314 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



Four distinct attempts did our traveller make at various times 

 to reach the Zambesi Falls, and in each of the first three was he 

 destined to disappointment. His first effort was made in Sep- 

 tember, 1873, his fourth journey undertaken towards the close of 

 the following year ; nor was it until the last day of 1874 that he 

 actually beheld the white spray of the great cataract breaking 

 through the trees upon the rivers beneath. 



It is to be regretted that from the time of his reaching the 

 Zambesi till the date of his death, five weeks afterwards, the 

 entries in his journal are of the briefest description, for it has so 

 happened that the various accounts of these Falls furnished by 

 previous travellers — Livingstone, Baldwin, Baines, and Chapman 

 — were written in the dry season ; whereas the date of Frank 

 Oates's visit, viz., at the height of the rainy season, the river was 

 at its fullest, and the vegetation at its best. Unfortunately our 

 traveller delayed until too late committing his impressions to 

 paper in the shape of a written description, and only a few pencil 

 sketches and two water-colour drawings (reproduced in chronio- 

 lithography) are available to convey an idea — doubtless very in- 

 adequate — of the view which delighted him on reaching that goal 

 of his ambition. 



The river for some distance — at least two miles — above the 

 Falls is of great width, and flowing between hills some three 

 or four hundred feet in height, presents to the eye a smooth open 

 surface, dotted over by a number of picturesque tree-covered 

 islands. Where the Falls occur the river is upwards of a mile in 

 width, and the Falls extend the whole of this distance, their line 

 broken at intervals by dark projecting buttresses of rock, form- 

 ing, some of them, small islands with trees upon their tops ; 

 whilst others of much less size present merely a bare and jagged 

 surface. The actual height of the Falls, as estimated by Living- 

 stone, is about 360 feet from the top of the precipice to the 

 surface of the water in the abyss ; the columns of spray which 

 are driven upwards by the rush of air from the channel as the 

 water descends into this narrow space, ascending to a height 

 variously estimated at from six to eight hundred feet. It is these 

 vapour clouds which, visible at a distance of upwards of twenty 

 miles, as distinctly observed by Livingstone, mark the position of 

 the Falls long before the traveller approaches them. Frank 

 Oates distinguished them at a distance of about eighteen miles, 



