me that, after such an adventure, the power of the wizard will be
enormously enhanced in the sight of his comrades.”
“Why, I wouldn’t put it past them to make a god of him!” said Joe, with
a laugh.
The Victoria, by this time, had risen to the height of one thousand
feet, and the black hung to the rope with desperate energy. He had
become completely silent, and his eyes were fixed, for his terror was
blended with amazement. A light west wind was sweeping the balloon right
over the town, and far beyond it.
Half an hour later, the doctor, seeing the country deserted, moderated
the flame of his cylinder, and descended toward the ground. At twenty
feet above the turf, the affrighted sorcerer made up his mind in a
twinkling: he let himself drop, fell on his feet, and scampered off at
a furious pace toward Kazeh; while the balloon, suddenly relieved of his
weight, again shot up on her course.
CHAPTER SIXTEENTH.
Symptoms of a Storm.--The Country of the Moon.--The Future of the
African Continent.--The Last Machine of all.--A View of the Country at
Sunset.--Flora and Fauna.--The Tempest.--The Zone of Fire.--The Starry
Heavens.
“See,” said Joe, “what comes of playing the sons of the moon without her
leave! She came near serving us an ugly trick. But say, master, did you
damage your credit as a physician?”
“Yes, indeed,” chimed in the sportsman. “What kind of a dignitary was
this Sultan of Kazeh?”
“An old half-dead sot,” replied the doctor, “whose loss will not be very
severely felt. But the moral of all this is that honors are fleeting,
and we must not take too great a fancy to them.”
“So much the worse!” rejoined Joe. “I liked the thing--to be
worshipped!--Play the god as you like! Why, what would any one ask more
than that? By-the-way, the moon did come up, too, and all red, as if she
was in a rage.”
While the three friends went on chatting of this and other things, and
Joe examined the luminary of night from an entirely novel point of view,
the heavens became covered with heavy clouds to the northward, and the
lowering masses assumed a most sinister and threatening look. Quite a
smart breeze, found about three hundred feet from the earth, drove the
balloon toward the north-northeast; and above it the blue vault was
clear; but the atmosphere felt close and dull.
The aeronauts found themselves, at about eight in the evening, in
thirty-two degrees forty minutes east longitude, and four degrees
seventeen minutes latitude. The atmospheric currents, under the
influence of a tempest not far off, were driving them at the rate of
from thirty to thirty-five miles an hour; the undulating and fertile
plains of Mfuto were passing swiftly beneath them. The spectacle was one
worthy of admiration--and admire it they did.
“We are now right in the country of the Moon,” said Dr. Ferguson; “for
it has retained the name that antiquity gave it, undoubtedly, because
the moon has been worshipped there in all ages. It is, really, a superb
country.”
“It would be hard to find more splendid vegetation.”
“If we found the like of it around London it would not be natural, but
it would be very pleasant,” put in Joe. “Why is it that such savage
countries get all these fine things?”
“And who knows,” said the doctor, “that this country may not, one day,
become the centre of civilization? The races of the future may repair
hither, when Europe shall have become exhausted in the effort to feed
her inhabitants.”
“Do you think so, really?” asked Kennedy.
“Undoubtedly, my dear Dick. Just note the progress of events: consider
the migrations of races, and you will arrive at the same conclusion
assuredly. Asia was the first nurse of the world, was she not? For about
four thousand years she travailed, she grew pregnant, she produced, and
then, when stones began to cover the soil where the golden harvests sung
by Homer had flourished, her children abandoned her exhausted and
barren bosom. You next see them precipitating themselves upon young
and vigorous Europe, which has nourished them for the last two thousand
years. But already her fertility is beginning to die out; her productive
powers are diminishing every day. Those new diseases that annually
attack the products of the soil, those defective crops, those
insufficient resources, are all signs of a vitality that is rapidly
wearing out and of an approaching exhaustion. Thus, we already see the
millions rushing to the luxuriant bosom of America, as a source of help,
not inexhaustible indeed, but not yet exhausted. In its turn, that new
continent will grow old; its virgin forests will fall before the axe
of industry, and its soil will become weak through having too fully
produced what had been demanded of it. Where two harvests bloomed every
year, hardly one will be gathered from a soil completely drained of its
strength. Then, Africa will be there to offer to new races the treasures
that for centuries have been accumulating in her breast. Those climates
now so fatal to strangers will be purified by cultivation and by
drainage of the soil, and those scattered water supplies will be
gathered into one common bed to form an artery of navigation. Then this
country over which we are now passing, more fertile, richer, and fuller
of vitality than the rest, will become some grand realm where more
astonishing discoveries than steam and electricity will be brought to
light.”
“Ah! sir,” said Joe, “I’d like to see all that.”
“You got up too early in the morning, my boy!”
“Besides,” said Kennedy, “that may prove to be a very dull period when
industry will swallow up every thing for its own profit. By dint of
inventing machinery, men will end in being eaten up by it! I have always
fancied that the end of the earth will be when some enormous boiler,
heated to three thousand millions of atmospheric pressure, shall explode
and blow up our Globe!”
“And I add that the Americans,” said Joe, “will not have been the last
to work at the machine!”
“In fact,” assented the doctor, “they are great boiler-makers! But,
without allowing ourselves to be carried away by such speculations, let
us rest content with enjoying the beauties of this country of the Moon,
since we have been permitted to see it.”
The sun, darting his last rays beneath the masses of heaped-up cloud,
adorned with a crest of gold the slightest inequalities of the
ground below; gigantic trees, arborescent bushes, mosses on the even
surface--all had their share of this luminous effulgence. The soil,
slightly undulating, here and there rose into little conical hills;
there were no mountains visible on the horizon; immense brambly
palisades, impenetrable hedges of thorny jungle, separated the clearings
dotted with numerous villages, and immense euphorbiae surrounded
them with natural fortifications, interlacing their trunks with the
coral-shaped branches of the shrubbery and undergrowth.
Ere long, the Malagazeri, the chief tributary of Lake Tanganayika, was
seen winding between heavy thickets of verdure, offering an asylum to
many water-courses that spring from the torrents formed in the season
of freshets, or from ponds hollowed in the clayey soil. To observers
looking from a height, it was a chain of waterfalls thrown across the
whole western face of the country.
Animals with huge humps were feeding in the luxuriant prairies, and were
half hidden, sometimes, in the tall grass; spreading forests in bloom
redolent of spicy perfumes presented themselves to the gaze like immense
bouquets; but, in these bouquets, lions, leopards, hyenas, and tigers,
were then crouching for shelter from the last hot rays of the
setting sun. From time to time, an elephant made the tall tops of the
undergrowth sway to and fro, and you could hear the crackling of huge
branches as his ponderous ivory tusks broke them in his way.
“What a sporting country!” exclaimed Dick, unable longer to restrain his
enthusiasm; “why, a single ball fired at random into those forests would
bring down game worthy of it. Suppose we try it once!”
“No, my dear Dick; the night is close at hand--a threatening night with
a tempest in the background--and the storms are awful in this country,
where the heated soil is like one vast electric battery.”
“You are right, sir,” said Joe, “the heat has got to be enough to
choke one, and the breeze has died away. One can feel that something’s
coming.”
“The atmosphere is saturated with electricity,” replied the doctor;
“every living creature is sensible that this state of the air portends a
struggle of the elements, and I confess that I never before was so full
of the fluid myself.”
“Well, then,” suggested Dick, “would it not be advisable to alight?”
“On the contrary, Dick, I’d rather go up, only that I am afraid of being
carried out of my course by these counter-currents contending in the
atmosphere.”
“Have you any idea, then, of abandoning the route that we have followed
since we left the coast?”
“If I can manage to do so,” replied the doctor, “I will turn more
directly northward, by from seven to eight degrees; I shall then
endeavor to ascend toward the presumed latitudes of the sources of the
Nile; perhaps we may discover some traces of Captain Speke’s expedition
or of M. de Heuglin’s caravan. Unless I am mistaken, we are at
thirty-two degrees forty minutes east longitude, and I should like to
ascend directly north of the equator.”
“Look there!” exclaimed Kennedy, suddenly, “see those hippopotami
sliding out of the pools--those masses of blood-colored flesh--and those
crocodiles snuffing the air aloud!”
“They’re choking!” ejaculated Joe. “Ah! what a fine way to travel this
is; and how one can snap his fingers at all that vermin!--Doctor! Mr.
Kennedy! see those packs of wild animals hurrying along close together.
There are fully two hundred. Those are wolves.”
“No! Joe, not wolves, but wild dogs; a famous breed that does not
hesitate to attack the lion himself. They are the worst customers a
traveller could meet, for they would instantly tear him to pieces.”
“Well, it isn’t Joe that’ll undertake to muzzle them!” responded that
amiable youth. “After all, though, if that’s the nature of the beast, we
mustn’t be too hard on them for it!”
Silence gradually settled down under the influence of the impending
storm: the thickened air actually seemed no longer adapted to the
transmission of sound; the atmosphere appeared MUFFLED, and, like a
room hung with tapestry, lost all its sonorous reverberation. The
“rover bird” so-called, the coroneted crane, the red and blue jays,
the mocking-bird, the flycatcher, disappeared among the foliage of the
immense trees, and all nature revealed symptoms of some approaching
catastrophe.
At nine o’clock the Victoria hung motionless over Msene, an extensive
group of villages scarcely distinguishable in the gloom. Once in a
while, the reflection of a wandering ray of light in the dull water
disclosed a succession of ditches regularly arranged, and, by one last
gleam, the eye could make out the calm and sombre forms of palm-trees,
sycamores, and gigantic euphorbiae.
“I am stifling!” said the Scot, inhaling, with all the power of his
lungs, as much as possible of the rarefied air. “We are not moving an
inch! Let us descend!”
“But the tempest!” said the doctor, with much uneasiness.
“If you are afraid of being carried away by the wind, it seems to me
that there is no other course to pursue.”
“Perhaps the storm won’t burst to-night,” said Joe; “the clouds are very
high.”
“That is just the thing that makes me hesitate about going beyond them;
we should have to rise still higher, lose sight of the earth, and
not know all night whether we were moving forward or not, or in what
direction we were going.”
“Make up your mind, dear doctor, for time presses!”
“It’s a pity that the wind has fallen,” said Joe, again; “it would have
carried us clear of the storm.”
“It is, indeed, a pity, my friends,” rejoined the doctor. “The clouds
are dangerous for us; they contain opposing currents which might catch
us in their eddies, and lightnings that might set on fire. Again, those
perils avoided, the force of the tempest might hurl us to the ground,
were we to cast our anchor in the tree-tops.”
“Then what shall we do?”
“Well, we must try to get the balloon into a medium zone of the
atmosphere, and there keep her suspended between the perils of the
heavens and those of the earth. We have enough water for the cylinder,
and our two hundred pounds of ballast are untouched. In case of
emergency I can use them.”
“We will keep watch with you,” said the hunter.
“No, my friends, put the provisions under shelter, and lie down; I will
rouse you, if it becomes necessary.”
“But, master, wouldn’t you do well to take some rest yourself, as
there’s no danger close on us just now?” insisted poor Joe.
“No, thank you, my good fellow, I prefer to keep awake. We are not
moving, and should circumstances not change, we’ll find ourselves
to-morrow in exactly the same place.”
“Good-night, then, sir!”
“Good-night, if you can only find it so!”
Kennedy and Joe stretched themselves out under their blankets, and the
doctor remained alone in the immensity of space.
However, the huge dome of clouds visibly descended, and the darkness
became profound. The black vault closed in upon the earth as if to crush
it in its embrace.
All at once a violent, rapid, incisive flash of lightning pierced the
gloom, and the rent it made had not closed ere a frightful clap of
thunder shook the celestial depths.
“Up! up! turn out!” shouted Ferguson.
The two sleepers, aroused by the terrible concussion, were at the
doctor’s orders in a moment.
“Shall we descend?” said Kennedy.
“No! the balloon could not stand it. Let us go up before those clouds
dissolve in water, and the wind is let loose!” and, so saying, the
doctor actively stirred up the flame of the cylinder, and turned it on
the spirals of the serpentine siphon.
The tempests of the tropics develop with a rapidity equalled only by
their violence. A second flash of lightning rent the darkness, and was
followed by a score of others in quick succession. The sky was crossed
and dotted, like the zebra’s hide, with electric sparks, which danced
and flickered beneath the great drops of rain.
“We have delayed too long,” exclaimed the doctor; “we must now
pass through a zone of fire, with our balloon filled as it is with
inflammable gas!”
“But let us descend, then! let us descend!” urged Kennedy.
“The risk of being struck would be just about even, and we should soon
be torn to pieces by the branches of the trees!”
“We are going up, doctor!”
“Quicker, quicker still!”
In this part of Africa, during the equatorial storms, it is not rare to
count from thirty to thirty-five flashes of lightning per minute. The
sky is literally on fire, and the crashes of thunder are continuous.
The wind burst forth with frightful violence in this burning atmosphere;
it twisted the blazing clouds; one might have compared it to the breath
of some gigantic bellows, fanning all this conflagration.
Dr. Ferguson kept his cylinder at full heat, and the balloon dilated and
went up, while Kennedy, on his knees, held together the curtains of
the awning. The balloon whirled round wildly enough to make their heads
turn, and the aeronauts got some very alarming jolts, indeed, as their
machine swung and swayed in all directions. Huge cavities would form in
the silk of the balloon as the wind fiercely bent it in, and the stuff
fairly cracked like a pistol as it flew back from the pressure. A
sort of hail, preceded by a rumbling noise, hissed through the air and
rattled on the covering of the Victoria. The latter, however, continued
to ascend, while the lightning described tangents to the convexity of
her circumference; but she bore on, right through the midst of the fire.
“God protect us!” said Dr. Ferguson, solemnly, “we are in His hands;
He alone can save us--but let us be ready for every event, even for
fire--our fall could not be very rapid.”
The doctor’s voice could scarcely be heard by his companions; but they
could see his countenance calm as ever even amid the flashing of the
lightnings; he was watching the phenomena of phosphorescence produced
by the fires of St. Elmo, that were now skipping to and fro along the
network of the balloon.
The latter whirled and swung, but steadily ascended, and, ere the hour
was over, it had passed the stormy belt. The electric display was going
on below it like a vast crown of artificial fireworks suspended from the
car.
Then they enjoyed one of the grandest spectacles that Nature can offer
to the gaze of man. Below them, the tempest; above them, the starry
firmament, tranquil, mute, impassible, with the moon projecting her
peaceful rays over these angry clouds.
Dr. Ferguson consulted the barometer; it announced twelve thousand feet
of elevation. It was then eleven o’clock at night.
“Thank Heaven, all danger is past; all we have to do now, is, to keep
ourselves at this height,” said the doctor.
“It was frightful!” remarked Kennedy.
“Oh!” said Joe, “it gives a little variety to the trip, and I’m not
sorry to have seen a storm from a trifling distance up in the air. It’s
a fine sight!”
CHAPTER SEVENTEENTH.
The Mountains of the Moon.--An Ocean of Verdure.--They cast Anchor.--The
Towing Elephant.--A Running Fire.--Death of the Monster.--The
Field-Oven.--A Meal on the Grass.--A Night on the Ground.
About four in the morning, Monday, the sun reappeared in the horizon;
the clouds had dispersed, and a cheery breeze refreshed the morning
dawn.
The earth, all redolent with fragrant exhalations, reappeared to the
gaze of our travellers. The balloon, whirled about by opposing currents,
had hardly budged from its place, and the doctor, letting the gas
contract, descended so as to get a more northerly direction. For a long
while his quest was fruitless; the wind carried him toward the west
until he came in sight of the famous Mountains of the Moon, which
grouped themselves in a semicircle around the extremity of Lake
Tanganayika; their ridges, but slightly indented, stood out against
the bluish horizon, so that they might have been mistaken for a natural
fortification, not to be passed by the explorers of the centre of
Africa. Among them were a few isolated cones, revealing the mark of the
eternal snows.
“Here we are at last,” said the doctor, “in an unexplored country!
Captain Burton pushed very far to the westward, but he could not reach
those celebrated mountains; he even denied their existence, strongly
as it was affirmed by Speke, his companion. He pretended that they were
born in the latter’s fancy; but for us, my friends, there is no further
doubt possible.”
“Shall we cross them?” asked Kennedy.
“Not, if it please God. I am looking for a wind that will take me back
toward the equator. I will even wait for one, if necessary, and will
make the balloon like a ship that casts anchor, until favorable breezes
come up.”
But the foresight of the doctor was not long in bringing its reward;
for, after having tried different heights, the Victoria at length began
to sail off to the northeastward with medium speed.
“We are in the right track,” said the doctor, consulting his compass,
“and scarcely two hundred feet from the surface; lucky circumstances
for us, enabling us, as they do, to reconnoitre these new regions. When
Captain Speke set out to discover Lake Ukereoue, he ascended more to the
eastward in a straight line above Kazeh.”
“Shall we keep on long in this way?” inquired the Scot.
“Perhaps. Our object is to push a point in the direction of the sources
of the Nile; and we have more than six hundred miles to make before
we get to the extreme limit reached by the explorers who came from the
north.”
“And we shan’t set foot on the solid ground?” murmured Joe; “it’s enough
to cramp a fellow’s legs!”
“Oh, yes, indeed, my good Joe,” said the doctor, reassuring him; “we
have to economize our provisions, you know; and on the way, Dick, you
must get us some fresh meat.”
“Whenever you like, doctor.”
“We shall also have to replenish our stock of water. Who knows but we
may be carried to some of the dried-up regions? So we cannot take too
many precautions.”
At noon the Victoria was at twenty-nine degrees fifteen minutes east
longitude, and three degrees fifteen minutes south latitude. She passed
the village of Uyofu, the last northern limit of the Unyamwezi, opposite
to the Lake Ukereoue, which could still be seen.
The tribes living near to the equator seem to be a little more
civilized, and are governed by absolute monarchs, whose control is an
unlimited despotism. Their most compact union of power constitutes the
province of Karagwah.
It was decided by the aeronauts that they would alight at the first
favorable place. They found that they should have to make a prolonged
halt, and take a careful inspection of the balloon: so the flame of the
cylinder was moderated, and the anchors, flung out from the car, ere
long began to sweep the grass of an immense prairie, that, from a
certain height, looked like a shaven lawn, but the growth of which, in
reality, was from seven to eight feet in height.
The balloon skimmed this tall grass without bending it, like a gigantic
butterfly: not an obstacle was in sight; it was an ocean of verdure
without a single breaker.
“We might proceed a long time in this style,” remarked Kennedy; “I don’t
see one tree that we could approach, and I’m afraid that our hunt’s
over.”
“Wait, Dick; you could not hunt anyhow in this grass, that grows higher
than your head. We’ll find a favorable place presently.”
In truth, it was a charming excursion that they were making now--a
veritable navigation on this green, almost transparent sea, gently
undulating in the breath of the wind. The little car seemed to cleave
the waves of verdure, and, from time to time, coveys of birds of
magnificent plumage would rise fluttering from the tall herbage, and
speed away with joyous cries. The anchors plunged into this lake of
flowers, and traced a furrow that closed behind them, like the wake of a
ship.
All at once a sharp shock was felt--the anchor had caught in the fissure
of some rock hidden in the high grass.
“We are fast!” exclaimed Joe.
These words had scarcely been uttered when a shrill cry rang through the
air, and the following phrases, mingled with exclamations, escaped from
the lips of our travellers:
“What’s that?”
“A strange cry!”
“Look! Why, we’re moving!”
“The anchor has slipped!”
“No; it holds, and holds fast too!” said Joe, who was tugging at the
rope.
“It’s the rock, then, that’s moving!”
An immense rustling was noticed in the grass, and soon an elongated,
winding shape was seen rising above it.
“A serpent!” shouted Joe.
“A serpent!” repeated Kennedy, handling his rifle.
“No,” said the doctor, “it’s an elephant’s trunk!”
“An elephant, Samuel?”
And, as Kennedy said this, he drew his rifle to his shoulder.
“Wait, Dick; wait!”
“That’s a fact! The animal’s towing us!”
“And in the right direction, Joe--in the right direction.”
The elephant was now making some headway, and soon reached a clearing
where his whole body could be seen. By his gigantic size, the doctor
recognized a male of a superb species. He had two whitish tusks,
beautifully curved, and about eight feet in length; and in these the
shanks of the anchor had firmly caught. The animal was vainly trying
with his trunk to disengage himself from the rope that attached him to
the car.
“Get up--go ahead, old fellow!” shouted Joe, with delight, doing
his best to urge this rather novel team. “Here is a new style of
travelling!--no more horses for me. An elephant, if you please!”
“But where is he taking us to?” said Kennedy, whose rifle itched in his
grasp.
“He’s taking us exactly to where we want to go, my dear Dick. A little
patience!”
“‘Wig-a-more! wig-a-more!’ as the Scotch country folks say,” shouted
Joe, in high glee. “Gee-up! gee-up there!”
The huge animal now broke into a very rapid gallop. He flung his trunk
from side to side, and his monstrous bounds gave the car several rather
heavy thumps. Meanwhile the doctor stood ready, hatchet in hand, to cut
the rope, should need arise.
“But,” said he, “we shall not give up our anchor until the last moment.”
This drive, with an elephant for the team, lasted about an hour and a
half; yet the animal did not seem in the least fatigued. These immense
creatures can go over a great deal of ground, and, from one day to
another, are found at enormous distances from there they were last seen,
like the whales, whose mass and speed they rival.
“In fact,” said Joe, “it’s a whale that we have harpooned; and we’re
only doing just what whalemen do when out fishing.”
But a change in the nature of the ground compelled the doctor to vary
his style of locomotion. A dense grove of calmadores was descried on
the horizon, about three miles away, on the north of the prairie. So it
became necessary to detach the balloon from its draught-animal at last.
Kennedy was intrusted with the job of bringing the elephant to a halt.
He drew his rifle to his shoulder, but his position was not favorable to
a successful shot; so that the first ball fired flattened itself on
the animal’s skull, as it would have done against an iron plate. The
creature did not seem in the least troubled by it; but, at the sound of
the discharge, he had increased his speed, and now was going as fast as
a horse at full gallop.
“The deuce!” ejaculated Kennedy.
“What a solid head!” commented Joe.
“We’ll try some conical balls behind the shoulder-joint,” said Kennedy,
reloading his rifle with care. In another moment he fired.
The animal gave a terrible cry, but went on faster than ever.
“Come!” said Joe, taking aim with another gun, “I must help you, or
we’ll never end it.” And now two balls penetrated the creature’s side.
The elephant halted, lifted his trunk, and resumed his run toward the
wood with all his speed; he shook his huge head, and the blood began to
gush from his wounds.
“Let us keep up our fire, Mr. Kennedy.”
“And a continuous fire, too,” urged the doctor, “for we are close on the
woods.”
Ten shots more were discharged. The elephant made a fearful bound; the
car and balloon cracked as though every thing were going to pieces, and
the shock made the doctor drop his hatchet on the ground.
The situation was thus rendered really very alarming; the anchor-rope,
which had securely caught, could not be disengaged, nor could it yet be
cut by the knives of our aeronauts, and the balloon was rushing headlong
toward the wood, when the animal received a ball in the eye just as he
lifted his head. On this he halted, faltered, his knees bent under him,
and he uncovered his whole flank to the assaults of his enemies in the
balloon.
“A bullet in his heart!” said Kennedy, discharging one last rifle-shot.
The elephant uttered a long bellow of terror and agony, then raised
himself up for a moment, twirling his trunk in the air, and finally fell
with all his weight upon one of his tusks, which he broke off short. He
was dead.
“His tusk’s broken!” exclaimed Kennedy--“ivory too that in England would
bring thirty-five guineas per hundred pounds.”
“As much as that?” said Joe, scrambling down to the ground by the
anchor-rope.
“What’s the use of sighing over it, Dick?” said the doctor. “Are we
ivory merchants? Did we come hither to make money?”
Joe examined the anchor and found it solidly attached to the unbroken
tusk. The doctor and Dick leaped out on the ground, while the balloon,
now half emptied, hovered over the body of the huge animal.
“What a splendid beast!” said Kennedy, “what a mass of flesh! I never
saw an elephant of that size in India!”
“There’s nothing surprising about that, my dear Dick; the elephants
of Central Africa are the finest in the world. The Andersons and the
Cummings have hunted so incessantly in the neighborhood of the Cape,
that these animals have migrated to the equator, where they are often
met with in large herds.”
“In the mean while, I hope,” added Joe, “that we’ll taste a morsel of
this fellow. I’ll undertake to get you a good dinner at his expense. Mr.
Kennedy will go off and hunt for an hour or two; the doctor will make an
inspection of the balloon, and, while they’re busy in that way, I’ll do
the cooking.”
“A good arrangement!” said the doctor; “so do as you like, Joe.”
“As for me,” said the hunter, “I shall avail myself of the two hours’
recess that Joe has condescended to let me have.”
“Go, my friend, but no imprudence! Don’t wander too far away.”
“Never fear, doctor!” and, so saying, Dick, shouldering his gun, plunged
into the woods.
Forthwith Joe went to work at his vocation. At first he made a hole in
the ground two feet deep; this he filled with the dry wood that was so
abundantly scattered about, where it had been strewn by the elephants,
whose tracks could be seen where they had made their way through the
forest. This hole filled, he heaped a pile of fagots on it a foot in
height, and set fire to it.
Then he went back to the carcass of the elephant, which had fallen only
about a hundred feet from the edge of the forest; he next proceeded
adroitly to cut off the trunk, which might have been two feet in
diameter at the base; of this he selected the most delicate portion, and
then took with it one of the animal’s spongy feet. In fact, these are
the finest morsels, like the hump of the bison, the paws of the bear,
and the head of the wild boar.
When the pile of fagots had been thoroughly consumed, inside and
outside, the hole, cleared of the cinders and hot coals, retained a very
high temperature. The pieces of elephant-meat, surrounded with aromatic
leaves, were placed in this extempore oven and covered with hot coals.
Then Joe piled up a second heap of sticks over all, and when it had
burned out the meat was cooked to a turn.
Then Joe took the viands from the oven, spread the savory mess upon
green leaves, and arranged his dinner upon a magnificent patch of
greensward. He finally brought out some biscuit, some coffee, and some
cognac, and got a can of pure, fresh water from a neighboring streamlet.
The repast thus prepared was a pleasant sight to behold, and Joe,
without being too proud, thought that it would also be pleasant to eat.
“A journey without danger or fatigue,” he soliloquized; “your meals when
you please; a swinging hammock all the time! What more could a man ask?
And there was Kennedy, who didn’t want to come!”
On his part, Dr. Ferguson was engrossed in a serious and thorough
examination of the balloon. The latter did not appear to have suffered
from the storm; the silk and the gutta percha had resisted wonderfully,
and, upon estimating the exact height of the ground and the ascensional
force of the balloon, our aeronaut saw, with satisfaction, that the
hydrogen was in exactly the same quantity as before. The covering had
remained completely waterproof.
It was now only five days since our travellers had quitted Zanzibar;
their pemmican had not yet been touched; their stock of biscuit and
potted meat was enough for a long trip, and there was nothing to be
replenished but the water.
The pipes and spiral seemed to be in perfect condition, since, thanks to
their india-rubber jointings, they had yielded to all the oscillations
of the balloon. His examination ended, the doctor betook himself to
setting his notes in order. He made a very accurate sketch of the
surrounding landscape, with its long prairie stretching away out of
sight, the forest of calmadores, and the balloon resting motionless over
the body of the dead elephant.
At the end of his two hours, Kennedy returned with a string of fat
partridges and the haunch of an oryx, a sort of gemsbok belonging to the
most agile species of antelopes. Joe took upon himself to prepare this
surplus stock of provisions for a later repast.
“But, dinner’s ready!” he shouted in his most musical voice.
And the three travellers had only to sit down on the green turf. The
trunk and feet of the elephant were declared to be exquisite. Old
England was toasted, as usual, and delicious Havanas perfumed this
charming country for the first time.
Kennedy ate, drank, and chatted, like four; he was perfectly delighted
with his new life, and seriously proposed to the doctor to settle in
this forest, to construct a cabin of boughs and foliage, and, there and
then, to lay the foundation of a Robinson Crusoe dynasty in Africa.
The proposition went no further, although Joe had, at once, selected the
part of Man Friday for himself.
The country seemed so quiet, so deserted, that the doctor resolved to
pass the night on the ground, and Joe arranged a circle of watch-fires
as an indispensable barrier against wild animals, for the hyenas,
cougars, and jackals, attracted by the smell of the dead elephant,
were prowling about in the neighborhood. Kennedy had to fire his rifle
several times at these unceremonious visitors, but the night passed
without any untoward occurrence.
CHAPTER EIGHTEENTH.
The Karagwah.--Lake Ukereoue.--A Night on an Island.--The
Equator.--Crossing the Lake.--The Cascades.--A View of the Country.--The
Sources of the Nile.--The Island of Benga.--The Signature of Andrea
Debono.--The Flag with the Arms of England.
At five o’clock in the morning, preparations for departure commenced.
Joe, with the hatchet which he had fortunately recovered, broke the
elephant’s tusks. The balloon, restored to liberty, sped away to the
northwest with our travellers, at the rate of eighteen miles per hour.
The doctor had carefully taken his position by the altitude of the
stars, during the preceding night. He knew that he was in latitude two
degrees forty minutes below the equator, or at a distance of one hundred
and sixty geographical miles. He swept along over many villages without
heeding the cries that the appearance of the balloon excited; he took
note of the conformation of places with quick sights; he passed the
slopes of the Rubemhe, which are nearly as abrupt as the summits of the
Ousagara, and, farther on, at Tenga, encountered the first projections
of the Karagwah chains, which, in his opinion, are direct spurs of the
Mountains of the Moon. So, the ancient legend which made these mountains
the cradle of the Nile, came near to the truth, since they really border
upon Lake Ukereoue, the conjectured reservoir of the waters of the great
river.
From Kafuro, the main district of the merchants of that country, he
descried, at length, on the horizon, the lake so much desired and so
long sought for, of which Captain Speke caught a glimpse on the 3d of
August, 1858.
Samuel Ferguson felt real emotion: he was almost in contact with one
of the principal points of his expedition, and, with his spy-glass
constantly raised, he kept every nook and corner of the mysterious
region in sight. His gaze wandered over details that might have been
thus described:
“Beneath him extended a country generally destitute of cultivation; only
here and there some ravines seemed under tillage; the surface, dotted
with peaks of medium height, grew flat as it approached the lake;
barley-fields took the place of rice-plantations, and there, too, could
be seen growing the species of plantain from which the wine of the
country is drawn, and mwani, the wild plant which supplies a substitute
for coffee. A collection of some fifty or more circular huts, covered
with a flowering thatch, constituted the capital of the Karagwah
country.”
He could easily distinguish the astonished countenances of a rather
fine-looking race of natives of yellowish-brown complexion. Women
of incredible corpulence were dawdling about through the cultivated
grounds, and the doctor greatly surprised his companions by informing
them that this rotundity, which is highly esteemed in that region, was
obtained by an obligatory diet of curdled milk.
At noon, the Victoria was in one degree forty-five minutes south
latitude, and at one o’clock the wind was driving her directly toward
the lake.
This sheet of water was christened Uyanza Victoria, or Victoria Lake, by
Captain Speke. At the place now mentioned it might measure about ninety
miles in breadth, and at its southern extremity the captain found a
group of islets, which he named the Archipelago of Bengal. He pushed his
survey as far as Muanza, on the eastern coast, where he was received
by the sultan. He made a triangulation of this part of the lake, but
he could not procure a boat, either to cross it or to visit the great
island of Ukereoue which is very populous, is governed by three sultans,
and appears to be only a promontory at low tide.
The balloon approached the lake more to the northward, to the doctor’s
great regret, for it had been his wish to determine its lower outlines.
Its shores seemed to be thickly set with brambles and thorny plants,
growing together in wild confusion, and were literally hidden,
sometimes, from the gaze, by myriads of mosquitoes of a light-brown hue.
The country was evidently habitable and inhabited. Troops of hippopotami
could be seen disporting themselves in the forests of reeds, or plunging
beneath the whitish waters of the lake.
The latter, seen from above, presented, toward the west, so broad an
horizon that it might have been called a sea; the distance between the
two shores is so great that communication cannot be established, and
storms are frequent and violent, for the winds sweep with fury over this
elevated and unsheltered basin.
The doctor experienced some difficulty in guiding his course; he was
afraid of being carried toward the east, but, fortunately, a current
bore him directly toward the north, and at six o’clock in the evening
the balloon alighted on a small desert island in thirty minutes south
latitude, and thirty-two degrees fifty-two minutes east longitude, about
twenty miles from the shore.
The travellers succeeded in making fast to a tree, and, the wind having
fallen calm toward evening, they remained quietly at anchor. They dared
not dream of taking the ground, since here, as on the shores of the
Uyanza, legions of mosquitoes covered the soil in dense clouds. Joe even
came back, from securing the anchor in the tree, speckled with bites,
but he kept his temper, because he found it quite the natural thing for
mosquitoes to treat him as they had done.
Nevertheless, the doctor, who was less of an optimist, let out as much
rope as he could, so as to escape these pitiless insects, that began to
rise toward him with a threatening hum.
The doctor ascertained the height of the lake above the level of the
sea, as it had been determined by Captain Speke, say three thousand
seven hundred and fifty feet.
“Here we are, then, on an island!” said Joe, scratching as though he’d
tear his nails out.
“We could make the tour of it in a jiffy,” added Kennedy, “and,
excepting these confounded mosquitoes, there’s not a living being to be
seen on it.”
“The islands with which the lake is dotted,” replied the doctor, “are
nothing, after all, but the tops of submerged hills; but we are lucky
to have found a retreat among them, for the shores of the lake are
inhabited by ferocious tribes. Take your sleep, then, since Providence
has granted us a tranquil night.”
“Won’t you do the same, doctor?”
“No, I could not close my eyes. My thoughts would banish sleep.
To-morrow, my friends, should the wind prove favorable, we shall go due
north, and we shall, perhaps, discover the sources of the Nile, that
grand secret which has so long remained impenetrable. Near as we are to
the sources of the renowned river, I could not sleep.”
Kennedy and Joe, whom scientific speculations failed to disturb to that
extent, were not long in falling into sound slumber, while the doctor
held his post.
On Wednesday, April 23d, the balloon started at four o’clock in the
morning, with a grayish sky overhead; night was slow in quitting the
surface of the lake, which was enveloped in a dense fog, but presently a
violent breeze scattered all the mists, and, after the balloon had been
swung to and fro for a moment, in opposite directions, it at length
veered in a straight line toward the north.
Dr. Ferguson fairly clapped his hands for joy.
“We are on the right track!” he exclaimed. “To-day or never we shall see
the Nile! Look, my friends, we are crossing the equator! We are entering
our own hemisphere!”
“Ah!” said Joe, “do you think, doctor, that the equator passes here?”
“Just here, my boy!”
“Well, then, with all respect to you, sir, it seems to me that this is
the very time to moisten it.”
“Good!” said the doctor, laughing. “Let us have a glass of punch. You
have a way of comprehending cosmography that is any thing but dull.”
And thus was the passage of the Victoria over the equator duly
celebrated.
The balloon made rapid headway. In the west could be seen a low and but
slightly-diversified coast, and, farther away in the background, the
elevated plains of the Uganda and the Usoga. At length, the rapidity of
the wind became excessive, approaching thirty miles per hour.
The waters of the Nyanza, violently agitated, were foaming like the
billows of a sea. By the appearance of certain long swells that followed
the sinking of the waves, the doctor was enabled to conclude that the
lake must have great depth of water. Only one or two rude boats were
seen during this rapid passage.
“This lake is evidently, from its elevated position, the natural
reservoir of the rivers in the eastern part of Africa, and the sky gives
back to it in rain what it takes in vapor from the streams that flow out
of it. I am certain that the Nile must here take its rise.”
“Well, we shall see!” said Kennedy.
About nine o’clock they drew nearer to the western coast. It seemed
deserted, and covered with woods; the wind freshened a little toward the
east, and the other shore of the lake could be seen. It bent around in
such a curve as to end in a wide angle toward two degrees forty minutes
north latitude. Lofty mountains uplifted their arid peaks at this
extremity of Nyanza; but, between them, a deep and winding gorge gave
exit to a turbulent and foaming river.
While busy managing the balloon, Dr. Ferguson never ceased reconnoitring
the country with eager eyes.
“Look!” he exclaimed, “look, my friends! the statements of the Arabs
were correct! They spoke of a river by which Lake Ukereoue discharged
its waters toward the north, and this river exists, and we are
descending it, and it flows with a speed analogous to our own! And this
drop of water now gliding away beneath our feet is, beyond all question,
rushing on, to mingle with the Mediterranean! It is the Nile!”
“It is the Nile!” reeechoed Kennedy, carried away by the enthusiasm of
his friend.
“Hurrah for the Nile!” shouted Joe, glad, and always ready to cheer for
something.
Enormous rocks, here and there, embarrassed the course of this
mysterious river. The water foamed as it fell in rapids and cataracts,
which confirmed the doctor in his preconceived ideas on the subject.
From the environing mountains numerous torrents came plunging and
seething down, and the eye could take them in by hundreds. There could
be seen, starting from the soil, delicate jets of water scattering in
all directions, crossing and recrossing each other, mingling, contending
in the swiftness of their progress, and all rushing toward that nascent
stream which became a river after having drunk them in.
“Here is, indeed, the Nile!” reiterated the doctor, with the tone of
profound conviction. “The origin of its name, like the origin of its
waters, has fired the imagination of the learned; they have sought to
trace it from the Greek, the Coptic, the Sanscrit; but all that matters
little now, since we have made it surrender the secret of its source!”
“But,” said the Scotchman, “how are you to make sure of the identity of
this river with the one recognized by the travellers from the north?”
“We shall have certain, irrefutable, convincing, and infallible proof,”
replied Ferguson, “should the wind hold another hour in our favor!”
The mountains drew farther apart, revealing in their place numerous
villages, and fields of white Indian corn, doura, and sugar-cane. The
tribes inhabiting the region seemed excited and hostile; they manifested
more anger than adoration, and evidently saw in the aeronauts only
obtrusive strangers, and not condescending deities. It appeared as
though, in approaching the sources of the Nile, these men came to rob
them of something, and so the Victoria had to keep out of range of their
muskets.
“To land here would be a ticklish matter!” said the Scot.
“Well!” said Joe, “so much the worse for these natives. They’ll have to
do without the pleasure of our conversation.”
“Nevertheless, descend I must,” said the doctor, “were it only for a
quarter of an hour. Without doing so I cannot verify the results of our
expedition.”
“It is indispensable, then, doctor?”
“Indispensable; and we will descend, even if we have to do so with a
volley of musketry.”
“The thing suits me,” said Kennedy, toying with his pet rifle.
“And I’m ready, master, whenever you say the word!” added Joe, preparing
for the fight.
“It would not be the first time,” remarked the doctor, “that science
has been followed up, sword in hand. The same thing happened to a
French savant among the mountains of Spain, when he was measuring the
terrestrial meridian.”
“Be easy on that score, doctor, and trust to your two body-guards.”
“Are we there, master?”
“Not yet. In fact, I shall go up a little, first, in order to get an
exact idea of the configuration of the country.”
The hydrogen expanded, and in less than ten minutes the balloon was
soaring at a height of twenty-five hundred feet above the ground.
From that elevation could be distinguished an inextricable network of
smaller streams which the river received into its bosom; others came
from the west, from between numerous hills, in the midst of fertile
plains.
“We are not ninety miles from Gondokoro,” said the doctor, measuring
off the distance on his map, “and less than five miles from the point
reached by the explorers from the north. Let us descend with great
care.”
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