Chap. XII. MOSI-OA-TUNYA EXCELS NIAGARA. 257 



the atmosphere, or whatever the cause may be which 

 makes every drop of Zambesi water appear to possess a 

 sort of individuality. It runs off the ends of the paddles, 

 and glides in beads along the smooth surface, like drops 

 of quicksilver on a table. Here we see them in a con- 

 glomeration, each with a train of pure white vapour, racing- 

 down till lost in clouds of spray. A stone dropped in be- 

 came less and less to the eye, and at last disappeared in 

 the dense mist below. 



Charles Livingstone had seen Niagara, and gave Mosi-oa- 

 tunya the palm, though now at the end of a drought, and 

 the river at its very lowest. Many feel a disappointment 

 on first seeing the great American Falls, but Mosi-oa-tunya is 

 so strange, it must ever cause wonder. In the amount of 

 water, Niagara probably excels, though not during the 

 months when the Zambesi is in flood. The vast body of 

 water, separating in the comet-like forms described, neces- 

 sarily encloses in its descent a large volume of air, which, 

 forced into the cleft, to an unknown depth, rebounds, and 

 rushes up loaded with vapour to form the three or even 

 six columns, as if of steam, visible at the Batoka vil- 

 lage Moachemba, twenty-one miles distant. On attaining 

 a height of 200, or at most 300 feet from the level of the 

 river above the cascade, this vapour becomes condensed into 

 a perpetual shower of fine rain. Much of the spray, rising to 

 the west of Garden Island, falls on the grove of evergreen trees 

 opposite ; and from their leaves, heavy drops are for ever 

 falling, to form sundry little rills, which, in running down 

 the steep face of rock, are blown off and turned back, or 

 licked off their perpendicular bed, up into the column from 

 which they have just descended. 



The morning sun gilds these columns of watery smoke 



