Engineering Wonders of the World
Volume I

The erection of this great steel arch across the gorge of the Zambesi, just below the Victoria Falls, supplied a much-needed link in the Cape to Cairo Railway project. Besides being one of the loftiest bridges in the world, the Victoria Bridge is situated in a spot of unique beauty, and for that reason attracts the tourist as well as the engineer. DURING his first expedition down the Zambesi in 1855 Livingstone struck the mighty cataract which the natives called Mosioatunga—“ smoke sounds there ” —a name suggested by the Discovery roar of ^his greatest of the of the Falls world’s waterfalls, and by the columns of fine smoke - like spray which rise ever from the abyss, and, on attaining a height of from 200 to 300 feet above the upper water-level, condense into a perpetual shower of fine rain. In honour of his sovereign the explorer dubbed his dis- covery the Victoria Falls. Immediately above the Falls the Zambesi is a broad-flowing stream, more than a mile wide, with well-wooded islands. Suddenly the waters encounter a gigantic fissure of supposed vol- canic origin in the black basalt, and thunder vertically downwards through a distance of nearly 400 feet. From this chasm the water escapes through a narrow opening into a deep canon, which, zigzags southwards in a most extraordinary manner, as seen in our illustra- tions on pages 92 and 93. The upper surface of the canon is almost on a level with the upper bed of the Zambesi close to the Falls. Every traveller in South Africa nowadays includes in his programme, if he possibly can, a visit to these wonderful Falls, which relegate even Niagara to a second place. They are 1,641 miles from Cape Town by rail, and the journey, despite the conveni- ences of the train de luxe that runs twice a week, is long and the reward is sufficient to repay weariness and expense. The tourist gazes spellbound on this grand freak of nature ; and when his eye is sated with the splendours of the waterfall, he finds fresh food for admiration in the remark- able arch bridge which has been thrown across the chasm below the Falls. This bridge is vested with a romance of its own—first, by its proximity to the Falls ; second, by the fact that it is one of the loftiest, if not actu- The Falls and the Bridge. tedious. Yet