Engines are whistling and trains are rumbling where then the only tracks were made by the huge hippos and the shy buck, but they can never efface the grandeur of the river in its size and calmness; the incomparable magnificence of the cataract itself; the rainbow, which one cannot see without retaining a lasting impression of its beauty; and, lastly, that cloud of white spray, seemingly a sentinel to watch over the strength and might of the huge river, for so many ages undiscovered.
Many who knew the Falls in their pristine solitude have gladly welcomed there the advent of twentieth-century developments, of sign-posts, of advertisements, of seats, of daily posts and papers; but others, some of the older pioneers, still, perchance, give a passing sigh for the days when they paddled about the river in a leaky canoe, and letters and telegrams were not events of everyday occurrence.
In spite of the railway constructed since our visit, few people, comparatively, have been to North-Western Rhodesia, and yet it is a country of over 400,000 square miles.

It was in October, 1897, that the then administrator of the country,[47] with five policemen, crossed the Zambesi and declared the territory to be under the protection of Her Late Gracious Majesty, Queen Victoria.

For many years previously the natives, who are not of a particularly warlike disposition, had been decimated, and the country laid waste, by the fierce Matabele, who were in the habit of making periodical raids into this fair land, and of killing the old men and the young warriors, who made but a slight resistance; of annexing the attractive ladies as wives and the fat cattle as prized booty, and then of retreating again south of the mighty river without fear of reprisals.

For this reason there was, in 1903, a very meagre population for many hundreds of miles north of the Zambesi in this direction; and of cattle, for which there is pasture in abundance, there was hardly one to be seen.

One has to travel much farther north and west to find the densely populated valleys, whose inhabitants own Lewanika, Chief of the Barotse, as their ruler, who look to the great white British King as their protector, and to the Chartered Company as the immediate purveyor of their wants.
Of these natives the chief tribes are, first, the Barotse themselves, who are the most numerous, and who inhabit the low-lying country along the Zambesi Valley north of Sesheke, and up to Lia-Lui, their capital.
The second in importance are the Mushukulumbwe, which, translated literally, means "naked people." This designation was given them as a reproach by their friends, as the male element wear no clothes; and should they possess a blanket, they would only throw it round their shoulders whilst standing still or sitting down.