The Tops Of The Promontories Are In General Flat, Smooth,
And Studded With Trees.
The first, with its base on the east, is at
one place so narrow, that it would be dangerous to walk to its
extremity.
On the second, however, we found a broad rhinoceros path
and a hut; but, unless the builder were a hermit, with a pet
rhinoceros, we cannot conceive what beast or man ever went there for.
On reaching the apex of this second eastern promontory we saw the
great river, of a deep sea-green colour, now sorely compressed,
gliding away, at least 400 feet below us.
Garden Island, when the river is low, commands the best view of the
Great Fall chasm, as also of the promontory opposite, with its grove
of large evergreen trees, and brilliant rainbows of three-quarters of
a circle, two, three, and sometimes even four in number, resting on
the face of the vast perpendicular rock, down which tiny streams are
always running to be swept again back by the upward rushing vapour.
But as, at Niagara, one has to go over to the Canadian shore to see
the chief wonder - the Great Horse-shoe Fall - so here we have to cross
over to Moselekatse's side to the promontory of evergreens, for the
best view of the principal Falls of Mosi-oa-tunya. Beginning,
therefore, at the base of this promontory, and facing the Cataract,
at the west end of the chasm, there is, first, a fall of thirty-six
yards in breadth, and of course, as they all are, upwards of 310 feet
in depth. Then Boaruka, a small island, intervenes, and next comes a
great fall, with a breadth of 573 yards; a projecting rock separates
this from a second grand fall of 325 yards broad; in all, upwards of
900 yards of perennial Falls. Further east stands Garden Island;
then, as the river was at its lowest, came a good deal of the bare
rock of its bed, with a score of narrow falls, which, at the time of
flood, constitute one enormous cascade of nearly another half-mile.
Near the east end of the chasm are two larger falls, but they are
nothing at low water compared to those between the islands.
The whole body of water rolls clear over, quite unbroken; but, after
a descent of ten or more feet, the entire mass suddenly becomes like
a huge sheet of driven snow. Pieces of water leap off it in the form
of comets with tails streaming behind, till the whole snowy sheet
becomes myriads of rushing, leaping, aqueous comets. This
peculiarity was not observed by Charles Livingstone at Niagara, and
here it happens, possibly from the dryness of the atmosphere, or
whatever the cause may be which makes every drop of Zambesi water
appear to possess a sort of individuality. It runs off the ends of
the paddles, and glides in beads along the smooth surface, like drops
of quicksilver on a table.
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