254 MATABELE LAND. 
absence of any further entries in his Journal of this 
period is the fact that all the accounts of the Falls 
yet published have been given by those who visited 
the river in the dry season of the year. Of this 
number Edward Mohr may have suffered least 
from this disadvantage, for he was there in June 
1870. Baines and Chapman were there together 
during parts of the months of July and August 1862 ; 
Livingstone was there, his first visit, in November 
1855, his second in August i860; and Baldwin, 
at the time of Livingstone's second visit. On both 
occasions when Livingstone was at the Falls, the 
river, he remarks, was very low ; and Chapman 
mentions that, when he and Baines were there, the 
water had recently fallen as much as seven feet. It 
remained for Frank Oates to visit the river at its 
fullest ; at the very height, in fact, of the rainy season ; 
but, unhappily, we are left without any results of his 
experience, except in the shape of a few pencil and 
two water-colour drawings he made upon the spot. 
The two latter have been selected for representation 
in this volume — one of them coloured, the other in 
the form of a woodcut. Before offering any explana- 
tion regarding these, it may be well to recall to the 
memory of the reader the main features of the Falls, 
as described by previous writers. 
The river for some distance — at least two miles 
— above the Falls is of great width, and, flowing be- 
tween 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. 
