3-021-717 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Travelling in Africa: cutting a road for the waggons, 1868. Engraving of a sketch by Mr. Thomas Baines, '...illustrating his personal experiences, in company with Mr. James Chapman, when travelling across the African continent, in 1861 and 1862, from Walvisch Bay, on the west coast, to the Victoria Falls of the Zambesi, and thence to Logier Hill. Here they had intended to embark in a boat on the river and to descend its course to the eastern shore of Africa, but were baffled by unforeseen difficulties and compelled to return to the Cape colony. The manner of travelling, with their baggage, implements, and provisions carried in waggons drawn by ten or twelve oxen, and accompanied by a mob of Damaras pretending to be the white man's servants, has been frequently described. It is sometimes found necessary, where the trackless way is impeded by thick vegetation, to employ all hands, for many hours, in cutting down the bushes and other sturdy plants which cumber the ground in the neighbourhood of lakes and rivers...Twelve miles a day, on the whole, is a fair rate of travelling in this wilderness of Central Africa, without reckoning the accidental detentions, for several days at a time, which cannot well be avoided'. From "Illustrated London News", 1868.