THE NIAGARA OF AFRICA. 217 



call the wonder Mosioatunya, " smoke sounding." But Living- 

 stone called it Victoria. "After twenty minutes sail from 

 Kalai," he writes, " we came in sight, for the first time, of the 

 columns of vapor appropriately called ' smoke/ rising at a dis- 

 tance of five or six miles, exactly as when large tracts of grass 

 are burned in Africa. Five columns now arose, and, bending 

 in the direction of the wind, they seemed placed against a low 

 ridge covered with trees ; the tops of the columns at this distance 

 appeared to mingle with the clouds. They were white below, 

 and higher up became dark, so as to simulate smoke very 

 closely. The whole scene was extremely beautiful ; the banks 

 and islands dotted over the river are adorned with sylvan vege- 

 tation of great variety of color and form. At the period of 

 our visit several trees were spangled over with blossoms. Trees 

 have each their own physiognomy. There, towering over all, 

 stands the great burly baobab, each of whose enormous arms 

 would form the trunk of a large tree, beside groups of graceful 

 palms, which, with their feathery-shaped leaves depicted on the 

 sky, lend their beauty to the scene. As a hieroglyphic 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 

 cypress-form is dotted over at present with its pleasant scarlet 

 fruit. Some trees resemble the great spreading oak, others as- 

 sume the character 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 European eyes; 

 but scenes so lovely must have been gazed upon by angels in 

 their flight. The only want felt is that of mountains in the 

 background. The falls are bounded on three sides by ridges 

 three or four hundred feet in height, which are covered with 

 forests and with red soil appearing among the trees. 



" When about half a mile from the falls, I left the canoe in 

 which we had come that far, and embarked in a smaller 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 

 the 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 



