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.