The
Victoria Falls are more than double the height of Niagara, Niagara
falling 160 feet, and the Zambesi 330 feet, and the Falls are over
one mile broad, but I fancy that except in March and April, the
volume of water hurling itself over them into the great chasm
below is smaller than at Niagara. I have heard that the width of
the Victoria Falls is to within a few yards exactly the distance
between the Marble Arch and Oxford Circus. When I was in the
Argentine Republic, the great Falls of the River Iguazu, a
tributary of the Parana, were absolutely inaccessible. To reach
them vast tracts of dense primeval forest had to be traversed,
where every inch of the track would have to be laboriously hacked
through the jungle. Their very existence was questioned, for it
depended on the testimony of wandering Indians, and of one
solitary white man, a Jesuit missionary. Now, since the railway to
Paraguay has been completed, the Iguazu Falls can be reached,
though the journey is still a difficult one. The Falls are 200
feet high, and nearly a mile wide. In the very heart of the City
of Ottawa there are the fine Chaudiere Falls, where the entire
River Ottawa drops fifty feet over a rocky ledge.
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