Livingstone hotels collection

The carriages were meant to be soaked as they crossed: the bridge was laid out close to the Victoria Falls with that in mind, and in the high-water season the cloud of spray still falls back on the steel arch. Downstream, the Zambezi enters a run of zigzag gorges cut into basalt, each a former position of falls that go on retreating. The town, capital before Lusaka, bears the name of the Scottish explorer and keeps its verandah houses beneath corrugated iron. On full-moon nights, a pale rainbow forms in the cloud of water.