The White Cloth Now Appeared The
Size Of A Crown-Piece.
On measuring the width of this deep cleft by
sextant, it was found at Garden Island, its narrowest part, to be
eighty yards, and at its broadest somewhat more.
Into this chasm, of
twice the depth of Niagara-fall, the river, a full mile wide, rolls
with a deafening roar; and this is Mosi-oa-tunya, or the Victoria
Falls.
Looking from Garden Island, down to the bottom of the abyss, nearly
half a mile of water, which has fallen over that portion of the Falls
to our right, or west of our point of view, is seen collected in a
narrow channel twenty or thirty yards wide, and flowing at exactly
right angles to its previous course, to our left; while the other
half, or that which fell over the eastern portion of the Falls, is
seen in the left of the narrow channel below, coming towards our
right. Both waters unite midway, in a fearful boiling whirlpool, and
find an outlet by a crack situated at right angles to the fissure of
the Falls. This outlet is about 1170 yards from the western end of
the chasm, and some 600 from its eastern end; the whirlpool is at its
commencement. The Zambesi, now apparently not more than twenty or
thirty yards wide, rushes and surges south, through the narrow
escape-channel for 130 yards; then enters a second chasm somewhat
deeper, and nearly parallel with the first.
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