Victoria Falls

The fourth in the world by the width of a mighty African river Zambezi, willingly carrying its waves on the border of Zimbabwe and Zambia, suddenly falls in a narrow and deep canyon. Beat the huge mass of water on the rocks so strong that it vzmetayutsya cloud of spray visible in the distance of up to 40km and resembles a pillar of white steam.





World famous Victoria Falls - a fascinating and beautiful places on the African continent, attracting tourists from all over the world.



The roar of the falls can be heard so far that hunters tribe Batoka called it Mosi-oa-Tunya - "thundering smoke". Matabele tribe living on the other side of the river, and gave him a poetic name - Chongue, ie "The place of the rainbow." Rainbow shines here all the colors, indescribable beauty!



Ring rainbow are almost always above the gorge, and the full moon, you can sometimes see an amazing phenomenon - the lunar rainbow, which is found only in a few places around the world, for example, a similar phenomenon can be seen at Niagara Falls.

On three sides of Victoria is surrounded by wooded cliffs about 100 meters high. The forest that grows along the banks, called the rain, and a refreshing silver rain really comes here all year round, 24 hours a day, but not from the sky but from the thundering gorge.

If you swim up to the waterfall on the river, it seems that across the flow suddenly grows a third bank. This is where David Livingstone saw Victoria - he sailed to the island on the Zambezi on the crest of the waterfall. Of the 300 soldiers of the local leader of Selecta, accompanied the scientist, only two dared to approach the snarling water, where according to the Aborigines lived a terrible god.



The first Europeans who saw the Victoria Falls, the missionary and explorer David Livingstone decided that this beautiful spectacle of have to admire angels from heaven. Livingston visited here in 1855., And since then a waterfall, named in honor of the Queen of England, resulting in admiration of not only the angels, but also people coming here from all over the world.



On the shore of the waterfall is a monument to David Livingstone, who in addition to the honor of the opening of the Victoria belong to the enthusiastic description of this miracle of nature. "The whole body of water, overflowing waterfall - wrote Livingstone, three meters below turns into a kind of monstrous veil persecuted blizzard of snow. Water particles are separated from it in the form of comets with flowing tails until all the avalanche does not turn into a myriad of small comets, rushing in one direction, and each of them reserves its nucleus the tail of a white foam ».

Professor Livingston was so shocked by the beauty seen that immediately appropriated the name of the Queen of England waterfall. Brother traveler Charles Livingston noted that this phenomenon is not observed nor any other waterfalls, even Niagara.

Other witnesses claim that the most amazing sight - a pillars "thundering smoke" in the golden glow of the sunset, like giant torches over the precipice.



In terms of geology Victoria is a crack formed because of the proximity of rocks of different hardness - basalt and sandstone. The width of the waterfall - more than 1,700 m, the height approximately 128m Victoria Falls, the islands are divided into several streams: the Devil's Falls, Main Falls, Horseshoe, Rainbow Falls and Eastern.



Source: ruwhitejaguar.livejournal.com