“Another balloon! and other passengers, like ourselves!”
And, sure enough, there was another balloon about two hundred paces
from them, floating in the air with its car and its aeronauts. It was
following exactly the same route as the Victoria.
“Well,” said the doctor, “nothing remains for us but to make signals;
take the flag, Kennedy, and show them our colors.”
It seemed that the travellers by the other balloon had just the same
idea, at the same moment, for the same kind of flag repeated precisely
the same salute with a hand that moved in just the same manner.
“What does that mean?” asked Kennedy.
“They are apes,” said Joe, “imitating us.”
“It means,” said the doctor, laughing, “that it is you, Dick, yourself,
making that signal to yourself; or, in other words, that we see
ourselves in the second balloon, which is no other than the Victoria.”
“As to that, master, with all respect to you,” said Joe, “you’ll never
make me believe it.”
“Climb up on the edge of the car, Joe; wave your arms, and then you’ll
see.”
Joe obeyed, and all his gestures were instantaneously and exactly
repeated.
“It is merely the effect of the MIRAGE,” said the doctor, “and nothing
else--a simple optical phenomenon due to the unequal refraction of light
by different layers of the atmosphere, and that is all.
“It’s wonderful,” said Joe, who could not make up his mind to surrender,
but went on repeating his gesticulations.
“What a curious sight! Do you know,” said Kennedy, “that it’s a real
pleasure to have a view of our noble balloon in that style? She’s a
beauty, isn’t she?--and how stately her movements as she sweeps along!”
“You may explain the matter as you like,” continued Joe, “it’s a strange
thing, anyhow!”
But ere long this picture began to fade away; the clouds rose higher,
leaving the balloon, which made no further attempt to follow them, and
in about an hour they disappeared in the open sky.
The wind, which had been scarcely perceptible, seemed still to diminish,
and the doctor in perfect desperation descended toward the ground, and
all three of the travellers, whom the incident just recorded had, for
a few moments, diverted from their anxieties, relapsed into gloomy
meditation, sweltering the while beneath the scorching heat.
About four o’clock, Joe descried some object standing out against the
vast background of sand, and soon was able to declare positively that
there were two palm-trees at no great distance.
“Palm-trees!” exclaimed Ferguson; “why, then there’s a spring--a well!”
He took up his glass and satisfied himself that Joe’s eyes had not been
mistaken.
“At length!” he said, over and over again, “water! water! and we are
saved; for if we do move slowly, still we move, and we shall arrive at
last!”
“Good, master! but suppose we were to drink a mouthful in the mean time,
for this air is stifling?”
“Let us drink then, my boy!”
No one waited to be coaxed. A whole pint was swallowed then and there,
reducing the total remaining supply to three pints and a half.
“Ah! that does one good!” said Joe; “wasn’t it fine? Barclay and Perkins
never turned out ale equal to that!”
“See the advantage of being put on short allowance!” moralized the
doctor.
“It is not great, after all,” retorted Kennedy; “and if I were never
again to have the pleasure of drinking water, I should agree on
condition that I should never be deprived of it.”
At six o’clock the balloon was floating over the palm-trees.
They were two shrivelled, stunted, dried-up specimens of trees--two
ghosts of palms--without foliage, and more dead than alive. Ferguson
examined them with terror.
At their feet could be seen the half-worn stones of a spring, but these
stones, pulverized by the baking heat of the sun, seemed to be nothing
now but impalpable dust. There was not the slightest sign of moisture.
The doctor’s heart shrank within him, and he was about to communicate
his thoughts to his companions, when their exclamations attracted his
attention. As far as the eye could reach to the eastward, extended
a long line of whitened bones; pieces of skeletons surrounded the
fountain; a caravan had evidently made its way to that point, marking
its progress by its bleaching remains; the weaker had fallen one by one
upon the sand; the stronger, having at length reached this spring for
which they panted, had there found a horrible death.
Our travellers looked at each other and turned pale.
“Let us not alight!” said Kennedy, “let us fly from this hideous
spectacle! There’s not a drop of water here!”
“No, Dick, as well pass the night here as elsewhere; let us have a clear
conscience in the matter. We’ll dig down to the very bottom of the well.
There has been a spring here, and perhaps there’s something left in it!”
The Victoria touched the ground; Joe and Kennedy put into the car
a quantity of sand equal to their weight, and leaped out. They then
hastened to the well, and penetrated to the interior by a flight of
steps that was now nothing but dust. The spring appeared to have been
dry for years. They dug down into a parched and powdery sand--the very
dryest of all sand, indeed--there was not one trace of moisture!
The doctor saw them come up to the surface of the desert, saturated with
perspiration, worn out, covered with fine dust, exhausted, discouraged
and despairing.
He then comprehended that their search had been fruitless. He had
expected as much, and he kept silent, for he felt that, from this moment
forth, he must have courage and energy enough for three.
Joe brought up with him some pieces of a leathern bottle that had grown
hard and horn-like with age, and angrily flung them away among the
bleaching bones of the caravan.
At supper, not a word was spoken by our travellers, and they even ate
without appetite. Yet they had not, up to this moment, endured the real
agonies of thirst, and were in no desponding mood, excepting for the
future.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIXTH.
One Hundred and Thirteen Degrees.--The Doctor’s Reflections.--A
Desperate Search.--The Cylinder goes out.--One Hundred and
Twenty-two Degrees.--Contemplation of the Desert.--A Night
Walk.--Solitude.--Debility.--Joe’s Prospects.--He gives himself One Day
more.
The distance made by the balloon during the preceding day did not exceed
ten miles, and, to keep it afloat, one hundred and sixty-two cubic feet
of gas had been consumed.
On Saturday morning the doctor again gave the signal for departure.
“The cylinder can work only six hours longer; and, if in that time we
shall not have found either a well or a spring of water, God alone knows
what will become of us!”
“Not much wind this morning, master,” said Joe; “but it will come
up, perhaps,” he added, suddenly remarking the doctor’s ill-concealed
depression.
Vain hope! The atmosphere was in a dead calm--one of those calms which
hold vessels captive in tropical seas. The heat had become intolerable;
and the thermometer, in the shade under the awning, indicated one
hundred and thirteen degrees.
Joe and Kennedy, reclining at full length near each other, tried, if
not in slumber, at least in torpor, to forget their situation, for their
forced inactivity gave them periods of leisure far from pleasant.
That man is to be pitied the most who cannot wean himself from gloomy
reflections by actual work, or some practical pursuit. But here there
was nothing to look after, nothing to undertake, and they had to submit
to the situation, without having it in their power to ameliorate it.
The pangs of thirst began to be severely felt; brandy, far from
appeasing this imperious necessity, augmented it, and richly merited the
name of “tiger’s milk” applied to it by the African natives. Scarcely
two pints of water remained, and that was heated. Each of the party
devoured the few precious drops with his gaze, yet neither of them dared
to moisten his lips with them. Two pints of water in the midst of the
desert!
Then it was that Dr. Ferguson, buried in meditation, asked himself
whether he had acted with prudence. Would he not have done better to
have kept the water that he had decomposed in pure loss, in order to
sustain him in the air? He had gained a little distance, to be sure; but
was he any nearer to his journey’s end? What difference did sixty miles
to the rear make in this region, when there was no water to be had where
they were? The wind, should it rise, would blow there as it did here,
only less strongly at this point, if it came from the east. But hope
urged him onward. And yet those two gallons of water, expended in vain,
would have sufficed for nine days’ halt in the desert. And what changes
might not have occurred in nine days! Perhaps, too, while retaining
the water, he might have ascended by throwing out ballast, at the cost
merely of discharging some gas, when he had again to descend. But the
gas in his balloon was his blood, his very life!
A thousand one such reflections whirled in succession through his brain;
and, resting his head between his hands, he sat there for hours without
raising it.
“We must make one final effort,” he said, at last, about ten o’clock in
the morning. “We must endeavor, just once more, to find an atmospheric
current to bear us away from here, and, to that end, must risk our last
resources.”
Therefore, while his companions slept, the doctor raised the hydrogen in
the balloon to an elevated temperature, and the huge globe, filling out
by the dilation of the gas, rose straight up in the perpendicular rays
of the sun. The doctor searched vainly for a breath of wind, from the
height of one hundred feet to that of five miles; his starting-point
remained fatally right below him, and absolute calm seemed to reign, up
to the extreme limits of the breathing atmosphere.
At length the feeding-supply of water gave out; the cylinder was
extinguished for lack of gas; the Buntzen battery ceased to work, and
the balloon, shrinking together, gently descended to the sand, in the
very place that the car had hollowed out there.
It was noon; and solar observations gave nineteen degrees thirty-five
minutes east longitude, and six degrees fifty-one minutes north
latitude, or nearly five hundred miles from Lake Tchad, and more than
four hundred miles from the western coast of Africa.
On the balloon taking ground, Kennedy and Joe awoke from their stupor.
“We have halted,” said the Scot.
“We had to do so,” replied the doctor, gravely.
His companions understood him. The level of the soil at that point
corresponded with the level of the sea, and, consequently, the balloon
remained in perfect equilibrium, and absolutely motionless.
The weight of the three travellers was replaced with an equivalent
quantity of sand, and they got out of the car. Each was absorbed in his
own thoughts; and for many hours neither of them spoke. Joe prepared
their evening meal, which consisted of biscuit and pemmican, and was
hardly tasted by either of the party. A mouthful of scalding water from
their little store completed this gloomy repast.
During the night none of them kept awake; yet none could be precisely
said to have slept. On the morrow there remained only half a pint of
water, and this the doctor put away, all three having resolved not to
touch it until the last extremity.
It was not long, however, before Joe exclaimed:
“I’m choking, and the heat is getting worse! I’m not surprised at that,
though,” he added, consulting the thermometer; “one hundred and forty
degrees!”
“The sand scorches me,” said the hunter, “as though it had just come out
of a furnace; and not a cloud in this sky of fire. It’s enough to drive
one mad!”
“Let us not despair,” responded the doctor. “In this latitude these
intense heats are invariably followed by storms, and the latter come
with the suddenness of lightning. Notwithstanding this disheartening
clearness of the sky, great atmospheric changes may take place in less
than an hour.”
“But,” asked Kennedy, “is there any sign whatever of that?”
“Well,” replied the doctor, “I think that there is some slight symptom
of a fall in the barometer.”
“May Heaven hearken to you, Samuel! for here we are pinned to the
ground, like a bird with broken wings.”
“With this difference, however, my dear Dick, that our wings are unhurt,
and I hope that we shall be able to use them again.”
“Ah! wind! wind!” exclaimed Joe; “enough to carry us to a stream or
a well, and we’ll be all right. We have provisions enough, and, with
water, we could wait a month without suffering; but thirst is a cruel
thing!”
It was not thirst alone, but the unchanging sight of the desert, that
fatigued the mind. There was not a variation in the surface of the soil,
not a hillock of sand, not a pebble, to relieve the gaze. This unbroken
level discouraged the beholder, and gave him that kind of malady called
the “desert-sickness.” The impassible monotony of the arid blue sky,
and the vast yellow expanse of the desert-sand, at length produced a
sensation of terror. In this inflamed atmosphere the heat appeared to
vibrate as it does above a blazing hearth, while the mind grew desperate
in contemplating the limitless calm, and could see no reason why the
thing should ever end, since immensity is a species of eternity.
Thus, at last, our hapless travellers, deprived of water in this torrid
heat, began to feel symptoms of mental disorder. Their eyes swelled in
their sockets, and their gaze became confused.
When night came on, the doctor determined to combat this alarming
tendency by rapid walking. His idea was to pace the sandy plain for a
few hours, not in search of any thing, but simply for exercise.
“Come along!” he said to his companions; “believe me, it will do you
good.”
“Out of the question!” said Kennedy; “I could not walk a step.”
“And I,” said Joe, “would rather sleep!”
“But sleep, or even rest, would be dangerous to you, my friends; you
must react against this tendency to stupor. Come with me!”
But the doctor could do nothing with them, and, therefore, set off
alone, amid the starry clearness of the night. The first few steps he
took were painful, for they were the steps of an enfeebled man quite out
of practice in walking. However, he quickly saw that the exercise would
be beneficial to him, and pushed on several miles to the westward. Once
in rapid motion, he felt his spirits greatly cheered, when, suddenly, a
vertigo came over him; he seemed to be poised on the edge of an abyss;
his knees bent under him; the vast solitude struck terror to his
heart; he found himself the minute mathematical point, the centre of
an infinite circumference, that is to say--a nothing! The balloon
had disappeared entirely in the deepening gloom. The doctor, cool,
impassible, reckless explorer that he was, felt himself at last seized
with a nameless dread. He strove to retrace his steps, but in vain. He
called aloud. Not even an echo replied, and his voice died out in
the empty vastness of surrounding space, like a pebble cast into a
bottomless gulf; then, down he sank, fainting, on the sand, alone, amid
the eternal silence of the desert.
At midnight he came to, in the arms of his faithful follower, Joe. The
latter, uneasy at his master’s prolonged absence, had set out after him,
easily tracing him by the clear imprint of his feet in the sand, and had
found him lying in a swoon.
“What has been the matter, sir?” was the first inquiry.
“Nothing, Joe, nothing! Only a touch of weakness, that’s all. It’s over
now.”
“Oh! it won’t amount to any thing, sir, I’m sure of that; but get up on
your feet, if you can. There! lean upon me, and let us get back to the
balloon.”
And the doctor, leaning on Joe’s arm, returned along the track by which
he had come.
“You were too bold, sir; it won’t do to run such risks. You might have
been robbed,” he added, laughing. “But, sir, come now, let us talk
seriously.”
“Speak! I am listening to you.”
“We must positively make up our minds to do something. Our present
situation cannot last more than a few days longer, and if we get no
wind, we are lost.”
The doctor made no reply.
“Well, then, one of us must sacrifice himself for the good of all, and
it is most natural that it should fall to me to do so.”
“What have you to propose? What is your plan?”
“A very simple one! It is to take provisions enough, and to walk right
on until I come to some place, as I must do, sooner or later. In the
mean time, if Heaven sends you a good wind, you need not wait, but
can start again. For my part, if I come to a village, I’ll work my way
through with a few Arabic words that you can write for me on a slip of
paper, and I’ll bring you help or lose my hide. What do you think of my
plan?”
“It is absolute folly, Joe, but worthy of your noble heart. The thing is
impossible. You will not leave us.”
“But, sir, we must do something, and this plan can’t do you any
harm, for, I say again, you need not wait; and then, after all, I may
succeed.”
“No, Joe, no! We will not separate. That would only be adding sorrow to
trouble. It was written that matters should be as they are; and it is
very probably written that it shall be quite otherwise by-and-by. Let us
wait, then, with resignation.”
“So be it, master; but take notice of one thing: I give you a day
longer, and I’ll not wait after that. To-day is Sunday; we might say
Monday, as it is one o’clock in the morning, and if we don’t get off by
Tuesday, I’ll run the risk. I’ve made up my mind to that!”
The doctor made no answer, and in a few minutes they got back to the
car, where he took his place beside Kennedy, who lay there plunged in
silence so complete that it could not be considered sleep.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVENTH.
Terrific Heat.--Hallucinations.--The Last Drops of Water.--Nights of
Despair.--An Attempt at Suicide.--The Simoom.--The Oasis.--The Lion and
Lioness.
The doctor’s first care, on the morrow, was to consult the barometer.
He found that the mercury had scarcely undergone any perceptible
depression.
“Nothing!” he murmured, “nothing!”
He got out of the car and scrutinized the weather; there was only the
same heat, the same cloudless sky, the same merciless drought.
“Must we, then, give up to despair?” he exclaimed, in agony.
Joe did not open his lips. He was buried in his own thoughts, and
planning the expedition he had proposed.
Kennedy got up, feeling very ill, and a prey to nervous agitation. He
was suffering horribly with thirst, and his swollen tongue and lips
could hardly articulate a syllable.
There still remained a few drops of water. Each of them knew this, and
each was thinking of it, and felt himself drawn toward them; but neither
of the three dared to take a step.
Those three men, friends and companions as they were, fixed their
haggard eyes upon each other with an instinct of ferocious longing,
which was most plainly revealed in the hardy Scot, whose vigorous
constitution yielded the soonest to these unnatural privations.
Throughout the day he was delirious, pacing up and down, uttering hoarse
cries, gnawing his clinched fists, and ready to open his veins and drink
his own hot blood.
“Ah!” he cried, “land of thirst! Well might you be called the land of
despair!”
At length he sank down in utter prostration, and his friends heard no
other sound from him than the hissing of his breath between his parched
and swollen lips.
Toward evening, Joe had his turn of delirium. The vast expanse of sand
appeared to him an immense pond, full of clear and limpid water; and,
more than once, he dashed himself upon the scorching waste to drink long
draughts, and rose again with his mouth clogged with hot dust.
“Curses on it!” he yelled, in his madness, “it’s nothing but salt
water!”
Then, while Ferguson and Kennedy lay there motionless, the resistless
longing came over him to drain the last few drops of water that had
been kept in reserve. The natural instinct proved too strong. He dragged
himself toward the car, on his knees; he glared at the bottle containing
the precious fluid; he gave one wild, eager glance, seized the treasured
store, and bore it to his lips.
At that instant he heard a heart-rending cry close beside him--“Water!
water!”
It was Kennedy, who had crawled up close to him, and was begging there,
upon his knees, and weeping piteously.
Joe, himself in tears, gave the poor wretch the bottle, and Kennedy
drained the last drop with savage haste.
“Thanks!” he murmured hoarsely, but Joe did not hear him, for both alike
had dropped fainting on the sand.
What took place during that fearful night neither of them knew, but, on
Tuesday morning, under those showers of heat which the sun poured down
upon them, the unfortunate men felt their limbs gradually drying up, and
when Joe attempted to rise he found it impossible.
He looked around him. In the car, the doctor, completely overwhelmed,
sat with his arms folded on his breast, gazing with idiotic fixedness
upon some imaginary point in space. Kennedy was frightful to behold. He
was rolling his head from right to left like a wild beast in a cage.
All at once, his eyes rested on the butt of his rifle, which jutted
above the rim of the car.
“Ah!” he screamed, raising himself with a superhuman effort.
Desperate, mad, he snatched at the weapon, and turned the barrel toward
his mouth.
“Kennedy!” shouted Joe, throwing himself upon his friend.
“Let go! hands off!” moaned the Scot, in a hoarse, grating voice--and
then the two struggled desperately for the rifle.
“Let go, or I’ll kill you!” repeated Kennedy. But Joe clung to him only
the more fiercely, and they had been contending thus without the doctor
seeing them for many seconds, when, suddenly the rifle went off. At the
sound of its discharge, the doctor rose up erect, like a spectre, and
glared around him.
But all at once his glance grew more animated; he extended his hand
toward the horizon, and in a voice no longer human shrieked:
“There! there--off there!”
There was such fearful force in the cry that Kennedy and Joe released
each other, and both looked where the doctor pointed.
The plain was agitated like the sea shaken by the fury of a tempest;
billows of sand went tossing over each other amid blinding clouds of
dust; an immense pillar was seen whirling toward them through the air
from the southeast, with terrific velocity; the sun was disappearing
behind an opaque veil of cloud whose enormous barrier extended clear to
the horizon, while the grains of fine sand went gliding together with
all the supple ease of liquid particles, and the rising dust-tide gained
more and more with every second.
Ferguson’s eyes gleamed with a ray of energetic hope.
“The simoom!” he exclaimed.
“The simoom!” repeated Joe, without exactly knowing what it meant.
“So much the better!” said Kennedy, with the bitterness of despair. “So
much the better--we shall die!”
“So much the better!” echoed the doctor, “for we shall live!” and, so
saying, he began rapidly to throw out the sand that encumbered the car.
At length his companions understood him, and took their places at his
side.
“And now, Joe,” said the doctor, “throw out some fifty pounds of your
ore, there!”
Joe no longer hesitated, although he still felt a fleeting pang of
regret. The balloon at once began to ascend.
“It was high time!” said the doctor.
The simoom, in fact, came rushing on like a thunderbolt, and a moment
later the balloon would have been crushed, torn to atoms, annihilated.
The awful whirlwind was almost upon it, and it was already pelted with
showers of sand driven like hail by the storm.
“Out with more ballast!” shouted the doctor.
“There!” responded Joe, tossing over a huge fragment of quartz.
With this, the Victoria rose swiftly above the range of the whirling
column, but, caught in the vast displacement of the atmosphere thereby
occasioned, it was borne along with incalculable rapidity away above
this foaming sea.
The three travellers did not speak. They gazed, and hoped, and even felt
refreshed by the breath of the tempest.
About three o’clock, the whirlwind ceased; the sand, falling again upon
the desert, formed numberless little hillocks, and the sky resumed its
former tranquillity.
The balloon, which had again lost its momentum, was floating in sight of
an oasis, a sort of islet studded with green trees, thrown up upon the
surface of this sandy ocean.
“Water! we’ll find water there!” said the doctor.
And, instantly, opening the upper valve, he let some hydrogen escape,
and slowly descended, taking the ground at about two hundred feet from
the edge of the oasis.
In four hours the travellers had swept over a distance of two hundred
and forty miles!
The car was at once ballasted, and Kennedy, closely followed by Joe,
leaped out.
“Take your guns with you!” said the doctor; “take your guns, and be
careful!”
Dick grasped his rifle, and Joe took one of the fowling-pieces. They
then rapidly made for the trees, and disappeared under the fresh
verdure, which announced the presence of abundant springs. As they
hurried on, they had not taken notice of certain large footprints and
fresh tracks of some living creature marked here and there in the damp
soil.
Suddenly, a dull roar was heard not twenty paces from them.
“The roar of a lion!” said Joe.
“Good for that!” said the excited hunter; “we’ll fight him. A man feels
strong when only a fight’s in question.”
“But be careful, Mr. Kennedy; be careful! The lives of all depend upon
the life of one.”
But Kennedy no longer heard him; he was pushing on, his eye blazing; his
rifle cocked; fearful to behold in his daring rashness. There, under a
palm-tree, stood an enormous black-maned lion, crouching for a spring on
his antagonist. Scarcely had he caught a glimpse of the hunter, when he
bounded through the air; but he had not touched the ground ere a bullet
pierced his heart, and he fell to the earth dead.
“Hurrah! hurrah!” shouted Joe, with wild exultation.
Kennedy rushed toward the well, slid down the dampened steps, and
flung himself at full length by the side of a fresh spring, in which
he plunged his parched lips. Joe followed suit, and for some minutes
nothing was heard but the sound they made with their mouths, drinking
more like maddened beasts than men.
“Take care, Mr. Kennedy,” said Joe at last; “let us not overdo the
thing!” and he panted for breath.
But Kennedy, without a word, drank on. He even plunged his hands,
and then his head, into the delicious tide--he fairly revelled in its
coolness.
“But the doctor?” said Joe; “our friend, Dr. Ferguson?”
That one word recalled Kennedy to himself, and, hastily filling a flask
that he had brought with him, he started on a run up the steps of the
well.
But what was his amazement when he saw an opaque body of enormous
dimensions blocking up the passage! Joe, who was close upon Kennedy’s
heels, recoiled with him.
“We are blocked in--entrapped!”
“Impossible! What does that mean?--”
Dick had no time to finish; a terrific roar made him only too quickly
aware what foe confronted him.
“Another lion!” exclaimed Joe.
“A lioness, rather,” said Kennedy. “Ah! ferocious brute!” he added,
“I’ll settle you in a moment more!” and swiftly reloaded his rifle.
In another instant he fired, but the animal had disappeared.
“Onward!” shouted Kennedy.
“No!” interposed the other, “that shot did not kill her; her body would
have rolled down the steps; she’s up there, ready to spring upon the
first of us who appears, and he would be a lost man!”
“But what are we to do? We must get out of this, and the doctor is
expecting us.”
“Let us decoy the animal. Take my piece, and give me your rifle.”
“What is your plan?”
“You’ll see.”
And Joe, taking off his linen jacket, hung it on the end of the rifle,
and thrust it above the top of the steps. The lioness flung herself
furiously upon it. Kennedy was on the alert for her, and his bullet
broke her shoulder. The lioness, with a frightful howl of agony, rolled
down the steps, overturning Joe in her fall. The poor fellow imagined
that he could already feel the enormous paws of the savage beast in his
flesh, when a second detonation resounded in the narrow passage, and Dr.
Ferguson appeared at the opening above with his gun in hand, and still
smoking from the discharge.
Joe leaped to his feet, clambered over the body of the dead lioness, and
handed up the flask full of sparkling water to his master.
To carry it to his lips, and to half empty it at a draught, was the
work of an instant, and the three travellers offered up thanks from the
depths of their hearts to that Providence who had so miraculously saved
them.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHTH.
An Evening of Delight.--Joe’s Culinary Performance.--A Dissertation
on Raw Meat.--The Narrative of James Bruce.--Camping out.--Joe’s
Dreams.--The Barometer begins to fall.--The Barometer rises
again.--Preparations for Departure.--The Tempest.
The evening was lovely, and our three friends enjoyed it in the cool
shade of the mimosas, after a substantial repast, at which the tea and
the punch were dealt out with no niggardly hand.
Kennedy had traversed the little domain in all directions. He had
ransacked every thicket and satisfied himself that the balloon party
were the only living creatures in this terrestrial paradise; so they
stretched themselves upon their blankets and passed a peaceful night
that brought them forgetfulness of their past sufferings.
On the morrow, May 7th, the sun shone with all his splendor, but his
rays could not penetrate the dense screen of the palm-tree foliage, and
as there was no lack of provisions, the doctor resolved to remain where
he was while waiting for a favorable wind.
Joe had conveyed his portable kitchen to the oasis, and proceeded to
indulge in any number of culinary combinations, using water all the time
with the most profuse extravagance.
“What a strange succession of annoyances and enjoyments!” moralized
Kennedy. “Such abundance as this after such privations; such luxury
after such want! Ah! I nearly went mad!”
“My dear Dick,” replied the doctor, “had it not been for Joe, you would
not be sitting here, to-day, discoursing on the instability of human
affairs.”
“Whole-hearted friend!” said Kennedy, extending his hand to Joe.
“There’s no occasion for all that,” responded the latter; “but you can
take your revenge some time, Mr. Kennedy, always hoping though that you
may never have occasion to do the same for me!”
“It’s a poor constitution this of ours to succumb to so little,”
philosophized Dr. Ferguson.
“So little water, you mean, doctor,” interposed Joe; “that element must
be very necessary to life.”
“Undoubtedly, and persons deprived of food hold out longer than those
deprived of water.”
“I believe it. Besides, when needs must, one can eat any thing he comes
across, even his fellow-creatures, although that must be a kind of food
that’s pretty hard to digest.”
“The savages don’t boggle much about it!” said Kennedy.
“Yes; but then they are savages, and accustomed to devouring raw meat;
it’s something that I’d find very disgusting, for my part.”
“It is disgusting enough,” said the doctor, “that’s a fact; and so
much so, indeed, that nobody believed the narratives of the earliest
travellers in Africa who brought back word that many tribes on that
continent subsisted upon raw meat, and people generally refused to
credit the statement. It was under such circumstances that a very
singular adventure befell James Bruce.”
“Tell it to us, doctor; we’ve time enough to hear it,” said Joe,
stretching himself voluptuously on the cool greensward.
“By all means.--James Bruce was a Scotchman, of Stirlingshire, who,
between 1768 and 1772, traversed all Abyssinia, as far as Lake Tyana, in
search of the sources of the Nile. He afterward returned to England, but
did not publish an account of his journeys until 1790. His statements
were received with extreme incredulity, and such may be the reception
accorded to our own. The manners and customs of the Abyssinians seemed
so different from those of the English, that no one would credit the
description of them. Among other details, Bruce had put forward the
assertion that the tribes of Eastern Africa fed upon raw flesh, and this
set everybody against him. He might say so as much as he pleased; there
was no one likely to go and see! One day, in a parlor at Edinburgh, a
Scotch gentleman took up the subject in his presence, as it had become
the topic of daily pleasantry, and, in reference to the eating of raw
flesh, said that the thing was neither possible nor true. Bruce made no
reply, but went out and returned a few minutes later with a raw steak,
seasoned with pepper and salt, in the African style.
“‘Sir,’ said he to the Scotchman, ‘in doubting my statements, you have
grossly affronted me; in believing the thing to be impossible, you have
been egregiously mistaken; and, in proof thereof, you will now eat this
beef-steak raw, or you will give me instant satisfaction!’ The Scotchman
had a wholesome dread of the brawny traveller, and DID eat the steak,
although not without a good many wry faces. Thereupon, with the utmost
coolness, James Bruce added: ‘Even admitting, sir, that the thing were
untrue, you will, at least, no longer maintain that it is impossible.’”
“Well put in!” said Joe, “and if the Scotchman found it lie heavy on his
stomach, he got no more than he deserved. If, on our return to England,
they dare to doubt what we say about our travels--”
“Well, Joe, what would you do?”
“Why, I’ll make the doubters swallow the pieces of the balloon, without
either salt or pepper!”
All burst out laughing at Joe’s queer notions, and thus the day slipped
by in pleasant chat. With returning strength, hope had revived, and with
hope came the courage to do and to dare. The past was obliterated in the
presence of the future with providential rapidity.
Joe would have been willing to remain forever in this enchanting asylum;
it was the realm he had pictured in his dreams; he felt himself at
home; his master had to give him his exact location, and it was with the
gravest air imaginable that he wrote down on his tablets fifteen degrees
forty-three minutes east longitude, and eight degrees thirty-two minutes
north latitude.
Kennedy had but one regret, to wit, that he could not hunt in that
miniature forest, because, according to his ideas, there was a slight
deficiency of ferocious wild beasts in it.
“But, my dear Dick,” said the doctor, “haven’t you rather a short
memory? How about the lion and the lioness?”
“Oh, that!” he ejaculated with the contempt of a thorough-bred sportsman
for game already killed. “But the fact is, that finding them here would
lead one to suppose that we can’t be far from a more fertile country.”
“It don’t prove much, Dick, for those animals, when goaded by hunger or
thirst, will travel long distances, and I think that, to-night, we had
better keep a more vigilant lookout, and light fires, besides.”
“What, in such heat as this?” said Joe. “Well, if it’s necessary, we’ll
have to do it, but I do think it a real pity to burn this pretty grove
that has been such a comfort to us!”
“Oh! above all things, we must take the utmost care not to set it
on fire,” replied the doctor, “so that others in the same strait as
ourselves may some day find shelter here in the middle of the desert.”
“I’ll be very careful, indeed, doctor; but do you think that this oasis
is known?”
“Undoubtedly; it is a halting-place for the caravans that frequent the
centre of Africa, and a visit from one of them might be any thing but
pleasant to you, Joe.”
“Why, are there any more of those rascally Nyam-Nyams around here?”
“Certainly; that is the general name of all the neighboring tribes,
and, under the same climates, the same races are likely to have similar
manners and customs.”
“Pah!” said Joe, “but, after all, it’s natural enough. If savages had
the ways of gentlemen, where would be the difference? By George, these
fine fellows wouldn’t have to be coaxed long to eat the Scotchman’s raw
steak, nor the Scotchman either, into the bargain!”
With this very sensible observation, Joe began to get ready his firewood
for the night, making just as little of it as possible. Fortunately,
these precautions were superfluous; and each of the party, in his turn,
dropped off into the soundest slumber.
On the next day the weather still showed no sign of change, but kept
provokingly and obstinately fair. The balloon remained motionless,
without any oscillation to betray a breath of wind.
The doctor began to get uneasy again. If their stay in the desert were
to be prolonged like this, their provisions would give out. After nearly
perishing for want of water, they would, at last, have to starve to
death!
But he took fresh courage as he saw the mercury fall considerably in
the barometer, and noticed evident signs of an early change in the
atmosphere. He therefore resolved to make all his preparations for a
start, so as to avail himself of the first opportunity. The feeding-tank
and the water-tank were both completely filled.
Then he had to reestablish the equilibrium of the balloon, and Joe
was obliged to part with another considerable portion of his precious
quartz. With restored health, his ambitious notions had come back to
him, and he made more than one wry face before obeying his master;
but the latter convinced him that he could not carry so considerable
a weight with him through the air, and gave him his choice between the
water and the gold. Joe hesitated no longer, but flung out the requisite
quantity of his much-prized ore upon the sand.
“The next people who come this way,” he remarked, “will be rather
surprised to find a fortune in such a place.”
“And suppose some learned traveller should come across these specimens,
eh?” suggested Kennedy.
“You may be certain, Dick, that they would take him by surprise, and
that he would publish his astonishment in several folios; so that some
day we shall hear of a wonderful deposit of gold-bearing quartz in the
midst of the African sands!”
“And Joe there, will be the cause of it all!”
This idea of mystifying some learned sage tickled Joe hugely, and made
him laugh.
During the rest of the day the doctor vainly kept on the watch for a
change of weather. The temperature rose, and, had it not been for the
shade of the oasis, would have been insupportable. The thermometer
marked a hundred and forty-nine degrees in the sun, and a veritable rain
of fire filled the air. This was the most intense heat that they had yet
noted.
Joe arranged their bivouac for that evening, as he had done for the
previous night; and during the watches kept by the doctor and Kennedy
there was no fresh incident.
But, toward three o’clock in the morning, while Joe was on guard, the
temperature suddenly fell; the sky became overcast with clouds, and the
darkness increased.
“Turn out!” cried Joe, arousing his companions. “Turn out! Here’s the
wind!”
“At last!” exclaimed the doctor, eying the heavens. “But it is a storm!
The balloon! Let us hasten to the balloon!”
It was high time for them to reach it. The Victoria was bending to the
force of the hurricane, and dragging along the car, the latter grazing
the sand. Had any portion of the ballast been accidentally thrown out,
the balloon would have been swept away, and all hope of recovering it
have been forever lost.
But fleet-footed Joe put forth his utmost speed, and checked the car,
while the balloon beat upon the sand, at the risk of being torn
to pieces. The doctor, followed by Kennedy, leaped in, and lit his
cylinder, while his companions threw out the superfluous ballast.
The travellers took one last look at the trees of the oasis bowing to
the force of the hurricane, and soon, catching the wind at two hundred
feet above the ground, disappeared in the gloom.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINTH.
Signs of Vegetation.--The Fantastic Notion of a French Author.--A
Magnificent Country.--The Kingdom of Adamova.--The Explorations of
Speke and Burton connected with those of Dr. Barth.--The Atlantika
Mountains.--The River Benoue.--The City of Yola.--The Bagele.--Mount
Mendif.
From the moment of their departure, the travellers moved with great
velocity. They longed to leave behind them the desert, which had so
nearly been fatal to them.
About a quarter-past nine in the morning, they caught a glimpse of
some signs of vegetation: herbage floating on that sea of sand, and
announcing, as the weeds upon the ocean did to Christopher Columbus, the
nearness of the shore--green shoots peeping up timidly between pebbles
that were, in their turn, to be the rocks of that vast expanse.
Hills, but of trifling height, were seen in wavy lines upon the horizon.
Their profile, muffled by the heavy mist, was defined but vaguely. The
monotony, however, was beginning to disappear.
The doctor hailed with joy the new country thus disclosed, and, like a
seaman on lookout at the mast-head, he was ready to shout aloud:
“Land, ho! land!”
An hour later the continent spread broadly before their gaze, still wild
in aspect, but less flat, less denuded, and with a few trees standing
out against the gray sky.
“We are in a civilized country at last!” said the hunter.
“Civilized? Well, that’s one way of speaking; but there are no people to
be seen yet.”
“It will not be long before we see them,” said Ferguson, “at our present
rate of travel.”
“Are we still in the negro country, doctor?”
“Yes, and on our way to the country of the Arabs.”
“What! real Arabs, sir, with their camels?”
“No, not many camels; they are scarce, if not altogether unknown, in
these regions. We must go a few degrees farther north to see them.”
“What a pity!”
“And why, Joe?”
“Because, if the wind fell contrary, they might be of use to us.”
“How so?”
“Well, sir, it’s just a notion that’s got into my head: we might hitch
them to the car, and make them tow us along. What do you say to that,
doctor?”
“Poor Joe! Another person had that idea in advance of you. It was used
by a very gifted French author--M. Mery--in a romance, it is true. He
has his travellers drawn along in a balloon by a team of camels; then a
lion comes up, devours the camels, swallows the tow-rope, and hauls the
balloon in their stead; and so on through the story. You see that the
whole thing is the top-flower of fancy, but has nothing in common with
our style of locomotion.”
Joe, a little cut down at learning that his idea had been used already,
cudgelled his wits to imagine what animal could have devoured the
lion; but he could not guess it, and so quietly went on scanning the
appearance of the country.
A lake of medium extent stretched away before him, surrounded by an
amphitheatre of hills, which yet could not be dignified with the name of
mountains. There were winding valleys, numerous and fertile, with their
tangled thickets of the most various trees. The African oil-tree rose
above the mass, with leaves fifteen feet in length upon its stalk,
the latter studded with sharp thorns; the bombax, or silk-cotton-tree,
filled the wind, as it swept by, with the fine down of its seeds; the
pungent odors of the pendanus, the “kenda” of the Arabs, perfumed the
air up to the height where the Victoria was sailing; the papaw-tree,
with its palm-shaped leaves; the sterculier, which produces the
Soudan-nut; the baobab, and the banana-tree, completed the luxuriant
flora of these inter-tropical regions.
“The country is superb!” said the doctor.
“Here are some animals,” added Joe. “Men are not far away.”
“Oh, what magnificent elephants!” exclaimed Kennedy. “Is there no way to
get a little shooting?”
“How could we manage to halt in a current as strong as this? No, Dick;
«
!
,
!
»
1
2
,
,
3
,
.
4
.
5
6
«
,
»
,
«
;
7
,
,
.
»
8
9
10
,
,
11
.
12
13
«
?
»
.
14
15
«
,
»
,
«
.
»
16
17
«
,
»
,
,
«
,
,
,
18
;
,
,
19
,
.
»
20
21
«
,
,
,
»
,
«
’
22
.
»
23
24
«
,
;
,
’
25
.
»
26
27
,
28
.
29
30
«
,
»
,
«
31
-
-
32
,
.
33
34
«
’
,
»
,
,
35
.
36
37
«
!
,
»
,
«
’
38
?
’
39
,
’
?
-
-
!
»
40
41
«
,
»
,
«
’
42
,
!
»
43
44
;
,
45
,
,
46
.
47
48
,
,
,
49
,
50
,
,
51
,
,
52
,
.
53
54
’
,
55
,
56
-
.
57
58
«
-
!
»
;
«
,
’
-
-
!
»
59
60
’
61
.
62
63
«
!
»
,
,
«
!
!
64
;
,
,
65
!
»
66
67
«
,
!
,
68
?
»
69
70
«
,
!
»
71
72
.
,
73
.
74
75
«
!
!
»
;
«
’
?
76
!
»
77
78
«
!
»
79
.
80
81
«
,
,
»
;
«
82
,
83
.
»
84
85
’
-
.
86
87
,
,
-
-
-
88
-
-
,
.
89
.
90
91
-
,
92
,
,
93
.
.
94
’
,
95
,
96
.
,
97
;
98
;
,
99
;
100
;
,
101
,
.
102
103
.
104
105
«
!
»
,
«
106
!
’
!
»
107
108
«
,
,
;
109
.
’
.
110
,
’
!
»
111
112
;
113
,
.
114
,
115
.
116
.
-
-
117
,
-
-
!
118
119
,
120
,
,
,
,
121
.
122
123
.
124
,
,
,
125
,
.
126
127
128
-
,
129
.
130
131
,
,
132
.
,
,
133
,
,
134
.
135
136
137
138
-
.
139
140
.
-
-
’
.
-
-
141
.
-
-
.
-
-
142
-
.
-
-
.
-
-
143
.
-
-
.
-
-
.
-
-
’
.
-
-
144
.
145
146
147
,
,
,
-
148
.
149
150
.
151
152
«
;
,
153
,
154
!
»
155
156
«
,
,
»
;
«
157
,
,
»
,
’
-
158
.
159
160
!
-
-
161
.
;
162
,
,
163
.
164
165
,
,
,
166
,
,
,
167
.
168
169
,
.
170
,
,
171
,
.
172
173
;
,
174
,
,
175
«
’
»
.
176
,
.
177
,
178
.
179
!
180
181
.
,
,
182
.
183
,
184
?
,
;
185
’
?
186
,
187
?
,
,
,
188
,
.
189
.
,
,
190
’
.
191
!
,
,
192
,
,
193
,
.
194
,
!
195
196
;
197
,
,
198
.
199
200
«
,
»
,
,
’
201
.
«
,
,
202
,
,
,
203
.
»
204
205
,
,
206
,
,
207
,
208
.
,
209
;
-
210
,
,
211
.
212
213
-
;
214
;
,
215
,
,
,
216
.
217
218
;
-
219
,
-
220
,
,
221
.
222
223
,
.
224
225
«
,
»
.
226
227
«
,
»
,
.
228
229
.
230
,
,
,
231
,
.
232
233
234
,
.
235
;
.
236
,
,
237
.
238
.
239
240
;
241
.
242
,
,
243
.
244
245
,
,
:
246
247
«
’
,
!
’
,
248
,
»
,
;
«
249
!
»
250
251
«
,
»
,
«
252
;
.
’
253
!
»
254
255
«
,
»
.
«
256
,
257
.
258
,
259
.
»
260
261
«
,
»
,
«
?
»
262
263
«
,
»
,
«
264
.
»
265
266
«
,
!
267
,
.
»
268
269
«
,
,
,
,
270
.
»
271
272
«
!
!
!
»
;
«
273
,
’
.
,
,
274
,
;
275
!
»
276
277
,
,
278
.
,
279
,
,
.
280
,
281
«
-
.
»
,
282
-
,
283
.
284
,
285
,
286
,
.
287
288
,
,
,
289
,
.
290
,
.
291
292
,
293
.
294
,
,
.
295
296
«
!
»
;
«
,
297
.
»
298
299
«
!
»
;
«
.
»
300
301
«
,
»
,
«
!
»
302
303
«
,
,
,
;
304
.
!
»
305
306
,
,
,
307
,
.
308
,
309
.
,
310
,
.
311
,
,
,
,
312
;
;
313
;
314
;
,
315
,
-
-
!
316
.
,
,
317
,
,
318
.
,
.
319
.
,
320
,
321
;
,
,
,
,
,
322
.
323
324
,
,
.
325
,
’
,
,
326
,
327
.
328
329
«
,
?
»
.
330
331
«
,
,
!
,
’
.
’
332
.
»
333
334
«
!
’
,
,
’
;
335
,
.
!
,
336
.
»
337
338
,
’
,
339
.
340
341
«
,
;
’
.
342
,
»
,
.
«
,
,
,
343
.
»
344
345
«
!
.
»
346
347
«
.
348
,
349
,
.
»
350
351
.
352
353
«
,
,
,
354
.
»
355
356
«
?
?
»
357
358
«
!
,
359
,
,
.
360
,
,
,
361
.
,
,
’
362
363
,
’
.
364
?
»
365
366
«
,
,
.
367
.
.
»
368
369
«
,
,
,
’
370
,
,
,
;
,
,
371
.
»
372
373
«
,
,
!
.
374
.
;
375
-
-
.
376
,
,
.
»
377
378
«
,
;
:
379
,
’
.
-
;
380
,
’
,
’
381
,
’
.
’
!
»
382
383
,
384
,
,
385
.
386
387
388
389
-
.
390
391
.
-
-
.
-
-
.
-
-
392
.
-
-
.
-
-
.
-
-
.
-
-
393
.
394
395
’
,
,
.
396
397
.
398
399
«
!
»
,
«
!
»
400
401
;
402
,
,
.
403
404
«
,
,
?
»
,
.
405
406
.
,
407
.
408
409
,
,
.
410
,
411
.
412
413
.
,
414
,
;
415
.
416
417
,
,
418
,
419
,
420
.
421
422
,
,
423
,
,
424
.
425
426
«
!
»
,
«
!
427
!
»
428
429
,
430
431
.
432
433
,
.
434
,
;
,
435
,
436
,
.
437
438
«
!
»
,
,
«
’
439
!
»
440
441
,
,
442
443
.
.
444
,
;
445
;
,
,
446
,
.
447
448
-
-
-
«
!
449
!
»
450
451
,
,
,
452
,
.
453
454
,
,
,
455
.
456
457
«
!
»
,
,
458
.
459
460
,
,
461
,
462
,
,
463
.
464
465
.
,
,
,
466
,
467
.
.
468
.
469
470
,
,
471
.
472
473
«
!
»
,
.
474
475
,
,
,
476
.
477
478
«
!
»
,
.
479
480
«
!
!
»
,
,
-
-
481
.
482
483
«
,
’
!
»
.
484
,
485
,
,
.
486
,
,
,
487
.
488
489
;
490
,
:
491
492
«
!
-
-
!
»
493
494
495
,
.
496
497
;
498
499
;
500
,
;
501
502
,
503
,
-
504
.
505
506
’
.
507
508
«
!
»
.
509
510
«
!
»
,
.
511
512
«
!
»
,
.
«
513
-
-
!
»
514
515
«
!
»
,
«
!
»
,
516
,
.
517
518
,
519
.
520
521
«
,
,
»
,
«
522
,
!
»
523
524
,
525
.
.
526
527
«
!
»
.
528
529
,
,
,
530
,
,
.
531
,
532
.
533
534
«
!
»
.
535
536
«
!
»
,
.
537
538
,
539
,
,
540
,
541
.
542
543
.
,
,
544
.
545
546
’
,
;
,
547
,
,
548
.
549
550
,
,
551
,
,
552
.
553
554
«
!
’
!
»
.
555
556
,
,
,
,
557
,
558
.
559
560
561
!
562
563
,
,
,
564
.
565
566
«
!
»
;
«
,
567
!
»
568
569
,
-
.
570
,
571
,
.
572
,
573
574
.
575
576
,
.
577
578
«
!
»
.
579
580
«
!
»
;
«
’
.
581
’
.
»
582
583
«
,
.
;
!
584
.
»
585
586
;
,
;
587
;
.
,
588
-
,
-
,
589
.
,
590
;
591
,
.
592
593
«
!
!
»
,
.
594
595
,
,
596
,
597
.
,
598
,
599
.
600
601
«
,
.
,
»
;
«
602
!
»
.
603
604
,
,
.
,
605
,
-
-
606
.
607
608
«
?
»
;
«
,
.
?
»
609
610
,
,
611
,
612
.
613
614
615
!
,
’
616
,
.
617
618
«
-
-
!
»
619
620
«
!
?
-
-
»
621
622
;
623
.
624
625
«
!
»
.
626
627
«
,
,
»
.
«
!
!
»
,
628
«
’
!
»
.
629
630
,
.
631
632
«
!
»
.
633
634
«
!
»
,
«
;
635
;
’
,
636
,
!
»
637
638
«
?
,
639
.
»
640
641
«
.
,
.
»
642
643
«
?
»
644
645
«
’
.
»
646
647
,
,
,
648
.
649
.
,
650
.
,
,
651
,
.
652
653
,
,
.
654
,
655
.
656
657
,
,
658
.
659
660
,
,
661
,
662
663
.
664
665
666
667
-
.
668
669
.
-
-
’
.
-
-
670
.
-
-
.
-
-
.
-
-
’
671
.
-
-
.
-
-
672
.
-
-
.
-
-
.
673
674
,
675
,
,
676
.
677
678
.
679
680
;
681
682
.
683
684
,
,
,
685
-
,
686
,
687
.
688
689
,
690
,
691
.
692
693
«
!
»
694
.
«
;
695
!
!
!
»
696
697
«
,
»
,
«
,
698
,
-
,
699
.
»
700
701
«
-
!
»
,
.
702
703
«
’
,
»
;
«
704
,
.
,
705
!
»
706
707
«
’
,
»
708
.
.
709
710
«
,
,
,
»
;
«
711
.
»
712
713
«
,
714
.
»
715
716
«
.
,
,
717
,
-
,
718
’
.
»
719
720
«
’
!
»
.
721
722
«
;
,
;
723
’
’
,
.
»
724
725
«
,
»
,
«
’
;
726
,
,
727
728
,
729
.
730
.
»
731
732
«
,
;
’
,
»
,
733
.
734
735
«
.
-
-
,
,
,
736
,
,
,
737
.
,
738
.
739
,
740
.
741
,
742
.
,
743
,
744
.
;
745
!
,
,
746
,
747
,
,
748
,
.
749
,
,
750
,
.
751
752
«
‘
,
’
,
‘
,
753
;
,
754
;
,
,
755
-
,
!
’
756
,
,
757
.
,
758
,
:
‘
,
,
759
,
,
,
.
’
»
760
761
«
!
»
,
«
762
,
.
,
,
763
-
-
»
764
765
«
,
,
?
»
766
767
«
,
’
,
768
!
»
769
770
’
,
771
.
,
,
772
.
773
.
774
775
;
776
;
777
;
,
778
779
-
,
-
780
.
781
782
,
,
783
,
,
,
784
.
785
786
«
,
,
»
,
«
’
787
?
?
»
788
789
«
,
!
»
-
790
.
«
,
791
’
.
»
792
793
«
’
,
,
,
794
,
,
,
-
,
795
,
,
.
»
796
797
«
,
?
»
.
«
,
’
,
’
798
,
799
!
»
800
801
«
!
,
802
,
»
,
«
803
.
»
804
805
«
’
,
,
;
806
?
»
807
808
«
;
-
809
,
810
,
.
»
811
812
«
,
-
?
»
813
814
«
;
,
815
,
,
816
.
»
817
818
«
!
»
,
«
,
,
’
.
819
,
?
,
820
’
’
821
,
,
!
»
822
823
,
824
,
.
,
825
;
,
,
826
.
827
828
,
829
.
,
830
.
831
832
.
833
,
.
834
,
,
,
835
!
836
837
838
,
839
.
840
,
.
-
841
-
.
842
843
,
844
845
.
,
846
,
;
847
848
,
849
.
,
850
-
.
851
852
«
,
»
,
«
853
.
»
854
855
«
,
856
?
»
.
857
858
«
,
,
,
859
;
860
-
861
!
»
862
863
«
,
!
»
864
865
,
866
.
867
868
869
.
,
,
870
,
.
871
-
,
872
.
873
.
874
875
,
876
;
877
.
878
879
,
’
,
,
880
;
,
881
.
882
883
«
!
»
,
.
«
!
’
884
!
»
885
886
«
!
»
,
.
«
!
887
!
!
»
888
889
.
890
,
,
891
.
,
892
,
893
.
894
895
-
,
,
896
,
897
.
,
,
,
898
,
.
899
900
901
,
,
902
,
.
903
904
905
906
-
.
907
908
.
-
-
.
-
-
909
.
-
-
.
-
-
910
.
.
-
-
911
.
-
-
.
-
-
.
-
-
.
-
-
912
.
913
914
,
915
.
,
916
.
917
918
-
,
919
:
,
920
,
,
921
-
-
922
,
,
.
923
924
,
,
.
925
,
,
.
926
,
,
.
927
928
,
,
929
-
,
:
930
931
«
,
!
!
»
932
933
,
934
,
,
,
935
.
936
937
«
!
»
.
938
939
«
?
,
’
;
940
.
»
941
942
«
,
»
,
«
943
.
»
944
945
«
,
?
»
946
947
«
,
.
»
948
949
«
!
,
,
?
»
950
951
«
,
;
,
,
952
.
.
»
953
954
«
!
»
955
956
«
,
?
»
957
958
«
,
,
.
»
959
960
«
?
»
961
962
«
,
,
’
’
:
963
,
.
,
964
?
»
965
966
«
!
.
967
-
-
.
-
-
,
.
968
;
969
,
,
-
,
970
;
.
971
-
,
972
.
»
973
974
,
,
975
976
;
,
977
.
978
979
,
980
,
981
.
,
,
982
.
-
983
,
,
984
;
,
-
-
,
985
,
,
;
986
,
«
»
,
987
;
-
,
988
-
;
,
989
-
;
,
-
,
990
-
.
991
992
«
!
»
.
993
994
«
,
»
.
«
.
»
995
996
«
,
!
»
.
«
997
?
»
998
999
«
?
,
;
1000