The duration of our two months' holiday was rapidly approaching its close. My sister was recalled to England by social and other duties, and was so much better in health that we were deluded into thinking the wonderful air and bracing climate had effected a complete cure. After a short but very interesting visit to the Natal battle-fields, whither we were escorted by General Burn-Murdoch and Captain Henry Guest, we journeyed to Cape Town, and, regretfully turning our backs on warmth and sunshine, we landed once more in England on a dreary December day. FOOTNOTES: [42] Lieutenant the Hon. C.W.H. Cavendish, 17th Lancers, was killed at Diamond Hill, June 11, 1900. [43] Peace had been declared in the previous June. CHAPTER XVIII FOURTH VOYAGE TO THE CAPE--THE VICTORIA FALLS AND SIX WEEKS NORTH OF THE ZAMBESI[44] "We propose now to go on and cross the Zambesi just below the Victoria Falls. I should like to have the spray of the water over the carriages."--_Letter from the Right Hon. C.J. Rhodes to E.S. Grogan, Esq., September 7, 1900._[45] These words came to my mind as I sat under the verandah of one of the newly thatched huts which formed the camp of the Native Commissioner at Livingstone, Victoria Falls, on a glorious morning early in July, 1903, gazing at one of the fairest landscapes to be seen on God's earth. I was ostensibly occupied with my mail home, but the paper lay in all its virgin whiteness before me, while my eyes feasted on the marvellous panorama stretching away to the south, east, and west. My heart sank as I realized how difficult--nay, impossible--it would be for anyone with only a very limited vocabulary and very moderate powers of description to convey to those far away even a limited idea of this glorious vision--of these vivid colourings intensified by the lonely grandeur of the whole scene and the absence of human habitations.