Cinq semaines en ballon. English

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINTH.

  Signs of Vegetation.--The Fantastic Notion of a French Author.--AMagnificent Country.--The Kingdom of Adamova.--The Explorations ofSpeke and Burton connected with those of Dr. Barth.--The AtlantikaMountains.--The River Benoue.--The City of Yola.--The Bagele.--MountMendif.

  From the moment of their departure, the travellers moved with greatvelocity. They longed to leave behind them the desert, which had sonearly been fatal to them.

  About a quarter-past nine in the morning, they caught a glimpse ofsome signs of vegetation: herbage floating on that sea of sand, andannouncing, as the weeds upon the ocean did to Christopher Columbus, thenearness of the shore--green shoots peeping up timidly between pebblesthat were, in their turn, to be the rocks of that vast expanse.

  Hills, but of trifling height, were seen in wavy lines upon the horizon.Their profile, muffled by the heavy mist, was defined but vaguely. Themonotony, however, was beginning to disappear.

  The doctor hailed with joy the new country thus disclosed, and, like aseaman on lookout at the mast-head, he was ready to shout aloud:

  "Land, ho! land!"

  An hour later the continent spread broadly before their gaze, still wildin aspect, but less flat, less denuded, and with a few trees standingout against the gray sky.

  "We are in a civilized country at last!" said the hunter.

  "Civilized? Well, that's one way of speaking; but there are no people tobe seen yet."

  "It will not be long before we see them," said Ferguson, "at our presentrate of travel."

  "Are we still in the negro country, doctor?"

  "Yes, and on our way to the country of the Arabs."

  "What! real Arabs, sir, with their camels?"

  "No, not many camels; they are scarce, if not altogether unknown, inthese regions. We must go a few degrees farther north to see them."

  "What a pity!"

  "And why, Joe?"

  "Because, if the wind fell contrary, they might be of use to us."

  "How so?"

  "Well, sir, it's just a notion that's got into my head: we might hitchthem to the car, and make them tow us along. What do you say to that,doctor?"

  "Poor Joe! Another person had that idea in advance of you. It was usedby a very gifted French author--M. Mery--in a romance, it is true. Hehas his travellers drawn along in a balloon by a team of camels; then alion comes up, devours the camels, swallows the tow-rope, and hauls theballoon in their stead; and so on through the story. You see that thewhole thing is the top-flower of fancy, but has nothing in common withour style of locomotion."

  Joe, a little cut down at learning that his idea had been used already,cudgelled his wits to imagine what animal could have devoured thelion; but he could not guess it, and so quietly went on scanning theappearance of the country.

  A lake of medium extent stretched away before him, surrounded by anamphitheatre of hills, which yet could not be dignified with the name ofmountains. There were winding valleys, numerous and fertile, with theirtangled thickets of the most various trees. The African oil-tree roseabove the mass, with leaves fifteen feet in length upon its stalk,the latter studded with sharp thorns; the bombax, or silk-cotton-tree,filled the wind, as it swept by, with the fine down of its seeds; thepungent odors of the pendanus, the "kenda" of the Arabs, perfumed theair up to the height where the Victoria was sailing; the papaw-tree,with its palm-shaped leaves; the sterculier, which produces theSoudan-nut; the baobab, and the banana-tree, completed the luxuriantflora of these inter-tropical regions.

  "The country is superb!" said the doctor.

  "Here are some animals," added Joe. "Men are not far away."

  "Oh, what magnificent elephants!" exclaimed Kennedy. "Is there no way toget a little shooting?"

  "How could we manage to halt in a current as strong as this? No, Dick;you must taste a little of the torture of Tantalus just now. You shallmake up for it afterward."

  And, in truth, there was enough to excite the fancy of a sportsman.Dick's heart fairly leaped in his breast as he grasped the butt of hisPurdy.

  The fauna of the region were as striking as its flora. The wild-oxrevelled in dense herbage that often concealed his whole body; gray,black, and yellow elephants of the most gigantic size burst headlong,like a living hurricane, through the forests, breaking, rending, tearingdown, devastating every thing in their path; upon the woody slopes ofthe hills trickled cascades and springs flowing northward; there, too,the hippopotami bathed their huge forms, splashing and snorting as theyfrolicked in the water, and lamantines, twelve feet long, with bodieslike seals, stretched themselves along the banks, turning up toward thesun their rounded teats swollen with milk.

  It was a whole menagerie of rare and curious beasts in a wondroushot-house, where numberless birds with plumage of a thousand huesgleamed and fluttered in the sunshine.

  By this prodigality of Nature, the doctor recognized the splendidkingdom of Adamova.

  "We are now beginning to trench upon the realm of modern discovery.I have taken up the lost scent of preceding travellers. It is a happychance, my friends, for we shall be enabled to link the toils ofCaptains Burton and Speke with the explorations of Dr. Barth. Wehave left the Englishmen behind us, and now have caught up with theHamburger. It will not be long, either, before we arrive at the extremepoint attained by that daring explorer."

  "It seems to me that there is a vast extent of country between the twoexplored routes," remarked Kennedy; "at least, if I am to judge by thedistance that we have made."

  "It is easy to determine: take the map and see what is the longitude ofthe southern point of Lake Ukereoue, reached by Speke."

  "It is near the thirty-seventh degree."

  "And the city of Yola, which we shall sight this evening, and to whichBarth penetrated, what is its position?"

  "It is about in the twelfth degree of east longitude."

  "Then there are twenty-five degrees, or, counting sixty miles to each,about fifteen hundred miles in all."

  "A nice little walk," said Joe, "for people who have to go on foot."

  "It will be accomplished, however. Livingstone and Moffat are pushing onup this line toward the interior. Nyassa, which they have discovered,is not far from Lake Tanganayika, seen by Burton. Ere the close of thecentury these regions will, undoubtedly, be explored. But," added thedoctor, consulting his compass, "I regret that the wind is carrying usso far to the westward. I wanted to get to the north."

  After twelve hours of progress, the Victoria found herself on theconfines of Nigritia. The first inhabitants of this region, the ChouasArabs, were feeding their wandering flocks. The immense summits of theAtlantika Mountains seen above the horizon--mountains that no Europeanfoot had yet scaled, and whose height is computed to be ten thousandfeet! Their western slope determines the flow of all the waters in thisregion of Africa toward the ocean. They are the Mountains of the Moon tothis part of the continent.

  At length a real river greeted the gaze of our travellers, and, bythe enormous ant-hills seen in its vicinity, the doctor recognized theBenoue, one of the great tributaries of the Niger, the one which thenatives have called "The Fountain of the Waters."

  "This river," said the doctor to his companions, "will, one day, be thenatural channel of communication with the interior of Nigritia. Underthe command of one of our brave captains, the steamer Pleiad has alreadyascended as far as the town of Yola. You see that we are not in anunknown country."

  Numerous slaves were engaged in the labors of the field, cultivatingsorgho, a kind of millet which forms the chief basis of their diet; andthe most stupid expressions of astonishment ensued as the Victoria spedpast like a meteor. That evening the balloon halted about forty milesfrom Yola, and ahead of it, but in the distance, rose the two sharpcones of Mount Mendif.

  The doctor threw out his anchors and made fast to the top of a hightree; but a very violent wind beat upon the balloon with such force asto throw it over on its side, thus rendering the position of the carsometimes ext
remely dangerous. Ferguson did not close his all night, andhe was repeatedly on the point of cutting the anchor-rope and scuddingaway before the gale. At length, however, the storm abated, and theoscillations of the balloon ceased to be alarming.

  On the morrow the wind was more moderate, but it carried our travellersaway from the city of Yola, which recently rebuilt by the Fouillans,excited Ferguson's curiosity. However, he had to make up his mind tobeing borne farther to the northward and even a little to the east.

  Kennedy proposed to halt in this fine hunting-country, and Joe declaredthat the need of fresh meat was beginning to be felt; but the savagecustoms of the country, the attitude of the population, and some shotsfired at the Victoria, admonished the doctor to continue his journey.They were then crossing a region that was the scene of massacres andburnings, and where warlike conflicts between the barbarian sultans,contending for their power amid the most atrocious carnage, never cease.

  Numerous and populous villages of long low huts stretched awaybetween broad pasture-fields whose dense herbage was besprinkled withviolet-colored blossoms. The huts, looking like huge beehives, weresheltered behind bristling palisades. The wild hill-sides and hollowsfrequently reminded the beholder of the glens in the Highlands ofScotland, as Kennedy more than once remarked.

  In spite of all he could do, the doctor bore directly to the northeast,toward Mount Mendif, which was lost in the midst of environing clouds.The lofty summits of these mountains separate the valley of the Nigerfrom the basin of Lake Tchad.

  Soon afterward was seen the Bagele, with its eighteen villages clingingto its flanks like a whole brood of children to their mother's bosom--amagnificent spectacle for the beholder whose gaze commanded and took inthe entire picture at one view. Even the ravines were seen to be coveredwith fields of rice and of arachides.

  By three o'clock the Victoria was directly in front of Mount Mendif. Ithad been impossible to avoid it; the only thing to be done was to crossit. The doctor, by means of a temperature increased to one hundred andeighty degrees, gave the balloon a fresh ascensional force of nearlysixteen hundred pounds, and it went up to an elevation of more thaneight thousand feet, the greatest height attained during the journey.The temperature of the atmosphere was so much cooler at that point thatthe aeronauts had to resort to their blankets and thick coverings.

  Ferguson was in haste to descend; the covering of the balloon gaveindications of bursting, but in the meanwhile he had time to satisfyhimself of the volcanic origin of the mountain, whose extinct cratersare now but deep abysses. Immense accumulations of bird-guano gave thesides of Mount Mendif the appearance of calcareous rocks, and therewas enough of the deposit there to manure all the lands in the UnitedKingdom.

  At five o'clock the Victoria, sheltered from the south winds, wentgently gliding along the slopes of the mountain, and stopped in a wideclearing remote from any habitation. The instant it touched the soil,all needful precautions were taken to hold it there firmly; and Kennedy,fowling-piece in hand, sallied out upon the sloping plain. Ere long,he returned with half a dozen wild ducks and a kind of snipe, which Joeserved up in his best style. The meal was heartily relished, and thenight was passed in undisturbed and refreshing slumber.