Cinq semaines en ballon. English

  CHAPTER THIRTIETH.

  Mosfeia.--The Sheik.--Denham, Clapperton, and Oudney.--Vogel.--TheCapital of Loggoum.--Toole.--Becalmed above Kernak.--The Governor andhis Court.--The Attack.--The Incendiary Pigeons.

  On the next day, May 11th, the Victoria resumed her adventurous journey.Her passengers had the same confidence in her that a good seaman has inhis ship.

  In terrific hurricanes, in tropical heats, when making dangerousdepartures, and descents still more dangerous, it had, at all timesand in all places, come out safely. It might almost have been said thatFerguson managed it with a wave of the hand; and hence, without knowingin advance, where the point of arrival would be, the doctor had no fearsconcerning the successful issue of his journey. However, in this countryof barbarians and fanatics, prudence obliged him to take the strictestprecautions. He therefore counselled his companions to have their eyeswide open for every thing and at all hours.

  The wind drifted a little more to the northward, and, toward nineo'clock, they sighted the larger city of Mosfeia, built upon an eminencewhich was itself enclosed between two lofty mountains. Its positionwas impregnable, a narrow road running between a marsh and a thick woodbeing the only channel of approach to it.

  At the moment of which we write, a sheik, accompanied by a mountedescort, and clad in a garb of brilliant colors, preceded by couriersand trumpeters, who put aside the boughs of the trees as he rode up, wasmaking his grand entry into the place.

  The doctor lowered the balloon in order to get a better look at thiscavalcade of natives; but, as the balloon grew larger to their eyes,they began to show symptoms of intense affright, and at length made offin different directions as fast as their legs and those of their horsescould carry them.

  The sheik alone did not budge an inch. He merely grasped his longmusket, cocked it, and proudly waited in silence. The doctor came on towithin a hundred and fifty feet of him, and then, with his roundest andfullest voice, saluted him courteously in the Arabic tongue.

  But, upon hearing these words falling, as it seemed, from the sky, thesheik dismounted and prostrated himself in the dust of the highway,where the doctor had to leave him, finding it impossible to divert himfrom his adoration.

  "Unquestionably," Ferguson remarked, "those people take us forsupernatural beings. When Europeans came among them for the first time,they were mistaken for creatures of a higher race. When this sheikcomes to speak of to-day's meeting, he will not fail to embellish thecircumstance with all the resources of an Arab imagination. You may,therefore, judge what an account their legends will give of us someday."

  "Not such a desirable thing, after all," said the Scot, "in the point ofview that affects civilization; it would be better to pass for mere men.That would give these negro races a superior idea of European power."

  "Very good, my dear Dick; but what can we do about it? You might sitall day explaining the mechanism of a balloon to the savants of thiscountry, and yet they would not comprehend you, but would persist inascribing it to supernatural aid."

  "Doctor, you spoke of the first time Europeans visited these regions.Who were the visitors?" inquired Joe.

  "My dear fellow, we are now upon the very track of Major Denham. Itwas at this very city of Mosfeia that he was received by the Sultan ofMandara; he had quitted the Bornou country; he accompanied the sheik inan expedition against the Fellatahs; he assisted in the attack on thecity, which, with its arrows alone, bravely resisted the bullets of theArabs, and put the sheik's troops to flight. All this was but a pretextfor murders, raids, and pillage. The major was completely plunderedand stripped, and had it not been for his horse, under whose stomach heclung with the skill of an Indian rider, and was borne with a headlonggallop from his barbarous pursuers, he never could have made his wayback to Kouka, the capital of Bornou."

  "Who was this Major Denham?"

  "A fearless Englishman, who, between 1822 and 1824, commanded anexpedition into the Bornou country, in company with Captain Clappertonand Dr. Oudney. They set out from Tripoli in the month of March, reachedMourzouk, the capital of Fez, and, following the route which at a laterperiod Dr. Barth was to pursue on his way back to Europe, they arrived,on the 16th of February, 1823, at Kouka, near Lake Tchad. Denham madeseveral explorations in Bornou, in Mandara, and to the eastern shoresof the lake. In the mean time, on the 15th of December, 1823, CaptainClapperton and Dr. Oudney had pushed their way through the Soudancountry as far as Sackatoo, and Oudney died of fatigue and exhaustion inthe town of Murmur."

  "This part of Africa has, therefore, paid a heavy tribute of victims tothe cause of science," said Kennedy.

  "Yes, this country is fatal to travellers. We are moving directly towardthe kingdom of Baghirmi, which Vogel traversed in 1856, so as to reachthe Wadai country, where he disappeared. This young man, at the age oftwenty-three, had been sent to cooperate with Dr. Barth. They met on the1st of December, 1854, and thereupon commenced his explorations of thecountry. Toward 1856, he announced, in the last letters receivedfrom him, his intention to reconnoitre the kingdom of Wadai, which noEuropean had yet penetrated. It appears that he got as far as Wara, thecapital, where, according to some accounts, he was made prisoner, and,according to others, was put to death for having attempted to ascend asacred mountain in the environs. But, we must not too lightly admit thedeath of travellers, since that does away with the necessity of goingin search of them. For instance, how often was the death of Dr. Barthreported, to his own great annoyance! It is, therefore, very possiblethat Vogel may still be held as a prisoner by the Sultan of Wadai, inthe hope of obtaining a good ransom for him.

  "Baron de Neimans was about starting for the Wadai country when hedied at Cairo, in 1855; and we now know that De Heuglin has set out onVogel's track with the expedition sent from Leipsic, so that we shallsoon be accurately informed as to the fate of that young and interestingexplorer."*

  * Since the doctor's departure, letters written from El'Obeid by Mr. Muntzinger, the newly-appointed head of the expedition, unfortunately place the death of Vogel beyond a doubt.

  Mosfeia had disappeared from the horizon long ere this, and the Mandaracountry was developing to the gaze of our aeronauts its astonishingfertility, with its forests of acacias, its locust-trees covered withred flowers, and the herbaceous plants of its fields of cotton andindigo trees. The river Shari, which eighty miles farther on rolled itsimpetuous waters into Lake Tchad, was quite distinctly seen.

  The doctor got his companions to trace its course upon the maps drawn byDr. Barth.

  "You perceive," said he, "that the labors of this savant have beenconducted with great precision; we are moving directly toward theLoggoum region, and perhaps toward Kernak, its capital. It was therethat poor Toole died, at the age of scarcely twenty-two. He was a youngEnglishman, an ensign in the 80th regiment, who, a few weeks before, hadjoined Major Denham in Africa, and it was not long ere he there methis death. Ah! this vast country might well be called the graveyard ofEuropean travellers."

  Some boats, fifty feet long, were descending the current of the Shari.The Victoria, then one thousand feet above the soil, hardly attractedthe attention of the natives; but the wind, which until then had beenblowing with a certain degree of strength, was falling off.

  "Is it possible that we are to be caught in another dead calm?" sighedthe doctor.

  "Well, we've no lack of water, nor the desert to fear, anyhow, master,"said Joe.

  "No; but there are races here still more to be dreaded."

  "Why!" said Joe, again, "there's something like a town."

  "That is Kernak. The last puffs of the breeze are wafting us to it, and,if we choose, we can take an exact plan of the place."

  "Shall we not go nearer to it?" asked Kennedy.

  "Nothing easier, Dick! We are right over it. Allow me to turn thestopcock of the cylinder, and we'll not be long in descending."

  Half an hour later the balloon hung motionless about two hundred feetfrom the ground.

  "Here we a
re!" said the doctor, "nearer to Kernak than a man would be toLondon, if he were perched in the cupola of St. Paul's. So we can take asurvey at our ease."

  "What is that tick-tacking sound that we hear on all sides?"

  Joe looked attentively, and at length discovered that the noise theyheard was produced by a number of weavers beating cloth stretched in theopen air, on large trunks of trees.

  The capital of Loggoum could then be seen in its entire extent, likean unrolled chart. It is really a city with straight rows of housesand quite wide streets. In the midst of a large open space there was aslave-market, attended by a great crowd of customers, for the Mandarawomen, who have extremely small hands and feet, are in excellentrequest, and can be sold at lucrative rates.

  At the sight of the Victoria, the scene so often produced occurredagain. At first there were outcries, and then followed generalstupefaction; business was abandoned; work was flung aside, andall noise ceased. The aeronauts remained as they were, completelymotionless, and lost not a detail of the populous city. They even wentdown to within sixty feet of the ground.

  Hereupon the Governor of Loggoum came out from his residence, displayinghis green standard, and accompanied by his musicians, who blew on hoarsebuffalo-horns, as though they would split their cheeks or any thingelse, excepting their own lungs. The crowd at once gathered around him.In the mean while Dr. Ferguson tried to make himself heard, but in vain.

  This population looked like proud and intelligent people, with theirhigh foreheads, their almost aquiline noses, and their curling hair; butthe presence of the Victoria troubled them greatly. Horsemen could beseen galloping in all directions, and it soon became evident that thegovernor's troops were assembling to oppose so extraordinary a foe. Joewore himself out waving handkerchiefs of every color and shape to them;but his exertions were all to no purpose.

  However, the sheik, surrounded by his court, proclaimed silence, andpronounced a discourse, of which the doctor could not understand a word.It was Arabic, mixed with Baghirmi. He could make out enough, however,by the universal language of gestures, to be aware that he was receivinga very polite invitation to depart. Indeed, he would have asked fornothing better, but for lack of wind, the thing had become impossible.His noncompliance, therefore, exasperated the governor, whose courtiersand attendants set up a furious howl to enforce immediate obedience onthe part of the aerial monster.

  They were odd-looking fellows those courtiers, with their five or sixshirts swathed around their bodies! They had enormous stomachs, someof which actually seemed to be artificial. The doctor surprised hiscompanions by informing them that this was the way to pay court tothe sultan. The rotundity of the stomach indicated the ambition of itspossessor. These corpulent gentry gesticulated and bawled at the top oftheir voices--one of them particularly distinguishing himself abovethe rest--to such an extent, indeed, that he must have been a primeminister--at least, if the disturbance he made was any criterion of hisrank. The common rabble of dusky denizens united their howlings withthe uproar of the court, repeating their gesticulations like so manymonkeys, and thereby producing a single and instantaneous movement often thousand arms at one time.

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

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

  Night came, and not a breath of wind was stirring. The aeronauts had tomake up their minds to remain motionless at the distance of but threehundred feet above the ground. Not a fire or light shone in the deepgloom, and around reigned the silence of death; but the doctor onlyredoubled his vigilance, as this apparent quiet might conceal somesnare.

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

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

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

  And, sure enough, with an accompaniment of musket-shots, yelling, anddin of every description, the mass of fire was, indeed, mounting towardthe Victoria. Joe got ready to throw out ballast, and Ferguson was notlong at guessing the truth. Thousands of pigeons, their tails garnishedwith combustibles, had been set loose and driven toward the Victoria;and now, in their terror, they were flying high up, zigzagging theatmosphere with lines of fire. Kennedy was preparing to discharge allhis batteries into the middle of the ascending multitude, but what couldhe have done against such a numberless army? The pigeons were alreadywhisking around the car; they were even surrounding the balloon,the sides of which, reflecting their illumination, looked as thoughenveloped with a network of fire.

  The doctor dared hesitate no longer; and, throwing out a fragment ofquartz, he kept himself beyond the reach of these dangerous assailants;and, for two hours afterward, he could see them wandering hither andthither 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 histhoughts aloud.

  "Oh, they employ these pigeons frequently, to set fire to the thatchof hostile villages; but this time the village mounted higher than theycould 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 havevigilance in all places and at all times."