Around Mother Africa Long Walk Original Manuscript (Image #446)

countries were than called. Most of the African employees came from Southern Rhodesia and at that time Joshua Nkomo was at the height of his popularity. I asked them about him and in the course of our conversation told them we were together in South Africa and that we were friends. They all thought highly of him and regaled us with some of his exploits as a fighter for the liberation of their country. The discovery that we were his friend made us special guests. We took our meals in our rondavel and I suspect that we received better treatment than the owner of the hotel. Throughout the night our sleep was interrupted by the roar of a lion and lacking experience of bush life, it seemed to us to be lurking a few yards away from the rondavel. All toilet facilities were outside and none of us dared venture out until daybreak. Early the next morning we took off for Mbeya, a Tanganyikan town on the Northern Rhodesian border. It was a clear and beautiful day and all sides we could see far out into the distant horizons. I was keen to see the famous Victoria Falls in Livingstone on the Zambezi but did not have the courage to ask the pilot to deviate from the route for the purpose and I was content to see then at a glance some distance below to our right. We passed Lusaka on our left and sometime thereafter sighted some mountain range ahead of us. It seemed to me that at the height at which we were flying we would not be able to clear the mountains. But as we approached we could see a neck through wich we passed. At the beginning of our flight we were in radio contact with Gaborone police until we entered Northern Rhodesia when Lusaka provided us with weather information. Before we reached this