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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 a fresh deluge. A gloomy region is that Zungomoro
country, where it rains continually, excepting, perhaps, for a couple of weeks
in the month of January.
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, with thorny thickets and
gigantic lianas, or creeping vines. The sulphuretted hydrogen emanations, which
Captain Burton mentions, could be distinctly smelt.
“According to his
statement, and I think he’s right,” said the doctor, “one
could readily believe that there is a corpse hidden behind every
thicket.”
“An ugly country
this!” sighed Joe; “and it seems to me that Mr. Kennedy is 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 one of the most
unhealthy regions in Africa; but we shall not remain here long; so let’s
be off.”
Thanks to a skilful
manoeuvre achieved by Joe, the anchor was disengaged, and Joe reascended to the
car by means of the ladder. The doctor 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 in Africa that some of the
unhealthiest districts lie close beside others that are perfectly salubrious.
Kennedy was visibly
suffering, and the fever was mastering his vigorous constitution.
“It won’t do
to fall ill, though,” he grumbled; and so saying, he wrapped himself in a
blanket, and lay down under the awning.
“A little
patience, Dick, and you’ll soon get over this,” said the doctor.
“Get over it!
Egad, Samuel, if you’ve any drug in your travelling-chest that will set
me on my feet again, bring it without delay. I’ll swallow it with my eyes
shut!”
“Oh, I can do
better than that, friend Dick; for I can give you a febrifuge 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 that are now deluging us, and
remove you from this pestilential atmosphere. I ask for only ten minutes, in
order to dilate the hydrogen.”
The ten minutes had
scarcely elapsed ere the travellers were beyond the rainy belt of country.
“Wait a little,
now, Dick, and you’ll begin to feel the effect of pure air 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 lofty mountain on that island, to get clear
of the yellow fever.”
“Ah! by Jove, this
balloon is a paradise!” exclaimed Kennedy, feeling much 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 together in confused masses of
superb brilliance, as they reflected the rays of the sun. The Victoria had
attained an altitude of four thousand feet, and the thermometer indicated a
certain diminution of temperature. The land below could no longer be seen.
Fifty miles away to the westward, Mount Rubeho raised its sparkling crest,
marking the limit of the Ugogo country in east longitude thirty-six degrees
twenty minutes. The wind was blowing at the rate of twenty miles an hour, but
the aeronauts felt nothing of this increased speed. They observed no jar, and
had scarcely any sense of motion at all.
Three hours later, the
doctor’s prediction was fully verified. Kennedy no longer felt a single
shiver of the fever, but partook of some breakfast with an excellent appetite.
That beats sulphate of
quinine!” said the energetic Scot, with hearty emphasis and much
satisfaction.
“Positively,”
said Joe, “this is where I’ll have to retire to when I get
old!”
About ten o’clock
in the morning the atmosphere cleared up, the clouds parted, and the country
beneath could again be seen, the Victoria meanwhile rapidly descending. Dr.
Ferguson was in search of a current that would carry him more to the northeast,
and he found it about six hundred feet from the ground. The country was
becoming more broken, and even mountainous. The Zungomoro district was fading
out of sight in the east with the last cocoa-nut-trees of that latitude.
Ere long, the crests of
a mountain-range assumed a more decided prominence. A few peaks rose here and
there, and it became necessary to keep a sharp lookout for the pointed cones
that seemed to spring up every 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 of spirits.
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 would have died with fatigue. We should be
looking like ghosts ourselves, and despair would be seizing on our hearts. We
should be in continual squabbles with our guides and porters, and completely
exposed to their unbridled brutality. During the daytime, a damp, penetrating,
unendurable humidity! At night, a cold frequently intolerable, and the stings
of a kind of fly whose bite pierces the thickest cloth, and drives the victim
crazy! All this, too, without saying any thing about wild 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 the narratives of
such travellers as have had the hardihood to venture into these regions, your
eyes would fill with tears.”
About eleven
o’clock they were passing over the basin of Imenge, and the tribes
scattered over the adjacent hills were impotently menacing the Victoria with
their weapons. Finally, she sped along as far as the last undulations of the
country which precede Rubeho. These form the last and loftiest chain of the
mountains of Usagara.
The aeronauts took
careful and complete note of the orographic conformation of the country. The
three ramifications mentioned, of which the Duthumi forms the first link, are
separated by immense longitudinal plains. These elevated summits consist of
rounded cones, between which the soil is bestrewn with erratic blocks of stone
and gravelly bowlders. The most abrupt declivity of these mountains confronts
the Zanzibar coast, but the western slopes are merely inclined planes. The
depressions in the soil are covered with a black, rich loam, on which there 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, and palmyra trees.
“Attention!”
said Dr. Ferguson. “We are approaching Rubeho, the name of which
signifies, in the language of the country, the ‘Passage of the
Winds,’ and we would do well to double its jagged pinnacles at a certain
height. If my chart be exact, we are going to ascend to an elevation of five
thousand feet.”
“Shall we often
have occasion to reach those far upper belts of the atmosphere?”
“Very seldom: the
height of the African mountains appears to be quite moderate compared with that
of the European and Asiatic ranges; but, in any case, our good Victoria will
find no difficulty in passing over them.”
In a very little while,
the gas expanded under the action of the heat, and the balloon took a very
decided ascensional movement. Besides, the dilation of the hydrogen involved no
danger, and only three-fourths of the vast capacity of the balloon was filled
when the barometer, by a depression 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,” said the doctor;
“and, with a very large balloon, one might go far. That is what Messrs.
Brioschi and Gay-Lussac did; but then the blood burst from their mouths and
ears. Respirable air was wanting. Some years ago, two fearless Frenchmen,
Messrs. Barral and Bixio, also ventured into the very 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 you
like; but, as for me, who am but a dolt, I prefer keeping at the medium
height—neither too far up, nor too low down. It won’t do to be too
ambitious.”
At the height of six
thousand feet, the density of the atmosphere has already greatly diminished;
sound is conveyed with difficulty, and the voice is not so easily heard. The
view of objects becomes confused; the gaze no longer takes in any but large,
quite ill-distinguishable masses; men and animals on the surface become absolutely
invisible; the roads and rivers get to look like threads, and the lakes dwindle
to ponds.
The doctor and his
friends felt themselves in a very anomalous condition; an atmospheric current
of extreme velocity was bearing them away beyond arid mountains, upon whose
summits vast fields of snow surprised the gaze; while their convulsed
appearance told of Titanic travail in the earliest epoch of the world’s
existence.
The sun shone at the
zenith, and his rays fell perpendicularly upon those lonely summits. The doctor
took an accurate design of these mountains, 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, skirting an acclivity covered with
woods, and dotted with trees of very deep-green foliage. Then came crests and
ravines, in a sort of desert which preceded the Ugogo country; and lower down
were yellow plains, parched and fissured by the intense heat, and, here and
there, bestrewn with saline plants and brambly thickets.
Some underbrush, which,
farther on, became forests, embellished the horizon. The doctor went nearer to
the ground; the anchors were thrown out, and one of them soon caught in the
boughs of a huge sycamore.
Joe, slipping nimbly down
the tree, carefully attached the anchor, and the doctor left his cylinder at
work to a certain degree in order to retain sufficient ascensional force in the
balloon to keep it in the air. Meanwhile the wind had suddenly died away.
“Now,” said
Ferguson, “take two guns, friend Dick— one for yourself and one for
Joe—and both of you try to bring back some nice cuts of antelope-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 himself down from branch to branch, and
was waiting for him below, stretching his 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 getting my notes into
shape. A good hunt to you! but be careful. Besides, from my post here, I can
observe the face of the country, and, at the least suspicious thing I notice,
I’ll fire a signal-shot, and with that you must rally home.”
“Agreed!”
said Kennedy; and off they went.
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