Seventy years ago Percy Clark took two weeks to make the trip from Bulawayo to the Victoria Falls on the Zambesi river, travelling to the rallhead by construction train, then by ox-wagon and finally by foot, with 18 porters to carry his belongings. Settling at the Falls in 1903, he became the first white resident. The "Old Drift", some five miles upstream of the gorge, was in those days the "port of entry" between the southern and northern territories of Rhodesia and comprised a few small trading stores and about a dozen white men who came to be called "Old Drifters". It was a lonely, fever-ridden spot which took its toll on the settlers. Percy Clark, however, managed to survive. Eventually, he set up a curio shop which, during his 33 years at the Falls, became known to travellers the world over. Clark's was an adventurous and eventful life, and this lively record of his days on the Zambesi is full of incident. He was one of the most colourful of the Rhodesian old-timers, a "character" with a ready wit whose reminiscences graphically evoke a rough and romantic era. As a professional photographer he took pictures of Cecil Rhodes, of the coming of the railway, the building of the Falls bridge, and of his trip up-river by dug-out canoe to visit the Barotse Royal Family.

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