A Natural Wonder
The Zambezi River
The Victoria Falls
Formation of the Victoria Falls
People of the Victoria Falls
Enter the Ndebele
Discovery of the Victoria Falls
In Livingstone's Footsteps
Development of the Railway
To the Banks of the Zambezi
Development of the Falls
To The Congo
Development of Tourism
Development of Victoria Falls Town
Recent History
Further Information
Collectables

    
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Development of the Victoria Falls



The following text is adapted from 'Life and Death at the Old Drift, Victoria Falls 1898-1905', researched and written by Peter Roberts and published in 2018. Please visit the Zambezi Book Company website for more information.



The Old Drift

Prior to the arrival of the railway and building of the Victoria Falls Bridge the Zambezi River was crossed above the Falls at several established ferry points. Travellers would head for the local land mark of the Big Tree, the huge baobab tree close to the river above the Falls (and still standing to this day), where they would set up camp before making arrangements to cross the river. Woods, writing in 1960, records older residents recalling that there was more than one funeral at the Big Tree in the early days, but no evidence of any graves has ever been found.

Giese’s Ferry was the closest to the Falls, located just a short distance upstream and crossing over to a point near the confluence with the Maramba River, but suitable only for small craft carrying light loads. A little further upstream where the river bends significantly (and close to the Big Tree) was the Palm Tree Ferry, where travellers could cross the river to two points on the north bank.

The most important crossing was nine kilometres from the Falls, where the river was at its narrowest, about a kilometre in width, and also at its deepest, allowing larger craft and heavier loads to be transported. The crossing was known by the European settlers as the Old Drift, having been the traditional crossing point controlled by Chief Sekuti and his people who had inhabited the large islands on the river and controlled the crossing before being displaced by the arrival of the Makalolo.

Mr Frederick J ‘Mopane’ Clarke (1873-1937) arrived at the banks of the Zambezi in mid-1898, establishing a small trading post on the north bank.

“Mopani Clarke was born at Chatteris, Cambridgeshire, in 1873. He arrived in South Africa in 1890 and soon moved to southern Rhodesia where he quickly proved to be a successful labour recruiting agent for the mines.” (Horizon, June 1963)

It was said to have been the Matabele King Lobengula who had given Clarke his nickname, saying Clarke was like the mopane tree (Colophospermum mopane) - “tall, straight and hard of heart” - a tribute to his negotiating skills. A carpenter by training, Clarke soon erected a small collection of huts on the north bank and set himself up as a labour recruiting agent for the mines in the south, forwarding agent for those opening up in the north and hotel keeper, offering basic accommodation, food, refreshments and essential supplies to travellers.

“In addition to controlling the river crossing he ran a forwarding agency, ...a bar and a hotel at which dinner cost four shillings, a bed fifteen shillings and a whisky and soda (the staple diet of the Old Drifters) one shilling.” (Phillipson, 1990b)

Clarke's Huts at the Old Drift
Clarke's Huts at the Old Drift

Clarke ran the crossing on behalf of the Chartered Company, using the iron barge transported to the Zambezi by Lawley in mid-1898, and later a steam launch, also provided by the Company. Passengers were taken in the barge, paddled by eight Barotse men, whilst wagons and goods were towed by the launch. The Drift was also known as Sekuti’s or Clarke’s Drift, and later as the Livingstone Drift.

“Passengers were carried in an iron boat propelled by eight Barotse paddlers and the fare was one shilling each way. All this equipment was apparently owned or supplied by the Administration, but it was managed by ‘Mopane’ Clarke who was, to all intents and purposes, in control of the crossing. A number of smaller craft also plied between the Falls and the Old Drift settlement.” (Phillipson, 1990b)

Clarke later employed at least two Europeans to operate the crossing, W A Carter, an engineer, supervised operations on behalf of Clarke, and William Trayner as boatman. All supplies for the growing administration presence, as well as for the growing number of mining operations, came through the small settlement, in addition to an increasing number of independent traders, hunters, prospectors and missionaries operating in Barotseland.

Mission Station

In August 1898 the Reverend Giovanni Daniele Augusto Coisson, an Italian working under the auspices of the Paris Missionary Society, was posted to establish a Mission Station among Sekuti’s people.

“The Reverend Giovanni Daniele Augusto Coisson was born in San Pellice, Torrino, in Italy in 1871. This small town was the head-quarters of the Protestant Waldensian Church. Francois Coillard met Coisson in Italy and asked him to join the Paris Missionary Society. Coisson went to Paris in the 1880’s. In 1897 he was ordained and left for Barotseland (where Coillard had set up his mission) with his wife, nee H Marguerite Nisbet, who had been born in Samoa of mission stock.” (Watt, undated)

In a letter written 27th August Coisson hinted at the initial difficulties, despite already being located upstream at the Kazungula Mission Station.

“We are posted to the Victoria Falls where we shall establish a new station. We want to go there as soon as possible, but it will be difficult. It is only two day’s journey from here (Kazungula), but it is not so simple as it seems. It is impossible to go by canoe. We have a nice wagon, but the governor has prohibited all movement of oxen because of sickness. One could use carriers, but it is rather complicated.”

The following month Coisson travelled to the Drift together with an African evangelist, Petrose Kasana, who was to begin work teaching the word of the Bible among Sekuti’s people.

“At the beginning of September, Coisson journeyed to the Old Drift with a Mulozi by the name of Petrose Kasana, who had attended a school for Evangelists at Morija in Barotseland. This evangelist Coisson left at Sekuti’s Village to spread the gospel around the tribes of the Victoria Falls. Every month Coisson travelled from Kazungula to the Old Drift to visit the evangelist.”

The main problem in travelling to the Falls, however, was the lack of a wagon road.

“During the first months of 1899 Coisson started hacking a track through the bush from Kazungula with the aid of a few workmen. In April the B.S.A.C. offered to complete his work and took over.” (Watt, undated)

Coisson then set to work building a group of residential huts, before finally relocating to the Drift with his wife and two children (Emilie, born 14th November 1897 and Francois, born 10th March 1899) in October 1899. In a letter dated 17th October, and published in the Paris Missionary Society ‘News From Barotsiland’ of April 1900, Mrs Coisson wrote:

“We left Kazungula about a month ago to come here. We have had a good journey; thanks to the moonlight we were able to travel by night and camp during the day. The site of the station pleases us very much; what is specially delightful is that we have clumps of great trees both on it and around it. The river is ten minutes distant; and is magnificent just here, with its beautiful green islands. We feel very much isolated here, far away from everybody, especially as there is scarcely anybody in the [African] village for the moment. We have a school but it only numbers 8 children, of whom only three come from the village. Later on we shall probably have more.” (News From Barotsiland, April 1900)

In early January 1900 Coisson recorded an encouraging start to his work, which required regular tours of the surrounding neighbourhood visiting local villages:

“The railway will soon be here. The works are about to be begun for the line to the coal mines of Wankie. From there, it is only about 139 kilometres (about 80 miles). It seems the works will be begun almost immediately... God’s blessing is resting upon us; especially lately have we been encouraged if not by numerous fruits of our work, at least by the good-will of our workmen and black children, by good meetings, and finally by health which at last allows us to believe that we are alive. Our task here consists chiefly in preaching tours and this is the missionary’s real work. The chiefs are all so pleasant, much more so than the chief of our own village, they do all they can to get their people together for a meeting when I come, and show their gratitude by offering me sometimes milk and sometimes food for my boys.” (News From Barotsiland, July 1900)

The Coisson’s third son, Enrico, was born on 17th May 1900.

Mission Station at the Old Dirft
Mission Station at the Old Dirft, circa 1900.

The Controller’s Camp

During the latter part of 1898 Coryndon established a Company camp on the north bank of the river a short distance upstream of the Falls, known as the Controller’s Camp (or River Camp and later the Victoria Falls Station), and where travellers and traders reported to clear their further passage into the territory.

“In 1898 the Controller’s Camp was opened. It was situated five kilometres above the Falls on the north bank of the Zambezi River near the confluence with the Maramba River and in the British South Africa Company’s Reserve. Next to Maramba Drift a canoe connection operated with Giese’s Ferry on the south bank.” (Shepherd, 2008)

In October 1899 Major (later Colonel) Edwin Colin Harding and Mr D Gifford Moore arrived at the Falls. Harding, acting as the Company’s representative during the absence of Coryndon (who had departed on leave to England), headed north to Lealui. Moore, an Australian, meanwhile established himself at the Controller’s Camp as the Company’s first local District Commissioner for the Falls region. By the end of 1899 Coisson recorded the small settlement at the Drift now consisted of six permanent residents (the Coisson family of four, Clarke and Moore).

“The Coissons seemed to be on very friendly terms with the inhabitants, which numbered in 1899 less than six permanents. F J Clarke often used to visit them. Mrs Coisson wrote of him: ‘We like him very much, he is a real gentleman; which is not always the case with Europeans who come here.’ Mr [Gifford] Moore of the B.S.A.C, who by June 1900 has set up a permanent camp at one hour’s walk from the mission, was another visitor of the Coisson’s. Relations with him were good, but he is described as a very talkative gentleman and rather fussy.” (Watt, undated)

Four independent traders are recorded as entering the territory from the south during 1899, rising to sixteen in 1900, of which ten are identified as cattle traders (Sampson, 1956).

The Controllers Camp
The Controller’s Camp or Victoria Falls Station

Trading Places

In 1900 Clarke established the first wood and iron building at the Drift, operating as a general merchant and forwarding agent, later to evolve into the Zambezi Trading Company.

“In 1900 F J Clarke built a wood and iron shed which he used for forwarding goods; this also acted as a general store and [later] took on the name of the Zambesi Trading Company. Clarke also had a liquor licence and his was the first bar to exist in the Old Drift.” (Watt, undated)

Trade must have been slow in these early years, but a steady passage of travellers passed through the Drift, including an increasing number of Company employees, prospectors, missionaries and traders.

Clarke also acted as a recruitment agent to supply labour south of the Zambezi, including for the De Beers Mining Company. Harding recorded in 1901 that Clarke had recently recruited 650 workers over a period of three months (Vickery, 1986). Sampson (1956) records a man named as Mr Collins entered the territory in 1901 recruiting labourers in the Kafue area for the mines in Kimberley. This is likely to be Ernest Collins, who is recorded as working for Clarke.

In addition to his roles managing the crossing and as a forwarding agent for the Northern Copper Company and Tanganyika Concessions Company operating further north, Clarke arranged logistics for an increasing number of ‘sport’ hunters intent on bagging one or more of Africa’s ‘Big Five.’

In a letter written in January 1901 Coisson records ‘Mopane’ Clarke, Gifford Moore and two others, Murray and Pearce, as the core of the early community. Mr F C Murray worked as a transport rider north of the river, working for the Chartered Company and Northern Copper Company transporting supplies to the north.

A New Commissioner

Mr Francis (Frank) William Sykes arrived at the Falls in May 1901, reporting for duty at Constitution Hill as the new District Commissioner.

“In May, 1901, on one of those bright clear mornings which follow each other with such commendable regularity on the high veld of Rhodesia during the winter months, I saddled up in Bulawayo for the Falls. In those days it was a ride of close upon three hundred miles [483 km]... We duly arrived at the wonderful Falls after a sixteen days’ journey. Although for some years afterwards duty or pleasure took me twice or thrice a week into the spray-zone of the Falls, one can never forget the first impression conveyed to the mind by that mighty avalanche of water hurled from the upper river into the seething abyss three hundred feet [91 m] below. It is the sensation of a lifetime.” (Sykes, 1909)

Conservation of the Falls

The District Commissioner on the north bank, Frank Sykes was also appointed the first Conservator of the Falls, responsible for the Falls Park established around the immediate area of the Falls on the north and south bank. The Chartered Company had been alerted to the need to take action to protect the natural environment of the Falls after it was rumoured in 1894 “that some enterprising individual [sadly un-named] was going to ‘peg out’ the land around the Falls and charge gate admittance” - an initiative they were keen to forestall.

“The Company wanted ‘immediate action’ to protect the Falls - and particularly its timber resources - from ‘disfigurement at the hands of transport riders, traders and others’ ...A park was designated around the waterfall itself, and a Conservator was appointed... Frank Sykes, who filled this post, was also Civil Commissioner for the Livingstone area.” (McGregor, 2003)

In June 1903 a brick house was being constructed for Mr Sykes at the growing Administrative camp on Constitution Hill, no doubt in anticipation of the arrival of his wife and daughter. The house, as with his role as Conservator, was jointly funded by the administrations north and south of the river.

“Sykes felt the landscape [at the Falls] needed to be manipulated to ‘excite the wonder of the onlooker’ and to maintain its ‘primitive charm.’ He felt it necessary to ‘open up views of the river by judiciously cutting down trees,’ ‘to fill up gaps by plantations’ and to enlarge hippopotami tracks which were ‘the only means of approach to some of the best points of view.’ He also wanted to charge admission, a proposal that was dismissed by the Company as impractical and ‘undignified.’” (McGregor, 2003)

The regulations protecting the environment of the Falls not only restricted over-enthusiastic ‘sportsmen’ from shooting animals, but also limited access to the river and Falls for the local Leya people. Sykes was later assisted by a Curator, Mr C E F Allen (Forester to the Rhodesia Railways and former employee of Kew Gardens), who was appointed in 1904.

Next page: Life at the Drift

Recommended Reading

Fuller, B. (1954) Bid Time Return. De Bussy, Holland.

Horizon (June 1963) Mopane Clarke - his name was Lobengula’s tribute.

McGregor, JoAnn (2003) The Victoria Falls 1900-1940: Landscape, Tourism and the Geographical Imagination, Journal of Southern African Studies, Volume 29, Number 3, September 2003 , pp. 717-737(21).

News From Barotsiland (April 1900) News of the Stations. Victoria Falls. No.8. Free download (external site).

News From Barotsiland (July 1900) News of the Stations. Victoria Falls. No.9.Free download (external site).

Phillipson, D. W (1975 & 1990) Mosi-oa-Tunya : A Handbook to the Victoria Falls Region Longman, Salisbury/Harare, Rhodesia/Zimbabwe

Sampson, R (1956) They Came to Northern Rhodesia. Being a record of persons who had entered what is now the Territory of Northern Rhodesia by 31st December, 1902. Lusaka: Northern Rhodesia Government.

Shepherd, G. (2008) Old Livingstone and Victoria Falls. Stenlake Publishing.

Sykes, F. W. (1909) The Riddle of the Zambezi. The Wide World Magazine. May 1909, p.116-126.

Vickery, K. P. (1986) Black and White in Southern Zambia: The Tonga Plateau Economy and British Imperialism, 1890-1939. Greenwood Press.

Watt, A. (undated) History of Livingstone (unpublished document held by Livingstone Museum, c1960s).

Further Reading

Roberts, P. (2020) Life and Death at the Old Drift, Victoria Falls, 1898-1905. Zambezi Book Company.

Life and Death at the Old Drift, Victoria Falls 1898-1905


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Discover the Victoria Falls with the Zambezi Book Company

'To The Victoria Falls' aims to bring you the wonder of the Victoria Falls through a look at its natural and human history.

This website has been developed using information researched from a wide variety of sources, including books, magazines and websites etc too numerous to mention or credit individually, although many key references are identified on our References page. Many of the images contained in this website have been sourced from old photographic postcards and publications and no infringement of copyright is intended. We warmly welcome any donations of photographs or information to this website.

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