Vol. 65.] THE NEIGHBOURHOOD OF THE VICTOEIA FAILS. 393 



that river higher up ; and it forms a cliff 20 feet high near the drift 

 below the confluence of the Nansunzu. The bed of the Mararnba 

 is of basalt for several miles above this, and there are cliffs of 

 basalt 40 feet high on the left bank, and kopjes of amygdaloidal 

 basalt on the right bank still higher up the river. To the west 

 of it basalt soon disappears from view, and, in a well south-west 

 of Livingstone and about 2 miles from the Mararnba, it was not . 

 reached when 20 feet of red sand and 20 or 30 feet of silt with 

 pebbles had been passed through. No basalt is visible higher up 

 the Zambesi than the lower end of Loanda, an island 2 miles long 

 in the middle of the river, but it lies only a few feet beneath low 

 water near the upper end of that island. A mile higher up, at 

 Livingstone Drift, the river was 28 feet deep in July 1905, the 

 bottom being 2877 feet above sea-level. 1 Rocks appear at or near 

 low water not much higher up ; and above Candahar Island, at 

 about 7 miles above the Falls, the basalt rises above low-water 

 level, forming rapids that extend upwards for many miles. It 

 also rises there to a height of 100 feet on the right bank. The 

 whole width of the Zambesi is taken up by rocks, in some places 

 constituting weirs or overfalls for the water, in others rising a 

 foot or two above low water in tabular masses, with deep gullies 

 between, through which the water rushes. 



Little is known of the river above this. Near Kazungula, some 

 40 miles higher up, where the Linyanti River joins the Zambesi, 

 it appears from a photograph and description that there is a lagoon- 

 like reach with alluvial banks, similar to that below Candahar 

 Island. The river, dotted with islands, is described as majestic 

 and calm, 458 yards wide at the narrowest, and of considerable 

 depth, and towards the end of the wet season quite 100 yards 

 wider and more than 20 feet deeper. There are rapids above : 

 not far below they begin again, and the river for some 40 miles 

 down to Candahar Island is not navigable. 2 About 3 miles above 

 the lower end of the rapids the Sinde River from the north falls 

 into the Zambesi, after flowing between ' small stony kopjes/ 

 presumably of basalt. It rises in the same high ground as the 

 Mararnba, to be more particularly described, and may resemble it, 

 but it was unfortunately out of my reach. 



The character of the Zambesi near the Victoria Falls has been 

 determined by the way in which the basalt lies. A succession 

 of rapids, extending over many miles, and ending near Candahar 

 Island, is succeeded by a magnificent reach of smooth water, 

 flowing, when not in flood, at about half a mile an hour, nearly 



5 miles long and a quarter to half a mile wide. The banks, rising 

 10 to 15 feet above low-water level, are of a grey sandy silt with 



1 Railway-datum is referred to when heights above sea-level are stated. 



2 A. St. H. Gibbons, Geogr. Journ. vol. ix (1897) p. 121, and 'Exploration 



6 Hunting in Central Africa ' p. 204 ; A. Bertrand, ' The Kingdom of the 

 Barotsi ' 1899, p. 186, &e. 



