Dear Tom
Everything just right, With
char ( *pchararray )[NUMCOLS];
your declare pointer to array of strings, but you do not allocate any memory on heap.

The statement
pchararray = new char [NUMROWS][NUMCOLS] ;
allocates the array of strings ( actually NUMROWS of srings, each one of NUMCOLS
lenght ), then the
delete[] pchararray;
frres this array.
Igor