2l8 



NATURE 



{July -, 1 88 1 



in personal appearance as they are in habits. The Am- 

 buelln, for instance, is a black of the type of the Cau- 

 casian race ; the JUicassequere is a white of the type of 

 the Hottentot race in all its hideousness. Many of our 

 sailors, browned by the sun and beaten by the winds of 

 many a storm, are darker than the Mucassequeres, whose 

 complexion besides has so much of dirty yellow in it as to 

 make the ugliness more repulsive. I regret exceedingly 

 my inability to obtain more precise data concerning this 

 curious race, which I consider to be worthy the special 

 attention of anthropologists and ethnographers. In my 

 opinion this branch of the Ethiopic race may be classi- 

 fied in the group of the Hottentot division. ' In form it 

 possesses many of the characteristics of the latter, 

 and we may observe in this peculiar race a sensible 

 variation in the colour of the skin. The Bushmen 

 to the south of the Calaari are very fair of hue, 

 and I have noticed some who were almost wliite. 

 They are low of stature and thin of body, but exhibit 

 all the characteristics of the Hottentot type. To the 

 north of that same desert tract, more especially about 

 the salt-lakes, there is another nomad race, that of the 

 Massaruas, strongly built, of lofty stature, and of a deep 

 black, who possess the same Hottentot type, and who 

 indubitably belong to the same group. I was told on 

 the Cuchibi that between the Cubango and the Cuando, 

 but a good deal to th' south, there existed another race, 

 in every respect similar to the Mucassequeres, both in 

 type and habits, but of a deep black colour. In con- 

 sideration therefore of the affinity of character, I have 

 no hesitation in admitting that the Hottentot group of the 

 Ethiopic raoe extends to the north of the Cape as far as 

 the country lying between the Cubango and the Cuando, 

 passing through sundry modifications of colour and 

 stature, due probably to the conditions under which they 

 live, to altitude, to the great difference of latitude, or even 

 to other causes that are less apparent." 



By the time Major Pinto reached the Barotse territory 

 and fell in with the hospitable missionary family Coillard, 

 he had got on to comparatively well-known ground, 

 though the interest of his story is sustained to the very 

 end ; and even here he succeeds in adding something to 

 our knowledge of the countries through which he passed. 

 His visit to the Great Falls of the Zambesi, and his illus- 

 trations taken from various points, are a material addition 

 to what we know of them from the narratives of Living- 

 stone and Mohr. Some of his observations are worth 

 quoting, especially as, under circumstances of the greatest 

 danger, he succeeded in making a fairly accurate survey. 

 " Mozi-oa-tunia " is a Basuto word, meaning " the smoke 

 is rising," " so that it is very easy to suppose how a name, 

 common among the natives and apparently so apt and 

 appropriate, came to be given by strangers to the cataract 

 itself 



" Mozi-oa-tunia is neither more nor less than a long 

 trough, a gigantic crevasse, the sort of chasm for which 

 was invented the word abyss — an abyss profound and 

 monstrous into which the Zambesi precipitates itself 

 bodily to an extent of 1978 yards. The cleft in the 

 basaltic rocks which form the northern wall of the abyss 

 is perfectly traceable, running east and west. Parallel 

 thereto, another enormous wall of basalt, standing upon 

 the same level, and no yards distant from it, forms the 

 opposite side of the crevasse. The feet of these huge 

 moles of black basalt form a channel through which the 

 river rushes after its fall, a channel which is certainly 

 much narrower than the upper aperture, but whose width 

 it is impossible to measure. In the southern wall, and 

 about three-fifth parts along it, the rock has been riven 

 asunder, and forms another gigantic chasm, perpen- 

 dicular to the first ; which chasm, first taking a westerly 

 curve and subsequently bending southwards and then 

 eastwards, receives the river and conveys it in a capri- 

 cious zigzag through a perfect maze of rocks. The great 



northern wall of the cataract over which the water flows 

 is in places perfectly vertical, with few or none of those 

 breaks or irregularities that one is accustomed to see 

 under such circumstances. .An enormous volcanic con- 

 vulsion must have rent the rock asunder and prduced 

 the huge abyss into which one of the largest riv^-rs in the 

 world precipitates itself. Undoubtedly the powerful 

 wearing of the waters has greatly modified the surface of 

 the rocks, but it is not difficult for an obsen'ant eye to 

 discover clearly that those deep scarps, now separated 

 from each other, must at one time have been firmly united. 

 The Zambesi, encountering upon its way the crevasse 

 to which we have alluded, rushes into it in three grand 

 cataracts, because a couple of islands which occupy two 

 great spaces in the northern wall divide the stream into 

 three separate branches. The first cataract is formed by 

 a branch which passes to the south of the first island, an 

 island which occupies, in the right angle assumed by the 

 upper part of the cleft, the extreme west. This branch or 

 arm consequently precipitates itself in the confined space 

 open on the western side of the rectangle. It is 196 feet 

 wide and has a perpendicular fall of 262 feet, tumbling 

 into a basin whence the water overflows to the bottom 

 of the abyss, there to unite itself to the rest in rapids 

 and cascades that are almost invisible, owing to the 

 thick cloud of vapour which envelopes the entire foot of 

 the Falls. The island which separates that branch of 

 the river is covered with the richest vegetation, the leafy 

 shrubs extending to the very edge along which the water 

 rushes, and presenting a most, marvellous prospect. 

 This is the smallest of the Falls, but it is the most 

 beautiful, or, more correctly speaking, the only one that 

 is really beautiful, for all else at Mozi-oa-tunia is sub- 

 limely horrible. That enormous gulf, black as is the 

 basalt which forms it, dark and dense as is the cloud 

 which enwraps it, would have been chosen, if known in 

 biblical times, as an image of the infernal regions, a hell 

 of water and darkness, more terrible perhaps than the 

 hell of fire and light. Continuing our examination of the 

 cataract, we find that the beginning of the northern wall, 

 which starts from the western cascade, is occupied to an 

 extent of some 218 yards by the island I have before 

 alluded to, and which confines that branch of the rivet 

 that constitutes the first Fall. It is the only point whence 

 the entire wall is visible, simply because along that space 

 of 218 yards the vapour does not completely conceal the 

 depths. It was at that point I took my first measurements, 

 and by means of two triangles I found the upper width 

 of the rift to be 32S feet, and the perpendicular height of 

 the wall 393 feet. This vertical height is even greater 

 further to the eastward, because the trough goes on 

 deepening to the channel through which the river escapes 

 to the south. At that point likewise I obtained data for 

 measuring the height. In my first measurements I 

 had as my base the side of 328 feet, found to be the 

 upper width of the rift ; but it was necessary to see 

 the foot of the wall, and I had to risk my life to do 

 so. After the first island, where I made my measure- 

 ments, comes the chief part of the cataract, being the 

 portion comprised between the above island and Garden 

 Island. In that spot the main body of the water rushes 

 into the abyss in a compact mass, 1312 feet in length, 

 and there, as is natural, we find the greatest depth. 

 Then follows Garden Island, with a frontage of 132 feet 

 to the rift, and afterwards the third Fall, composed of 

 dozens of falls which occupy the entire space between 

 Garden Island and the eastern extremity of the wall. 

 This third Fall must be the most important in the rainy 

 season, when the masses of rock which at other times 

 divide the stream are concealed, and but one unbroken 

 and enormous cataract meets the eye. As the water which 

 runs from the two first falls and fr.im part of the third 

 near Garden Island rushes eastward, it meets the re- 

 mainder of the third Fall coursing west, and the result 



