CHAP. VII. GREAT DEPTH OF THE FALLS. 179 



Falls. On reaching that lip, and peering over the giddy 

 height, the wondrous and unique character of the magni- 

 ficent cascade at once burst upon us. 



It is rather a hopeless task to endeavour to convey an 

 idea of it in words, since, as was remarked on the spot, an 

 accomplished painter, even by a number of views, could 

 but impart a faint impression of the glorious scene. The 

 probable mode of its formation may perhaps help to the 

 conception of its peculiar shape. Niagara has been formed 

 by a wearing back of the rock over which the river falls ; 

 and during a long course of ages, it has gradually receded, 

 and left a broad, deep, and pretty straight trough in front. 

 It goes on wearing back daily, and may yet discharge the 

 lakes from which its river — the St. Lawrence — flows. 

 But the Victoria Falls have been formed by a crack right 

 across the river, in the hard, black, basaltic rock which 

 there formed the bed of the Zambesi. The lips of the 

 crack are still quite sharp, save about three feet of the edge 

 over which the river rolls. The walls go sheer down from 

 the lips without any projecting crag, or symptoms of strati- 

 fication or dislocation. When the mighty rift occurred, 

 no change of level took place in the two parts of the 

 bed of the river thus rent asunder, consequently, in coming 

 down the river to Garden Island, the water suddenly dis- 

 appears, and we see the opposite side of the cleft, with 

 grass and trees growing where once the river ran, on the 

 same level as that part of its bed on which we sail. The 

 first crack is, in length, a few yards more than the breadth 

 of the Zambesi, which by measurement we found to be a 

 little over 1860 yards, but this number we resolved to 

 retain as indicating the year in which the Fall was for the 

 first time carefully examined. The main stream here runs 

 nearly north and south, and the cleft across it is nearly 

 east and west. The depth of the rift was measured by 

 lowering a line, to the end of which a few bullets and a 



