge, with, perchance, a miniature train crossing it, looks almost ludicrously small and toylike amid the great works of nature. Then the Rain Forest, with its wonderful vegetation, its rainbows, its orchids, and its varying lights and shadows; and so on to Danger Point; and then back to the bridge for another look.

After a month's stay in Rhodesia, mainly in the North-West Province; after a week's hunt after big game, with some success, in the vicinity of the Kafui river, a great tributary of the Zambesi; after a picnic up the Zambesi valley in pursuit of hippo and tiger-lish; after talking witli Dutch farmers, u'ith the courteous estate agent of the B.S.A. Company in Bulawayo, with casual acquaintances and with all sorts of officials in Livingstone and Bulawayo and on the railway—in fact, with ail sorts and conditions of tho Rhodesian residents, T have come to the clear conclusion and genuine belief —possibly premature, but it is there to stay—that Rhodesia is a country of great possibilities, with a prosperous future, and now only in the mere infancy of its agricultural and commercial growth. First and foremost, it has all the possibilities of a great stock country, north of the Zambesi as well south, and most particularly in the north. The luxuriance of the vegetation, the regularities of the seasons, the clear, dry air of a tableland 4000 ft or more above the sea, cheap native labor, a fairly well watered country, with great irrigation and artesian well possibilities, these are all favorable factors in the case; and if they do not point in the direction I venture to indicate, then Nature lias perpetrated a sell of the most cruel description on the people of South Africa. I may perhaps say here in passing that personally I have not a shilling invested at present in Rhodesia, but that of tho few coins 1 mfiy be able to scrape together on mv return, some may very likely go to back my opinion.

Diseases there arc. no doubt. But those have been more or less successfully combated, and by means of strict import regulations are under good control. Rinderpest has raged in the past, but it never went north of the Zambesi. The natives have had cattle in Rhodesia for generations. I had good opportunity of inspecting various samples of these cattle, as well as of the weird, flop-eared, brown-haired creatures that are called sheep in the neighborhood of the Tropic of Capricorn, and, looking at them with the eye of a one-time North American rancher, who

there paid rather dearly for his experience, I can confidently say that [ never saw stock, pastured merely on the natural grass of the country, in better or fatter condition. Then there is the dreaded "fly." All we know is that the fly is strictly limited in its habitat and locality; so far as we. have got at present it does not move outside these limits, which are a long way off the country of which I write. Rhodesian farmers are not afraid of <; lly." In addition to stock, there are the possibilities of agricultural produce. AH that time and space, permit me to say on this head is that a country which can produce mealies (Indian com), oranges, bananas, grape-fruit, lemons, tobacco and cotton (so far only tentatively grown) can, and ought to, under scientific cultivation, grow anything. I saw all the fruits and vegetables I have mentioned, as well as others too common and numerous to particularise, growing in one garden in Livingstone, six miles north of the Falls. Then there is the market for stock

aiid agricultural produce to bo considered. I'ulawavo finds a {food market south and south-east, where the great mining industries of Kiuiborley and the Transvaal rc(|nire to he supplied. l!ut a. new outlet and a new field is also rapidly growing in the north, or some reliable mining experts are very badly mistaken. North from the Falls and Livingstone, (lie railway, a somewhat primitive, bi-weekly, get-your-meals-by-the-wayside-as-best-you-cau ali'air at present. runs for some 330 miles past liroken Hill to Klizahcthvillc, in Belgian territory. Near here are the great, copper deposits of the Tanganyika Company. staled to he good for 100 years in jiaying ipiantities. This is not the only promising mining enterprise north of the Zambesi, mark you; but T mention it as the most promising. The projected railway from Lobito Bay, on the west coast, a magnificent natural harbor within a possible ten or twelve days' journey by fast steamers from Southampton (or Cardiff, etc.), is being rapidly proceeded with; and in two years its 1200 miles of completed length may link up with the Rhodesian railway system, place Northern Rhodesia

a week's journey nearer to the. Old Country, and supply a large and growing market, bv virtue of a great mining town at Elizabetliville (among other causes), for Rhodesian produce. And this is not all. The Congo district is largely a "flv" country. Therefore, its stock and agricultural possibilities are severely limited. Again will Northern Rhodesia come in, and the Rhodesian farmer will, if these anticipations are only partially fulfilled, and an agreeably rising scale of prices realised for his products as time goes on. 1 managed to secure specimens of seven different varieties of big game in a short four-days' hunting, including zebra, wildebeeste, hartebeeste (weird odd wild creatures these last two), roan, impali, oribi, and last, but far from least, the hippo, this latter on a separate Zambesi river picnic.