VICTORIA FALLS, OR MOZI-OA-TUNIA.
Since Livingstone’s first visit, the falls have been more minutely examined by other explorers, so that we now know more accurately their dimensions and leading features. The breadth of the river at the falls has been ascertained to be
over 1860 yards, and the depth of the precipice below the island 360 feet, or twice that of Niagara. At the bottom of the rent, all the waters that have come over the falls rush together in the centre of the gulf immediately beneath the island where, confined in a space of twenty or thirty yards, they form a fearful boiling whirlpool. From this a stream flows through the narrow channel at right angles to the course above and, turning a sharp corner, emerges into another chasm parallel with the first; then through another confined gap to a third chasm; and so backward and forward in wild confusion through forty miles of hills, until it breaks out into the level country of the lower Zambesi. The rush of the river through this inaccessible ravine is not so turbulent as might be imagined from its being pent in between walls less than forty yards apart. It pushes its way with a crushing, grinding motion, sweeping around the sharp corners with a swift resistless ease that indicates plainly a great depth of water. It was through this gap, caused by some unrecorded convulsion of the earth, that the great lake which must have at one time occupied South Central Africa, has been drained, and it forms undoubtedly the most wonderful natural feature in Africa, if not in the world.
At the great falls of the Zambesi, named the Victoria Falls in honor of the Queen of England, we are still a thousand miles from the sea, and hundreds of miles from the first traces of civilization, such as appear in the Portuguese possessions of eastern Africa.
Nature has been exceedingly lavish of her gifts in the Lower Zambesi Valley, giving it a fertile soil, a splendid system of river communication, and great stores of mineral and vegetable wealth, everything indeed, that is necessary to make a prosperous country, except a healthy climate, and industrious population. Here as upon the borders of the Nile, war and slave hunting have cursed the country with an apparently hopeless blight. Around the falls themselves are the scenes of some of the most noteworthy events in Central African warfare. The history of what are called the “Charka Wars,” has not yet and never will be written, nevertheless they extended over as great an area and
shook as many thrones and dominions as those of Bonaparte himself. Charka was a chief of the now familiar Zulu tribe, and grandfather of that celebrated Cetywayo, whose ill-starred struggle with the English cost him his country and his liberty, and whom we read of the other day as a royal captive in the streets of London. It is said that he had heard of the feats of the first Napoleon, and was smitten with a desire to imitate his deeds. He formed his tribes into regiments, and these became the famous Zulu bands which immediately began to make war on all their neighbors. Conquered armies were incorporated into the Zulu army, and Charka went on making conquests in Natal, Caffaria, and Southern Africa, leaving the lands waste and empty. He spread the fame of the Zulus far into the possessions of the English and Portuguese.
Turning north, he occupied the country as far as the Zambesi. Crossing this stream, he moved into the regions between the Lakes Nyassa and Tanganyika, then he carried his power to the westward as far as the Victoria Falls, where he was met by the Makalolos, with whom Livingstone has just made us familiar. In this people, under their chief, Sebituane, he found an enemy worthy of his steel. This tribe could not be conquered so long as their chief lived, but at his death their kingdom began to go to pieces under Sekelutu, though he was not less brave and intelligent than his father. It was over the smouldering embers of these wars that Livingstone had to pass in his descent of the Zambesi.
As he descended the Zambesi and approached the Indian Ocean, the stream gathered breadth and volume from great tributaries which flow into it on either side. The Kafue, hardly smaller than the Zambesi itself, comes into it from the north. Its course has still to be traced and its source has yet to be visited. Further down, the Loangwa, also a mighty river, enters it, and its banks, like those of the Kafue, are thickly populated, and rich in mineral treasures. The great Zambesi sweeps majestically on from one reach of rich tropical scenery to another. On its shores are seen the villages of native fisherman. Their huts and clearings for cotton and tobacco are girded about by dense
jungles of bamboo, back of which rise forests of palm. Behind the forests the grand hills slope up steeply, diversified with clumps of timber and fringed with trees to their summits. Behind, extend undulated plains of long grass to the base of a second range of hills, the outer bank of the Zambesi Valley. Now and then, on either bank, a river valley opens, whose sides are thickly overgrown with jungle, above which rise the feathery tops of the palms and the stately stems of the tamarind; on their margins, or on the slopes above, herds of buffaloes, zebras, roebucks and wild pigs may be seen peacefully grazing together, with occasionally a troop of elephants or a solitary rhinoceros. Dr. Livingstone says, nowhere in all his travels has he seen such an abundance of animal life as in this portion of the Zambesi.
Yet it is possible even here to be alone. The high walls of grass on either side of the jungle path seem to the traveller to be the boundaries of the world. At times a strange stillness pervades the air, and no sound is heard from bird or beast or living thing. In the midst of this stillness, interruptions come like surprises and sometimes in not a very pleasant form. Once while Dr. Livingstone was walking in a reverie, he was startled by a female rhinoceros, followed by her calf, coming thundering down along the narrow path, and he had barely time to jump into a thicket in order to escape its charge. Occasionally a panic stricken herd of buffaloes will make a rush through the centre of the line of porters and donkeys, scattering them in wild confusion into the bush and tossing perhaps the nearest man and animal into the air. Neither the buffalo nor any other wild animal, however, will attack a human being except when driven to an extremity. The lion or leopard, when watching for their prey, will perhaps spring on the man who passes by. The buffalo, if it thinks it is being surrounded, will make a mad charge to escape, or the elephant, if wounded and brought to bay, or in defense of its young, will turn on its pursuers. A “rogue” elephant or buffalo, who has been turned out of the herd by his fellows for some fault or blemish, and has become cross and ill-natured by his solitary life, has been known to make an unprovoked attack on the first creature, man or beast, that presents itself to his