Higher than the Victoria Falls, and more than double the height of Niagara, the Great Falls of the Orange lack the spectacular beauty of either of its famous rivals. Impressive they are, but the impression they leave is of terror rather than of pleasure, of awe rather than of beauty. There is no “fern forest” such as lends romance to the Zambesi fall; on all sides nothing but riven, shattered rock, sheer precipice, and giant buttress, a nightmare of barrenness, of desolation so appalling that one might well be standing in some other planet, some dead world from which all sign of life had long since vanished. The vegetation of the side-streams is hidden by the chaos of rocks near the brink of the cañon, and animal and bird life there is none, for all live things seem to shun the spot. This absence of vegetation and of life makes it additionally hard to realise the stupendous height of the main fall; the enormous smooth cliff opposite, the giant boulders, all confusing one’s sense of proportion. Discovered by the traveller George Thompson in 1824, they were named by him the “Falls of King George,” but are generally known as the “Great Falls”; whilst to the writer’s way of thinking, their native name of “Aughrabies” is far more fitting than either of the others. Gloomy and terrifying as was the spot, it fascinated us and we could not tear ourselves away, but sat and watched the thunderous, ever-changing chaos of falling foam, speculating on what sight it would present in flood-time; and with the thought came the reflection that the Orange often rises 20 feet or so in an hour or two, and that we had been sitting there some hours already, and that a couple of feet would maroon us beyond all hope! I mentioned this great thought to the others, and the “time” we did back to the first and worst side-stream would, I am sure, have done credit to any athletic meeting’s records. Some day, when civilisation shall have spread so far, there will of course be safe bridges over these side-channels, and mankind will be given an opportunity of seeing what no man yet can possibly have seen at close quarters and lived, the Orange River in flood, filling not only its self-worn channel, but spreading all over the lip of that nightmare of an abyss in one appalling maelstrom. Anyway, we got back safely, though sure enough the water had risen a good 6 inches since we crossed it before, and it was time to get going, for we were after better things than waterfalls; and bidding good-bye to Oberholzer, who prophesied our return, beaten, within a couple of days, we started again towards the blue peaks that beckoned to us from the German Border.