Henry J. Neils’
Travelogue of 1959 Great World Cruise
Henry J. Neils was a businessman from Minneapolis. He wrote a daily diary of his voyage on the 1959 Great World cruise. Presumably, the 30 faded typewritten sheets had been duplicated for distribution to his employees.
The transcribed document now forms 25 pages of the Timeline, accessible from links on the January, February, March and April 1959 month pages. This was the first special feature to be added to the Timeline as it entered its 2nd year of being on-line.
Henry's quoted text throughout the site start with this indicator: H.J.N.…
Henry J Neils’ Travelogue 14 February 1959
Victoria Falls
H.J.N.…
Altitude: 2,994 Feet
Travelling from Kimberley, more prairie, with ant hills six to eight feet high of brown clay. (termite mounds?) Native
villages of round huts (they probably got the idea from the ants) of clay, with a roof of elephant grass nicely braided
together to make it watertight, still allowing for ventilation, but giving good protection from the hot sun.
At 5.45am, quite a commotion on the train. The engineer gave the whistle alarm. There were elephants and wildebeest crossing the track.
Arrived at Victoria Falls shortly after noon, had lunch at the hotel, and then on a bus tour to see the world-famous falls. Unfortunately it had rained quite hard, and the sky was still overcast.
Pictures ware taken from every view, but may not show much. The updraft caused by the tremendous volume of plunging water causes a heavy mist to rise and obscures the falls.
Nature's most dramatic spectacle
Image: 1955 Cook's Tours brochure
H.J.N.…
On Sunday, the sun broke through the fog and better conditions prevailed! This morning I was awakened at 5.30am to join
in a flight by aeroplane into the veld, to take pictures of game animals. We waited at the airport for an hour till
the fog lifted.
Then the twin engine bi-plane took eight passengers and the reserve R.A.F. pilot about seventy-five miles over more prairie and wooded areas. We saw and photographed many species of animals.
The pilot was an expert in manoeuvring the plane into position for passengers on each side to get their shots. On return he followed the Zambesi River for fifty-five miles just above the surface of the water in and out of the bends in the river. Just like Cinerama.
When reaching the falls, he climbed to 1,000 feet and gave us a beautiful chance to get pictures with the eastern sun shining down the canyon, with a gorgeous rainbow arching from the depths to the top of the high column of vapour generated by the falling water of the falls, estimated at 75 million gallons per minute.
At 4.00pm, back to the train and rock and roll on the narrow gauge railway after one night's rest in a steady bed at the hotel. All night, the next-day and the next night. What a big country, and we have seen only one-tenth of it.