Five Weeks in a Balloon

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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.

On the next day, in its number of January 15th, the Daily
Telegraph published an article couched in the following terms:

"Africa is, at length, about to surrender the secret
of her vast solitudes; a modern OEdipus is to give us the
key to that enigma which the learned men of sixty centuries
have not been able to decipher. In other days, to seek the
sources of the Nile--fontes Nili quoerere--was regarded as
a mad endeavor, a chimera that could not be realized.

"Dr. Barth, in following out to Soudan the track traced
by Denham and Clapperton; Dr. Livingstone, in multiplying
his fearless explorations from the Cape of Good Hope
to the basin of the Zambesi; Captains Burton and Speke,
in the discovery of the great interior lakes, have opened
three highways to modern civilization. THEIR POINT OF
INTERSECTION, which no traveller has yet been able to
reach, is the very heart of Africa, and it is thither
that all efforts should now be directed.

"The labors of these hardy pioneers of science are now
about to be knit together by the daring project of Dr.
Samuel Ferguson, whose fine explorations our readers
have frequently had the opportunity of appreciating.

"This intrepid discoverer proposes to traverse all
Africa from east to west IN A BALLOON. If we are well
informed, the point of departure for this surprising journey
is to be the island of Zanzibar, upon the eastern coast.
As for the point of arrival, it is reserved for Providence
alone to designate.

"The proposal for this scientific undertaking was officially
made, yesterday, at the rooms of the Royal Geographical
Society, and the sum of twenty-five hundred pounds was
voted to defray the expenses of the enterprise.

"We shall keep our readers informed as to the progress
of this enterprise, which has no precedent in the annals
of exploration."

As may be supposed, the foregoing article had an
enormous echo among scientific people. At first, it stirred
up a storm of incredulity; Dr. Ferguson passed for a
purely chimerical personage of the Barnum stamp, who,
after having gone through the United States, proposed to
"do" the British Isles.

A humorous reply appeared in the February number
of the Bulletins de la Societe Geographique of Geneva,
which very wittily showed up the Royal Society of London
and their phenomenal sturgeon.

But Herr Petermann, in his Mittheilungen, published
at Gotha, reduced the Geneva journal to the most absolute
silence. Herr Petermann knew Dr. Ferguson personally,
and guaranteed the intrepidity of his dauntless friend.

Besides, all manner of doubt was quickly put out of
the question: preparations for the trip were set on foot at
London; the factories of Lyons received a heavy order for
the silk required for the body of the balloon; and, finally,
the British Government placed the transport-ship Resolute,
Captain Bennett, at the disposal of the expedition.

At once, upon word of all this, a thousand encouragements
were offered, and felicitations came pouring in from
all quarters. The details of the undertaking were published
in full in the bulletins of the Geographical Society
of Paris; a remarkable article appeared in the Nouvelles
Annales des Voyages, de la Geographie, de l'Histoire, et
de l'Archaeologie de M. V. A. Malte-Brun ("New Annals
of Travels, Geography, History, and Archaeology, by
M. V. A. Malte-Brun"); and a searching essay in the Zeitschrift
fur Allgemeine Erdkunde, by Dr. W. Koner, triumphantly
demonstrated the feasibility of the journey, its
chances of success, the nature of the obstacles existing,
the immense advantages of the aerial mode of locomotion,
and found fault with nothing but the selected point of
departure, which it contended should be Massowah, a small
port in Abyssinia, whence James Bruce, in 1768, started
upon his explorations in search of the sources of the Nile.
Apart from that, it mentioned, in terms of unreserved
admiration, the energetic character of Dr. Ferguson, and the
heart, thrice panoplied in bronze, that could conceive and
undertake such an enterprise.

The North American Review could not, without some
displeasure, contemplate so much glory monopolized by
England. It therefore rather ridiculed the doctor's scheme,
and urged him, by all means, to push his explorations as
far as America, while he was about it.

In a word, without going over all the journals in the
world, there was not a scientific publication, from the
Journal of Evangelical Missions to the Revue Algerienne
et Coloniale, from the Annales de la Propagation de la
Foi to the Church Missionary Intelligencer, that had not
something to say about the affair in all its phases.

Many large bets were made at London and throughout
England generally, first, as to the real or supposititious
existence of Dr. Ferguson; secondly, as to the trip itself,
which, some contended, would not be undertaken at all,
and which was really contemplated, according to others;
thirdly, upon the success or failure of the enterprise; and
fourthly, upon the probabilities of Dr. Ferguson's return.
The betting-books were covered with entries of immense
sums, as though the Epsom races were at stake.

Thus, believers and unbelievers, the learned and the
ignorant, alike had their eyes fixed on the doctor, and he
became the lion of the day, without knowing that he carried
such a mane. On his part, he willingly gave the
most accurate information touching his project. He was
very easily approached, being naturally the most affable
man in the world. More than one bold adventurer presented
himself, offering to share the dangers as well as the
glory of the undertaking; but he refused them all, without
giving his reasons for rejecting them.

Numerous inventors of mechanism applicable to the
guidance of balloons came to propose their systems, but
he would accept none; and, when he was asked whether
he had discovered something of his own for that purpose,
he constantly refused to give any explanation, and merely
busied himself more actively than ever with the preparations
for his journey.

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.

Dr. Ferguson had a friend--not another self, indeed,
an alter ego, for friendship could not exist between two
beings exactly alike.

But, if they possessed different qualities, aptitudes, and
temperaments, Dick Kennedy and Samuel Ferguson lived
with one and the same heart, and that gave them no great
trouble. In fact, quite the reverse.

Dick Kennedy was a Scotchman, in the full acceptation
of the word--open, resolute, and headstrong. He lived
in the town of Leith, which is near Edinburgh, and, in
truth, is a mere suburb of Auld Reekie. Sometimes he
was a fisherman, but he was always and everywhere a
determined hunter, and that was nothing remarkable for a
son of Caledonia, who had known some little climbing
among the Highland mountains. He was cited as a wonderful
shot with the rifle, since not only could he split a
bullet on a knife-blade, but he could divide it into two
such equal parts that, upon weighing them, scarcely any
difference would be perceptible.

Kennedy's countenance strikingly recalled that of Herbert
Glendinning, as Sir Walter Scott has depicted it in
"The Monastery"; his stature was above six feet; full of
grace and easy movement, he yet seemed gifted with herculean
strength; a face embrowned by the sun; eyes keen
and black; a natural air of daring courage; in fine,
something sound, solid, and reliable in his entire person,
spoke, at first glance, in favor of the bonny Scot.

The acquaintanceship of these two friends had been
formed in India, when they belonged to the same regiment.
While Dick would be out in pursuit of the tiger
and the elephant, Samuel would be in search of plants and
insects. Each could call himself expert in his own province,
and more than one rare botanical specimen, that to
science was as great a victory won as the conquest of a
pair of ivory tusks, became the doctor's booty.

These two young men, moreover, never had occasion
to save each other's lives, or to render any reciprocal
service. Hence, an unalterable friendship. Destiny
sometimes bore them apart, but sympathy always united
them again.

Since their return to England they had been frequently
separated by the doctor's distant expeditions; but, on
his return, the latter never failed to go, not to ASK for
hospitality, but to bestow some weeks of his presence at
the home of his crony Dick.

The Scot talked of the past; the doctor busily prepared
for the future. The one looked back, the other forward.
Hence, a restless spirit personified in Ferguson; perfect
calmness typified in Kennedy--such was the contrast.

After his journey to the Thibet, the doctor had remained
nearly two years without hinting at new explorations; and
Dick, supposing that his friend's instinct for travel and
thirst for adventure had at length died out, was perfectly
enchanted. They would have ended badly, some day or other,
he thought to himself; no matter what experience one has
with men, one does not travel always with impunity among
cannibals and wild beasts. So, Kennedy besought the doctor
to tie up his bark for life, having done enough for science,
and too much for the gratitude of men.

The doctor contented himself with making no reply to
this. He remained absorbed in his own reflections, giving
himself up to secret calculations, passing his nights among
heaps of figures, and making experiments with the
strangest-looking machinery, inexplicable to everybody but
himself. It could readily be guessed, though, that some great
thought was fermenting in his brain.

"What can he have been planning?" wondered Kennedy, when, in
the month of January, his friend quitted him to return to London.

He found out one morning when he looked into the Daily Telegraph.

"Merciful Heaven!" he exclaimed, "the lunatic! the
madman! Cross Africa in a balloon! Nothing but that
was wanted to cap the climax! That's what he's been
bothering his wits about these two years past!"

Now, reader, substitute for all these exclamation points,
as many ringing thumps with a brawny fist upon the table,
and you have some idea of the manual exercise that Dick
went through while he thus spoke.

When his confidential maid-of-all-work, the aged Elspeth,
tried to insinuate that the whole thing might be a hoax--

"Not a bit of it!" said he. "Don't I know my man? Isn't it
just like him? Travel through the air! There, now, he's
jealous of the eagles, next! No! I warrant you, he'll not
do it! I'll find a way to stop him! He! why if they'd let
him alone, he'd start some day for the moon!"

On that very evening Kennedy, half alarmed, and half
exasperated, took the train for London, where he arrived
next morning.

Three-quarters of an hour later a cab deposited him at
the door of the doctor's modest dwelling, in Soho Square,
Greek Street. Forthwith he bounded up the steps and
announced his arrival with five good, hearty, sounding
raps at the door.

Ferguson opened, in person.

"Dick! you here?" he exclaimed, but with no great
expression of surprise, after all.

"Dick himself!" was the response.

"What, my dear boy, you at London, and this the
mid-season of the winter shooting?"

"Yes! here I am, at London!"

"And what have you come to town for?"

"To prevent the greatest piece of folly that ever was
conceived."

"Folly!" said the doctor.

"Is what this paper says, the truth?" rejoined Kennedy,
holding out the copy of the Daily Telegraph, mentioned above.

"Ah! that's what you mean, is it? These newspapers
are great tattlers! But, sit down, my dear Dick."

"No, I won't sit down!--Then, you really intend to
attempt this journey?"

"Most certainly! all my preparations are getting along
finely, and I--"

"Where are your traps? Let me have a chance at
them! I'll make them fly! I'll put your preparations in
fine order." And so saying, the gallant Scot gave way to
a genuine explosion of wrath.

"Come, be calm, my dear Dick!" resumed the doctor.
"You're angry at me because I did not acquaint you with
my new project."

"He calls this his new project!"

"I have been very busy," the doctor went on, without
heeding the interruption; "I have had so much to look
after! But rest assured that I should not have started
without writing to you."

"Oh, indeed! I'm highly honored."

"Because it is my intention to take you with me."

Upon this, the Scotchman gave a leap that a wild goat
would not have been ashamed of among his native crags.

"Ah! really, then, you want them to send us both to
Bedlam!"

"I have counted positively upon you, my dear Dick,
and I have picked you out from all the rest."

Kennedy stood speechless with amazement.

"After listening to me for ten minutes," said the doctor,
"you will thank me!"

"Are you speaking seriously?"

"Very seriously."

"And suppose that I refuse to go with you?"

"But you won't refuse."

"But, suppose that I were to refuse?"

"Well, I'd go alone."

"Let us sit down," said Kennedy, "and talk without
excitement. The moment you give up jesting about it,
we can discuss the thing."

"Let us discuss it, then, at breakfast, if you have no
objections, my dear Dick."

The two friends took their seats opposite to each other,
at a little table with a plate of toast and a huge tea-urn
before them.

"My dear Samuel," said the sportsman, "your project
is insane! it is impossible! it has no resemblance to
anything reasonable or practicable!"

"That's for us to find out when we shall have tried it!"

"But trying it is exactly what you ought not to attempt."

"Why so, if you please?"

"Well, the risks, the difficulty of the thing."

"As for difficulties," replied Ferguson, in a serious
tone, "they were made to be overcome; as for risks and
dangers, who can flatter himself that he is to escape them?
Every thing in life involves danger; it may even be
dangerous to sit down at one's own table, or to
put one's hat on one's own head. Moreover, we must
look upon what is to occur as having already occurred,
and see nothing but the present in the future, for the
future is but the present a little farther on."

"There it is!" exclaimed Kennedy, with a shrug.
"As great a fatalist as ever!"

"Yes! but in the good sense of the word. Let us not
trouble ourselves, then, about what fate has in store for us,
and let us not forget our good old English proverb: 'The
man who was born to be hung will never be drowned!'"

There was no reply to make, but that did not prevent
Kennedy from resuming a series of arguments which may
be readily conjectured, but which were too long for us to
repeat.

"Well, then," he said, after an hour's discussion, "if
you are absolutely determined to make this trip across the
African continent--if it is necessary for your happiness,
why not pursue the ordinary routes?"

"Why?" ejaculated the doctor, growing animated.
"Because, all attempts to do so, up to this time, have
utterly failed. Because, from Mungo Park, assassinated
on the Niger, to Vogel, who disappeared in the Wadai
country; from Oudney, who died at Murmur, and Clapperton,
lost at Sackatou, to the Frenchman Maizan, who was cut to
pieces; from Major Laing, killed by the Touaregs, to Roscher,
from Hamburg, massacred in the beginning of 1860, the names
of victim after victim have been inscribed on the lists of
African martyrdom! Because, to contend successfully against
the elements; against hunger, and thirst, and fever; against
savage beasts, and still more savage men, is impossible!
Because, what cannot be done in one way, should be tried
in another. In fine, because what one cannot pass through
directly in the middle, must be passed by going to one side
or overhead!"

"If passing over it were the only question!" interposed Kennedy;
"but passing high up in the air, doctor, there's the rub!"

"Come, then," said the doctor, "what have I to fear?
You will admit that I have taken my precautions in such
manner as to be certain that my balloon will not fall; but,
should it disappoint me, I should find myself on the ground
in the normal conditions imposed upon other explorers.
But, my balloon will not deceive me, and we need make
no such calculations."

"Yes, but you must take them into view."

"No, Dick. I intend not to be separated from
the balloon until I reach the western coast of Africa.
With it, every thing is possible; without it, I fall back
into the dangers and difficulties as well as the natural
obstacles that ordinarily attend such an expedition: with it,
neither heat, nor torrents, nor tempests, nor the simoom,
nor unhealthy climates, nor wild animals, nor savage men,
are to be feared! If I feel too hot, I can ascend; if too
cold, I can come down. Should there be a mountain, I can
pass over it; a precipice, I can sweep across it; a river, I can
sail beyond it; a storm, I can rise away above it; a torrent,
I can skim it like a bird! I can advance without fatigue,
I can halt without need of repose! I can soar above the
nascent cities! I can speed onward with the rapidity of a
tornado, sometimes at the loftiest heights, sometimes only a
hundred feet above the soil, while the map of Africa unrolls
itself beneath my gaze in the great atlas of the world."

Even the stubborn Kennedy began to feel moved, and
yet the spectacle thus conjured up before him gave him the
vertigo. He riveted his eyes upon the doctor with wonder
and admiration, and yet with fear, for he already felt
himself swinging aloft in space.

"Come, come," said he, at last. "Let us see, Samuel.
Then you have discovered the means of guiding a balloon?"

"Not by any means. That is a Utopian idea."

"Then, you will go--"

"Whithersoever Providence wills; but, at all events,
from east to west."

"Why so?"

"Because I expect to avail myself of the trade-winds,
the direction of which is always the same."

"Ah! yes, indeed!" said Kennedy, reflecting; "the
trade-winds--yes--truly--one might--there's something
in that!"

"Something in it--yes, my excellent friend--there's
EVERY THING in it. The English Government has placed a
transport at my disposal, and three or four vessels are to
cruise off the western coast of Africa, about the presumed
period of my arrival. In three months, at most, I shall be
at Zanzibar, where I will inflate my balloon, and from that
point we shall launch ourselves."

"We!" said Dick.

"Have you still a shadow of an objection to offer?
Speak, friend Kennedy."

"An objection! I have a thousand; but among other
things, tell me, if you expect to see the country. If you
expect to mount and descend at pleasure, you cannot do
so, without losing your gas. Up to this time no other
means have been devised, and it is this that has always
prevented long journeys in the air."

"My dear Dick, I have only one word to answer--I
shall not lose one particle of gas."

"And yet you can descend when you please?"

"I shall descend when I please."

"And how will you do that?"

"Ah, ha! therein lies my secret, friend Dick. Have
faith, and let my device be yours--'Excelsior!'"

"'Excelsior' be it then," said the sportsman, who did
not understand a word of Latin.

But he made up his mind to oppose his friend's departure
by all means in his power, and so pretended to give
in, at the same time keeping on the watch. As for the
doctor, he went on diligently with his preparations.

CHAPTER FOURTH.

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

The aerial line which Dr. Ferguson counted upon following
had not been chosen at random; his point of departure had
been carefully studied, and it was not without
good cause that he had resolved to ascend at the island
of Zanzibar. This island, lying near to the eastern coast
of Africa, is in the sixth degree of south latitude, that is
to say, four hundred and thirty geographical miles below
the equator.

From this island the latest expedition, sent by way of
the great lakes to explore the sources of the Nile, had just
set out.

But it would be well to indicate what explorations
Dr. Ferguson hoped to link together. The two principal
ones were those of Dr. Barth in 1849, and of Lieutenants
Burton and Speke in 1858.

Dr. Barth is a Hamburger, who obtained permission
for himself and for his countryman Overweg to join the
expedition of the Englishman Richardson. The latter was
charged with a mission in the Soudan.

This vast region is situated between the fifteenth and
tenth degrees of north latitude; that is to say, that, in
order to approach it, the explorer must penetrate fifteen
hundred miles into the interior of Africa.

Until then, the country in question had been known
only through the journeys of Denham, of Clapperton, and
of Oudney, made from 1822 to 1824. Richardson, Barth,
and Overweg, jealously anxious to push their investigations
farther, arrived at Tunis and Tripoli, like their predecessors,
and got as far as Mourzouk, the capital of Fezzan.

They then abandoned the perpendicular line, and made
a sharp turn westward toward Ghat, guided, with difficulty,
by the Touaregs. After a thousand scenes of pillage, of
vexation, and attacks by armed forces, their caravan
arrived, in October, at the vast oasis of Asben. Dr. Barth
separated from his companions, made an excursion to the
town of Aghades, and rejoined the expedition, which
resumed its march on the 12th of December. At length it
reached the province of Damerghou; there the three travellers
parted, and Barth took the road to Kano, where he
arrived by dint of perseverance, and after paying
considerable tribute.

In spite of an intense fever, he quitted that place on
the 7th of March, accompanied by a single servant. The
principal aim of his journey was to reconnoitre Lake Tchad,
from which he was still three hundred and fifty miles distant.
He therefore advanced toward the east, and reached
the town of Zouricolo, in the Bornou country, which is the
core of the great central empire of Africa. There he heard
of the death of Richardson, who had succumbed to fatigue
and privation. He next arrived at Kouka, the capital of
Bornou, on the borders of the lake. Finally, at the end
of three weeks, on the 14th of April, twelve months after
having quitted Tripoli, he reached the town of Ngornou.

We find him again setting forth on the 29th of March,
1851, with Overweg, to visit the kingdom of Adamaoua,
to the south of the lake, and from there he pushed on as
far as the town of Yola, a little below nine degrees north
latitude. This was the extreme southern limit reached by
that daring traveller.

He returned in the month of August to Kouka; from
there he successively traversed the Mandara, Barghimi,
and Klanem countries, and reached his extreme limit in
the east, the town of Masena, situated at seventeen
degrees twenty minutes west longitude.

On the 25th of November, 1852, after the death of
Overweg, his last companion, he plunged into the west,
visited Sockoto, crossed the Niger, and finally reached
Timbuctoo, where he had to languish, during eight long
months, under vexations inflicted upon him by the sheik,
and all kinds of ill-treatment and wretchedness. But the
presence of a Christian in the city could not long be
tolerated, and the Foullans threatened to besiege it. The
doctor, therefore, left it on the 17th of March, 1854, and
fled to the frontier, where he remained for thirty-three
days in the most abject destitution. He then managed to
get back to Kano in November, thence to Kouka, where
he resumed Denham's route after four months' delay. He
regained Tripoli toward the close of August, 1855, and
arrived in London on the 6th of September, the only
survivor of his party.

Such was the venturesome journey of Dr. Barth.

Dr. Ferguson carefully noted the fact, that he had
stopped at four degrees north latitude and seventeen
degrees west longitude.

Now let us see what Lieutenants Burton and Speke
accomplished in Eastern Africa.

The various expeditions that had ascended the Nile
could never manage to reach the mysterious source of that
river. According to the narrative of the German doctor,
Ferdinand Werne, the expedition attempted in 1840, under
the auspices of Mehemet Ali, stopped at Gondokoro,
between the fourth and fifth parallels of north latitude.

In 1855, Brun-Rollet, a native of Savoy, appointed
consul for Sardinia in Eastern Soudan, to take the place
of Vaudey, who had just died, set out from Karthoum,
and, under the name of Yacoub the merchant, trading in
gums and ivory, got as far as Belenia, beyond the fourth
degree, but had to return in ill-health to Karthoum, where
he died in 1857.

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