A map from c. 1750 drawn by Jacques Nicolas Bellin for Abbé Antoine François Prevost d'Exiles marks the falls as "cataractes" and notes a settlement to the north of the Zambezi as being friendly with the Portuguese at the time.
Livingstone had been told about the falls before he reached them from upriver and was paddled across to a small island that now bears the name Livingstone Island in Zambia.