This sketch is thought to date from Livingstone’s second visit to the Victoria Falls in August 1860. He had first seen them in November 1855 when he had named the Falls after Queen Victoria, although recording a local name of Mostoatunya. Livingstone recorded the details of the width and height of the Falls and the gorges cut by the River Zambezi, but was also inspired to write,

The whole scene was extremely beautiful; the banks and islands dotted over the river are adorned with vegetation of great variety of colour and form…no-one can imagine the beauty of the view from anything witnessed in England…scenes so lovely must have been gazed upon by angels in their flight.