Five Weeks in a Balloon
“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 aëronaut saw, with satisfaction, that the
hydrogen was in exactly the same quantity as before. The covering had
remained completely water-proof.
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 Ukéréoué.—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 Ukéréoué, 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 Ukéréoué 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