Engulfed in water

      Falling down one of the highest waterfalls on earth (so far as I know on the Victoria Falls are appreciably higher) is not like toppling from the lofty side of a ship (which I’ve done) or from any other dry height. I say “dry” because being engulfed in water which is undoubtedly drowning you quite takes away the sensation of falling, and there is no shock of entering the water at the end of your enforced dive; you arrive cocooned in the stuff and borne into the depths in a state of complete confusion: you can see nothing but blinding light and hear nothing but continuous thunder, you can’t tell which is up and which is down, and only at the uttermost limit of your plunge does some inkling of your situation enter your consciousness and you begin to rise again.


Flashman on the March, p.142, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2005.


Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, waterfall.

The Great Bore of the Nile

. . . and thereby hangs a tale, which I first heard from Uliba as we crouched under the leaves of a baobab to shelter from the hailstorm, and again years later from the Great Bore of the Nile himself, Daft Dick Burton, at the Travellers’ Club.


Flashman on the March, p.131, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2005.


Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, Richard Burton.