Five Weeks in a Balloon. Jules Verne
you go!” Kennedy said, shrugging his shoulders. “You’re always a fatalist!”
“Always, but in the positive sense of the word. So let’s not agonize over what destiny has in store for us, and let’s not forget our old English proverb: ‘The man who was born to die on the scaffold will never die of drowning!’”
To this there was no comeback, which didn’t keep Kennedy from dusting off a series of arguments easy to imagine but too long-winded to go into here.
“Anyhow,” he said after a sixty-minute debate, “if you’re dead set on going across Africa, if nothing else will make you happy, why not travel the usual way?”
“Why not?” the doctor replied heatedly. “Because all such efforts until now have come to grief! Think of Mungo Park who was murdered on the Niger, Vogel who vanished in Wadaï, Oudney who died in Murmur, Clapperton who died in Sokoto, the Frenchman Maizan who was sliced to pieces, Major Laing who was killed by the Tuaregs, Roscher from Hamburg who was slaughtered early in 1860—there are so many victims recorded in Africa’s death register! Because it’s an impossible struggle against the elements, against hunger, thirst, and fever, against wild animals and even wilder tribesmen! Because what can’t be done one way needs to be tackled in another! Because, in short, what you can’t go through you have to sidestep or go over!”
“This isn’t about going over,” Kennedy fired back, “but flying over!”
“All right,” the doctor went on with all the composure in the world. “What have I to fear? You’ll readily agree that I’ve taken such thorough precautions, I won’t need to worry if my balloon falls out of the sky; if she isn’t equal to the task, I’ll end up on the ground under the usual conditions other explorers face; but my balloon won’t fail me, and we won’t need to make any allowances.”
“On the contrary, you will need to.”
“Not so, my dear Dick. I don’t intend to part company with her until I arrive on Africa’s west coast. With her, everything is possible; without her, I topple back into the dangers and obstacles natural to such an expedition; with her, neither heat, torrents, storms, whirlwinds, unsanitary climates, wild animals, nor human beings are a concern! If I’m too hot, I go higher; if I’m cold, I descend; if there’s a mountain, I pass it by; a precipice, I clear it; a river, I cross it; a downpour, I rise above it; a torrent, I skim over it like a bird! I press on without growing tired, I halt without needing to rest! I glide past new cities! I fly as fast as a tornado, sometimes high in the skies, sometimes just a hundred feet from the ground, and below is the great atlas of the world, with the map of Africa unfolding beneath my eyes!”
Our gallant Kennedy was starting to feel excited, but the mental picture in front of his eyes gave him vertigo. He looked at Samuel in wonderment, also in fear; already he felt he was swaying in the stratosphere.
“Hold on,” he said, “hold on a second, my dear Samuel—does this mean you’ve found a way of steering a balloon?”
“Far from it. That’s a pipe dream.”
“But then you’ll go—”
“Where Providence wills; but in any event from east to west.” “Why is that?”
“Because I’m counting on using the trade winds, which always blow in the same direction.”
“Oh … right!” Kennedy said, thinking it over. “The trade winds … certainly … in a pinch … there’s something to be said for ’em …”
“Something? No, my gallant friend, everything. The English govern ment has put a cargo boat at my disposal; they’ve likewise arranged for three or four ships to cruise off Africa’s west coast around the projected time of my arrival. In three months at the most, I’ll be in Zanzibar where I’ll set about inflating my balloon, and from there we’ll launch her—”
“We?” Dick interrupted.
“Really now, have you a single objection left? Out with it, Kennedy old friend.”
“A single objection? I have a thousand; but tell me, among other things: if you’re counting on seeing the country, if you’re counting on rising and descending at will, how can you do it without losing gas? So far there’s no other way of proceeding, and that’s why nobody goes on long outings in the clouds.”
“My dear Dick, I’ll tell you just one thing: I won’t lose an atom of gas, not a single molecule.”
“And you’ll descend at will?”
“I’ll descend at will.”
“And how will you manage it?”
“That’s my secret, Dick old friend. Trust me and make my motto yours: Excelsior!”
“Excelsior it is,” replied the hunter, who didn’t know a word of Latin.
But he was bound and determined to thwart his friend’s departure in any way he could. So he pretended to agree but kept a careful lookout. As for Samuel, he went off to oversee his preparations.
* Nickname for Edinburgh meaning “Old Smoky.”
* Insane asylum in London.
chapter 4
African exploring parties—Barth, Richardson, Overweg, Werne, Brun-Rollet, Peney, Andrea Debono, Miani, Guillaume Lejean, Bruce, Krapf and Rebmann, Maizan, Roscher, Burton and Speke.
The course through the clouds that Dr. Fergusson intended to follow hadn’t been chosen by accident; he had put serious thought into his starting point, and it was with good reason that he decided to launch his balloon from the island of Zanzibar. Located off Africa’s east coast, this island lies at latitude 6° south, in other words, 430 statute miles1 below the equator.
The latest expedition in search of the Nile’s headwaters had just set out from this island and was proceeding by way of the great inland lakes.
But it’s important to point out which exploring parties Dr. Fergusson hoped to connect with each other. There were two main ones: Dr. Barth’s in 1849 and the party led by Lieutenants Burton and Speke in 1858.
A native of Hamburg, Dr. Barth obtained permission for his countryman Overweg and himself to join an expedition under the Englishman Richardson; the latter had been entrusted with a mission in Sudan.
This huge country is located between latitudes 10° and 15° north—in other words, you have to push more than 1,500 miles2 into Africa’s interior to reach it.
At the time all that was known of this region came from the travels of Denham, Clapperton, and Oudney over the years 1822–1824. Keen on pressing their investigations farther, Richardson, Barth, and Overweg arrive like their predecessors in Tunis and Tripoli, then forge ahead to Murzuk, capital of Libya’s Fezzan region.
At this juncture they take a sharp right turn to the west in the direction of Ghat, accompanied by Tuareg tribesmen and plenty of complications. After a thousand episodes of thievery, humiliation, and armed assault, their caravan reaches the huge oasis of the Aïr by October. Dr. Barth separates from his companions, makes an excursion to the town of Agadez, and rejoins the expedition, which sets out again on December 12. It arrives in the province of Damergou; there the three travelers part company, and Barth takes the route to Kano, which he reaches by persevering and by paying sizable bribes.
Despite a high fever, he vacates this town on March 7, bringing only a single servant. His journey’s main objective is to scout out Lake Chad, which still lies 350 miles away. So he presses on to the east and gets to the town of Zuricolo in