Victoria Falls

• 1. Introduction

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  Victoria Falls announces itself long before a visitor sees any water. The spray typically climbs more than 400 metres into the air, and sometimes twice that height. On a clear day it can be seen from as far as 50 kilometres away. The falls lie on the Zambezi River, exactly on the border between Zambia and Zimbabwe, and the plume hangs over two countries at once.

  Several African peoples gave this place their own names long ago, and a Scottish missionary later gave it one more. Which of those names survived, and why does the official record keep two of them? The waterfall is also strange in its shape. The entire river does not tumble down a slope. It drops in one piece into a narrow trench, and every drop of it must then escape through a single gap.

  Other puzzles follow. In some months a person can walk across stretches of the riverbed at the crest, while in others the base of the cliff vanishes behind its own mist. A lake that no longer exists helped carve the canyons below. And in recent years the river has begun to behave in ways that worry the people who live from it.

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• 2. Many Names, Late Witnesses

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  In the Lozi language the falls are Mosi-oa-Tunya, the Smoke That Thunders. The southern Tonga people, known as the Batoka, called them Shungu Namutitima, meaning Boiling Water. The Matabele, who arrived later, said aManz' aThunqayo. The Batswana and the Makololo, whose language the Lozi use, used a form of Mosi-o-Tunya. All of these names mean essentially the same thing.

  Another older name, Seongo or Chongwe, was recorded by David Livingstone himself. It means The Place of the Rainbow, a reference to the constant spray. Livingstone reached the falls on the 16th of November 1855. He had heard of them from people upriver, and local guides paddled him across to an island close to the Zambian shore. That island now carries his name. He named the falls for Queen Victoria, yet the Lozi name stayed in everyday use, and the World Heritage List officially recognises both.

  Livingstone was the first European on record to see the falls, but he was far from the first to know of them. Stone tools from the Early and Middle Stone Age have been dug up around the site, including Acheulean and Oldowan pieces, along with Sangoan and Lupemban artefacts. Early Iron Age pottery turned up near Masuma Dam in the early 1960s, and a settlement from the late first millennium AD showed signs of iron smelting.

  European maps hint at older rumours. A map by Nicolas de Fer, dated 1715, marks the falls in the correct position. It also shows dotted trade routes that Livingstone would follow 140 years later. A map from around 1750, drawn by Jacques Nicolas Bellin, labels the spot as cataractes. European listeners often doubted what Africans told them, perhaps because a flat plateau with no mountains or valleys seemed an unlikely home for a giant fall.

  Livingstone came back in 1860 and made a careful study with John Kirk. The Czech explorer Emil Holub drew the first detailed plan of the falls and their surroundings in 1875, and it was published in 1880. The British artist Thomas Baines painted some of the earliest pictures. The Portuguese explorer Serpa Pinto also visited. Some writers go further back still and credit a Portuguese priest, Gonçalo da Silveira, with a glimpse in the sixteenth century.

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• 3. A Sheet of Water

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  Multiply 1,708 metres of width by 108 metres of height, and the falls earn their classification as the world's largest sheet of falling water. Upstream, the Zambezi slides over a level slab of basalt in a shallow valley, with low sandstone hills far off on either side. Tree-covered islands dot the channel and grow more numerous as the river nears the edge. The plateau beyond is flat in every direction.

  Then the ground simply ends. The river's full width plunges in a single vertical drop into a chasm that runs across its path, following a fracture zone in the basalt. This chasm is the First Gorge. It is 80 metres deep at the western end and 108 metres deep in the middle. Its only exit is a gap 110 metres wide, about two-thirds of the way along from the west.

  Two islands sit right on the crest. Boaruka Island, also called Cataract Island, lies near the western bank. Livingstone Island sits near the middle. When the river is below full flood, smaller islets split the curtain into separate streams. From the Zimbabwean side to the Zambian side, these are the Devil's Cataract, which some call Leaping Water, then the Main Falls, then the Rainbow Falls, which is the highest, and finally the Eastern Cataract.

  Niagara Falls is 51 metres high and 1,203 metres wide. Iguazu Falls is wider at 2,700 metres, with its biggest drop measuring between 64 and 82 metres, but it is broken into two drops. By mean annual flow, Victoria is actually the smallest of the three, at 1,088 cubic metres per second. Niagara averages 2,407, although half the water approaching it is diverted for hydroelectric power. Iguazu averages 1,746.

  The highest flow ever recorded at Victoria Falls is 12,800 cubic metres per second, almost twelve times the yearly mean.

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• 4. Flood and Dry

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  A river that peaks in April and shrinks to a tenth of that flow in November does not look like the same waterfall twice. The Zambezi has a rainy season from late November to early April. Its flood season runs from February to May. At the height of the flood, the foot and face of the falls vanish behind their own spray, and no viewer can see them. The mean monthly flow at the top of the range is 3,000 cubic metres per second, against 300 at the bottom.

  A gentler spectacle belongs to the full moon. On those nights a moonbow can appear in the mist.

  The dry months strip the falls back. Islets on the crest grow wider and more numerous. From September to January, up to half of the rocky face can run dry, and the bottom of the First Gorge can be seen along most of its length. Some stretches of the river at the crest become walkable, though not necessarily safely. On the Zimbabwean side, it is possible to walk down to the floor of the gorge.

  This swing is larger than at other major falls. It drags down the annual average, which is lower than the peak flow alone would suggest.

  The low water has produced one of the falls' best-known attractions. On the Zambian side, along the western tip of Livingstone Island, a rock barrier forms an eddy with very little current at a certain river level, usually between September and December. The result is the Devil's Pool, a natural infinity pool right at the lip. Adventurous swimmers can splash about there, in relative safety, just in front of the drop.

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• 5. Gorges and Geology

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  About 2 million years ago, the land between Zimbabwe and the Kalahari Desert rose. Before that, the Upper Zambezi had flowed south across present-day Botswana to join the Limpopo River. The uplift blocked that route, and a vast paleolake called Lake Makgadikgadi filled the space between the Kalahari and the Batoka Basaltic Plateau. The lake had no natural outlet at first.

  Around 20,000 years ago, under a wetter climate, the lake brimmed over and began draining eastward. That outflow cut the Batoka Gorge through the basalt, a rock layer laid down in the Jurassic period, about 200 million years ago. The gorge now shows six individual gorges and eight past positions of the falls. Several of the gorges run east to west along joints and faults. At the second and fifth gorges, the fault has shifted the ground by 50 metres vertically.

  The pattern repeats. Erosion eats backward along a line of weakness until a new fall line forms and the older one is abandoned. A north-south joint controls the Boiling Pot, which links the First Gorge with the Second.

  Downstream, the whole Zambezi squeezes through the First Gorge's 110-metre exit and runs about 150 metres before reaching the Second Gorge. There the water takes a sharp right turn and has scooped out the Boiling Pot, a deep pool about 150 metres across. A steep footpath from the Zambian side leads down to it. At low water the surface is smooth. At high water it is marked by huge slow swirls and heavy turbulence.

  The Second Gorge lies 250 metres south of the falls and is 2.15 kilometres long. The Third Gorge begins 600 metres south, runs 1.95 kilometres, and holds the Victoria Falls Power Station. The Fourth starts 1.15 kilometres south and runs 2.25 kilometres. The Fifth begins 2.25 kilometres south and runs 3.2 kilometres. The Songwe Gorge, 5.3 kilometres south and 3.3 kilometres long, takes its name from the small Songwe River entering from the north-east. It is the deepest at 140 metres, and its water level swings by up to 20 metres between wet and dry seasons.

  The next retreat of the falls may already have begun. At the Devil's Cataract, between the western bank and Cataract Island, the lip is lowest and carries the heaviest concentration of water at flood stage.

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• 6. Rails, Borders and Crowds

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  Until 1905, anyone crossing the Zambezi above the falls used a spot called the Old Drift. People went over by dugout canoe or on a barge hauled along a steel cable. European settlement around the falls began about 1900, driven by the British South Africa Company of Cecil Rhodes. The company wanted mineral rights and imperial rule north of the river. It also coveted timber, ivory and animal skins.

  Rhodes dreamed of a railway from the Cape to Cairo, and that dream produced the first bridge across the Zambezi. He insisted that the spray should fall on passing trains, which settled the site at the Second Gorge. The railway offered travel from the Cape from 1905 and from as far as the Belgian Congo from 1909. The Victoria Falls Hotel had already opened in 1904 for the expected arrivals. During British colonial rule of Northern Rhodesia and Southern Rhodesia, the town of Victoria Falls became the main tourist centre.

  In 1964, Northern Rhodesia became the independent state of Zambia. The next year, Rhodesia unilaterally declared independence. Zambia, the United Kingdom and most other states refused to recognise this, and United Nations-mandated sanctions followed. In 1966 Zambia restricted or stopped border crossings, and it did not fully reopen the border until 1980.

  The Rhodesian Bush War ran from 1972 to 1980 on the southern side of the river. Visitor numbers fell, particularly on the Rhodesian side. Rhodesian military operations against guerrilla camps in Zambia led the Zambians to station soldiers who restricted access to the gorges and parts of the falls.

  Zimbabwe's internationally recognised independence in 1980 brought relative peace. During the 1980s tourism recovered, and the area became a centre for adventure sports. Whitewater rafting in the gorges, bungee jumping from the bridge, game fishing, horse riding, kayaking, e-biking and sightseeing flights all gained fans.

  By the end of the 1990s, almost 400,000 people came each year, and forecasts expected over a million within a decade. Most visitors are Zimbabweans and Zambians rather than foreigners, because buses and trains make the trip comparatively cheap.

  The Zimbabwean side historically drew more people thanks to better facilities. That changed in the early 2000s, as political tensions grew between supporters and opponents of president Robert Mugabe. In 2006, hotels on the Zimbabwean side were about 30% occupied, while the Zambian side was near capacity, with top rooms at US$630 per night. The United Nations considered revoking the falls' World Heritage status over rapid development, along with waste disposal problems and weak management of the environment. In 2004, a separate Tourism Police force had been created, and its officers wear uniforms with yellow reflective bibs.

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• 7. Rainforest in the Spray

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  Pod mahogany, ebony, ivory palm, wild date palm and batoko plum grow in a rainforest that has no business existing here. The spray from the falls feeds it, along with creepers and lianas, in a region where such plants are rare. Above the falls, riverine forest with palm trees lines the banks and islands. Away from the water, mopane woodland savannah dominates, with smaller patches of miombo, Rhodesian teak woodland and shrubland savannah.

  The protected areas are small. Mosi-oa-Tunya National Park, on the Zambian side, covers 66 square kilometres. Victoria Falls National Park, on the Zimbabwean shore, covers 23 square kilometres, and the town there shares the name. Next to the latter lies Zambezi National Park, which stretches 40 kilometres west along the river. Animals can roam between the Zimbabwean parks and on to the Matetsi Safari Area, Kazuma Pan National Park and Hwange National Park.

  On the Zambian side, fences and the edge of the city of Livingstone keep most animals inside the park. Fences built by lodges to deter crime restrict movement further. Across the border in Botswana, Chobe National Park is a popular day trip, with a more varied range of plants and animals than Hwange.

  Sizeable populations of African bush elephant, Cape buffalo, giraffe, Grant's zebra and many antelope live in the parks. Lions, African leopards and South African cheetahs are seen only occasionally. Vervet monkeys and baboons are common. Southern white rhinoceroses live in Mosi-oa-Tunya National Park, and black rhinoceroses roam Victoria Falls Private Game Reserve. Hippopotamus and Nile crocodile are abundant in the river above the falls, and in the dry season elephant herds wade across at particular crossing points.

  The gorges shelter klipspringers, honey badgers, lizards and clawless otters, but they are best known for 35 species of raptors. The Taita falcon, Verreaux's eagle, peregrine falcon and augur buzzard all breed there. Above the falls, herons, African fish eagles and many kinds of waterfowl are common.

  The river holds 84 fish species above the falls and only 39 below them, a lopsided count that shows how firmly the drop divides the upper Zambezi from the lower.

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• 8. Drought and Last Chances

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  In 2019, unusually low rainfall cut the flow of Victoria Falls to its lowest in a century. Scientists and journalists linked this to global climate change and shifting weather patterns. In February 2020, National Geographic highlighted the threat from extreme weather. Rising temperatures are making the region hotter and drier. River flow varies sharply from year to year, and the general trend shows a significant drop from September through December.

  Drought years are becoming more frequent and more intense. They have already changed how the falls look, and the vegetation has suffered, along with the antelope that depend on it. There are fears that Victoria Falls could join the World Heritage sites labelled last-chance destinations. Research in the late 2010s found that variable rainfall linked to climate change is likely to alter the character of the falls.

  The question has set off a heated debate among tourism operators in both Zambia and Zimbabwe, the two countries whose hotels, parks and bridge crossings share a single waterfall.

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