182 DESCRIPTION OF THE FALLS. CHAP. VII. 



and brilliant rainbows of three-quarters of a circle, two, 

 three, and sometimes even four in number, resting on the 

 face of the vast perpendicular rock, down which tiny 

 streams are always running to be swept again back by 

 the upward rushing vapour. But as, at Niagara, one has 

 to go over to the Canadian shore to see the chief wonder 

 — the Great Horse-shoe Fall — so here we have to cross 

 over to Moselekatse's side to the promontory of evergreens, 

 for the best view of the principal Falls of Mosi-oa-tunya. 

 Beginning, therefore, at the base of this promontory, and 

 facing the Cataract, at the west end of the chasm, there 

 is, first, a fall of thirty-six yards in breadth, and of course, 

 as they all are, upwards of 310 feet in depth. Then 

 Boaruka, a small island, intervenes, and next comes a 

 great fall, with a breadth of 573 yards ; a projecting rock 

 separates this from a second grand fall of 325 yards broad ; 

 in all, upwards of 900 yards of perennial Falls. Further 

 east stands Garden Island ; then, as the river was at its 

 lowest, came a good deal of the bare rock of its bed, with 

 a score of narrow falls, which, at the time of flood, consti- 

 tute one enormous cascade of nearly another half-mile. 

 Near the east end of the chasm are two larger falls, but 

 they are nothing at low water compared to those between 

 the islands. 



The whole body of water rolls clear over, quite un- 

 broken ; but, after a descent of ten or more feet, the entire 

 mass suddenly becomes like a huge sheet of driven snow. 

 Pieces of water leap off it in the form of comets with tails 

 streaming behind, till the whole snowy sheet becomes 

 myriads of rushing, leaping, aqueous comets. This pecu- 

 liarity was not observed by Charles Livingstone at Nia- 

 gara, and here it happens, possibly from the dryness of 

 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, 



