45)0 
AFRICA AND ITS EXPLORATION. 
site side was another large community, whose inhabi- 
tants manned every rock to gaze at us in perfect security, 
for, since they could not hurt us, we certainly entertained 
no designs against them. 
The Livingstone from the right bank across the island 
to the left bank is about 1300 yards broad, of which 
width 40 yards is occupied by the right branch, 760 
yards by the island of the Wenya, 500 yards by the 
great river. Contracted to this narrow space, between 
the rocky and perpendicular bluffs of the island and the 
steep banks opposite, the uproar, as may be imagined, is 
very great. As the calm river, which is 1300 yards 
wide one mile above the falls, becomes narrowed, the 
current quickens, and rushes with resistless speed for a 
few hundred yards, and then falls about 10 feet into a 
boiling and tumultuous gulf, wherein are lines of brown 
waves 6 feet high leaping with terrific bounds, and 
hurling themselves against each other in dreadful fury. 
Until I realized the extent? of the volume that was 
here precipitated, I could hardly believe that it was; 
indeed a vast river that was passing before me through 
this narrowed channel. I have seen many waterfalls 
during my travels in various parts of the world, but 
here was a stupendous river flung in full volume over a 
waterfall only 500 yards across. The river at the last 
cataract of the Stanley Falls does not merely fall : it 
is precipitated downwards. The Ripon Falls at the 
Victoria Lake outlet, compared to this swift descent and 
furious on-rush, were languid. The Victoria Nile, as it 
swept down the steep declivity of its bed towards 
Unyoro, is very pretty, picturesque, even a sufficiently 
exciting scene ; but the Livingstone, with over ten 
times the volume of the Victoria Nile, though only 
occupying the same breadth of bed, conveys to the sense 
the character of irresistible force, and unites great depth 
with a tumultuous rush. 
A solar observation taken opposite the last of the 
Stanley Falls proved the latitude to be north 0° 15' 0", 
or seventeen miles north of the first broken water of the 
Sixth Cataract ; and a few miles below the falls, on the 
