THE FALLS OF THE ZAMBESI. 
397 
beautiful I ever saw. It is rocky and rather shallow, 
and, just above the Falls, about one mile wide. And 
now for the Falls. I heard the roar full ten miles 
off, and you can see the immense volumes of spray 
ascending like a great white cloud, over which shines 
an eternal rainbow. The whole volume of water 
pours over a huge rock into an enormous chasm 
below, of immense depth. I counted from sixteen 
to eighteen, while a heavy stone of about twenty 
pounds weight was falling. I could not see it to the 
bottom, but only saw the splash in the water. I 
stood opposite to the Falls at nearly the same eleva¬ 
tion, and could almost throw a stone across. The 
gorge cannot be more than a hundred yards wide, 
and at the bottom the river rolls turbulently 
boiling. 
You cannot see the largest falls for more than a 
few yards down, on account of the spray, and you 
are drenched with rain for a hundred yards round 
from the falling mist. It is one perpendicular fall 
of many hundred feet, and I should think there are no 
less than thirty or forty different cascades, of all widths. 
The gorge cannot be less than 2,000 yards long, and 
the outlet is not certainly more than forty yards wide. 
This outlet is not at the end of the gorge, though 
how far off I cannot say ; the streams meet, form a 
wild mad whirlpool, and then rush helter-skelter 
through the pass. Looking up the gorge from that 
point is the most magnificent sight I ever beheld. It 
is as if streams of brimstone fires were ascending high 
