To The Victoria Falls
Development of the Victoria Falls
The following text is adapted from 'Footsteps Through Time - A History of Travel and Tourism to the Victoria Falls', researched and written by Peter Roberts and published in 2017. Please visit the Zambezi Book Company website for more information.
Tourism in the Twenties
The 1920s brought more visitors to the Falls, and it was not uncommon for cruise ship passengers to take the train from Cape Town to Victoria Falls, stay a couple of nights and return, a journey of 57 hours.
Following her first visit to the Falls shortly before the arrival of the railway in 1903, Catherine Mackintosh returned to the Zambezi in 1920, sailing to the Cape on the Union Castle ‘Saxon.’ Travelling by train to Bulawayo and then on to the Falls, Mackintosh compared the journey to her previous trek in 1903 and contrasted the many changes at the Falls since her earlier visit.
“We reached Victoria Falls station, near the hotel, on the south side of the Zambesi gorges, at 8.15 a.m. on Friday, June 11th, having left Bulawayo at 1pm the day before. In 1903, our light spring cart (not a waggon) took us from before dawn on August 24th, Monday, till mid-day on the following Saturday. Now there is a little station at the Falls, and the hotel is seen through the forest, as if standing in its own park. My companions alighted here, as did most of the passengers... After a long halt, the train started again and we were summoned to breakfast (and glad of it!). Another halt; the train whistled to warn foot-passengers and waited for them to clear off the bridge, and then we found ourselves crossing it, lashed by the spray from the Falls, at that moment thundering down in fullest flow.”
On exploring the Falls Mackintosh noted:
All is now tidied up, paths constructed and marked with white stones, rustic seats pavilioned with thatch placed at the right view-points. One can't say that, in this respect, the change is for the better ; one feels no more the thrill of the wilderness, but it is something to have seen it again before the gorges are lined with turbines, the banks with factories and the forests cleared for cotton fields, as may possibly be the case some day or other. [Note: The Company's Charter and Trust Deeds of the Victoria Falls Power Company contains the most stringent safeguards for the beauty of the Falls and the environment.] Moreover, the custodians jealously guard the natural beauties, and certainly all these changes make for the greatest happiness of a greater number, including the fairly numerous tourists who had come up in our train and were already (some of them) walking about with cameras. No shooting is allowed for five miles round, so that baboons and hippos disport themselves audaciously and sometimes alarmingly. The very next week the latter attacked a boat full of tourists and bit a piece out of it! We looked down into the winding gorges. Their rocky sides formerly clothed with forests had been denuded in part by brushwood fires, due either to carelessness or malice. Part of the Rain Forest in front of the Cataract has also suffered in the same way. Every one is very sad about it. (Mackintosh, 1922)
Main Street Bulawayo 1920s
A Visit from the ‘Queen of Crime’
Agatha Christie, the ‘Queen of Crime’ and murder mystery fiction writing, stayed at the Victoria Falls Hotel during a tour of southern Africa in March 1922, accompanied her first husband, Archibald Christie. She based her third novel, ‘The Man in the Brown Suit’ (1924) on her travels, the climax of which finds her leading characters at the Falls Hotel.
Creewel records of Christie’s visit:
“Mr Pare, had the honour of escorting her around. He no doubt presented her with a small animal carved from vegetable ivory, a local souvenir for which he was well known locally, and it has been suggested that he may be the person on whom she based the character of Harry Rayburn, who appeared in one of her later novels.” (Creewel, 2004)
End of the Charter
In the early 1920s the BSAC and British Government began negotiations over the future of the Rhodesias following the end of the Company’s Royal Charter. Many concluded that Southern Rhodesia would become part of the Union of South Africa, and detailed proposals were drawn up in Johannesburg (even including the drafting of postage stamps showing the Victoria Falls). A referendum was held in Southern Rhodesia on 27th October 1922, giving a choice of establishing responsible government or joining the Union. With 59% voting in favour Southern Rhodesia was granted self-governing status on 1st October 1923. Northern Rhodesia became a British Protectorate in on 1st October 1924, setting the two countries on very different paths to eventual independence.
The first commercial Cape to Cairo tour was organised by Thomas Cook and Sons in January 1922, for which the appeal was that "the spirit of wild places can only be grasped on trek", and in which the Victoria Falls was a notable stopover.
From Far and Wide
In 1925 American South African Lines (renamed Farrell Lines in 1948), initiated a regular service from New York to South Africa stopping at Cape Town, Port Elizabeth and Durban. A growing North American market developed with the launch of round-the-world cruises, such as the 96-day ‘Great African Cruise’ undertaken from New York in 1926, including stops in South America, South Africa and Europe.
“Efforts were being made to foster the tourist trade and in 1926, in conjunction with the SAR [South African Railways], two special trains carrying 350 American tourists from a world-cruise liner included visits to Bulawayo and Victoria Falls, the parties staying at the Falls Hotel for a couple of nights. The success of this tour, to be the forerunner of many more, led to the enlarging of the hotel. Another fifty bedrooms were built, with bathrooms and other facilities, along with modern station offices in a style to harmonise with the hotel.” (Croxton, 1982)
The Farrell Line was a passenger/cargo line in regular service from New York to South Africa stopping at Cape Town, Port Elizabeth, Durban and Lourenço Marques (Maputo) in Mozambique.
Between 1926 and 1939 more than thirty North American cruise liners were met by fifty luxury special train services, transporting some 5,000 wealthy tourists from ports into southern Africa, with the Victoria Falls on nearly everybody’s schedule (Pirie, 2011). Victor Pare, manager of the Falls Hotel’s tourism services, described the reactions of transatlantic voyagers, often drawing comparisons with Niagara Falls.
“Tourists from the United States, when asked what they thought of the Victoria Falls, have time and again declared that they found them beyond all description. Some said they were the most transcendently beautiful natural phenomenon on this earth. Another said: ‘They sure make Niagara look like a trickle of sweat.’ One prominent American cabled to Buffalo: ‘Scrap Niagara. It’s out of date.’” (Pare, 1926)
Arrival of Zambesi Express at Bulawayo
Dirt Roads
During the period 1925 to 1928, a dirt road was constructed between Bulawayo and Victoria Falls, providing access to the area for the growing number of regional travellers journeying by motor-car. By 1931 a Motor Service Station had been developed close to the Falls Hotel, offering running repairs and spare parts.
“Only a limited amount of growth occurred in the decade between 1920 and 1930. Further additions were made to the Police Camp in 1921 and to the existing hotel buildings. Within the Railway Reserve, additional housing, government buildings and an African location were constructed west of the railway line and, towards the end of this period, a garage was built by the Railways in the north east portion of the Reserve... a curator’s cottage was constructed [in 1926] between the Railway Reserve and the Police Camp. At the same time, land was set aside for an African village to the west of the surveyed township.” (Heath, 1977)
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Recommended Reading
Creewel, J. (2004) A history of the Victoria Falls Hotel - 100 years 1904-2004. [Edited and updated by Stan Higgins. Originally published in 1994 as ‘A history of the Victoria Falls Hotel - 90 Glorious Years 1904-1994.’]
Croxton, A. H. (1982) Railways of Zimbabwe (First published in 1973 as Railways of Rhodesia). David & Charles.
Heath, R. A. (1977) Victoria Falls. The Growth of a Rhodesian Village. Proceedings of the Geographical Association of Rhodesia, No.10, p.15-29.
Mackintosh C W (1922) The new Zambesi trail ; a record of two journeys to North-Western Rhodesia (1903 and 1920). Unwin, London. Free download.
Martin, D. (1997) Victoria Falls: Mosi-oa-Tunya African Publishing Group, Harare.
Pare, V. B. (1926) One of God Almighty’s Grandest Sermons - What Visitors Think of the Victoria Falls. The Rhodesia Annual.
Pirie, G. H. (2011) Elite Exoticism: Sea-rail Cruise Tourism to South Africa, (1926–1939). Journal of African Historical Review, Vol.43, p.73-99.
Further Reading
Roberts, P. (2021) Footsteps Through Time - A History of Travel and Tourism to the Victoria Falls. Zambezi Book Company.
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'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.
Website text © Copyright Peter Roberts 2012, All Rights Reserved.
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