A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries: And of the Discovery of Lakes Shirwa and Nyassa, 1858-1864Livingstone, David
History
A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries: And of the Discovery of Lakes Shirwa and Nyassa, 1858-1864
Livingstone, David
Africa, Central -- Description and travel; Africa, Central -- Discovery and exploration
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.
Abandoning the bottom of the eastern half of this second chasm to the
growth of large trees, it turns sharply off to the west, and forms a
promontory, with the escape-channel at its point, of 1170 yards long, and
416 yards broad at the base. After reaching this base, the river runs
abruptly round the head of another promontory, and flows away to the
east, in a third chasm; then glides round a third promontory, much
narrower than the rest, and away back to the west, in a fourth chasm; and
we could see in the distance that it appeared to round still another
promontory, and bend once more in another chasm towards the east. In
this gigantic, zigzag, yet narrow trough, the rocks are all so sharply
cut and angular, that the idea at once arises that the hard basaltic trap
must have been riven into its present shape by a force acting from
beneath, and that this probably took place when the ancient inland seas
were let off by similar fissures nearer the ocean.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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