"THE SMOKE THAT THUNDERS" REALLY, REALLY THUNDERS!

Victoria Falls is as it was when explorer-missionary, Dr. David Livingstone became the first European to experience its embrace. The prosaic but sensitive Scotsman was so overwhelmed by his first sight of the great falls that he momentarily abandoned his pragmatic scientific observations and thoughtfully stated, "It had never been seen before by European eyes," he wrote as the spray from the falls soaked him and his notebook, "but scenes so lovely must have been gazed upon by angels in their flight." And it is overwhelming--the magnificence of it all reportedly has lured many to their deaths--either accidentally or suicidally. Like North America's Niagara Falls, Victoria Falls has maintained a mythical, mysterious past that is linked to the present--unlike any place on earth I have ever visited.