of judging distances than
myself, will visit the scene, and I state simply the impressions made on
my mind at the time. I thought, and do still think, the river above the
falls to be one thousand yards broad; but I am a poor judge of distances
on water, for I showed a naval friend what I supposed to be four hundred
yards in the Bay of Loanda, and, to my surprise, he pronounced it to be
nine hundred. I tried to measure the Leeambye with a strong thread,
the only line I had in my possession, but, when the men had gone two
or three hundred yards, they got into conversation, and did not hear
us shouting that the line had become entangled. By still going on they
broke it, and, being carried away down the stream, it was lost on a
snag. In vain I tried to bring to my recollection the way I had been
taught to measure a river by taking an angle with the sextant. That
I once knew it, and that it was easy, were all the lost ideas I could
recall, and they only increased my vexation. However, I measured the
river farther down by another plan, and then I discovered that the
Portuguese had measured it at Tete, and found it a little over one
thousand yards. At the falls it is as broad as at Tete, if not more so.
Whoever may come after me will not, I trust, find reason to say I have
indulged in exaggeration.* With respect to the drawing, it must be
borne in mind that it was composed from a rude sketch as viewed from the
island, which exhibited the columns of vapor only, and a ground
plan. The artist has given a good idea of the scene, but, by way of
explanation, he has shown more of the depth of the fissure than is
visible except by going close to the edge. The left-hand column, and
that farthest off, are the smallest, and all ought to have been a little
more tapering at the tops.

* The river is about one mile (1.6 km) wide at the falls, and
plunges over 350 feet at the centre. Livingstone greatly
underestimated both distances.--A. L., 1997.

The fissure is said by the Makololo to be very much deeper farther to
the eastward; there is one part at which the walls are so sloping that
people accustomed to it can go down by descending in a sitting position.
The Makololo on one occasion, pursuing some fugitive Batoka, saw them,
unable to stop the impetus of their flight at the edge, literally dashed
to pieces at the bottom. They beheld the stream like a "white cord" at
the bottom, and so far down (probably 300 feet) that they beca