348 Drs. Dixey and Longstaff’s Observations 
and a shrubby Jpomexa was at the time of our visit the 
most striking flower. Here and there towered the monstrous 
Baobab tree, Adansonia digitata, with stem like an inverted 
carrot. The first leaves on the commoner forest trees 
spread an emerald tint suggestive of spring and affording 
a refreshing contrast to the parched herbage and scorching 
sand. 
Opposite to the Falls is the “Rain Forest,” poetically 
called by the Barotse “The place where the rain is born.” 
This stretches along the cleft for three-quarters of a mile, 
not counting the similar growths on the “ Knife-Edge.” 
Between the Rain Forest proper and the edge of the 
chasm, where the spray is most drenching, is a strip of 
coarse boggy grass and herbage looking for all the world 
like a bit of Exmoor into which the bright blue flowers of 
Lobelia erinus have escaped from some parterre. The forest 
proper, from 50 to perhaps 300 yards wide, is of varied 
growth, in which large specimens of Ficus with their 
characteristic stems are a prominent feature; but towards 
the Falls it is bounded by a dense hedge of very bright 
green trees, Hugenia cordata, an evergreen of the myrtle 
tribe. The amount of spray, or “Rain,” naturally varies 
with the height of the water and the force and direction 
of the wind. A sound that one soon learns to associate 
with the ceaseless roar of the cataract and the pattering 
of the spray-drops on the forest leaves is the musical cry 
of the “emerald-spotted dove” (Chalcopelia afra).* 
We saw the Falls at a period of low water, but if this 
detracts from their grandeur, and above all from their 
characteristic mystery (by the shrinking of the spray 
columns), it enables one to see them better and so better 
comprehend their weird topography. But though the 
most absorbed collector cannot fail to be impressed by 
such unwonted surroundings, this is not the place to 
dwell upon the majesty of the Falls themselves, or the 
airy beauty of the brillant rainbows that attend them 
by day or their more ghostly representatives in the 
moonlight. 
Two pre-eminent impressions remain graven upon the 
memory—a vast river over a mile in width, dotted with 
* For an excellent account of the botany of Southern Rhodesia, 
with a good description of the Matopo Hills and the country about 
the Falls, see a paper by Miss L. 8. Gibbs, F.L.S., Journal Linnean 
Soc. 1906, pp. 425-494. 
