8 
Tfie Victoria Falls. — Zambesi Rivtr. 
enters them, the curls of the various eddies ; and with what 
judgment he shoots, end on, into the exact place where it is 
just possible for her to ascend the successive rapids, jumping 
out at the proper moment to force her up the steep incline, and 
in again as soon as she is in the level waters. 
And now, nearly half a mile of distance from the verge 
has placed us in comparative safety ; and the hippopotami are 
appearing in the still water near the rocks above us. He 
sheers his boat so as to give us a chance ; but the wary animals 
snort and dive too quickly. He runs her higher up into the 
shallows, and, landing there — if standing mid-leg deep on a 
submerged rock may be so called — we wait their reappearance. 
My bullet strikes the water close by the head of the first, and 
enters between eye and car; while Chapman's, just grazing 
and raising a jet of spray, so close by the next that one 
would think it impossible to miss, goes ricochetting away 
over the surface, till it passes the edge of the Falls, and loses 
itself in the chasm. 
The remainder of the passage is long and tedious ; but 
both danger and difficulty diminish as we advance, and before 
sunset we are at our bivouac, where, promising Zanjueelah an 
adequate reward, we enter into a conditional arrangement to 
be taken to-morrow to an island where the hippopotami are 
likely to come ashore at night. 
Duiing our stay here, at every possible opportunity, we 
had taken measurements and observations for determining the 
geographical features of the Fall. We commenced by 
measuring a base-line at the western end of the chasm, and 
triangulating with sextant and compass as far into the spray- 
cloud as we could, without losing sight of our landmarks. 
The rest was measured on independent base-lines, or estimated 
by firing rifle-bullets, with the sights elevated for the necessary 
range, or, when that was impracticable, by careful pacing. 
We had no line long enough for actual sounding ; and it was 
difficult to take angles with great accuracy, for want of 
sufficiently definite points at top and bottom. But comparing 
our estimate with the depth obtained by Livingstone, i. e. 
310 feet, when his line rested on a heap of rocks and did not 
reach the bottom, we thought 350 feet a tolerable ajDproximation, 
but that of course will give way to 8ir R. Glyn's measured 
depth of more than 400 feet ; its length is from 1,800 to 2,000 
yards ; its breadth opposite Garden Island, the narrowest part, 
70 yards, and in the widest from 100 to 130 yards. The 
fissure by which the lower river escapes seems nearly three- 
fourths of the distance from the western end ; and the width 
between the enclosing precipices cannot be more than 80 
yards. The river must be much narrower ; but in no place 
is it possible, so far as we know, to descend to the water. 
About 150 yards to the south of the outlet it turns suddenly 
to the right, makes a straight course to 500 or 700 yards 
south-east from the western end of the Falls, then doubles 
back on itself, so that the two parts of the stream are 
separated only by the Tarn promontory — a cliff one mile long, 
more than 300 feet high, and only 115 yards wide at its base ; 
the next turn rounds the thin, wedge-shaped promontory of the 
Profile cliffs ; and turning again to the south-east it receives a 
small tributary, the Masoe, which, in wet seasons, must form a 
* On the 8th of September, during the late naeeting of the British 
Association in Birmingham, Dr. Kirk, after giving the most gratifying testimony 
to the truthfulness of my paintings, stated his belief that at one time the country 
was occupied by a vast lake, and that the present chasm of the Falls and fissure 
of the lower river had been formed by an earthquake. He considered the cliffs 
basaltic, and had attempted to descend the chasm where it was somewhat broken at 
the eastern end ; but the skeleton of a rock-frequenting antelope warned him to desist. 
He thought the rise during the floods must be nearly 16 feet. The smaller 
rocks upon the edge must then be entirely submerged, and the depth of water 
poured over the Falls must then equal that of Niagara ; and he concurred in the 
opinion expressed by many persons who have seen the American cataract, that the 
Victoria is the grander of the two. 
beautiful cascade, and continues its course till it is lost to sight 
among the hills. 
The difference in the appearance of the country is most 
marked and striking. The broad river above the Falls is 
bordered by palms and luxuriant tropical vegetation ; wdiile 
along the lower river, deep sunk in its narrow chasm, the 
country is dry and arid, except where fields of maize or millet 
are cultivated along the tributary streams, or, when in the rainy 
season, its barrenness is changed to fertility and verdure. 
To venture an opinion on the geology of this cleft would 
be beyond the province of an artist, but the impression on our 
minds was that nothing but volcanic agency could have pro- 
duced it. The edges are sharp and well defined ; the opposite sides 
correspond so as to suggest the idea of parts broken from each 
other, and all the rocks we find upon the surface seem igneous. 
During our return journey through Namaqua land, 1 was 
much struck with the wild disruption and upheaval of the 
strata, and I was informed that at the mission-station of Beer- 
sheba, the cattle graze on a large plain, in an extinct crater. 
Slight earthquakes also are by no means uncommon, and we 
experienced several shocks during a few months' residence in 
Otjinibengue.* 
We were unable to trace the intermediate course of the 
river, being obliged to rejoin our wagons, and take them from 
Daka to Boana, between the Matietsie and Luisi rivers ; 
whence I started afoot with a troop of Damaras, and hired 
Makalakas, carrying tools, &c., for the rebuilding of the deficient 
portions of the boat near the island of Mol6mo-e-a-tolo (mouth 
of a koodoo), in the junction of the Luisi River, sixty or 
seventy miles in a direct line from the Falls, but more than 
double that by the road we had to travel. 
T cleared, and built my house on a small limestone eleva- 
tion, 200 feet in heiglit, in latitude 18° 4' 56", and naming it 
Logier Hill, after my much esteemed friend in Cape Town, 
commenced cutting trees, sawing them into planks, and 
building midships to the copper bows and sterns. Chapman 
soon joined me ; and after a trip down the river to Sinamane's 
to ascertain that there was no insurmountable impediment 
to navigation, he formed a hunting-camp between my station 
and the wagons, to supply meat to both. The various 
inevitable difficulties we combated and overcame as they arose, 
and had every hope of having our boat ready to descend the 
river with the coming flood, when the difficulty of procuring 
food, owing to the migration of the wild animals to the rain 
pools now filling in the desert, reducing me for ten days to a 
diet of buffalo hide and water, and the prostration of all the 
native servants, as well as my fellow-traveller himself, by fever, 
obliged me to abandon my work and return to him, that we 
might save the lives of the people by bringing them from the 
unhealthy swamps of the Zambesi to the purer air of the 
elevated desert. Our exhausted resources, the death of some 
of our followers by illness, and the murder of others by a 
marauding party of Matabili, prevented our renewing the 
journey ; but we believe, nevertheless, that with more adequate 
supplies it is quite possible to carry out the plan that has now 
been temporarily frustrated, and only hope that before long we 
may again be in a condition to attempt it. 
On this point I am inclined to agree with Dr. Kirk; but the decision must 
be left to future travellers. The African Falls are doubtless more extensive, and 
more than double the height, besides which the wondrous altitude of the spray- 
cloud, the brilliancy of the rainbow, and the gorgeous tropical scenery combine all 
the elements of beauty and magnificence; but if I may judge from a set of 
stereographs shown me in Capetown, the massive sheet of water pouring unbroken 
over the cliifs of the Niagara, the possibility of passing between the rock and the 
liquid screen, or of obtaining a view of the full front of the Fall from the lower 
river, and, above all, the strange and fantastic forms of the frozen spray, and the 
immense icicles, like pillars in some vast cathedral, give to the American Falls so 
utterly diiferent a character that each seems unapproachable in its own peculiar 
style, and it would be almost invidious to institute a comparison between them. 
