Five Weeks in a Balloon
until he’s been hunted himself! Still I advise him not to try it if he
can keep out of it! My horse was so tired, he was ready to drop off his
legs; they were close on me; I threw myself to the ground; then I
jumped up again behind an Arab! I didn’t mean the fellow any harm, and
I hope he has no grudge against me for choking him, but I saw you—and
you know the rest. The _Victoria_ came on at my heels, and you caught
me up flying, as a circus-rider does a ring. Wasn’t I right in counting
on you? Now, doctor, you see how simple all that was! Nothing more
natural in the world! I’m ready to begin over again, if it would be of
any service to you. And besides, master, as I said a while ago, it’s
not worth mentioning.”
“My noble, gallant Joe!” said the doctor, with great feeling. “Heart of
gold! we were not astray in trusting to your intelligence and skill.”
“Poh! doctor, one has only just to follow things along as they happen,
and he can always work his way out of a scrape! The safest plan, you
see, is to take matters as they come.”
While Joe was telling his experience, the balloon had rapidly passed
over a long reach of country, and Kennedy soon pointed out on the
horizon a collection of structures that looked like a town. The doctor
glanced at his map and recognized the place as the large village of
Tagelei, in the Damerghou country.
“Here,” said he, “we come upon Dr. Barth’s route. It was at this place
that he parted from his companions, Richardson and Overweg; the first
was to follow the Zinder route, and the second that of Maradi; and you
may remember that, of these three travellers, Barth was the only one
who ever returned to Europe.”
“Then,” said Kennedy, following out on the map the direction of the
_Victoria_, “we are going due north.”
“Due north, Dick.”
“And don’t that give you a little uneasiness?”
“Why should it?”
“Because that line leads to Tripoli, and over the Great Desert.”
“Oh, we shall not go so far as that, my friend—at least, I hope not.”
“But where do you expect to halt?”
“Come, Dick, don’t you feel some curiosity to see Timbuctoo?”
“Timbuctoo?”
“Certainly,” said Joe; “nobody nowadays can think of making the trip to
Africa without going to see Timbuctoo.”
“You will be only the fifth or sixth European who has ever set eyes on
that mysterious city.”
“Ho, then, for Timbuctoo!”
“Well, then, let us try to get as far as between the seventeenth and
eighteenth degrees of north latitude, and there we will seek a
favorable wind to carry us westward.”
“Good!” said the hunter. “But have we still far to go to the
northward?”
“One hundred and fifty miles at least.”
“In that case,” said Kennedy, “I’ll turn in and sleep a bit.”
“Sleep, sir; sleep!” urged Joe. “And you, doctor, do the same yourself:
you must have need of rest, for I made you keep watch a little out of
time.”
The sportsman stretched himself under the awning; but Ferguson, who was
not easily conquered by fatigue, remained at his post.
In about three hours the _Victoria_ was crossing with extreme rapidity
an expanse of stony country, with ranges of lofty, naked mountains of
granitic formation at the base. A few isolated peaks attained the
height of even four thousand feet. Giraffes, antelopes, and ostriches
were seen running and bounding with marvellous agility in the midst of
forests of acacias, mimosas, souahs, and date-trees. After the
barrenness of the desert, vegetation was now resuming its empire. This
was the country of the Kailouas, who veil their faces with a bandage of
cotton, like their dangerous neighbors, the Touaregs.
At ten o’clock in the evening, after a splendid trip of two hundred and
fifty miles, the _Victoria_ halted over an important town. The
moonlight revealed glimpses of one district half in ruins; and some
pinnacles of mosques and minarets shot up here and there, glistening in
the silvery rays. The doctor took a stellar observation, and discovered
that he was in the latitude of Aghades.
This city, once the seat of an immense trade, was already falling into
ruin when Dr. Barth visited it.
The _Victoria_, not being seen in the obscurity of night, descended
about two miles above Aghades, in a field of millet. The night was
calm, and began to break into dawn about three o’clock A.M.; while a
light wind coaxed the balloon westward, and even a little toward the
south.
Dr. Ferguson hastened to avail himself of such good fortune, and
rapidly ascending resumed his aërial journey amid a long wake of golden
morning sunshine.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHTH.
A Rapid Passage.—Prudent Resolves.—Caravans in Sight.—Incessant
Rains.—Goa.—The Niger.—Golberry, Geoffroy, and Gray.—Mungo
Park.—Laing.—René Caillié.—Clapperton.—John and Richard Lander.
The 17th of May passed tranquilly, without any remarkable incident; the
desert gained upon them once more; a moderate wind bore the _Victoria_
toward the southwest, and she never swerved to the right or to the
left, but her shadow traced a perfectly straight line on the sand.
Before starting, the doctor had prudently renewed his stock of water,
having feared that he should not be able to touch ground in these
regions, infested as they are by the Aouelim-Minian Touaregs. The
plateau, at an elevation of eighteen hundred feet above the level of
the sea, sloped down toward the south. Our travellers, having crossed
the Aghades route at Murzouk—a route often pressed by the feet of
camels—arrived that evening, in the sixteenth degree of north latitude,
and four degrees fifty-five minutes east longitude, after having passed
over one hundred and eighty miles of a long and monotonous day’s
journey.
During the day Joe dressed the last pieces of game, which had been only
hastily prepared, and he served up for supper a mess of snipe, that
were greatly relished. The wind continuing good, the doctor resolved to
keep on during the night, the moon, still nearly at the full,
illumining it with her radiance. The _Victoria_ ascended to a height of
five hundred feet, and, during her nocturnal trip of about sixty miles,
the gentle slumbers of an infant would not have been disturbed by her
motion.
On Sunday morning, the direction of the wind again changed, and it bore
to the northwestward. A few crows were seen sweeping through the air,
and, off on the horizon, a flock of vultures which, fortunately,
however, kept at a distance.
The sight of these birds led Joe to compliment his master on the idea
of having two balloons.
“Where would we be,” said he, “with only one balloon? The second
balloon is like the life-boat to a ship; in case of wreck we could
always take to it and escape.”
“You are right, friend Joe,” said the doctor, “only that my life-boat
gives me some uneasiness. It is not so good as the main craft.”
“What do you mean by that, doctor?” asked Kennedy.
“I mean to say that the new _Victoria_ is not so good as the old one.
Whether it be that the stuff it is made of is too much worn, or that
the heat of the spiral has melted the gutta-percha, I can observe a
certain loss of gas. It don’t amount to much thus far, but still it is
noticeable. We have a tendency to sink, and, in order to keep our
elevation, I am compelled to give greater dilation to the hydrogen.”
“The deuce!” exclaimed Kennedy with concern; “I see no remedy for
that.”
“There is none, Dick, and that is why we must hasten our progress, and
even avoid night halts.”
“Are we still far from the coast?” asked Joe.
“Which coast, my boy? How are we to know whither chance will carry us?
All that I can say is, that Timbuctoo is still about four hundred miles
to the westward.
“And how long will it take us to get there?”
“Should the wind not carry us too far out of the way, I hope to reach
that city by Tuesday evening.”
“Then,” remarked Joe, pointing to a long file of animals and men
winding across the open desert, “we shall arrive there sooner than that
caravan.”
Ferguson and Kennedy leaned over and saw an immense cavalcade. There
were at least one hundred and fifty camels of the kind that, for twelve
_mutkals_ of gold, or about twenty-five dollars, go from Timbuctoo to
Tafilet with a load of five hundred pounds upon their backs. Each
animal had dangling to its tail a bag to receive its excrement, the
only fuel on which the caravans can depend when crossing the desert.
These Touareg camels are of the very best race. They can go from three
to seven days without drinking, and for two without eating. Their speed
surpasses that of the horse, and they obey with intelligence the voice
of the _khabir_, or guide of the caravan. They are known in the country
under the name of _mehari_.
Such were the details given by the doctor while his companions
continued to gaze upon that multitude of men, women, and children,
advancing on foot and with difficulty over a waste of sand half in
motion, and scarcely kept in its place by scanty nettles, withered
grass, and stunted bushes that grew upon it. The wind obliterated the
marks of their feet almost instantly.
Joe inquired how the Arabs managed to guide themselves across the
desert, and come to the few wells scattered far between throughout this
vast solitude.
“The Arabs,” replied Dr. Ferguson, “are endowed by nature with a
wonderful instinct in finding their way. Where a European would be at a
loss, they never hesitate for a moment. An insignificant fragment of
rock, a pebble, a tuft of grass, a different shade of color in the
sand, suffice to guide them with accuracy. During the night they go by
the polar star. They never travel more than two miles per hour, and
always rest during the noonday heat. You may judge from that how long
it takes them to cross Sahara, a desert more than nine hundred miles in
breadth.”
But the _Victoria_ had already disappeared from the astonished gaze of
the Arabs, who must have envied her rapidity. That evening she passed
two degrees twenty minutes east longitude, and during the night left
another degree behind her.
On Monday the weather changed completely. Rain began to fall with
extreme violence, and not only had the balloon to resist the power of
this deluge, but also the increase of weight which it caused by wetting
the whole machine, car and all. This continuous shower accounted for
the swamps and marshes that formed the sole surface of the country.
Vegetation reappeared, however, along with the mimosas, the baobabs,
and the tamarind-trees.
Such was the Sonray country, with its villages topped with roofs turned
over like Armenian caps. There were few mountains, and only such hills
as were enough to form the ravines and pools where the _pintadoes_ and
snipes went sailing and diving through. Here and there, an impetuous
torrent cut the roads, and had to be crossed by the natives on long
vines stretched from tree to tree. The forests gave place to jungles,
which alligators, hippopotami, and the rhinoceros, made their haunts.
“It will not be long before we see the Niger,” said the doctor. “The
face of the country always changes in the vicinity of large rivers.
These moving highways, as they are sometimes correctly called, have
first brought vegetation with them, as they will at last bring
civilization. Thus, in its course of twenty-five hundred miles, the
Niger has scattered along its banks the most important cities of
Africa.”
“By-the-way,” put in Joe, “that reminds me of what was said by an
admirer of the goodness of Providence, who praised the foresight with
which it had generally caused rivers to flow close to large cities!”
At noon the _Victoria_ was passing over a petty town, a mere assemblage
of miserable huts, which once was Goa, a great capital.
“It was there,” said the doctor, “that Barth crossed the Niger, on his