180 THE ZAMBESI. CHAP. VII. 



foot of white cotton cloth were tied. One of ns lay with 

 his head over a projecting crag, and watched the descend- 

 ing calico, till, after his companions had paid ont 310 feet, 

 the weight rested on a sloping projection, probably 50 feet 

 from the water below, the actual bottom being still further 

 down. The white cloth now appeared the size of a crown- 

 piece. On measuring the width of this deep cleft by sex- 

 tant, it was found at Garden Island, its narrowest part, to 

 be eighty yards, and at its broadest somewhat more. Into 

 this chasm, of twice the depth of Niagara-fall, the river, a 

 full mile wide, rolls with a deafening roar ; and this is 

 Mosi-oa-tunya, or the Victoria Falls. 



Looking from Garden Island, down to the bottom of 

 the abyss, nearly half a mile of water, which has fallen 

 over that portion of the Falls to our right, or west of our 

 point of view, is seen collected in a narrow channel twenty 

 or thirty yards wide, and flowing at exactly right angles 

 to its previous course, to our left ; while the other half, 

 or that which fell over the eastern portion of the Falls, is 

 seen in the left of the narrow channel below, coming 

 towards our right. Both waters unite midway, in a fear- 

 ful boiling whirlpool, and find an outlet by a crack 

 situated at right angles to the fissure of the Falls. This 

 outlet is about 1170 yards from the western end of the 

 chasm, and some 600 from its eastern end ; the whirlpool 

 is at its commencement. The Zambesi, now apparently 

 not more than twenty or thirty yards wide, rushes and 

 surges south, through the narrow escape-channel for 130 

 yards ; then enters a second chasm somewhat deeper, and 

 nearly parallel with the first. Abandoning the bottom of 

 the eastern half of this second chasm to the growth of 

 large trees, it turns sharply off to the west, and forms a 

 promontory, with the escape-channel at its point, of 1170 

 yards long, and 416 yards broad at the base. After reach- 

 ing this base, the river runs abruptly round the head of 



