Washington Irving - "Old Christmas From the Sketch Book of Washington Irving"

Robert Green Ingersoll - "The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII."

Louisa Stuart Costello - "Béarn and the Pyrenees"

George Mueller - "A Narrative of Some of the Lord's Dealings with George Mueller"

Annual Bibliography of Commonwealth Literature 2007
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




To these means of intimidation, which were presently
deemed insufficient, were added others still more formidable.
Soldiers, armed with bows and arrows, were drawn
up in line of battle; but by this time the balloon was
expanding, and rising quietly beyond their reach. Upon
this the governor seized a musket and aimed it at the
balloon; but, Kennedy, who was watching him, shattered
the uplifted weapon in the sheik's grasp.

At this unexpected blow there was a general rout.
Every mother's son of them scampered for his dwelling
with the utmost celerity, and stayed there, so that the
streets of the town were absolutely deserted for the remainder
of that day.

Night came, and not a breath of wind was stirring.
The aeronauts had to make up their minds to remain
motionless at the distance of but three hundred feet
above the ground. Not a fire or light shone in the deep
gloom, and around reigned the silence of death; but the
doctor only redoubled his vigilance, as this apparent quiet
might conceal some snare.

And he had reason to be watchful. About midnight,
the whole city seemed to be in a blaze. Hundreds of
streaks of flame crossed each other, and shot to and fro
in the air like rockets, forming a regular network of fire.

"That's really curious!" said the doctor, somewhat
puzzled to make out what it meant.

"By all that's glorious!" shouted Kennedy, "it looks
as if the fire were ascending and coming up toward us!"

And, sure enough, with an accompaniment of musket-shots,
yelling, and din of every description, the mass of
fire was, indeed, mounting toward the Victoria. Joe got
ready to throw out ballast, and Ferguson was not long at
guessing the truth. Thousands of pigeons, their tails garnished
with combustibles, had been set loose and driven
toward the Victoria; and now, in their terror, they were
flying high up, zigzagging the atmosphere with lines of
fire. Kennedy was preparing to discharge all his batteries
into the middle of the ascending multitude, but what
could he have done against such a numberless army?
The pigeons were already whisking around the car; they
were even surrounding the balloon, the sides of which,
reflecting their illumination, looked as though enveloped
with a network of fire.

The doctor dared hesitate no longer; and, throwing
out a fragment of quartz, he kept himself beyond the
reach of these dangerous assailants; and, for two hours
afterward, he could see them wandering hither and thither
through the darkness of the night, until, little by little,
their light diminished, and they, one by one, died out.

"Now we may sleep in quiet," said the doctor.

"Not badly got up for barbarians," mused friend Joe,
speaking his thoughts aloud.

"Oh, they employ these pigeons frequently, to set fire
to the thatch of hostile villages; but this time the village
mounted higher than they could go."

"Why, positively, a balloon need fear no enemies!"

"Yes, indeed, it may!" objected Ferguson.

"What are they, then, doctor?"

"They are the careless people in the car! So, my friends,
let us have vigilance in all places and at all times."



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.

About three o'clock in the morning, Joe, who was then
on watch, at length saw the city move away from beneath
his feet. The Victoria was once again in motion, and
both the doctor and Kennedy awoke.

The former consulted his compass, and saw, with satisfaction,
that the wind was carrying them toward the north-northeast.

"We are in luck!" said he; "every thing works in
our favor: we shall discover Lake Tchad this very day."

"Is it a broad sheet of water?" asked Kennedy.

"Somewhat, Dick. At its greatest length and breadth,
it measures about one hundred and twenty miles."

"It will spice our trip with a little variety to sail
over a spacious sheet of water."

"After all, though, I don't see that we have much to
complain of on that score. Our trip has been very much
varied, indeed; and, moreover, we are getting on under
the best possible conditions."

"Unquestionably so; excepting those privations on
the desert, we have encountered no serious danger."

"It is not to be denied that our noble balloon has
behaved wonderfully well. To-day is May 12th, and we
started on the 18th of April. That makes twenty-five
days of journeying. In ten days more we shall have
reached our destination."

"Where is that?"

"I do not know. But what does that signify?"

"You are right again, Samuel! Let us intrust to Providence
the care of guiding us and of keeping us in good
health as we are now. We don't look much as though
we had been crossing the most pestilential country in the
world!"

"We had an opportunity of getting up in life, and that's
what we have done!"

"Hurrah for trips in the air!" cried Joe. "Here we
are at the end of twenty-five days in good condition, well
fed, and well rested. We've had too much rest in fact,
for my legs begin to feel rusty, and I wouldn't be vexed
a bit to stretch them with a run of thirty miles or so!"

"You can do that, Joe, in the streets of London, but
in fine we set out three together, like Denham, Clapperton,
and Overweg; like Barth, Richardson, and Vogel, and,
more fortunate than our predecessors here, we are three
in number still. But it is most important for us not to
separate. If, while one of us was on the ground, the
Victoria should have to ascend in order to escape some
sudden danger, who knows whether we should ever see
each other again? Therefore it is that I say again to
Kennedy frankly that I do not like his going off alone to
hunt."

"But still, Samuel, you will permit me to indulge that
fancy a little. There is no harm in renewing our stock of
provisions. Besides, before our departure, you held out
to me the prospect of some superb hunting, and thus far I
have done but little in the line of the Andersons and Cummings."

"But, my dear Dick, your memory fails you, or your
modesty makes you forget your own exploits. It really
seems to me that, without mentioning small game, you
have already an antelope, an elephant, and two lions on
your conscience."

"But what's all that to an African sportsman who sees
all the animals in creation strutting along under the
muzzle of his rifle? There! there! look at that troop of
giraffes!"

"Those giraffes," roared Joe; "why, they're not as big
as my fist."

"Because we are a thousand feet above them; but close
to them you would discover that they are three times as
tall as you are!"

"And what do you say to yon herd of gazelles, and
those ostriches, that run with the speed of the wind?"
resumed Kennedy.

"Those ostriches?" remonstrated Joe, again; "those
are chickens, and the greatest kind of chickens!"

"Come, doctor, can't we get down nearer to them?"
pleaded Kennedy.

"We can get closer to them, Dick, but we must not
land. And what good will it do you to strike down those
poor animals when they can be of no use to you? Now,
if the question were to destroy a lion, a tiger, a cat, a
hyena, I could understand it; but to deprive an antelope
or a gazelle of life, to no other purpose than the gratification
of your instincts as a sportsman, seems hardly worth
the trouble. But, after all, my friend, we are going to
keep at about one hundred feet only from the soil, and,
should you see any ferocious wild beast, oblige us by sending
a ball through its heart!"

The Victoria descended gradually, but still keeping at a safe
height, for, in a barbarous, yet very populous country, it was
necessary to keep on the watch for unexpected perils.

The travellers were then directly following the course
of the Shari. The charming banks of this river were
hidden beneath the foliage of trees of various dyes; lianas
and climbing plants wound in and out on all sides and
formed the most curious combinations of color. Crocodiles
were seen basking in the broad blaze of the sun or plunging
beneath the waters with the agility of lizards, and in
their gambols they sported about among the many green
islands that intercept the current of the stream.

It was thus, in the midst of rich and verdant landscapes
that our travellers passed over the district of Maffatay,
and about nine o'clock in the morning reached the
southern shore of Lake Tchad.

There it was at last, outstretched before them, that
Caspian Sea of Africa, the existence of which was so long
consigned to the realms of fable--that interior expanse of
water to which only Denham's and Barth's expeditions
had been able to force their way.

The doctor strove in vain to fix its precise configuration
upon paper. It had already changed greatly since
1847. In fact, the chart of Lake Tchad is very difficult to
trace with exactitude, for it is surrounded by muddy and
almost impassable morasses, in which Barth thought that
he was doomed to perish. From year to year these
marshes, covered with reeds and papyrus fifteen feet high,
become the lake itself. Frequently, too, the villages on
its shores are half submerged, as was the case with Ngornou
in 1856, and now the hippopotamus and the alligator
frisk and dive where the dwellings of Bornou once stood.

The sun shot his dazzling rays over this placid sheet
of water, and toward the north the two elements merged
into one and the same horizon.

The doctor was desirous of determining the character
of the water, which was long believed to be salt. There
was no danger in descending close to the lake, and the car
was soon skimming its surface like a bird at the distance
of only five feet.

Joe plunged a bottle into the lake and drew it up half
filled. The water was then tasted and found to be but
little fit for drinking, with a certain carbonate-of-soda
flavor.

While the doctor was jotting down the result of this
experiment, the loud report of a gun was heard close beside
him. Kennedy had not been able to resist the temptation
of firing at a huge hippopotamus. The latter, who
had been basking quietly, disappeared at the sound of the
explosion, but did not seem to be otherwise incommoded
by Kennedy's conical bullet.

"You'd have done better if you had harpooned him,"
said Joe.

"But how?"

"With one of our anchors. It would have been a hook
just big enough for such a rousing beast as that!"

"Humph!" ejaculated Kennedy, "Joe really has an
idea this time--"

"Which I beg of you not to put into execution," interposed
the doctor. "The animal would very quickly have
dragged us where we could not have done much to help
ourselves, and where we have no business to be."

"Especially now since we've settled the question as to
what kind of water there is in Lake Tchad. Is that sort
of fish good to eat, Dr. Ferguson?"

"That fish, as you call it, Joe, is really a mammiferous
animal of the pachydermal species. Its flesh is said to be
excellent and is an article of important trade between the
tribes living along the borders of the lake."

"Then I'm sorry that Mr. Kennedy's shot didn't do
more damage."

"The animal is vulnerable only in the stomach and between
the thighs. Dick's ball hasn't even marked him;
but should the ground strike me as favorable, we shall halt
at the northern end of the lake, where Kennedy will find
himself in the midst of a whole menagerie, and can make
up for lost time."

"Well," said Joe, "I hope then that Mr. Kennedy
will hunt the hippopotamus a little; I'd like to taste the
meat of that queer-looking beast. It doesn't look exactly
natural to get away into the centre of Africa, to feed on
snipe and partridge, just as if we were in England."



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.

Since its arrival at Lake Tchad, the balloon had struck
a current that edged it farther to the westward. A few
clouds tempered the heat of the day, and, besides, a little
air could be felt over this vast expanse of water; but about
one o'clock, the Victoria, having slanted across this part
of the lake, again advanced over the land for a space of
seven or eight miles.

The doctor, who was somewhat vexed at first at this
turn of his course, no longer thought of complaining when
he caught sight of the city of Kouka, the capital of Bornou.
He saw it for a moment, encircled by its walls of
white clay, and a few rudely-constructed mosques rising
clumsily above that conglomeration of houses that look
like playing-dice, which form most Arab towns. In the
court-yards of the private dwellings, and on the public
squares, grew palms and caoutchouc-trees topped with a
dome of foliage more than one hundred feet in breadth.
Joe called attention to the fact that these immense parasols
were in proper accordance with the intense heat of
the sun, and made thereon some pious reflections which it
were needless to repeat.

Kouka really consists of two distinct towns, separated
by the "Dendal," a large boulevard three hundred
yards wide, at that hour crowded with horsemen and foot
passengers. On one side, the rich quarter stands squarely
with its airy and lofty houses, laid out in regular order;
on the other, is huddled together the poor quarter, a miserable
collection of low hovels of a conical shape, in which
a poverty-stricken multitude vegetate rather than live,
since Kouka is neither a trading nor a commercial city.

Kennedy thought it looked something like Edinburgh,
were that city extended on a plain, with its two distinct
boroughs.

But our travellers had scarcely the time to catch even
this glimpse of it, for, with the fickleness that characterizes
the air-currents of this region, a contrary wind suddenly
swept them some forty miles over the surface of Lake Tchad.

Then then were regaled with a new spectacle. They
could count the numerous islets of the lake, inhabited by
the Biddiomahs, a race of bloodthirsty and formidable
pirates, who are as greatly feared when neighbors as are
the Touaregs of Sahara.

These estimable people were in readiness to receive the
Victoria bravely with stones and arrows, but the balloon
quickly passed their islands, fluttering over them, from one
to the other with butterfly motion, like a gigantic beetle.

At this moment, Joe, who was scanning the horizon,
said to Kennedy:

"There, sir, as you are always thinking of good sport,
yonder is just the thing for you!"

"What is it, Joe?"

"This time, the doctor will not disapprove of your shooting."

"But what is it?"

"Don't you see that flock of big birds making for us?"

"Birds?" exclaimed the doctor, snatching his spyglass.

"I see them," replied Kennedy; "there are at least a
dozen of them."

"Fourteen, exactly!" said Joe.

"Heaven grant that they may be of a kind sufficiently
noxious for the doctor to let me peg away at them!"

"I should not object, but I would much rather see
those birds at a distance from us!"

"Why, are you afraid of those fowls?"

"They are condors, and of the largest size. Should
they attack us--"

"Well, if they do, we'll defend ourselves. We have a
whole arsenal at our disposal. I don't think those birds
are so very formidable."

"Who can tell?" was the doctor's only remark.

Ten minutes later, the flock had come within gunshot,
and were making the air ring with their hoarse cries. They
came right toward the Victoria, more irritated than frightened
by her presence.

"How they scream! What a noise!" said Joe.

"Perhaps they don't like to see anybody poaching in their
country up in the air, or daring to fly like themselves!"

"Well, now, to tell the truth, when I take a good look
at them, they are an ugly, ferocious set, and I should think
them dangerous enough if they were armed with Purdy-Moore
rifles," admitted Kennedy.

"They have no need of such weapons," said Ferguson,
looking very grave.

The condors flew around them in wide circles, their
flight growing gradually closer and closer to the balloon.
They swept through the air in rapid, fantastic curves,
occasionally precipitating themselves headlong with the
speed of a bullet, and then breaking their line of projection
by an abrupt and daring angle.

The doctor, much disquieted, resolved to ascend so as
to escape this dangerous proximity. He therefore dilated
the hydrogen in his balloon, and it rapidly rose.

But the condors mounted with him, apparently determined
not to part company.

"They seem to mean mischief!" said the hunter, cocking
his rifle.

And, in fact, they were swooping nearer, and more than
one came within fifty feet of them, as if defying the fire-arms.

"By George, I'm itching to let them have it!" exclaimed
Kennedy.

"No, Dick; not now! Don't exasperate them needlessly.
That would only be exciting them to attack us!"

"But I could soon settle those fellows!"

"You may think so, Dick. But you are wrong!"

"Why, we have a bullet for each of them!"

"And suppose that they were to attack the upper part
of the balloon, what would you do? How would you get
at them? Just imagine yourself in the presence of a troop
of lions on the plain, or a school of sharks in the open
ocean! For travellers in the air, this situation is just as
dangerous."

"Are you speaking seriously, doctor?"

"Very seriously, Dick."

"Let us wait, then!"

"Wait! Hold yourself in readiness in case of an attack,
but do not fire without my orders."

The birds then collected at a short distance, yet to
near that their naked necks, entirely bare of feathers, could
be plainly seen, as they stretched them out with the effort
of their cries, while their gristly crests, garnished with a
comb and gills of deep violet, stood erect with rage. They
were of the very largest size, their bodies being more than
three feet in length, and the lower surface of their white
wings glittering in the sunlight. They might well have
been considered winged sharks, so striking was their resemblance
to those ferocious rangers of the deep.

"They are following us!" said the doctor, as he saw
them ascending with him, "and, mount as we may, they
can fly still higher!"

"Well, what are we to do?" asked Kennedy.

The doctor made no answer.

"Listen, Samuel!" said the sportsman. "There are
fourteen of those birds; we have seventeen shots at our
disposal if we discharge all our weapons. Have we not
the means, then, to destroy them or disperse them? I
will give a good account of some of them!"

"I have no doubt of your skill, Dick; I look upon all
as dead that may come within range of your rifle, but I
repeat that, if they attack the upper part of the balloon,
you could not get a sight at them. They would tear the
silk covering that sustains us, and we are three thousand
feet up in the air!"

At this moment, one of the ferocious birds darted right
at the balloon, with outstretched beak and claws, ready to
rend it with either or both.

"Fire! fire at once!" cried the doctor.

He had scarcely ceased, ere the huge creature, stricken
dead, dropped headlong, turning over and over in space as
he fell.

Kennedy had already grasped one of the two-barrelled
fowling-pieces and Joe was taking aim with another.

Frightened by the report, the condors drew back for a
moment, but they almost instantly returned to the charge
with extreme fury. Kennedy severed the head of one
from its body with his first shot, and Joe broke the wing
of another.

"Only eleven left," said he.

Thereupon the birds changed their tactics, and by common
consent soared above the balloon. Kennedy glanced at
Ferguson. The latter, in spite of his imperturbability,
grew pale. Then ensued a moment of terrifying silence.
In the next they heard a harsh tearing noise, as of
something rending the silk, and the car seemed to sink
from beneath the feet of our three aeronauts.

"We are lost!" exclaimed Ferguson, glancing at the
barometer, which was now swiftly rising.

"Over with the ballast!" he shouted, "over with it!"

And in a few seconds the last lumps of quartz had disappeared.

"We are still falling! Empty the water-tanks! Do
you hear me, Joe? We are pitching into the lake!"

Joe obeyed. The doctor leaned over and looked out.
The lake seemed to come up toward him like a rising tide.
Every object around grew rapidly in size while they were
looking at it. The car was not two hundred feet from the
surface of Lake Tchad.

"The provisions! the provisions!" cried the doctor.

And the box containing them was launched into space.

Their descent became less rapid, but the luckless
aeronauts were still falling, and into the lake.

"Throw out something--something more!" cried the doctor.

"There is nothing more to throw!" was Kennedy's
despairing response.

"Yes, there is!" called Joe, and with a wave of the hand
he disappeared like a flash, over the edge of the car.

"Joe! Joe!" exclaimed the doctor, horror-stricken.

The Victoria thus relieved resumed her ascending motion,
mounted a thousand feet into the air, and the wind,
burying itself in the disinflated covering, bore them away
toward the northern part of the lake.

"Lost!" exclaimed the sportsman, with a gesture of despair.

"Lost to save us!" responded Ferguson.

And these men, intrepid as they were, felt the large
tears streaming down their cheeks. They leaned over
with the vain hope of seeing some trace of their heroic
companion, but they were already far away from him.

"What course shall we pursue?" asked Kennedy.

"Alight as soon as possible, Dick, and then wait."

After a sweep of some sixty miles the Victoria halted
on a desert shore, on the north of the lake. The anchors
caught in a low tree and the sportsman fastened it securely.
Night came, but neither Ferguson nor Kennedy could
find one moment's sleep.



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.

On the morrow, the 13th of May, our travellers, for
the first time, reconnoitred the part of the coast on which
they had landed. It was a sort of island of solid ground
in the midst of an immense marsh. Around this fragment
of terra firma grew reeds as lofty as trees are in Europe,
and stretching away out of sight.

These impenetrable swamps gave security to the position
of the balloon. It was necessary to watch only the
borders of the lake. The vast stretch of water broadened
away from the spot, especially toward the east, and nothing
could be seen on the horizon, neither mainland nor islands.

The two friends had not yet ventured to speak of their
recent companion. Kennedy first imparted his conjectures
to the doctor.

"Perhaps Joe is not lost after all," he said. "He was
a skilful lad, and had few equals as a swimmer. He would
find no difficulty in swimming across the Firth of Forth at
Edinburgh. We shall see him again--but how and where
I know not. Let us omit nothing on our part to give him
the chance of rejoining us."

"May God grant it as you say, Dick!" replied the
doctor, with much emotion. "We shall do everything in
the world to find our lost friend again. Let us, in the first
place, see where we are. But, above all things, let us rid
the Victoria of this outside covering, which is of no further
use. That will relieve us of six hundred and fifty pounds,
a weight not to be despised--and the end is worth the
trouble!"

The doctor and Kennedy went to work at once, but
they encountered great difficulty. They had to tear the
strong silk away piece by piece, and then cut it in narrow
strips so as to extricate it from the meshes of the network.
The tear made by the beaks of the condors was found to
be several feet in length.

This operation took at least four hours, but at length
the inner balloon once completely extricated did not appear
to have suffered in the least degree. The Victoria was
thus diminished in size by one fifth, and this difference
was sufficiently noticeable to excite Kennedy's surprise.

"Will it be large enough?" he asked.

"Have no fears on that score, I will reestablish the
equilibrium, and should our poor Joe return we shall find
a way to start off with him again on our old route."

"At the moment of our fall, unless I am mistaken, we
were not far from an island."

"Yes, I recollect it," said the doctor, "but that island,
like all the islands on Lake Tchad, is, no doubt, inhabited
by a gang of pirates and murderers. They certainly witnessed
our misfortune, and should Joe fall into their hands, what
will become of him unless protected by their superstitions?"

"Oh, he's just the lad to get safely out of the scrape, I repeat.
I have great confidence in his shrewdness and skill."

"I hope so. Now, Dick, you may go and hunt in the
neighborhood, but don't get far away whatever you do.
It has become a pressing necessity for us to renew our
stock of provisions, since we had to sacrifice nearly all the
old lot."

"Very good, doctor, I shall not be long absent."

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