Nothing in the imagination can quite prepare the first-time visitor for the pure shock of India. But, armed with a 130 rail pass and some hazy notion of a destination, BRIAN THOMPSON boards the '85 Down Madras Mail' with a few inward butterflies - but all South India to aim at. 
It is a five-day journey, through four states and as many languages. Across the mighty plains of the Deccan and Mysore, and high up into the Nilgiri Mountains, home of the Ooty Club and the legendary Nilgiri Express. 

Cape Town to the Victoria Falls - still the most romantic railway journey in Africa. 
MICHAEL WOOD, a young historian, follows the trail of the empire builder, Cecil Rhodes. His journey takes him through the great wilderness of the Karoo and the diamond fields of Kimberley to the gold city of Johannesburg and its sprawling offspring. Soweto. 
Leaving South Africa, Wood travels through Botswana around the edge of the Kalahari into a war, for, in December 1979, Zimbabwe-Rhodesia was still a battlefield as the politicians argued out a cease-fire agreement in London.