Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 4.djvu/311

THE MIDDLE ZAMBESE. 845 others assume the character of our elms and chestnuts ; but no one can imagine the beauty of the view from anything witnessed in England. ' " The falls are bounded on three sides by ridges 300 or 400 feet in height, which are covered with forest, with the red soil appearing among the trees. When about half a mile from the falls I left the canoe by which we had come down thus far, and embarked in a lighter one, with men well acquainted with the rapids, who, by passing down the centre of the stream, in the eddies and still places caused by the many jutting rocks, brought me to an island situated in the middle of the river, and on the edge of the lip over which the waters roll. Though we had reached the island, and were within a few yards of the spot a view from which would solve the whole problem, I believe that no one could perceive where the vast body of water went ; it seemed to lose itself in the earth, the opposite lip of the fissure into which it disappeared being only 80 feet distant. Creeping with awe to the verge, I peered down into a large rent which had been made from bank to bank of the broad Zambese, and saw that a stream of 1,000 yards broad leaped down 100 feet, and then became suddenly compressed into a space of 15 or 20 yards. The entire falls are simply a crack made in a hard basalt rock from the right to the left bank of the Zambese, and then prolonged from the left bank away through thirty or forty miles of hills. In looking into the fissure on the right side of the island, one sees nothing but a dense white cloud, which at the time we visited the spot had two bright rainbows on it. From this cloud rushed up a great jet of vapour exactly like steam, and it mounted 200 or 300 feet high ; there condensing, it changed its hue to that of dark smoke, and came back in a constant shower which wetted us to the skin." The narrow gullet through which the whole body of water escapes is only 100 feet broad at the entrance, that is about thirty-six times narrower than the river above the falls. Widening at times, and again contracting to the first dimensions, it winds abruptly through its rocky bed, hemmed in between black porphyry clifPs, trending first to the west, then to the east, and repeating the same meanderings before finally emerging from the gorges and gradually expanding to its normal size. The rocky walls are broken by deep lateral ravines, and every fissure is clad with a forest vegetation. The higher terraces resemble hanging gardens, whence the designation of Semiramis ClifP, given by Holub to the eastern promontory commanding the entrance of the gorge. At a comparatively recent geological epoch, before the Zambese had opened this gorge by eating away the barriers damming up the lacustrine waters, it flowed at a higher level in a lateral valley. This valley is now traversed by the Lekone, a northern tributary of the main stream, which flows in a contrary direction to the old current. The Middle Zambese. Below the Victoria Falls the Zambese at first continues its easterly course, then trends to the north-east, and again sweeps round to the east. Even here the current is still obstructed, rushing at one point over the Kansalo rapids, at another