330 VICTORIA FALLS. 



on the sky, lend their beauty to the scene. As a hiero- 

 glyphic they always mean " far from home/' for one can 

 never get over their foreign air in a picture or landscape. 

 The silvery mohonono — which in the tropics is in form like 

 the cedar of Lebanon — stands in pleasing contrast with the 

 dark color of the motsouri, whose C} r press-forin is dotted 

 over at present with its pleasant scarlet fruit. Some trees 

 resemble the great spreading oak; others assume the cha- 

 racter of our own elms and chestnuts; but no one can 

 imagine the beauty of the view from any thing Witnessed 

 in England. It had never been seen before by Loiropean 

 eyes; but scenes so lovely must have been gazed upon by 

 angels in their flight. The only want felt is that of moun- 

 tains in the background. The falls are boundeu on three 

 3ides by ridges three hundred or four hundred feet in 

 height, which are covered with forest, with the red soil 

 appearing among the trees. When about half a, mile from 

 the falls, I left the canoe by which we had come down 

 thus far, and embarked in a lighter one, with men well 

 acquainted with the rapids, who, by passing down the 

 centre of the stream in the eddies and still places caused 

 by many jutting rocks, brought me to an island situated in 

 the middle of the river and on the edge of the lip over 

 which the water rolls. In coming hither there was danger 

 Df being swept down by the streams which rushed along 

 Dn each side of the island; but the river was now low, and 

 we sailed where it is totally impossible to go when the 

 water is high. But, though we had reached the island, 

 and were within a few yards of the spot a view from 

 which would solve the whole problem, I believe that no 

 one could perceive where the vast bodj of water went : it 

 seemed to lose itself in the earth, the opposite lip of the 

 fissure into which it disappeared being only eighty feet 

 distant. At least I did not comprehend it until, creeping 

 with awe to the verge, I peered down into a large rent 

 which had been made from bank to bank of the broad 

 Zambesi, and saw that a stream of a thousand yards broad 



