Five Weeks in a Balloon

CHAPTER EIGHTH.

Joe’s Im­por­tance.–The Com­man­der of the Res­olute.–Kennedy’s Ar­se­nal.–Mu­tu­al Ameni­ties.–The Farewell Din­ner.–De­par­ture on the 21st of Febru­ary.–The Doc­tor’s Sci­en­tif­ic Ses­sions.– Du­veyri­er.–Liv­ing­stone.–De­tails of the Aeri­al Voy­age.–Kennedy si­lenced.

About the 10th of Febru­ary, the prepa­ra­tions were pret­ty well com­plet­ed; and the bal­loons, firm­ly se­cured, one with­in the oth­er, were al­to­geth­er fin­ished. They had been sub­ject­ed to a pow­er­ful pneu­mat­ic pres­sure in all parts, and the test gave ex­cel­lent ev­idence of their so­lid­ity and of the care ap­plied in their con­struc­tion.

Joe hard­ly knew what he was about, with de­light. He trot­ted in­ces­sant­ly to and fro be­tween his home in Greek Street, and the Mitchell es­tab­lish­ment, al­ways full of busi­ness, but al­ways in the high­est spir­its, giv­ing de­tails of the af­fair to peo­ple who did not even ask him, so proud was he, above all things, of be­ing per­mit­ted to ac­com­pa­ny his mas­ter. I have even a shrewd sus­pi­cion that what with show­ing the bal­loon, ex­plain­ing the plans and views of the doc­tor, giv­ing folks a glimpse of the lat­ter, through a half-​opened win­dow, or point­ing him out as he passed along the streets, the clever scamp earned a few half-​crowns, but we must not find fault with him for that. He had as much right as any­body else to spec­ulate up­on the ad­mi­ra­tion and cu­rios­ity of his con­tem­po­raries.

On the 16th of Febru­ary, the Res­olute cast an­chor near Green­wich. She was a screw pro­peller of eight hun­dred tons, a fast sail­er, and the very ves­sel that had been sent out to the po­lar re­gions, to re­vict­ual the last ex­pe­di­tion of Sir James Ross. Her com­man­der, Cap­tain Ben­net, had the name of be­ing a very ami­able per­son, and he took a par­tic­ular in­ter­est in the doc­tor’s ex­pe­di­tion, hav­ing been one of that gen­tle­man’s ad­mir­ers for a long time. Ben­net was rather a man of sci­ence than a man of war, which did not, how­ev­er, pre­vent his ves­sel from car­ry­ing four car­ronades, that had nev­er hurt any body, to be sure, but had per­formed the most pa­cif­ic du­ty in the world.

The hold of the Res­olute was so ar­ranged as to find a stow­ing-​place for the bal­loon. The lat­ter was shipped with the great­est pre­cau­tion on the 18th of Febru­ary, and was then care­ful­ly de­posit­ed at the bot­tom of the ves­sel in such a way as to pre­vent ac­ci­dent. The car and its ac­ces­sories, the an­chors, the cords, the sup­plies, the wa­ter-​tanks, which were to be filled on ar­riv­ing, all were em­barked and put away un­der Fer­gu­son’s own eyes.

Ten tons of sul­phuric acid and ten tons of iron fil­ings, were put on board for the fu­ture pro­duc­tion of the hy­dro­gen gas. The quan­ti­ty was more than enough, but it was well to be pro­vid­ed against ac­ci­dent. The ap­pa­ra­tus to be em­ployed in man­ufac­tur­ing the gas, in­clud­ing some thir­ty emp­ty casks, was al­so stowed away in the hold.

These var­ious prepa­ra­tions were ter­mi­nat­ed on the 18th of Febru­ary, in the evening. Two state-​rooms, com­fort­ably fit­ted up, were ready for the re­cep­tion of Dr. Fer­gu­son and his friend Kennedy. The lat­ter, all the while swear­ing that he would not go, went on board with a reg­ular ar­se­nal of hunt­ing weapons, among which were two dou­ble-​bar­relled breech-​load­ing fowl­ing-​pieces, and a ri­fle that had with­stood ev­ery test, of the make of Purdey, Moore & Dick­son, at Ed­in­burgh. With such a weapon a marks­man would find no dif­fi­cul­ty in lodg­ing a bul­let in the eye of a chamois at the dis­tance of two thou­sand paces. Along with these im­ple­ments, he had two of Colt’s six-​shoot­ers, for un­fore­seen emer­gen­cies. His pow­der-​case, his car­tridge-​pouch, his lead, and his bul­lets, did not ex­ceed a cer­tain weight pre­scribed by the doc­tor.

The three trav­ellers got them­selves to rights on board dur­ing the work­ing-​hours of Febru­ary 19th. They were re­ceived with much dis­tinc­tion by the cap­tain and his of­fi­cers, the doc­tor con­tin­uing as re­served as ev­er, and think­ing of noth­ing but his ex­pe­di­tion. Dick seemed a good deal moved, but was un­will­ing to be­tray it; while Joe was fair­ly danc­ing and break­ing out in laugh­able re­marks. The wor­thy fel­low soon be­came the jester and mer­ry-​an­drew of the boatswain’s mess, where a berth had been kept for him.

On the 20th, a grand farewell din­ner was giv­en to Dr. Fer­gu­son and Kennedy by the Roy­al Ge­ograph­ical So­ci­ety. Com­man­der Ben­net and his of­fi­cers were present at the en­ter­tain­ment, which was sig­nal­ized by co­pi­ous li­ba­tions and nu­mer­ous toasts. Healths were drunk, in suf­fi­cient abun­dance to guar­an­tee all the guests a life­time of cen­turies. Sir Fran­cis M—- presid­ed, with re­strained but dig­ni­fied feel­ing.

To his own supreme con­fu­sion, Dick Kennedy came in for a large share in the jovial fe­lic­ita­tions of the night. Af­ter hav­ing drunk to the “in­trepid Fer­gu­son, the glo­ry of Eng­land,” they had to drink to “the no less coura­geous Kennedy, his dar­ing com­pan­ion.”

Dick blushed a good deal, and that passed for mod­esty; where­upon the ap­plause re­dou­bled, and Dick blushed again.

A mes­sage from the Queen ar­rived while they were at dessert. Her Majesty of­fered her com­pli­ments to the two trav­ellers, and ex­pressed her wish­es for their safe and suc­cess­ful jour­ney. This, of course, ren­dered im­per­ative fresh toasts to “Her most gra­cious Majesty.”

At mid­night, af­ter touch­ing farewells and warm shak­ing of hands, the guests sep­arat­ed.

The boats of the Res­olute were in wait­ing at the stairs of West­min­ster Bridge. The cap­tain leaped in, ac­com­pa­nied by his of­fi­cers and pas­sen­gers, and the rapid cur­rent of the Thames, aid­ing the strong arms of the row­ers, bore them swift­ly to Green­wich. In an hour’s time all were asleep on board.

The next morn­ing, Febru­ary 21st, at three o’clock, the fur­naces be­gan to roar; at five, the an­chors were weighed, and the Res­olute, pow­er­ful­ly driv­en by her screw, be­gan to plough the wa­ter to­ward the mouth of the Thames.

It is need­less to say that the top­ic of con­ver­sa­tion with ev­ery one on board was Dr. Fer­gu­son’s en­ter­prise. See­ing and hear­ing the doc­tor soon in­spired ev­ery­body with such con­fi­dence that, in a very short time, there was no one, ex­cept­ing the in­cred­ulous Scotch­man, on the steam­er who had the least doubt of the per­fect fea­si­bil­ity and suc­cess of the ex­pe­di­tion.

Dur­ing the long, un­oc­cu­pied hours of the voy­age, the doc­tor held reg­ular sit­tings, with lec­tures on ge­ograph­ical sci­ence, in the of­fi­cers’ mess-​room. These young men felt an in­tense in­ter­est in the dis­cov­er­ies made dur­ing the last forty years in Africa; and the doc­tor re­lat­ed to them the ex­plo­rations of Barth, Bur­ton, Speke, and Grant, and de­pict­ed the won­ders of this vast, mys­te­ri­ous coun­try, now thrown open on all sides to the in­ves­ti­ga­tions of sci­ence. On the north, the young Du­veyri­er was ex­plor­ing Sa­hara, and bring­ing the chiefs of the Touaregs to Paris. Un­der the in­spi­ra­tion of the French Gov­ern­ment, two ex­pe­di­tions were prepar­ing, which, de­scend­ing from the north, and com­ing from the west, would cross each oth­er at Tim­buc­too. In the south, the in­de­fati­ga­ble Liv­ing­stone was still ad­vanc­ing to­ward the equa­tor; and, since March, 1862, he had, in com­pa­ny with Macken­zie, as­cend­ed the riv­er Rovoo­nia. The nine­teenth cen­tu­ry would, as­sured­ly, not pass, con­tend­ed the doc­tor, with­out Africa hav­ing been com­pelled to sur­ren­der the se­crets she has kept locked up in her bo­som for six thou­sand years.

But the in­ter­est of Dr. Fer­gu­son’s hear­ers was ex­cit­ed to the high­est pitch when he made known to them, in de­tail, the prepa­ra­tions for his own jour­ney. They took plea­sure in ver­ify­ing his cal­cu­la­tions; they dis­cussed them; and the doc­tor frankly took part in the dis­cus­sion.

As a gen­er­al thing, they were sur­prised at the lim­it­ed quan­ti­ty of pro­vi­sion that he took with him; and one day one of the of­fi­cers ques­tioned him on that sub­ject.

“That pe­cu­liar point as­ton­ish­es you, does it?” said Fer­gu­son.

“It does, in­deed.”

“But how long do you think my trip is go­ing to last? Whole months? If so, you are great­ly mis­tak­en. Were it to be a long one, we should be lost; we should nev­er get back. But you must know that the dis­tance from Zanz­ibar to the coast of Sene­gal is on­ly thir­ty-​five hun­dred–say four thou­sand miles. Well, at the rate of two hun­dred and forty miles ev­ery twelve hours, which does not come near the ra­pid­ity of our rail­road trains, by trav­el­ling day and night, it would take on­ly sev­en days to cross Africa!”

“But then you could see noth­ing, make no ge­ograph­ical ob­ser­va­tions, or re­con­noitre the face of the coun­try.”

“Ah!” replied the doc­tor, “if I am mas­ter of my bal­loon–if I can as­cend and de­scend at will, I shall stop when I please, es­pe­cial­ly when too vi­olent cur­rents of air threat­en to car­ry me out of my way with them.”

“And you will en­counter such,” said Cap­tain Ben­net. “There are tor­na­does that sweep at the rate of more than two hun­dred and forty miles per hour.”

“You see, then, that with such speed as that, we could cross Africa in twelve hours. One would rise at Zanz­ibar, and go to bed at St. Louis!”

“But,” re­joined the of­fi­cer, “could any bal­loon with­stand the wear and tear of such ve­loc­ity?”

“It has hap­pened be­fore,” replied Fer­gu­son.

“And the bal­loon with­stood it?”

“Per­fect­ly well. It was at the time of the coro­na­tion of Napoleon, in 1804. The aero­naut, Gerner­in, sent up a bal­loon at Paris, about eleven o’clock in the evening. It bore the fol­low­ing in­scrip­tion, in let­ters of gold: ‘Paris, 25 Frimaire; year XI­II; Coro­na­tion of the Em­per­or Napoleon by his Ho­li­ness, Pius VII.’ On the next morn­ing, the in­hab­itants of Rome saw the same bal­loon soar­ing above the Vat­ican, whence it crossed the Cam­pagna, and fi­nal­ly flut­tered down in­to the lake of Brac­ciano. So you see, gen­tle­men, that a bal­loon can re­sist such ve­loc­ities.”

“A bal­loon–that might be; but a man?” in­sin­uat­ed Kennedy.

“Yes, a man, too!–for the bal­loon is al­ways mo­tion­less with ref­er­ence to the air that sur­rounds it. What moves is the mass of the at­mo­sphere it­self: for in­stance, one may light a ta­per in the car, and the flame will not even wa­ver. An aero­naut in Gar­ner­in’s bal­loon would not have suf­fered in the least from the speed. But then I have no oc­ca­sion to at­tempt such ve­loc­ity; and if I can an­chor to some tree, or some fa­vor­able in­equal­ity of the ground, at night, I shall not fail to do so. Be­sides, we take pro­vi­sion for two months with us, af­ter all; and there is noth­ing to pre­vent our skil­ful hunts­man here from fur­nish­ing game in abun­dance when we come to alight.”

“Ah! Mr. Kennedy,” said a young mid­ship­man, with en­vi­ous eyes, “what splen­did shots you’ll have!”

“With­out count­ing,” said an­oth­er, “that you’ll have the glo­ry as well as the sport!”

“Gen­tle­men,” replied the hunter, stam­mer­ing with con­fu­sion, “I great­ly–ap­pre­ci­ate–your com­pli­ments– but they–don’t–be­long to me.”

“You!” ex­claimed ev­ery body, “don’t you in­tend to go?”

“I am not go­ing!”

“You won’t ac­com­pa­ny Dr. Fer­gu­son?”

“Not on­ly shall I not ac­com­pa­ny him, but I am here so as to be present at the last mo­ment to pre­vent his go­ing.”

Ev­ery eye was now turned to the doc­tor.

“Nev­er mind him!” said the lat­ter, calm­ly. “This is a mat­ter that we can’t ar­gue with him. At heart he knows per­fect­ly well that he IS go­ing.”

“By Saint An­drew!” said Kennedy, “I swear–“

“Swear to noth­ing, friend Dick; you have been ganged and weighed–you and your pow­der, your guns, and your bul­lets; so don’t let us say any­thing more about it.”

And, in fact, from that day un­til the ar­rival at Zanz­ibar, Dick nev­er opened his mouth. He talked nei­ther about that nor about any­thing else. He kept ab­so­lute­ly silent.