2 
The Victoria Falls. — Zambesi River. 
they give off, as well as receive, other streams, of which it 
seems probable "that the Okovango river, discovered in 1859 
by that enterprising traveller and naturalist Mr. C. J. Anders- 
son, is one of the principal, till the river reaches nearly the 
centre of the continent. 
Here the Falls are formed by a deep narrow chasm cleft 
across the broad bed of the river, which, plunging 400 feet into 
the abyss, escapes by another cleft joining the first at nearly 
three-fourths from its western end, and prolonged in abrupt 
zigzags and redoublings for many miles, engulfing the narrow 
lower river far below the surface, occasionally spreading out 
and again contracting ; traces of the fissure appearing, as it 
seems to me, nearly to the Indian Ocean, or more than 800 
miles away. 
Above the Falls, where the river is nearly on a level with 
the surrounding country, rich tropical vegetation abounds,and 
long reaches are descended on rafts or navigated in canoes, 
almost the only difliculfcy being occasioned by the thick growth 
of reeds in the shallower portions. 
Below them no continuous navigation is possible for eighty 
or a hundred miles ; but beyond this long open reaches alternate 
with occasional rapids and narrow gorges, the most dangerous 
being those of Chicova and Kabrabasa, in which my friend 
Dr. Kirk, when descending the river, very narrowly escaped 
drowning. 
In presenting to the public the accompanying views of 
these magnificent Falls, I presume not to compete with the 
works of those who have so beautifully illustrated more 
accessible coimtries. In the far interior of Africa, an artist 
must leave behind him every convenience, and becoming in 
turn smith, carpenter, tailor, and shoemaker, bullock-driver, and 
astronomical observer, must obtain his sketches and finish his 
pictures as he can, trusting that any want of artistic finish may 
be compensated by the faithfulness inseparable from working 
as much as possible in the actual presence of nature. 
It is also difficult in the description to avoid some little 
repetition of my journal already published,* and I ought to 
acknowledge the courtesy of Messrs. Longman, who have 
kindly consented to my making use of such parts as may be 
required. 
Returning to Cape Town after leaving the Zambesi 
Expedition in 1859, I found refuge with my steadfast friend 
Logier, by whose kindness I was enabled to devote all I could 
accumulate by my art to the purpose of my equipment for 
another journey. Here I again met Mr. Chapman, who was at 
that time preparing for an expedition to the interior ; and we 
agreed to attempt the passage from Walvisch Bay on the 
west coast of Africa, to the mouth of the Zambesi on the 
east. For this purpose, I built with my own hands two boats 
of copper, to be used either like the South-sea canoes, with a 
deck between them, or singly, should it be found necessary to 
separate them. The difficulty of carriage, however, caused by 
the fearful ravages of infectious lung-sickness among my com- 
panion's oxen, and the consequent opposition of the various 
tribes to our passage, as well as the impossibility of procuring 
other wagons at any price I could afford to pay, obliged me 
to leave eight out of the twelve sections at the village of 
Mr. C. J. Andersson, at Otjimbengue. 
For sixty miles from the sea our path lay through shifting 
sand and arid desert ; but the oxen found refreshment from the 
scanty herbage in the deep ravine of the Swakop River,-]- where, 
rolling its immense leaves over the dry sand, I found that mar- 
* Travels in Souih-western Africa. Longman & Co. 1864. 
t Or Schwagoup, a native word indicating fatness. Not Zwartlcap. 
X In reference to these plants, I received the thanl?s of my eminent and 
lamented friend, the late Sir Wra. Jackson Hooker, who writes : — 
" The plant is one that has given me uncommon pleasure, inasmuch as, old a 
botanist as I am, I never saw it before, nor has more than one person ever done 
so — that person is Dr. Welwitsch, a German botanist, long resident at Loando. 
" I am greatly obliged for the flowers of the Aloe, which appear to be those 
of an entirely new species. 
" I thank you much for the photograph of the curious lily ; we are confident 
vellous plant the Welwitschia mirabilis, the first sketch and 
specimen of which ever seen in England I had the honour of 
sending home. Nor is the country just beyond more destitute 
of interest; for there, midst rugged hills of disintegrated 
granite, I sketched the gigantic aloe, the circumference of 
whose trunk is nearly twelve feet, while its spreading crown of 
leaves, adorned with countless spikes of yellow flowers, attains 
a height of more than twenty-five. 
Still farther on, near the wells of Koobie, in the Bush- 
man country, Chapman brought to my notice a little bulb, the 
bud of which, exploding after sunset, presented a bell-shaped 
flower of the most delicate and semi-transparent white, diff'using 
its gently refreshing odour at intervals throughout the night, 
and withering before the heat of the next day .J 
Passing south of Lake Ngami and hugging the reedy banks 
of the Bo-tlet-le River as long as possible, we struck more 
northerly across the elevated desert, where for nearly two 
hundred miles not a drop of running water meets our view, 
and the cattle drink at scanty rain-pools scattered few and 
far between in clay or limestone hollows. 
Suddenly emerging from the forest of Mopanies, the dry 
foliage of which so long has limited our view, a blue horizon 
appears before us, and standing at an elevation of 3,500 feet, 
we cast our glance over a seemingly illimitable valley, where 
the brown and fire-scathed ridges beneath our feet give place 
to others, passing through every shade of sombre green and 
greyish purple, dark forest alternating with grassy sward, till 
they are lost in the ethereal blue of the far-off" horizon, while 
from every hollow gushes forth some bubbling rill to send its 
waters to the great Zambesi. 
Large herds of buffalo frequent the swamps and forests, 
the rhinoceros wanders in the solitude of the mimosa-glades, 
and here we found the magnificent sable antelope, and numerous 
specimens of a full-striped quagga,§ which had first been shot 
by my friend upon the table-land behind us, and which, if not 
a new species, seems at least an intermediate variety between 
Burchell's and the true zebra. Here also the deadly-winged 
cattle-pest — the tsetse — forced us to adopt other means for 
the continuance of our journey. 
Crossing the Daka and Matietsie, and leaving our vehicles 
on the Onyati, or Buffalo River, near the wagon of an ambas- 
sador sent by Sichele to demand from Sekeletu the restoration 
of the goods plundered from the ill-fated mission-party of 
Messrs. Price and Helmore, we discarded everything that could 
not be carried on the shoulders of a few Makalaka, and com- 
menced our march across the tsetse-stricken hill of red sand, 
scantily clothed with mopanies and other varieties of the 
Bauhinia, perking their leaves in pairs edge upward, defying 
the sun to scorch or the traveller to find shelter beneath them. 
We halted on the northern slope, beneath a spreading 
mochicheerie ; and while watching the red glare of our fire 
thrown high into the dim recesses of the foliage, heard, stealing 
through the stillness of the night, a low murmuring like the 
sighing of the ocean before a gale, rising and swelling gradually 
into the deep-toned, monotonous roar of a continuous surf for 
ever breaking on some iron-bound coast. 
On Wednesday, July 23rd, 1862, we were in motion soon 
after sunrise ; and had barely proceeded half-a-mile when 
Barry discovered the smoke, and seeking a little opening 
through the trees, we saw the water of the broad Zambesi, 
glancing like a mirror beyond a long perspective of hill and 
valley, while from below it clouds of spray and mist, more than 
it is a new species, which will consequently be described in the forthcoming 
'Mora of Tropical Africa.' " 
§ May 20th, 1862. — Chapman shot a qaagga at a distance; and on bis return 
remarked, " The quaggas here are not like those of Vaal Eiver ; they have stripes 
on their legs." " Then," said I, " if they are not zebras, they must be new ; for 
only two quaggas are described, and their legs are white." 
I am glad to see [Annals of Natural History, September, 1865) that Mr. 
E. L. Layard, of the Cape Museum, proposes to call it Equus Chapmanni, and I 
sincerely trust the name may be allowed to stand. 
DSI 
