will offer a few words concerning the “Etna of the North,” sparing
the reader, however, the mortification of a regular history. It was
apparently harmless, possibly dormant, till A. D. 1104, when Sæmund,
the “Paris clerk,” then forty-eight years old, threw in a casket, and
awoke the sleeping lion. Since that time fourteen regular eruptions,
without including partial outbreaks are recorded, giving an average of
about two per century. The last was in 1845. The air at Reykjavik was
flavoured, it is said, like a gun that wants washing; and the sounds
of a distant battle were conducted by the lava and basaltic ground.
The ashes extended to Scotland. When some writers tell us that on this
occasion Hekla lost 500 feet in height, “so much of the summit having
been blown away by the explosions,” they forget or ignore the fact that
the new crater opened laterally and low down.
Like Etna, Vesuvius, and especially Stromboli, Hekla became mythical
in Middle-Age Europe, and gained wide repute as one of the gates of
“Hel-viti.” Witches’ Sabbaths were held there. The spirits of the
wicked, driven by those grotesque demons of Father Pinamonti which
would make the fortune of a zoological society, were seen trooping
into the infernal crater; and such facts as these do not readily slip
off the mind of man. The Danes still say “Begone to Heckenfjæld!”
the North Germans, “Go to Hackelberg!” and the Scotch consign you to
“John Hacklebirnie’s house.” Even Goldsmith (Animated Nature, i. 48)
had heard of the local creed, “The inhabitants of Iceland believe the
bellowings of Hekla are nothing else but the cries of the damned,
and that its eruptions are contrived to increase their tortures.”
Uno Van Troil (Letter I.) who in 1770, together with those “inclyti
Brittannici,” _Baron_ Bank and Dr. Solander, “gained the pleasure
of being the first who ever reached the summit of this celebrated
volcano,” attributes the mountain’s virginity to the superstitions
of the people. He writes soberly about its marvels; and he explains
its high fame by its position, skirting the watery way to and from
Greenland and North America. His companions show less modesty of
imagination. We may concede that an unknown ascent “required great
circumspection”; and that in a high wind ascensionists were obliged
to lie down. But how explain the “dread of being blown into the most
dreadful precipices,” when the latter do not exist? Moreover, we learn
that to “accomplish this undertaking” they had to travel from 300 to
360 miles over uninterrupted bursts of lava, which is more than the
maximum length of the island, from northeast to southwest. As will be
seen, modern travellers have followed suit passing well.
The next morning (July 13) broke fair and calm, reminding me
“_Del bel paese la dove il sì suona._”
The Miss Hopes were punctual to a minute--an excellent thing in
travelling womanhood. We rode up half-way somewhat surprised to find
so few parasitic craters; the only signs of independent eruption on
the western flank were the Raudkólar (red hills), as the people call
their lava hornitos and spiracles, which are little bigger than the
bottle-house cones of Leith.
At an impassable divide we left our poor nags to pass the dreary time,
without water or forage, and we followed the improvised guide, who
caused not a little amusement. His general port was that of a bear
that has lost its ragged staff.--I took away his alpenstock for one
of the girls--and he was plantigrade rather than cremnobatic; he had
stripped to his underalls, which were very short, whilst his stockings
were very long and the heraldic gloves converted his hands to paws. The
two little snow fonds (“steep glassy slopes of hard snow”), were the
easiest of walking. We had nerved ourselves to “Break neck or limbs,
be maimed or boiled alive,” but we looked in vain for the “concealed
abysses,” for the “crevasses to be crossed,” and for places where a
“slip would be to roll to destruction.” We did not sight the “lava
wall,” a capital protection against giddiness. The snow was anything
but slippery; the surface was scattered with dust, and it bristled with
a forest of dwarf earth-pillars, where blown volcanic sand preserved
the ice. After a slow hour and a half, we reached the crater of ’45,
which opened at 9 A. M. on September 2, and discharged lava till the
end of November. It might be passed unobserved by the inexperienced
man. The only remnant is the upper lip prolonged to the right; the
dimensions may have been 120 by 150 yards, and the cleft shows a
projecting ice-ledge ready to fall. The feature is well-marked by the
new lava-field of which it is the source: the bristly “stone-river” is
already degrading to superficial dust. A little beyond this bowl the
ground smokes, discharging snow-steam made visible by the cold air.
Hence doubtless those sententious travellers “experienced at one and
the same time, a high degree of heat and cold.”
Fifteen minutes more led us to the First or Southern Crater, whose
Ol-bogi (elbow or rim) is one of the horns conspicuous from below. It
is a regular formation about 100 yards at the bottom each way, with the
right (east) side red and cindery, and the left yellow and sulphury;
mosses and a few flowerets grow on the lips; in the sole rise jets of
steam and a rock-rib bisects it diagonally from northeast to southwest.
We thought it the highest point of the volcano, but the aneroid
corrected our mistake.
From the First Crater we walked over the left or western dorsum, over
which one could drive a coach, and we congratulated one another upon
the exploit. Former travellers “balancing themselves like rope-dancers,
succeeded in passing along the ridge of slags which was so narrow that
there was scarcely room for their feet,” the breadth being “not more
than two feet, having a precipice on each side several hundred feet
in depth.” Charity suggests that the feature has altered, but there
was no eruption between 1766 and 1845; moreover, the lip would have
diminished, not increased. And one of the most modern visitors repeats
the “very narrow ridge,” with the classical but incorrect adjuncts
of “Scylla here, Charybdis there.” Scylla (say the crater slope) is
disposed at an angle of 30°, and Mr. Chapman coolly walked down this
“vast” little hollow. I descended Charybdis (the outer counterscarp)
far enough to make sure that it is equally easy.
Passing the “carriage road” (our own name), we crossed a _névé_
without any necessity for digging foot-holes. It lies where sulphur
is notably absent. The hot patches which account for the freedom from
snow, even so high above the congelation-line, are scattered about the
summit: in other parts the thermometer, placed in an eighteen-inch
hole, made earth colder than air. After a short climb we reached the
apex; the ruddy-walled northeastern lip of the Red Crater (No. 2):
its lower or western rim forms two of the five summits seen from the
prairie, and hides the highest point. We thus ascertained that Hekla
is a linear volcano of two mouths, or three including that of ’45, and
that it wants a true apical crater. But how reconcile the accounts of
travellers? Pliny Miles found one cone and three craters; Madam Ida
Pfeiffer, like Metcalfe, three cones and no crater.
On the summit the guides sang a song of triumph, whilst we drank to
the health of our charming companions and, despite the cold wind which
eventually drove us down, carefully studied the extensive view. The
glorious day was out of character with a scene _niente che Montagne_,
as the unhappy Venetians described the Morea; rain and sleet and
blinding snow would better have suited the picture, but happily they
were conspicuous by their absence. Inland, beyond a steep snow-bed
unpleasantly crevassed, lay a grim photograph all black and white;
Lángjökull looking down upon us with a grand and freezing stare; the
Hrafntinnu Valley marked by a dwarf cone, and beyond where streams
head, the gloomy regions stretching to the Sprengisandur, dreary wastes
of utter sterility, howling deserts of dark ashes, wholly lacking
water and vegetable life, and wanting the gleam and the glow which
light up the Arabian wild. Skaptár and Oræfa were hidden from sight.
Seawards, ranging from west to south, the view, by contrast, was a
picture of amenity and civilization. Beyond castellated Hljódfell and
conical Skjaldbreid appeared the familiar forms of Esja, and the long
lava projection of the Gold Breast country, melting into the western
main. Nearer stretched the fair lowlands, once a broad deep bay, now
traversed by the network of Ölfusá, Thjórsá, and the Markarfljót; while
the sixfold bunch of the Westman Islands, mere stone lumps upon a blue
ground, seemingly floating far below the raised horizon, lay crowned
by summer sea. Eastward we distinctly traced the Fiskivötn. Run the
eye along the southern shore, and again the scene shifts. Below the
red hornitos of the slope rises the classical Three-horned, not lofty,
but remarkable for its trident top; Tindfjall (tooth-fell) with its
two horns or pyramids of ice, casting blue shadows upon the untrodden
snow; and the whole mighty mass known as the Eastern Jökull Eyjafjall
(island-fell), so called from the black button of rock which crowns the
long white dorsum; Kátlá (Költu-gjá), Merkrjökull, and Godalands, all
connected by ridges, and apparently neither lofty nor impracticable.
_Ultima Thule; or a Summer in Iceland_ (London and Edinburgh, 1875).
FOOTNOTES:
[5] Heklu-fjall derives from Hekla (akin to Hökull, a priest’s cope),
meaning a cowled or hooded frock, knitted of various colours, and
applied to the “Vesuvius of the North” from its cap and body vest of
snow. Icelanders usually translate it a chasuble, because its rounded
black shoulders bear stripes of white, supposed to resemble the cross
carried to Calvary.
[6] Rángá (“wrong,” or crooked stream) is a name that frequently
occurs, and generally denotes either that the trend is opposed to the
general water-shed, or that an angle has been formed in the bed by
earthquakes or eruptions.
VICTORIA FALLS
(_AFRICA_)
DAVID LIVINGSTONE
We proceeded next morning, 9th August, 1860, to see the Victoria Falls.
Mosi-oa-tunya is the Makololo name, and means smoke sounding; Seongo
or Chongwé, meaning the Rainbow, or the place of the Rainbow, was the
more ancient term they bore. We embarked in canoes, belonging to Tuba
Mokoro, “smasher of canoes,” an ominous name; but he alone, it seems,
knew the medicine which insures one against shipwreck in the rapids
above the Falls. For some miles the river was smooth and tranquil,
and we glided pleasantly over water clear as crystal, and past lovely
islands densely covered with a tropical vegetation. Noticeable among
the many trees were the lofty Hyphæne and Borassus palms; the graceful
wild date-palm, with its fruit in golden clusters, and the umbrageous
mokononga, of cypress form, with its dark-green leaves and scarlet
fruit. Many flowers peeped out near the water’s edge, some entirely new
to us, and others, as the convolvulus, old acquaintances.
But our attention was quickly called from the charming islands to the
dangerous rapids, down which Tuba might unintentionally shoot us. To
confess the truth, the very ugly aspect of these roaring rapids could
scarcely fail to cause some uneasiness in the minds of new-comers. It
is only when the river is very low, as it was now, that any one durst
venture to the island to which we were bound. If one went during the
period of flood, and fortunately hit the island, he would be obliged to
remain there till the water subsided again, if he lived so long. Both
hippopotamus and elephants have been known to be swept over the Falls,
and of course smashed to pulp.
Before entering the race of waters, we were requested not to speak,
as our talking might diminish the virtue of the medicine; and no one
with such boiling, eddying rapids before his eyes, would think of
disobeying the orders of a “canoe-smasher.” It soon became evident that
there was sound sense in this request of Tuba’s, although the reason
assigned was not unlike that of the canoe-man from Sesheke, who begged
one of our party not to whistle because whistling made the wind come.
It was the duty of the man at the bow to look out ahead for the proper
course, and when he saw a rock or snag to call out to the steersman.
Tuba doubtless thought that talking on board might divert the attention
of his steersman, at a time when the neglect of an order, or a slight
mistake, would be sure to spill us all into the chafing river. There
were places where the utmost exertions of both men had to be put forth
in order to force the canoe to the only safe part of the rapid, and
to prevent it from sweeping down broadside on, where in a twinkling
we should have found ourselves floundering among the plotuses and
cormorants, which were engaged in diving for their breakfast of small
fish. At times it seemed as if nothing could save us from dashing in
our headlong race against the rocks which, now that the river was low,
jutted out of the water; but just at the very nick of time, Tuba passed
the word to the steersman, and then with ready pole turned the canoe a
little aside and we glided swiftly past the threatened danger. Never
was canoe more admirably managed: once only did the medicine seem to
have lost something of its efficacy. We were driving swiftly down, a
black rock, over which the white foam flew, lay directly in our path,
the pole was planted against it as readily as ever, but it slipped just
as Tuba put forth his strength to turn the bow off. We struck hard,
and were half-full of water in a moment; Tuba recovered himself as
speedily, shoved off the bow, and shot the canoe into a still shallow
place, to bale out the water. Here we were given to understand that it
was not the medicine which was at fault; _that_ had lost none of its
virtue; the accident was owing entirely to Tuba having started without
his breakfast. Need it be said we never left Tuba go without that meal
again?
We landed at the head of Garden Island, which is situated near the
middle of the river and on the lip of the Falls. On reaching that lip,
and peering over the giddy height, the wondrous and unique character of
the magnificent cascade at once burst upon us.
It is a rather hopeless task to endeavour to convey an idea of it in
words, since, as was remarked on the spot, an accomplished painter,
even by a number of views, could but impart a faint impression of the
glorious scene. The probable mode of its formation may perhaps help
to the conception of its peculiar shape. Niagara has been formed by
a wearing back of the rock over which the river falls; but during
the long course of ages, it has gradually receded, and left a broad,
deep, and pretty straight trough in front. It goes on wearing back
daily, and may yet discharge the lakes from which its river--the St.
Lawrence--flows. But the Victoria Falls have been formed by a crack
right across the river, in the hard, black, basaltic rock which there
formed the bed of the Zambesi. The lips of the crack are still quite
sharp, save about three feet of the edge over which the river rolls.
The walls go sheer down from the lips without any projecting crag,
or symptoms of stratification or dislocation. When the mighty rift
occurred, no change of level took place in the two parts of the bed of
the river thus rent asunder, consequently, in coming down the river to
Garden Island, the water suddenly disappears, and we see the opposite
side of the cleft, with grass and trees growing where once the river
ran, on the same level as that part of its bed on which we sail. The
first crack, is, in length, a few yards more than the breadth of the
Zambesi, which by measurement we found to be a little over 1,860 yards,
but this number we resolved to retain as indicating the year in which
the Fall was for the first time carefully examined. The main stream
here runs nearly north and south, and the cleft across it is nearly
east and west. The depth of the rift was measured by lowering a line,
to the end of which a few bullets and a foot of white cotton cloth were
tied. One of us lay with his head over a projecting crag, and watched
the descending calico, till, after his companions had paid out 310
feet, the weight rested on a sloping projection, probably fifty feet
from the water below, the actual bottom being still further down. The
white cloth now appeared the size of a crown-piece. On measuring the
width of this deep cleft by sextant, it was found at Garden Island, its
narrowest part, to be eighty yards, and at its broadest somewhat more.
Into this chasm, of twice the depth of Niagara-fall, the river, a full
mile wide, rolls with a deafening roar; and this is Mosi-oa-tunya, or
the Victoria Falls.
[Illustration: FALLS OF THE ZAMBESI.]
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 waterfall, and find an outlet
by a crack situated at right angles to the fissure of the Falls. This
outlet is about 1,170 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
1,170 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
toward 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 cut off by similar fissures nearer the ocean.
The land beyond, or on the south of the Falls, retains, as already
remarked, the same level as before the rent was made. It is as if the
trough below Niagara were bent right and left, several times before it
reached the railway bridge. The land in the supposed bends being of
the same height as that above the Fall, would give standing-places, or
points of view, of the same nature as that from the railway bridge,
but the nearest would be only eighty yards, instead of two miles (the
distance to the bridge) from the face of the cascade. The tops of the
promontories are in general flat, smooth, and studded with trees. The
first, with its base on the east, is at one place so narrow, that it
would be dangerous to walk to its extremity. On the second, however,
we found a broad rhinoceros path and a hut; but, unless the builder
were a hermit, with a pet rhinoceros, we cannot conceive what beast or
man ever went there for. On reaching the apex of this second eastern
promontory we saw the great river, of a deep sea-green colour, now
sorely compressed, gliding away, at least 400 feet below us.
Garden Island, when the river is low, commands the best view of the
Great Fall chasm, as also of the promontory opposite, with its grove of
large evergreen trees, and brilliant rainbows of three-quarters of a
circle, two, three, and sometimes even four in number, resting on the
face of the vast perpendicular rock, down which tiny streams are always
running to be swept again back by the upward rushing vapour. But as,
at Niagara, one has to go over to the Canadian shore to see the chief
wonder--the Great Horseshoe Fall--so here we have to cross over to
Moselekatsé’s side to the promontory of evergreens, for the best view
of the principal Falls of Mosi-oa-tunya. Beginning, therefore, at the
base of this promontory, and facing the Cataract, at the west end of
the chasm, there is, first, a fall of thirty-six yards in breadth, and
of course, as they all are, upwards of 310 feet in depth. Then Boaruka,
a small island, intervenes, and next comes a great fall, with a breadth
of 573 yards; a projecting rock separates this from a second grand
fall of 325 yards broad; in all, upwards of 900 yards of perennial
Falls. Further east stands Garden Island; then, as the river was at
its lowest, came a good deal of the bare rock of its bed, with a score
of narrow falls, which, at the time of flood, constitute one enormous
cascade of nearly another half-mile. Near the east end of the chasm are
two larger falls, but they are nothing at low water compared to those
between the islands.
The whole body of water rolls clear over, quite unbroken; but, after a
descent of ten or more feet, the entire mass suddenly becomes a huge
sheet of driven snow. Pieces of water leap off it in the form of comets
with tails streaming behind, till the whole snowy sheet becomes myriads
of rushing, leaping, aqueous comets. This peculiarity was not observed
by Charles Livingstone at Niagara, and here it happens, possibly from
the dryness of the atmosphere, or whatever the cause may be which makes
every drop of Zambesi water appear to possess a sort of individuality.
It runs off the ends of the paddles, and glides in beads along the
smooth surface, like drops of quicksilver on a table. Here we see them
in a conglomeration, each with a train of pure white vapour, racing
down till lost in clouds of spray. A stone dropped in became less and
less to the eye, and at last disappeared in the dense mist below.
Charles Livingstone had seen Niagara, and gave Mosi-oa-tunya the palm,
though now at the end of a drought, and the river at its very lowest.
Many feel a disappointment on first seeing the great American Falls,
but Mosi-oa-tunya is so strange, it must ever cause wonder. In the
amount of water, Niagara probably excels, though not during the months
when the Zambesi is in flood. The vast body of water, separating in
the comet-like forms described, necessarily encloses in its descent
a large volume of air, which, forced into the cleft, to an unknown
depth, rebounds, and rushes up loaded with vapour to form the three
or even six columns, as if of steam, visible at the Batoka village
Moachemba, twenty-one miles distant. On attaining a height of 200, or
at most 300 feet from the level of the river above the cascade, this
vapour becomes condensed into a perpetual shower of fine rain. Much
of the spray, rising to the west of Garden Island, falls on the grove
of evergreen trees opposite; and from their leaves, heavy drops are
for ever falling, to form sundry little rills, which, in running down
the steep face of rock, are blown off and turned back, or licked off
their perpendicular bed, up into the column from which they have just
descended.