TJie Victoria Falls. — Zambesi IHver, 
3 
a mile in extent, rose from the chasm into which the water 
fell. The central five or six of these were the Largest ; but in 
all we counted ten, rising more like the cloud of spray thrown 
up by a cannon-ball than in a strictly columnar form, A light 
easterly wind just swayed their soft, vapoury tops ; the sun, 
still low, shed its softened light over the sides exposed to it ; 
the warm, grey hills beyond faded gradually into the distance ; 
and the deep valley before us, winding for six miles between 
us and the falls, showed every form of rough brown rock and 
every tint of green or autumnal foliage ; presenting to the eye, 
long wearied of sere and yellow mopanie-leaves, dry rooks, 
burnt grass, and desolated country, the most lovely coup-d'mil 
the soul of artist could imagine. Willingly would I have 
feasted my eye upon this distant vision for the day ; but our 
weary, thirsty men were heavy-laden and pressing on for water. 
And now was to come before our view another portion of the 
panorama, to the hungry native of far more interest than all the 
cataracts the world can boast. W e had refreshed ourselves at 
the Masoe, a little stream flowing over a rocky bed, and started 
with fresh vigour on our way, when our guide whistled. A 
halt was made, and every eye turned in the direction indicated : 
a black rhinoceros (Boriele, the fiercer of the two varieties) was 
standing not far upon our right, and by his uneasy gestures it 
was evident he had caught sight of us at the same moment. 
Keeping back as well as we could our excited followers, 
Chapman and I crept to within fifty yards, and fired with 
deadly aim into his shoulder. He stumbled, badly wounded, 
but stood at bay a hundred yards further, viciously snufiiDg the 
air with elevated nose ; a couple more shots brought him down 
again with a broken shoulder ; and bleeding profusely from the 
lung, he darted away through the thicket at a pace we could 
not cope with. We ran till out of breath when the spoor was 
plain, or sought its course in devious windings when it was 
not; we crossed the little river, and, about four miles back, 
caught sight of him again ; but the rush of the three men who 
had kept up with us put him to flight; and we returned, 
leaving two to follow silently and find an opportunity of 
despatching him. 
We broiled a bit of elephant flesh on the embers, and took 
the path again, winding wherever soft red sand could be found 
among the rocky hillocks. Pebbles and crystals of quartz, 
red, white, and green (though the latter does not test like 
copper), agate, coarse red jasper, and black scoriae, looking as 
if they had been oast from, a furnace, lay about the hills. The 
deep narrow chasm of the lower river, doubling in abrupt zig- 
zags in the broad valley, enriched v/ith every kind of foliage, 
had now become more decided in its character ; steep clifi's 
enclosed the narrow stream on either side, the deep shadows 
of the precipices contrasting with the plateaux above, whose 
yellow surfaces showed like fields of ripened corn. Imme- 
diately beyond was the belt of dark fresh green forest fringing 
the ravine of the Victoria, and from behind this rose the white 
vaporous spray clouds, from which the Falls derive their 
name of Mosi-o-a-tunya (or smoke that sounds), screening 
as with a misty veil their now darkened southern face, 
beyond which a long vista of the broad, palmy, island- 
studded upper river glittered like silver in the sunlight, the 
banks showing in warm and soft grey tints the detail of their 
features, and the mountains melting faint and blue into the 
distance. 
The increasing thickness of the forest, as we approached the 
better-watered country of the upper river, shut out from our 
view the transient beauty of the scene ; and, turning north, 
amid tall mochicheerie and ana trees, varied by funereal-looking 
motsouries ; date-palms, the wild and almost inedible variety, 
with their graceful drooping foliage ; low fan palms ofiering in 
contrast their pointed leaves ; baobabs, those giants of the 
forest (some times one hundred feet in girth) ; and tall palmyras 
towering over all, the path brought us to the westward of the 
falls and about a mile from their nearest point. 
We camped down under a shady tree, took two or three 
Makalakas to carry gun and sketch-book, and walked doAvn to 
make sure of a preliminary view and settle the plan of future 
operations. (View No. 2.) 
The moistened atmosphere to leeward of the spray cloud, 
the rich green sward becoming momentarily more damp till 
every footprint of elephant, hippopotamus, or buffalo, was filled 
with fine clear water, marked our near approach ; and crossing 
with sodden shoes the rotting stumps and half-fallen trees that 
obstructed our view, we stood at once fronting the southern 
face of the magnificent Victoria Falls. 
At the western angle, or just opposite to us, and at the 
beginning of the ravine, a body of water fifty or sixty yai'ds 
wide comes down like a boiling rapid over the broken rocks ; 
the steepness of the incline, while it diminishes by a few feet 
the height of the actual fall, forming a channel for the reception 
of a greater volume of water, and allowing it to rush forward 
with so much violence as to break up the whole into a fleecy, 
snow-white, irregularly seething torrent, with its lighter particles 
glittering and flashing like myriads of diamonds in the sunlight, 
before it takes its final leap sheer out from the edge of the 
precipice into the abyss below. (View No. 3.) 
Then interposed a mass of cliff", smooth almost as a wall, 
and certainly as perpendicular, its base projecting like a 
buttress, its summit crowned by grass and forest kept ever 
dark and green by the spreading mist, and its dark-purple 
front (deepened almost to blackness in the shadow by the 
northern sun) broken by a deep chasm through which poured 
three smaller rills, that might have been accounted grand had 
they not been dwarfed by the mighty mass beside them. 
A hundred yards more east commenced the first grand 
vista of the Fall, comprising in one view near half a mile of 
cataract stretching in magnificent perspective from the Three- 
Eill CliiF to the western side of Garden Island. 
The cliff was here of its original height, and the edge 
being apparently unworn, the height of the fall was greater, 
while the depth of water flowing over it was less ; beside this, 
from the absence of any material slope like that in the channel 
of the Leaping- Water, the stream did not gather way, but 
flowed calmly and majestically onward. 
Shallows and ledges of rook caused rapids and miniature 
cascades, but these only partially broke the repose of the deep 
blue surface ; till reaching the cantle of its course, the mighty 
change took place. AVherever an inequality of the rock formed 
a hollow to conduct a mass of water, there fell, sweeping more or 
less outward in direct proportion to its strength and volume, 
a jet more or less green and translucent for the first few 
yards, but quickly breaking into masses from which the lighter 
particles, detached in their descent, formed comet or rocket like 
trains of spray and vapour, till the whole, before reaching the 
abyss, was transformed into a broken snow-white fleecy stream, 
bearing but little resemblance to actual liquid water, and 
reminding me more of the descriptions of the Staubbaoh, in the 
Alps, than anything else. 
The river was at its lowest, and the sheet of water broken 
by projecting rocks ; but I suppose it never can present the 
smooth unvaried regularity which the only representation 
hitherto given would indicate. Here and there masses of rock 
jutted out, their tops forming small islands, breaking the uni- 
formity of the line, and their fronts interposing broad faces of 
dark rock, on either side of which trickled down shallow rills 
too weak to jet out in curves like the others. Some of these 
never even reached the bottom in a visible form, being either 
distributed over the rook, or dispersed by the wind that always 
eddies upward from the gulf. 
Now stand, and look through the dim and misty perspec- 
tive till it loses itself in the cloud of spray to the east ! How 
shall words convey ideas which the pencil even of Turner must 
fail to represent ? Stiff" and formal columns of smoke there 
are none ; the eastern breeze has blended all in one. Think 
