Charles S. Brooks - "Journeys to Bagdad"

G. MITTAG LEFFLER - "NIELS HENRIK ABEL"

Hans Christian Andersen - "O. T., A Danish Romance"

Louisa de la Rame) - "A Dog of Flanders"

Editorial
This paper argues that discourses of love in Ghanaian market literature for youth offer a view into complex negotiations of agency and empowerment. Drawing on Deborah Durham's notion of youth as "social `shifters'" and Francis Nyamnjoh's conception of the "interconnectedness" of agency, I take Ghanaian market literature as one specific case of how African literature for youth foregrounds questions of continuity and change as African societies enter into increasingly complex global relations. In this literature for youth, received notions of love, often constructed out of impressions from American pop and hip hop music, carry new notions of agency that compete with existing "domesticated" forms. Authors like Ike Tandoh and Evelyn Tay employ discourses of love to offer youth alternative avenues for empowerment in a context of socio-economic disenfranchizement. In a creative process of "straddling", this writing both reveals and reproduces the contradictions that obtain in youth configurations of agency.

Five Weeks in a Balloon

J >> Jules Verne >> Five Weeks in a Balloon



This etext was produced by Judy Boss.





FIVE WEEKS IN A BALLOON;

OR,

JOURNEYS AND DISCOVERIES IN AFRICA
BY THREE ENGLISHMEN.

COMPILED IN FRENCH

BY JULES VERNE,

FROM THE ORIGINAL NOTES OF DR. FERGUSON.

AND DONE INTO ENGLISH BY

"WILLIAM LACKLAND."




PUBLISHERS' NOTE.

"Five Weeks in a Balloon" is, in a measure, a satire on
modern books of African travel. So far as the geography,
the inhabitants, the animals, and the features of the countries
the travellers pass over are described, it is entirely
accurate. It gives, in some particulars, a survey of nearly
the whole field of African discovery, and in this way will
often serve to refresh the memory of the reader. The mode
of locomotion is, of course, purely imaginary, and the incidents
and adventures fictitious. The latter are abundantly
amusing, and, in view of the wonderful "travellers' tales"
with which we have been entertained by African explorers,
they can scarcely be considered extravagant; while the ingenuity
and invention of the author will be sure to excite the
surprise and the admiration of the reader, who will find
M. VERNE as much at home in voyaging through the air as in
journeying "Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Seas."




CONTENTS.

-----

CHAPTER FIRST.

The End of a much-applauded Speech.--The Presentation of Dr. Samuel Ferguson.
--Excelsior.--Full-length Portrait of the Doctor.--A Fatalist convinced.
--A Dinner at the Travellers' Club.--Several Toasts for the Occasion

CHAPTER SECOND.

The Article in the Daily Telegraph.--War between the Scientific Journals.--
Mr. Petermann backs his Friend Dr. Ferguson.--Reply of the Savant Koner.
--Bets made.--Sundry Propositions offered to the Doctor

CHAPTER THIRD.

The Doctor's Friend.--The Origin of their Friendship.--Dick Kennedy at London.
--An unexpected but not very consoling Proposal.--A Proverb by no
means cheering.--A few Names from the African Martyrology.--The Advantages
of a Balloon.--Dr. Ferguson's Secret

CHAPTER FOURTH.

African Explorations.--Barth, Richardson, Overweg, Werne, Brun-Rollet, Penney,
Andrea, Debono, Miani, Guillaume Lejean, Brace, Krapf and Rebmann,
Maizan, Roscher, Burton and Speke

CHAPTER FIFTH.

Kennedy's Dreams.--Articles and Pronouns in the Plural.--Dick's Insinuations.
--A Promenade over the Map of Africa.--What is contained between two
Points of the Compass.--Expeditions now on foot.--Speke and Grant.--Krapf,
De Decken, and De Heuglin

CHAPTER SIXTH.

A Servant--match him!--He can see the Satellites of Jupiter.--Dick and Joe
hard at it.--Doubt and Faith.--The Weighing Ceremony.--Joe and Wellington.
--He gets a Half-crown

CHAPTER SEVENTH.

Geometrical Details.--Calculation of the Capacity of the Balloon.--The Double
Receptacle.--The Covering.--The Car.--The Mysterious Apparatus.--The
Provisions and Stores.--The Final Summing up

CHAPTER EIGHTH.

Joe's Importance.--The Commander of the Resolute.--Kennedy's Arsenal.
--Mutual Amenities.--The Farewell Dinner.--Departure on the 21st of February.--
The Doctor's Scientific Sessions.--Duveyrier.--Livingstone.--Details of the
Aerial Voyage.--Kennedy silenced

CHAPTER NINTH.

They double the Cape.--The Forecastle.--A Course of Cosmography by Professor
Joe.--Concerning the Method of guiding Balloons.--How to seek out
Atmospheric Currents.--Eureka

CHAPTER TENTH.

Former Experiments.--The Doctor's Five Receptacles.--The Gas Cylinder.--
The Calorifere.--The System of Manoeuvring.--Success certain

CHAPTER ELEVENTH.

The Arrival at Zanzibar.--The English Consul.--Ill-will of the Inhabitants.--The
Island of Koumbeni.--The Rain-Makers.--Inflation of the Balloon.--Departure
on the 18th of April.--The last Good-by.--The Victoria

CHAPTER TWELFTH.

Crossing the Strait.--The Mrima.--Dick's Remark and Joe's Proposition.--A
Recipe for Coffee-making.--The Uzaramo.--The Unfortunate Maizan.--
Mount Duthumi.--The Doctor's Cards.--Night under a Nopal

CHAPTER THIRTEENTH.

Change of Weather.--Kennedy has the Fever.--The Doctor's Medicine.--Travels
on Land.--The Basin of Imenge.--Mount Rubeho.--Six Thousand Feet
Elevation.--A Halt in the Daytime

CHAPTER FOURTEENTH.

The Forest of Gum-Trees.--The Blue Antelope.--The Rallying-Signal.--An
Unexpected Attack.--The Kanyeme.--A Night in the Open Air.--The
Mabunguru.--Jihoue-la-Mkoa.--A Supply of Water.--Arrival at Kazeh

CHAPTER FIFTEENTH.

Kazeh.--The Noisy Market-place.--The Appearance of the Balloon.--The Wangaga.
--The Sons of the Moon.--The Doctor's Walk.--The Population of the
Place.--The Royal Tembe.--The Sultan's Wives.--A Royal Drunken-Bout.--
Joe an Object of Worship.--How they Dance in the Moon.--A Reaction.--
Two Moons in one Sky.--The Instability of Divine Honors

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.

CHAPTER SEVENTEENTH.

The Mountains of the Moon.--An Ocean of Venture.--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

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

CHAPTER NINETEENTH.

The Nile.--The Trembling Mountain.--A Remembrance of the Country.--The
Narratives of the Arabs.--The Nyam-Nyams.--Joe's Shrewd Cogitations.--
The Balloon runs the Gantlet.--Aerostatic Ascensions.--Madame Blanchard.

CHAPTER TWENTIETH.

The Celestial Bottle.--The Fig-Palms.--The Mammoth Trees.--The Tree of War.
--The Winged Team.--Two Native Tribes in Battle.--A Massacre.--An
Intervention from above

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIRST.

Strange Sounds.--A Night Attack.--Kennedy and Joe in the Tree.--Two Shots.
--"Help! help!"--Reply in French.--The Morning.--The Missionary.--The
Plan of Rescue

CHAPTER TWENTY-SECOND.

The Jet of Light.--The Missionary.--The Rescue in a Ray of Electricity.--A
Lazarist Priest.--But little Hope.--The Doctor's Care.--A Life of Self-Denial.
--Passing a Volcano

CHAPTER TWENTY-THIRD.

Joe in a Fit of Rage.--The Death of a Good Man.--The Night of watching by the
Body.--Barrenness and Drought.--The Burial.--The Quartz Rocks.--Joe's
Hallucinations.--A Precious Ballast.--A Survey of the Gold-bearing Mountains.
--The Beginning of Joe's Despair

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOURTH.

The Wind dies away.--The Vicinity of the Desert.--The Mistake in the
WaterSupply.--The Nights of the Equator.--Dr. Ferguson's Anxieties.
--The Situation flatly stated.--Energetic Replies of Kennedy and Joe.
--One Night more

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIFTH.

A Little Philosophy.--A Cloud on the Horizon.--In the Midst of a Fog.--The
Strange Balloon.--An Exact View of the Victoria.--The Palm-Trees.--Traces
of a Caravan.--The Well in the Midst of the Desert

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

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.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHTH.

An Evening of Delight.--Joe's Culinary Performances.--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

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

CHAPTER THIRTIETH.

Mosfeia.--The Sheik.--Denham, Clapperton, and Oudney.--Vogel.--The Capital
of Loggoum.--Toole.--Becalmed above Kernak.--The Governor and his Court.
--The Attack.--The Incendiary Pigeons

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIRST.

Departure in the Night-time.--All Three.--Kennedy's Instincts.--Precautions.--
The Course of the Shari River.--Lake Tchad.--The Water of the Lake.--The
Hippopotamus.--One Bullet thrown away

CHAPTER THIRTY-SECOND.

The Capital of Bornou.--The Islands of the Biddiomahs.--The Condors.--The
Doctor's Anxieties.--His Precautions.--An Attack in Mid-air.--The Balloon
Covering torn.--The Fall.--Sublime Self-Sacrifice.--The Northern Coast of
the Lake

CHAPTER THIRTY-THIRD.

Conjectures.--Reestablishment of the Victoria's Equilibrium.--Dr.
Ferguson's New Calculations.--Kennedy's Hunt.--A Complete Exploration
of Lake Tchad.--Tangalia.--The Return.--Lari

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOURTH.

The Hurricane.--A Forced Departure.--Loss of an Anchor.--Melancholy
Reflections.--The Resolution adopted.--The Sand-Storm.--The Buried Caravan.--
A Contrary yet Favorable Wind.--The Return southward.--Kennedy at his Post

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIFTH.

What happened to Joe.--The Island of the Biddiomahs.--The Adoration shown
him.--The Island that sank.--The Shores of the Lake.--The Tree of the
Serpents.--The Foot-Tramp.--Terrible Suffering.--Mosquitoes and Ants.--
Hunger.--The Victoria seen.--She disappears.--The Swamp.--One Last
Despairing Cry

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIXTH.

A Throng of People on the Horizon.--A Troop of Arabs.--The Pursuit.--It is
He.--Fall from Horseback.--The Strangled Arab.--A Ball from Kennedy.--
Adroit Manoeuvres.--Caught up flying.--Joe saved at last

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVENTH.

The Western Route.--Joe wakes up.--His Obstinacy.--End of Joe's Narrative.
--Tagelei.--Kennedy's Anxieties.--The Route to the North.--A Night near
Aghades

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHTH.

A Rapid Passage.--Prudent Resolves.--Caravans in Sight.--Incessant Rains.--
Goa.--The Niger.--Golberry, Geoffroy, and Gray.--Mungo Park.--Laing.--
Rene Caillie.--Clapperton.--John and Richard Lander

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINTH.

The Country in the Elbow of the Niger.--A Fantastic View of the Hombori
Mountains.--Kabra.--Timbuctoo.--The Chart of Dr. Barth.--A Decaying City.--
Whither Heaven wills

CHAPTER FORTIETH.

Dr. Ferguson's Anxieties.--Persistent Movement southward.--A Cloud of
Grasshoppers.--A View of Jenne.--A View of Sego.--Change of the Wind.--
Joe's Regrets

CHAPTER FORTY-FIRST.

The Approaches to Senegal.--The Balloon sinks lower and lower.--They
keep throwing out, throwing out.--The Marabout Al-Hadji.--Messrs. Pascal,
Vincent, and Lambert.--A Rival of Mohammed.--The Difficult Mountains.
--Kennedy's Weapons.--One of Joe's Manoeuvres.--A Halt over a Forest

CHAPTER FORTY-SECOND.

A Struggle of Generosity.--The Last Sacrifice.--The Dilating Apparatus.--Joe's
Adroitness.--Midnight.--The Doctor's Watch.--Kennedy's Watch.--The Latter
falls asleep at his Post.--The Fire.--The Howlings of the Natives.--Out
of Range

CHAPTER FORTY-THIRD.

The Talabas.--The Pursuit.--A Devastated Country.--The Wind begins to
fall.--The Victoria sinks.--The last of the Provisions.--The Leaps of
the Balloon.--A Defence with Fire-arms.--The Wind freshens.--The Senegal
River.--The Cataracts of Gouina.--The Hot Air.--The Passage of the River

CHAPTER FORTY-FOURTH.

Conclusion.--The Certificate.--The French Settlements.--The Post of Medina.--
The Battle.--Saint Louis.--The English Frigate.--The Return to London.



FIVE WEEKS IN A BALLOON.

------

CHAPTER FIRST.

The End of a much-applauded Speech.--The Presentation of Dr. Samuel
Ferguson.--Excelsior.--Full-length Portrait of the Doctor.--A Fatalist
convinced.--A Dinner at the Travellers' Club.--Several Toasts for the
Occasion.

There was a large audience assembled on the 14th of
January, 1862, at the session of the Royal Geographical
Society, No. 3 Waterloo Place, London. The president,
Sir Francis M----, made an important communication to
his colleagues, in an address that was frequently
interrupted by applause.

This rare specimen of eloquence terminated with the
following sonorous phrases bubbling over with patriotism:

"England has always marched at the head of nations"
(for, the reader will observe, the nations always march
at the head of each other), "by the intrepidity of her
explorers in the line of geographical discovery." (General
assent). "Dr. Samuel Ferguson, one of her most glorious
sons, will not reflect discredit on his origin." ("No,
indeed!" from all parts of the hall.)

"This attempt, should it succeed" ("It will succeed!"),
"will complete and link together the notions, as yet
disjointed, which the world entertains of African cartology"
(vehement applause); "and, should it fail, it will,
at least, remain on record as one of the most daring
conceptions of human genius!" (Tremendous cheering.)

"Huzza! huzza!" shouted the immense audience,
completely electrified by these inspiring words.

"Huzza for the intrepid Ferguson!" cried one of the
most excitable of the enthusiastic crowd.

The wildest cheering resounded on all sides; the name
of Ferguson was in every mouth, and we may safely believe
that it lost nothing in passing through English
throats. Indeed, the hall fairly shook with it.

And there were present, also, those fearless travellers
and explorers whose energetic temperaments had borne
them through every quarter of the globe, many of them
grown old and worn out in the service of science. All
had, in some degree, physically or morally, undergone the
sorest trials. They had escaped shipwreck; conflagration;
Indian tomahawks and war-clubs; the fagot and the
stake; nay, even the cannibal maws of the South Sea
Islanders. But still their hearts beat high during Sir
Francis M----'s address, which certainly was the finest
oratorical success that the Royal Geographical Society of
London had yet achieved.

But, in England, enthusiasm does not stop short with
mere words. It strikes off money faster than the dies of
the Royal Mint itself. So a subscription to encourage Dr.
Ferguson was voted there and then, and it at once attained
the handsome amount of two thousand five hundred
pounds. The sum was made commensurate with the
importance of the enterprise.

A member of the Society then inquired of the president
whether Dr. Ferguson was not to be officially introduced.

"The doctor is at the disposition of the meeting,"
replied Sir Francis.

"Let him come in, then! Bring him in!" shouted the
audience. "We'd like to see a man of such extraordinary
daring, face to face!"

"Perhaps this incredible proposition of his is only
intended to mystify us," growled an apoplectic old
admiral.

"Suppose that there should turn out to be no such
person as Dr. Ferguson?" exclaimed another voice, with
a malicious twang.

"Why, then, we'd have to invent one!" replied a
facetious member of this grave Society.

"Ask Dr. Ferguson to come in," was the quiet remark
of Sir Francis M----.

And come in the doctor did, and stood there, quite
unmoved by the thunders of applause that greeted his
appearance.

He was a man of about forty years of age, of medium
height and physique. His sanguine temperament was
disclosed in the deep color of his cheeks. His countenance
was coldly expressive, with regular features, and a large
nose--one of those noses that resemble the prow of a ship,
and stamp the faces of men predestined to accomplish
great discoveries. His eyes, which were gentle and
intelligent, rather than bold, lent a peculiar charm to
his physiognomy. His arms were long, and his feet were
planted with that solidity which indicates a great pedestrian.

A calm gravity seemed to surround the doctor's entire
person, and no one would dream that he could become the
agent of any mystification, however harmless.

Hence, the applause that greeted him at the outset
continued until he, with a friendly gesture, claimed silence
on his own behalf. He stepped toward the seat that had
been prepared for him on his presentation, and then,
standing erect and motionless, he, with a determined
glance, pointed his right forefinger upward, and
pronounced aloud the single word--

"Excelsior!"

Never had one of Bright's or Cobden's sudden onslaughts,
never had one of Palmerston's abrupt demands
for funds to plate the rocks of the English coast with iron,
made such a sensation. Sir Francis M----'s address was
completely overshadowed. The doctor had shown himself
moderate, sublime, and self-contained, in one; he had
uttered the word of the situation--

"Excelsior!"

The gouty old admiral who had been finding fault, was
completely won over by the singular man before him, and
immediately moved the insertion of Dr. Ferguson's speech
in "The Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society
of London."

Who, then, was this person, and what was the enterprise
that he proposed?

Ferguson's father, a brave and worthy captain in the
English Navy, had associated his son with him, from the
young man's earliest years, in the perils and adventures of
his profession. The fine little fellow, who seemed to have
never known the meaning of fear, early revealed a keen
and active mind, an investigating intelligence, and a
remarkable turn for scientific study; moreover, he disclosed
uncommon address in extricating himself from difficulty;
he was never perplexed, not even in handling his fork for
the first time--an exercise in which children generally
have so little success.

His fancy kindled early at the recitals he read of daring
enterprise and maritime adventure, and he followed
with enthusiasm the discoveries that signalized the first part
of the nineteenth century. He mused over the glory of the
Mungo Parks, the Bruces, the Caillies, the Levaillants,
and to some extent, I verily believe, of Selkirk (Robinson
Crusoe), whom he considered in no wise inferior to the
rest. How many a well-employed hour he passed with
that hero on his isle of Juan Fernandez! Often he criticised
the ideas of the shipwrecked sailor, and sometimes
discussed his plans and projects. He would have done
differently, in such and such a case, or quite as well at
least--of that he felt assured. But of one thing he was
satisfied, that he never should have left that pleasant island,
where he was as happy as a king without subjects--
no, not if the inducement held out had been promotion to
the first lordship in the admiralty!

It may readily be conjectured whether these tendencies
were developed during a youth of adventure, spent in
every nook and corner of the Globe. Moreover, his father,
who was a man of thorough instruction, omitted no opportunity
to consolidate this keen intelligence by serious
studies in hydrography, physics, and mechanics, along
with a slight tincture of botany, medicine, and astronomy.

Upon the death of the estimable captain, Samuel Ferguson,
then twenty-two years of age, had already made
his voyage around the world. He had enlisted in the
Bengalese Corps of Engineers, and distinguished himself
in several affairs; but this soldier's life had not exactly
suited him; caring but little for command, he had not been
fond of obeying. He, therefore, sent in his resignation,
and half botanizing, half playing the hunter, he made his
way toward the north of the Indian Peninsula, and crossed
it from Calcutta to Surat--a mere amateur trip for him.

From Surat we see him going over to Australia, and
in 1845 participating in Captain Sturt's expedition, which
had been sent out to explore the new Caspian Sea, supposed
to exist in the centre of New Holland.

Samuel Ferguson returned to England about 1850,
and, more than ever possessed by the demon of discovery,
he spent the intervening time, until 1853, in accompanying
Captain McClure on the expedition that went around
the American Continent from Behring's Straits to Cape
Farewell.

Notwithstanding fatigues of every description, and in
all climates, Ferguson's constitution continued marvellously
sound. He felt at ease in the midst of the most complete
privations; in fine, he was the very type of the
thoroughly accomplished explorer whose stomach expands
or contracts at will; whose limbs grow longer or shorter
according to the resting-place that each stage of a journey
may bring; who can fall asleep at any hour of the day or
awake at any hour of the night.

Nothing, then, was less surprising, after that, than to
find our traveller, in the period from 1855 to 1857, visiting
the whole region west of the Thibet, in company with the
brothers Schlagintweit, and bringing back some curious
ethnographic observations from that expedition.

During these different journeys, Ferguson had been
the most active and interesting correspondent of the
Daily Telegraph, the penny newspaper whose circulation
amounts to 140,000 copies, and yet scarcely suffices for its
many legions of readers. Thus, the doctor had become
well known to the public, although he could not claim
membership in either of the Royal Geographical Societies
of London, Paris, Berlin, Vienna, or St. Petersburg, or
yet with the Travellers' Club, or even the Royal Polytechnic
Institute, where his friend the statistician Cockburn
ruled in state.

The latter savant had, one day, gone so far as to propose
to him the following problem: Given the number of
miles travelled by the doctor in making the circuit of the
Globe, how many more had his head described than his
feet, by reason of the different lengths of the radii?--or,
the number of miles traversed by the doctor's head and
feet respectively being given, required the exact height
of that gentleman?

This was done with the idea of complimenting him,
but the doctor had held himself aloof from all the learned
bodies--belonging, as he did, to the church militant and
not to the church polemical. He found his time better
employed in seeking than in discussing, in discovering
rather than discoursing.

There is a story told of an Englishman who came one
day to Geneva, intending to visit the lake. He was placed
in one of those odd vehicles in which the passengers sit
side by side, as they do in an omnibus. Well, it so happened
that the Englishman got a seat that left him with
his back turned toward the lake. The vehicle completed
its circular trip without his thinking to turn around once,
and he went back to London delighted with the Lake of Geneva.

Doctor Ferguson, however, had turned around to look
about him on his journeyings, and turned to such good
purpose that he had seen a great deal. In doing so, he
had simply obeyed the laws of his nature, and we have
good reason to believe that he was, to some extent, a fatalist,
but of an orthodox school of fatalism withal, that led
him to rely upon himself and even upon Providence. He
claimed that he was impelled, rather than drawn by his
own volition, to journey as he did, and that he traversed
the world like the locomotive, which does not direct itself,
but is guided and directed by the track it runs on.

"I do not follow my route;" he often said, "it is my
route that follows me."

The reader will not be surprised, then, at the calmness
with which the doctor received the applause that welcomed
him in the Royal Society. He was above all such
trifles, having no pride, and less vanity. He looked upon
the proposition addressed to him by Sir Francis M---- as
the simplest thing in the world, and scarcely noticed the
immense effect that it produced.

When the session closed, the doctor was escorted to
the rooms of the Travellers' Club, in Pall Mall. A superb
entertainment had been prepared there in his honor. The
dimensions of the dishes served were made to correspond
with the importance of the personage entertained, and the
boiled sturgeon that figured at this magnificent repast was
not an inch shorter than Dr. Ferguson himself.

Numerous toasts were offered and quaffed, in the wines
of France, to the celebrated travellers who had made their
names illustrious by their explorations of African territory.
The guests drank to their health or to their memory,
in alphabetical order, a good old English way of doing the
thing. Among those remembered thus, were: Abbadie,
Adams, Adamson, Anderson, Arnaud, Baikie, Baldwin,
Barth, Batouda, Beke, Beltram, Du Berba, Bimbachi,
Bolognesi, Bolwik, Belzoni, Bonnemain, Brisson, Browne,
Bruce, Brun-Rollet, Burchell, Burckhardt, Burton, Cailland,
Caillie, Campbell, Chapman, Clapperton, Clot-Bey,
Colomieu, Courval, Cumming, Cuny, Debono, Decken,
Denham, Desavanchers, Dicksen, Dickson, Dochard, Du
Chaillu, Duncan, Durand, Duroule, Duveyrier, D'Escayrac,
De Lauture, Erhardt, Ferret, Fresnel, Galinier, Galton,
Geoffroy, Golberry, Hahn, Halm, Harnier, Hecquart,
Heuglin, Hornemann, Houghton, Imbert, Kauffmann,
Knoblecher, Krapf, Kummer, Lafargue, Laing, Lafaille,
Lambert, Lamiral, Lampriere, John Lander, Richard
Lander, Lefebvre, Lejean, Levaillant, Livingstone, MacCarthy,
Maggiar, Maizan, Malzac, Moffat, Mollien, Monteiro, Morrison,
Mungo Park, Neimans, Overweg, Panet, Partarrieau,
Pascal, Pearse, Peddie, Penney, Petherick, Poncet, Prax,
Raffenel, Rabh, Rebmann, Richardson, Riley, Ritchey,
Rochet d'Hericourt, Rongawi, Roscher, Ruppel, Saugnier,
Speke, Steidner, Thibaud, Thompson, Thornton, Toole,
Tousny, Trotter, Tuckey, Tyrwhitt, Vaudey, Veyssiere,
Vincent, Vinco, Vogel, Wahlberg, Warrington, Washington,
Werne, Wild, and last, but not least, Dr. Ferguson,
who, by his incredible attempt, was to link together the
achievements of all these explorers, and complete the series
of African discovery.

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