CHAPTER THIRTEENTH.
Change of Weather.--Kennedy has the Fever.--The Doctor'sMedicine.--Travels on Land.--The Basin of Imenge.--Mount Rubeho.--SixThousand Feet Elevation.--A Halt in the Daytime.
The night was calm. However, on Saturday morning, Kennedy, as he awoke,complained of lassitude and feverish chills. The weather was changing.The sky, covered with clouds, seemed to be laying in supplies for afresh deluge. A gloomy region is that Zungomoro country, where it rainscontinually, excepting, perhaps, for a couple of weeks in the month ofJanuary.
A violent shower was not long in drenching our travellers. Below them,the roads, intersected by "nullahs," a sort of instantaneous torrent,were soon rendered impracticable, entangled as they were, besides, withthorny thickets and gigantic lianas, or creeping vines. The sulphurettedhydrogen emanations, which Captain Burton mentions, could be distinctlysmelt.
"According to his statement, and I think he's right," said the doctor,"one could readily believe that there is a corpse hidden behind everythicket."
"An ugly country this!" sighed Joe; "and it seems to me that Mr. Kennedyis none the better for having passed the night in it."
"To tell the truth, I have quite a high fever," said the sportsman.
"There's nothing remarkable about that, my dear Dick, for we are in oneof the most unhealthy regions in Africa; but we shall not remain herelong; so let's be off."
Thanks to a skilful manoeuvre achieved by Joe, the anchor wasdisengaged, and Joe reascended to the car by means of the ladder. Thedoctor vigorously dilated the gas, and the Victoria resumed her flight,driven along by a spanking breeze.
Only a few scattered huts could be seen through the pestilential mists;but the appearance of the country soon changed, for it often happens inAfrica that some of the unhealthiest districts lie close beside othersthat are perfectly salubrious.
Kennedy was visibly suffering, and the fever was mastering his vigorousconstitution.
"It won't do to fall ill, though," he grumbled; and so saying, hewrapped himself in a blanket, and lay down under the awning.
"A little patience, Dick, and you'll soon get over this," said thedoctor.
"Get over it! Egad, Samuel, if you've any drug in your travelling-chestthat will set me on my feet again, bring it without delay. I'll swallowit with my eyes shut!"
"Oh, I can do better than that, friend Dick; for I can give you afebrifuge that won't cost any thing."
"And how will you do that?"
"Very easily. I am simply going to take you up above these clouds thatare now deluging us, and remove you from this pestilential atmosphere. Iask for only ten minutes, in order to dilate the hydrogen."
The ten minutes had scarcely elapsed ere the travellers were beyond therainy belt of country.
"Wait a little, now, Dick, and you'll begin to feel the effect of pureair and sunshine."
"There's a cure for you!" said Joe; "why, it's wonderful!"
"No, it's merely natural."
"Oh! natural; yes, no doubt of that!"
"I bring Dick into good air, as the doctors do, every day, in Europe,or, as I would send a patient at Martinique to the Pitons, a loftymountain on that island, to get clear of the yellow fever."
"Ah! by Jove, this balloon is a paradise!" exclaimed Kennedy, feelingmuch better already.
"It leads to it, anyhow!" replied Joe, quite gravely.
It was a curious spectacle--that mass of clouds piled up, at the moment,away below them! The vapors rolled over each other, and mingled togetherin confused masses of superb brilliance, as they reflected the rays ofthe sun. The Victoria had attained an altitude of four thousand feet,and the thermometer indicated a certain diminution of temperature. Theland below could no longer be seen. Fifty miles away to the westward,Mount Rubeho raised its sparkling crest, marking the limit of the Ugogocountry in east longitude thirty-six degrees twenty minutes. The windwas blowing at the rate of twenty miles an hour, but the aeronauts feltnothing of this increased speed. They observed no jar, and had scarcelyany sense of motion at all.
Three hours later, the doctor's prediction was fully verified. Kennedyno longer felt a single shiver of the fever, but partook of somebreakfast with an excellent appetite.
"That beats sulphate of quinine!" said the energetic Scot, with heartyemphasis and much satisfaction.
"Positively," said Joe, "this is where I'll have to retire to when I getold!"
About ten o'clock in the morning the atmosphere cleared up, the cloudsparted, and the country beneath could again be seen, the Victoriameanwhile rapidly descending. Dr. Ferguson was in search of a currentthat would carry him more to the northeast, and he found it about sixhundred feet from the ground. The country was becoming more broken, andeven mountainous. The Zungomoro district was fading out of sight in theeast with the last cocoa-nut-trees of that latitude.
Ere long, the crests of a mountain-range assumed a more decidedprominence. A few peaks rose here and there, and it became necessaryto keep a sharp lookout for the pointed cones that seemed to spring upevery moment.
"We're right among the breakers!" said Kennedy.
"Keep cool, Dick. We shan't touch them," was the doctor's quiet answer.
"It's a jolly way to travel, anyhow!" said Joe, with his usual flow ofspirits.
In fact, the doctor managed his balloon with wondrous dexterity.
"Now, if we had been compelled to go afoot over that drenched soil,"said he, "we should still be dragging along in a pestilential mire.Since our departure from Zanzibar, half our beasts of burden wouldhave died with fatigue. We should be looking like ghosts ourselves,and despair would be seizing on our hearts. We should be in continualsquabbles with our guides and porters, and completely exposed totheir unbridled brutality. During the daytime, a damp, penetrating,unendurable humidity! At night, a cold frequently intolerable, andthe stings of a kind of fly whose bite pierces the thickest cloth, anddrives the victim crazy! All this, too, without saying any thing aboutwild beasts and ferocious native tribes!"
"I move that we don't try it!" said Joe, in his droll way.
"I exaggerate nothing," continued Ferguson, "for, upon reading thenarratives of such travellers as have had the hardihood to venture intothese regions, your eyes would fill with tears."
About eleven o'clock they were passing over the basin of Imenge, and thetribes scattered over the adjacent hills were impotently menacing theVictoria with their weapons. Finally, she sped along as far as the lastundulations of the country which precede Rubeho. These form the last andloftiest chain of the mountains of Usagara.
The aeronauts took careful and complete note of the orographicconformation of the country. The three ramifications mentioned, of whichthe Duthumi forms the first link, are separated by immense longitudinalplains. These elevated summits consist of rounded cones, between whichthe soil is bestrewn with erratic blocks of stone and gravelly bowlders.The most abrupt declivity of these mountains confronts the Zanzibarcoast, but the western slopes are merely inclined planes. Thedepressions in the soil are covered with a black, rich loam, on whichthere is a vigorous vegetation. Various water-courses filter through,toward the east, and work their way onward to flow into the Kingani,in the midst of gigantic clumps of sycamore, tamarind, calabash, andpalmyra trees.
"Attention!" said Dr. Ferguson. "We are approaching Rubeho, the nameof which signifies, in the language of the country, the 'Passage of theWinds,' and we would do well to double its jagged pinnacles at a certainheight. If my chart be exact, we are going to ascend to an elevation offive thousand feet."
"Shall we often have occasion to reach those far upper belts of theatmosphere?"
"Very seldom: the height of the African mountains appears to be quitemoderate compared with that of the European and Asiatic ranges; but,in any case, our good Victoria will find no difficulty in passing overthem."
In a very little while, the gas expanded under the action of the heat,and the balloon took a very decided ascensional movement. Besides, thedilation of th
e hydrogen involved no danger, and only three-fourths ofthe vast capacity of the balloon was filled when the barometer, by adepression of eight inches, announced an elevation of six thousand feet.
"Shall we go this high very long?" asked Joe.
"The atmosphere of the earth has a height of six thousand fathoms," saidthe doctor; "and, with a very large balloon, one might go far. That iswhat Messrs. Brioschi and Gay-Lussac did; but then the blood burst fromtheir mouths and ears. Respirable air was wanting. Some years ago, twofearless Frenchmen, Messrs. Barral and Bixio, also ventured into thevery lofty regions; but their balloon burst--"
"And they fell?" asked Kennedy, abruptly.
"Certainly they did; but as learned men should always fall--namely,without hurting themselves."
"Well, gentlemen," said Joe, "you may try their fall over again, if youlike; but, as for me, who am but a dolt, I prefer keeping at the mediumheight--neither too far up, nor too low down. It won't do to be tooambitious."
At the height of six thousand feet, the density of the atmosphere hasalready greatly diminished; sound is conveyed with difficulty, and thevoice is not so easily heard. The view of objects becomes confused; thegaze no longer takes in any but large, quite ill-distinguishable masses;men and animals on the surface become absolutely invisible; the roadsand rivers get to look like threads, and the lakes dwindle to ponds.
The doctor and his friends felt themselves in a very anomalouscondition; an atmospheric current of extreme velocity was bearing themaway beyond arid mountains, upon whose summits vast fields of snowsurprised the gaze; while their convulsed appearance told of Titanictravail in the earliest epoch of the world's existence.
The sun shone at the zenith, and his rays fell perpendicularly uponthose lonely summits. The doctor took an accurate design of thesemountains, which form four distinct ridges almost in a straight line,the northernmost being the longest.
The Victoria soon descended the slope opposite to the Rubeho, skirtingan acclivity covered with woods, and dotted with trees of verydeep-green foliage. Then came crests and ravines, in a sort of desertwhich preceded the Ugogo country; and lower down were yellow plains,parched and fissured by the intense heat, and, here and there, bestrewnwith saline plants and brambly thickets.
Some underbrush, which, farther on, became forests, embellished thehorizon. The doctor went nearer to the ground; the anchors were thrownout, and one of them soon caught in the boughs of a huge sycamore.
Joe, slipping nimbly down the tree, carefully attached the anchor, andthe doctor left his cylinder at work to a certain degree in order toretain sufficient ascensional force in the balloon to keep it in theair. Meanwhile the wind had suddenly died away.
"Now," said Ferguson, "take two guns, friend Dick--one for yourselfand one for Joe--and both of you try to bring back some nice cuts ofantelope-meat; they will make us a good dinner."
"Off to the hunt!" exclaimed Kennedy, joyously.
He climbed briskly out of the car and descended. Joe had swung himselfdown from branch to branch, and was waiting for him below, stretchinghis limbs in the mean time.
"Don't fly away without us, doctor!" shouted Joe.
"Never fear, my boy!--I am securely lashed. I'll spend the time gettingmy notes into shape. A good hunt to you! but be careful. Besides, frommy post here, I can observe the face of the country, and, at the leastsuspicious thing I notice, I'll fire a signal-shot, and with that youmust rally home."
"Agreed!" said Kennedy; and off they went.