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. Here we see them in a conglomeration,
each with a train of pure white vapour, racing down till lost in
clouds of spray.
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