Game was abundant, and lions were especially numerous.
After visiting Zumbo, Dr Kirk was taken dangerously ill. He got better on the high ground, but immediately he descended into the valley he always felt chilly. In six days, however, he was himself again, and able to march as well as the rest.
Again abundance of honey was obtained through the means of the “honey guide.” The bird never deceived them, always guiding them to a hive of bees, though sometimes there was but little honey in it.
On the 4th of August the expedition reached Moachemba, the first of the Batoka villages, which owe allegiance to Sekeletu. From thence, beyond a beautiful valley, the columns of vapour rising from the Victoria Falls, upwards of twenty miles away, could clearly be distinguished.
The Makololo here received intelligence of their families, and news of the sad termination of the attempt to plant a mission at Linyanti, under the Reverend H. Helmore. He and several white men had died, and the remainder had only a few weeks before returned, to Kuruman.
At the village opposite Kalai the Malokolo head man, Mashotlane, paid the travellers a visit. He entered the hut where they were seated, a little boy carrying a three-legged stool. In a dignified way the chief took his seat, presenting some boiled hippopotamus meat. Having then taken a piece himself, he handed the rest to his followers. He had lately been attacking the Batoka, and when the doctor represented to him the wrongfulness of the act, he defended himself by declaring that they had killed some of his companions. Here also they found Pitsane, who had been sent by Sekeletu to purchase horses from a band of Griquas.
As the new-comers were naturally anxious to see the magnificent falls, they embarked in some canoes belonging to Tuba Mokoro (“a smasher of canoes”), who alone, they were assured, possessed the medicine which would prevent shipwreck in the rapids. Tuba conducted them at a rapid rate down the river. It required considerable confidence in his skill not to feel somewhat uneasy as they navigated these roaring waters. They were advised not to speak, lest their talking might diminish the virtue of the medicine; few indeed would have thought of disobeying the orders of the canoe-smasher. One man stood at the head of the canoe, looking out for rocks and telling the steersman the course to take. Often it seemed as if they would be dashed to pieces against the dark rocks jutting out from the water, then in a moment the ready pole turned the canoe aside, and they quickly glided past the danger. As they went swiftly driving down, a black rock, with the foam flowing over it, rose before them; the pole slipped, the canoe struck and in a moment was half full of water. Tuba, however, speedily recovering himself, shoved off, and they reached a shallow place, where the water was bailed out. He asserted that it was not the medicine was at fault, but that he had started without his breakfast.
The travellers landed at the head of Garden Island, and, as the doctor had done before, peered over the giddy heights at the further end across the chasm. The measurement of the chasm was now taken; it was found to be eighty yards opposite Garden Island, while the waterfall itself was twice the depth of that of Niagara, and the river where it went over the rock fully a mile wide. Charles Livingstone, who had seen Niagara, pronounced it inferior in magnificence to the Victoria Falls.
The Batokas consider Garden Island and another further west as sacred spots, and here, in days gone by, they assembled to worship the Deity.
Dr Livingstone, on his former visit, had planted a number of orange-trees and seeds at Garden Island, but though a hedge had been placed round them, they had all been destroyed by the hippopotami. Others were now put in. They also, as was afterwards found, shared the same fate.