Five Weeks in a Balloon

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"Not if you think it worth while. But, in the first
place, I'm going to cook this fat goose to a turn, for I see
that Mr. Kennedy has not wasted his time."

"All right, Joe!"

"Well, let us see then how this African game will sit
on a European stomach!"

The goose was soon roasted by the flame of the blow-pipe,
and not long afterward was comfortably stowed
away. Joe took his own good share, like a man who had
eaten nothing for several days. After the tea and the
punch, he acquainted his friends with his recent adventures.
He spoke with some emotion, even while looking
at things with his usual philosophy. The doctor could not
refrain from frequently pressing his hand when he saw his
worthy servant more considerate of his master's safety
than of his own, and, in relation to the sinking of the island
of the Biddiomahs, he explained to him the frequency of
this phenomenon upon Lake Tchad.

At length Joe, continuing his recital, arrived at the
point where, sinking in the swamp, he had uttered a last
cry of despair.

"I thought I was gone," said he, "and as you came
right into my mind, I made a hard fight for it. How, I
couldn't tell you--but I'd made up my mind that I wouldn't
go under without knowing why. Just then, I saw--two or
three feet from me--what do you think? the end of a rope
that had been fresh cut; so I took leave to make another
jerk, and, by hook or by crook, I got to the rope. When
I pulled, it didn't give; so I pulled again and hauled away
and there I was on dry ground! At the end of the rope,
I found an anchor! Ah, master, I've a right to call that
the anchor of safety, anyhow, if you have no objection. I
knew it again! It was the anchor of the Victoria! You
had grounded there! So I followed the direction of the
rope and that gave me your direction, and, after trying
hard a few times more, I got out of the swamp. I had
got my strength back with my spunk, and I walked on
part of the night away from the lake, until I got to the
edge of a very big wood. There I saw a fenced-in place,
where some horses were grazing, without thinking of any
harm. Now, there are times when everybody knows how
to ride a horse, are there not, doctor? So I didn't spend
much time thinking about it, but jumped right on the back
of one of those innocent animals and away we went galloping
north as fast as our legs could carry us. I needn't
tell you about the towns that I didn't see nor the villages
that I took good care to go around. No! I crossed the
ploughed fields; I leaped the hedges; I scrambled over
the fences; I dug my heels into my nag; I thrashed him;
I fairly lifted the poor fellow off his feet! At last I got to
the end of the tilled land. Good! There was the desert.
'That suits me!' said I, 'for I can see better ahead of me
and farther too.' I was hoping all the time to see the balloon
tacking about and waiting for me. But not a bit of
it; and so, in about three hours, I go plump, like a fool,
into a camp of Arabs! Whew! what a hunt that was!
You see, Mr. Kennedy, a hunter don't know what a real
hunt is 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 aerial 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.--
Rene Caillie.--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 return from Timbuctoo. This is the
river so famous in antiquity, the rival of the Nile, to which
pagan superstition ascribed a celestial origin. Like the
Nile, it has engaged the attention of geographers in all
ages; and like it, also, its exploration has cost the lives
of many victims; yes, even more of them than perished
on account of the other."

The Niger flowed broadly between its banks, and its
waters rolled southward with some violence of current;
but our travellers, borne swiftly by as they were, could
scarcely catch a glimpse of its curious outline.

"I wanted to talk to you about this river," said Dr.
Ferguson, "and it is already far from us. Under the
names of Dhiouleba, Mayo, Egghirreou, Quorra, and other
titles besides, it traverses an immense extent of country,
and almost competes in length with the Nile. These
appellations signify simply 'the River,' according to the
dialects of the countries through which it passes."

"Did Dr. Barth follow this route?" asked Kennedy.

"No, Dick: in quitting Lake Tchad, he passed through
the different towns of Bornou, and intersected the Niger
at Say, four degrees below Goa; then he penetrated to the
bosom of those unexplored countries which the Niger
embraces in its elbow; and, after eight months of fresh
fatigues, he arrived at Timbuctoo; all of which we may
do in about three days with as swift a wind as this."

"Have the sources of the Niger been discovered?"
asked Joe.

"Long since," replied the doctor. "The exploration
of the Niger and its tributaries was the object of several
expeditions, the principal of which I shall mention: Between
1749 and 1758, Adamson made a reconnoissance of
the river, and visited Gorea; from 1785 to 1788, Golberry
and Geoffroy travelled across the deserts of Senegambia,
and ascended as far as the country of the Moors, who
assassinated Saugnier, Brisson, Adam, Riley, Cochelet,
and so many other unfortunate men. Then came the illustrious
Mungo Park, the friend of Sir Walter Scott, and,
like him, a Scotchman by birth. Sent out in 1795 by the
African Society of London, he got as far as Bambarra,
saw the Niger, travelled five hundred miles with a slave-merchant,
reconnoitred the Gambia River, and returned
to England in 1797. He again set out, on the 30th of
January, 1805, with his brother-in-law Anderson, Scott,
the designer, and a gang of workmen; he reached Gorea,
there added a detachment of thirty-five soldiers to his
party, and saw the Niger again on the 19th of August.
But, by that time, in consequence of fatigue, privations,
ill-usage, the inclemencies of the weather, and the
unhealthiness of the country, only eleven persons remained
alive of the forty Europeans in the party. On the 16th
of November, the last letters from Mungo Park reached
his wife; and, a year later a trader from that country
gave information that, having got as far as Boussa, on the
Niger, on the 23d of December, the unfortunate traveller's
boat was upset by the cataracts in that part of the river,
and he was murdered by the natives."

"And his dreadful fate did not check the efforts of
others to explore that river?"

"On the contrary, Dick. Since then, there were two
objects in view: namely, to recover the lost man's papers,
as well as to pursue the exploration. In 1816, an expedition
was organized, in which Major Grey took part. It arrived
in Senegal, penetrated to the Fonta-Jallon, visited
the Foullah and Mandingo populations, and returned to
England without further results. In 1822, Major Laing
explored all the western part of Africa near to the British
possessions; and he it was who got so far as the sources
of the Niger; and, according to his documents, the spring
in which that immense river takes its rise is not two feet
broad.

"Easy to jump over," said Joe.

"How's that? Easy you think, eh?" retorted the doctor.
"If we are to believe tradition, whoever attempts
to pass that spring, by leaping over it, is immediately
swallowed up; and whoever tries to draw water from it,
feels himself repulsed by an invisible hand."

"I suppose a man has a right not to believe a word
of that!" persisted Joe.

"Oh, by all means!--Five years later, it was Major
Laing's destiny to force his way across the desert of
Sahara, penetrate to Timbuctoo, and perish a few miles
above it, by strangling, at the hands of the Ouelad-shiman,
who wanted to compel him to turn Mussulman."

"Still another victim!" said the sportsman.

"It was then that a brave young man, with his own
feeble resources, undertook and accomplished the most
astonishing of modern journeys--I mean the Frenchman
Rene Caillie, who, after sundry attempts in 1819 and 1824,
set out again on the 19th of April, 1827, from Rio Nunez.
On the 3d of August he arrived at Time, so thoroughly
exhausted and ill that he could not resume his journey
until six months later, in January, 1828. He then joined
a caravan, and, protected by his Oriental dress, reached
the Niger on the 10th of March, penetrated to the city
of Jenne, embarked on the river, and descended it, as far
as Timbuctoo, where he arrived on the 30th of April. In
1760, another Frenchman, Imbert by name, and, in 1810, an
Englishman, Robert Adams, had seen this curious place;
but Rene Caillie was to be the first European who could
bring back any authentic data concerning it. On the 4th
of May he quitted this 'Queen of the desert;' on the 9th,
he surveyed the very spot where Major Laing had been
murdered; on the 19th, he arrived at El-Arouan, and left
that commercial town to brave a thousand dangers in
crossing the vast solitudes comprised between the Soudan
and the northern regions of Africa. At length he entered
Tangiers, and on the 28th of September sailed for Toulon.
In nineteen months, notwithstanding one hundred and
eighty days' sickness, he had traversed Africa from west
to north. Ah! had Callie been born in England, he
would have been honored as the most intrepid traveller
of modern times, as was the case with Mungo Park. But
in France he was not appreciated according to his worth."

"He was a sturdy fellow!" said Kennedy, "but what
became of him?"

"He died at the age of thirty-nine, from the consequences
of his long fatigues. They thought they had done enough
in decreeing him the prize of the Geographical Society
in 1828; the highest honors would have been paid to him
in England.

"While he was accomplishing this remarkable journey,
an Englishman had conceived a similar enterprise and
was trying to push it through with equal courage, if not
with equal good fortune. This was Captain Clapperton,
the companion of Denham. In 1829 he reentered Africa
by the western coast of the Gulf of Benin; he then followed
in the track of Mungo Park and of Laing, recovered
at Boussa the documents relative to the death of the former,
and arrived on the 20th of August at Sackatoo, where
he was seized and held as a prisoner, until he expired in the
arms of his faithful attendant Richard Lander."

"And what became of this Lander?" asked Joe, deeply interested.

"He succeeded in regaining the coast and returned to
London, bringing with him the captain's papers, and an
exact narrative of his own journey. He then offered his
services to the government to complete the reconnoissance
of the Niger. He took with him his brother John, the
second child of a poor couple in Cornwall, and, together,
these men, between 1829 and 1831, redescended the river
from Boussa to its mouth, describing it village by village,
mile by mile."

"So both the brothers escaped the common fate?"
queried Kennedy.

"Yes, on this expedition, at least; but in 1833 Richard
undertook a third trip to the Niger, and perished by a
bullet, near the mouth of the river. You see, then, my
friends, that the country over which we are now passing
has witnessed some noble instances of self-sacrifice which,
unfortunately, have only too often had death for their reward."

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.

During this dull Monday, Dr. Ferguson diverted his
thoughts by giving his companions a thousand details
concerning the country they were crossing. The surface,
which was quite flat, offered no impediment to their progress.
The doctor's sole anxiety arose from the obstinate
northeast wind which continued to blow furiously, and bore
them away from the latitude of Timbuctoo.

The Niger, after running northward as far as that city,
sweeps around, like an immense water-jet from some fountain,
and falls into the Atlantic in a broad sheaf. In the
elbow thus formed the country is of varied character,
sometimes luxuriantly fertile, and sometimes extremely
bare; fields of maize succeeded by wide spaces covered
with broom-corn and uncultivated plains. All kinds of
aquatic birds--pelicans, wild-duck, kingfishers, and the
rest--were seen in numerous flocks hovering about the
borders of the pools and torrents.

From time to time there appeared an encampment of
Touaregs, the men sheltered under their leather tents,
while their women were busied with the domestic toil
outside, milking their camels and smoking their
huge-bowled pipes.

By eight o'clock in the evening the Victoria had advanced
more than two hundred miles to the westward,
and our aeronauts became the spectators of a magnificent
scene.

A mass of moonbeams forcing their way through an
opening in the clouds, and gliding between the long lines
of falling rain, descended in a golden shower on the ridges
of the Hombori Mountains. Nothing could be more
weird than the appearance of these seemingly basaltic
summits; they stood out in fantastic profile against the
sombre sky, and the beholder might have fancied them to
be the legendary ruins of some vast city of the middle
ages, such as the icebergs of the polar seas sometimes
mimic them in nights of gloom.

"An admirable landscape for the 'Mysteries of Udolpho'!"
exclaimed the doctor. "Ann Radcliffe could not
have depicted yon mountains in a more appalling aspect."

"Faith!" said Joe, "I wouldn't like to be strolling
alone in the evening through this country of ghosts. Do
you see now, master, if it wasn't so heavy, I'd like to carry
that whole landscape home to Scotland! It would do for
the borders of Loch Lomond, and tourists would rush there
in crowds."

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