Five Weeks in a Balloon

CHAPTER ELEVENTH.

The Ar­rival at Zanz­ibar.–The En­glish Con­sul.–Ill-​will of the In­hab­itants.–The Is­land of Koum­beni.–The Rain-​Mak­ers.–In­fla­tion of the Bal­loon.–De­par­ture on the 18th of April.–The last Good-​by. –The Vic­to­ria.

An in­vari­ably fa­vor­able wind had ac­cel­er­at­ed the progress of the Res­olute to­ward the place of her des­ti­na­tion. The nav­iga­tion of the Mozam­bique Chan­nel was es­pe­cial­ly calm and pleas­ant. The agree­able char­ac­ter of the trip by sea was re­gard­ed as a good omen of the prob­able is­sue of the trip through the air. Ev­ery one looked for­ward to the hour of ar­rival, and sought to give the last touch to the doc­tor’s prepa­ra­tions.

At length the ves­sel hove in sight of the town of Zanz­ibar, up­on the is­land of the same name, and, on the 15th of April, at 11 o’clock in the morn­ing, she an­chored in the port.

The is­land of Zanz­ibar be­longs to the Imaum of Mus­cat, an al­ly of France and Eng­land, and is, un­doubt­ed­ly, his finest set­tle­ment. The port is fre­quent­ed by a great many ves­sels from the neigh­bor­ing coun­tries.

The is­land is sep­arat­ed from the African coast on­ly by a chan­nel, the great­est width of which is but thir­ty miles.

It has a large trade in gums, ivory, and, above all, in “ebony,” for Zanz­ibar is the great slave-​mar­ket. Thith­er con­verges all the booty cap­tured in the bat­tles which the chiefs of the in­te­ri­or are con­tin­ual­ly fight­ing. This traf­fic ex­tends along the whole east­ern coast, and as far as the Nile lat­itudes. Mr. G. Lejean even re­ports that he has seen it car­ried on, open­ly, un­der the French flag.

Up­on the ar­rival of the Res­olute, the En­glish con­sul at Zanz­ibar came on board to of­fer his ser­vices to the doc­tor, of whose projects the Eu­ro­pean news­pa­pers had made him aware for a month past. But, up to that mo­ment, he had re­mained with the nu­mer­ous pha­lanx of the in­cred­ulous.

“I doubt­ed,” said he, hold­ing out his hand to Dr. Fer­gu­son, “but now I doubt no longer.”

He in­vit­ed the doc­tor, Kennedy, and the faith­ful Joe, of course, to his own dwelling. Through his cour­tesy, the doc­tor was en­abled to have knowl­edge of the var­ious let­ters that he had re­ceived from Cap­tain Speke. The cap­tain and his com­pan­ions had suf­fered dread­ful­ly from hunger and bad weath­er be­fore reach­ing the Ugogo coun­try. They could ad­vance on­ly with ex­treme dif­fi­cul­ty, and did not ex­pect to be able to com­mu­ni­cate again for a long time.

“Those are per­ils and pri­va­tions which we shall man­age to avoid,” said the doc­tor.

The bag­gage of the three trav­ellers was con­veyed to the con­sul’s res­idence. Ar­range­ments were made for dis­em­bark­ing the bal­loon up­on the beach at Zanz­ibar. There was a con­ve­nient spot, near the sig­nal-​mast, close by an im­mense build­ing, that would serve to shel­ter it from the east winds. This huge tow­er, re­sem­bling a tun stand­ing on one end, be­side which the fa­mous Hei­del­berg tun would have seemed but a very or­di­nary bar­rel, served as a for­ti­fi­ca­tion, and on its plat­form were sta­tioned Be­lootchees, armed with lances. These Be­lootchees are a kind of brawl­ing, good-​for-​noth­ing Janizaries.

But, when about to land the bal­loon, the con­sul was in­formed that the pop­ula­tion of the is­land would op­pose their do­ing so by force. Noth­ing is so blind as fa­nat­ical pas­sion. The news of the ar­rival of a Chris­tian, who was to as­cend in­to the air, was re­ceived with rage. The ne­groes, more ex­as­per­at­ed than the Arabs, saw in this project an at­tack up­on their re­li­gion. They took it in­to their heads that some mis­chief was meant to the sun and the moon. Now, these two lu­mi­nar­ies are ob­jects of ven­er­ation to the African tribes, and they de­ter­mined to op­pose so sac­ri­le­gious an en­ter­prise.

The con­sul, in­formed of their in­ten­tions, con­ferred with Dr. Fer­gu­son and Cap­tain Ben­net on the sub­ject. The lat­ter was un­will­ing to yield to threats, but his friend dis­suad­ed him from any idea of vi­olent re­tal­ia­tion.

“We shall cer­tain­ly come out win­ners,” he said. “Even the imaum’s sol­diers will lend us a hand, if we need it. But, my dear cap­tain, an ac­ci­dent may hap­pen in a mo­ment, and it would re­quire but one un­lucky blow to do the bal­loon an ir­repara­ble in­jury, so that the trip would be to­tal­ly de­feat­ed; there­fore we must act with the great­est cau­tion.”

“But what are we to do? If we land on the coast of Africa, we shall en­counter the same dif­fi­cul­ties. What are we to do?”

“Noth­ing is more sim­ple,” replied the con­sul. “You ob­serve those small is­lands out­side of the port; land your bal­loon on one of them; sur­round it with a guard of sailors, and you will have no risk to run.”

“Just the thing!” said the doc­tor, “and we shall be en­tire­ly at our ease in com­plet­ing our prepa­ra­tions.”

The cap­tain yield­ed to these sug­ges­tions, and the Res­olute was head­ed for the is­land of Koum­beni. Dur­ing the morn­ing of the 16th April, the bal­loon was placed in safe­ty in the mid­dle of a clear­ing in the great woods, with which the soil is stud­ded.

Two masts, eighty feet in height, were raised at the same dis­tance from each oth­er. Blocks and tack­le, placed at their ex­trem­ities, af­ford­ed the means of el­evat­ing the bal­loon, by the aid of a trans­verse rope. It was then en­tire­ly un­in­flat­ed. The in­te­ri­or bal­loon was fas­tened to the ex­te­ri­or one, in such man­ner as to be lift­ed up in the same way. To the low­er end of each bal­loon were fixed the pipes that served to in­tro­duce the hy­dro­gen gas.

The whole day, on the 17th, was spent in ar­rang­ing the ap­pa­ra­tus des­tined to pro­duce the gas; it con­sist­ed of some thir­ty casks, in which the de­com­po­si­tion of wa­ter was ef­fect­ed by means of iron-​fil­ings and sul­phuric acid placed to­geth­er in a large quan­ti­ty of the first-​named flu­id. The hy­dro­gen passed in­to a huge cen­tral cask, af­ter hav­ing been washed on the way, and thence in­to each bal­loon by the con­duit-​pipes. In this man­ner each of them re­ceived a cer­tain ac­cu­rate­ly-​as­cer­tained quan­ti­ty of gas. For this pur­pose, there had to be em­ployed eigh­teen hun­dred and six­ty-​six pounds of sul­phuric acid, six­teen thou­sand and fifty pounds of iron, and nine thou­sand one hun­dred and six­ty-​six gal­lons of wa­ter. This op­er­ation com­menced on the fol­low­ing night, about three A.M., and last­ed near­ly eight hours. The next day, the bal­loon, cov­ered with its net­work, un­du­lat­ed grace­ful­ly above its car, which was held to the ground by nu­mer­ous sacks of earth. The in­flat­ing ap­pa­ra­tus was put to­geth­er with ex­treme care, and the pipes is­su­ing from the bal­loon were se­cure­ly fit­ted to the cylin­dri­cal case.

The an­chors, the cordage, the in­stru­ments, the trav­el­ling-​wraps, the awning, the pro­vi­sions, and the arms, were put in the place as­signed to them in the car. The sup­ply of wa­ter was pro­cured at Zanz­ibar. The two hun­dred pounds of bal­last were dis­tribut­ed in fifty bags placed at the bot­tom of the car, but with­in arm’s-​reach.

These prepa­ra­tions were con­clud­ed about five o’clock in the evening, while sen­tinels kept close watch around the is­land, and the boats of the Res­olute pa­trolled the chan­nel.

The blacks con­tin­ued to show their dis­plea­sure by gri­maces and con­tor­tions. Their obi-​men, or wiz­ards, went up and down among the an­gry throngs, pour­ing fu­el on the flame of their fa­nati­cism; and some of the ex­cit­ed wretch­es, more fu­ri­ous and dar­ing than the rest, at­tempt­ed to get to the is­land by swim­ming, but they were eas­ily driv­en off.

There­upon the sor­ceries and in­can­ta­tions com­menced; the “rain-​mak­ers,” who pre­tend to have con­trol over the clouds, in­voked the storms and the “stone-​show­ers,” as the blacks call hail, to their aid. To com­pel them to do so, they plucked leaves of all the dif­fer­ent trees that grow in that coun­try, and boiled them over a slow fire, while, at the same time, a sheep was killed by thrust­ing a long nee­dle in­to its heart. But, in spite of all their cer­emonies, the sky re­mained clear and beau­ti­ful, and they prof­it­ed noth­ing by their slaugh­tered sheep and their ug­ly gri­maces.

The blacks then aban­doned them­selves to the most fu­ri­ous or­gies, and got fear­ful­ly drunk on “tem­bo,” a kind of ar­dent spir­its drawn from the co­coa-​nut tree, and an ex­treme­ly heady sort of beer called “tog­wa.” Their chants, which were des­ti­tute of all melody, but were sung in ex­cel­lent time, con­tin­ued un­til far in­to the night.

About six o’clock in the evening, the cap­tain as­sem­bled the trav­ellers and the of­fi­cers of the ship at a farewell repast in his cab­in. Kennedy, whom no­body ven­tured to ques­tion now, sat with his eyes riv­et­ed on Dr. Fer­gu­son, mur­mur­ing in­dis­tin­guish­able words. In oth­er re­spects, the din­ner was a gloomy one. The ap­proach of the fi­nal mo­ment filled ev­ery­body with the most se­ri­ous re­flec­tions. What had fate in store for these dar­ing ad­ven­tur­ers? Should they ev­er again find them­selves in the midst of their friends, or seat­ed at the do­mes­tic hearth? Were their trav­el­ling ap­pa­ra­tus to fail, what would be­come of them, among those fe­ro­cious sav­age tribes, in re­gions that had nev­er been ex­plored, and in the midst of bound­less deserts?

Such thoughts as these, which had been dim and vague un­til then, or but slight­ly re­gard­ed when they came up, re­turned up­on their ex­cit­ed fan­cies with in­tense force at this part­ing mo­ment. Dr. Fer­gu­son, still cold and im­pas­si­ble, talked of this, that, and the oth­er; but he strove in vain to over­come this in­fec­tious gloomi­ness. He ut­ter­ly failed.

As some demon­stra­tion against the per­son­al safe­ty of the doc­tor and his com­pan­ions was feared, all three slept that night on board the Res­olute. At six o’clock in the morn­ing they left their cab­in, and land­ed on the is­land of Koum­beni.

The bal­loon was sway­ing gen­tly to and fro in the morn­ing breeze; the sand-​bags that had held it down were now re­placed by some twen­ty strong-​armed sailors, and Cap­tain Ben­net and his of­fi­cers were present to wit­ness the solemn de­par­ture of their friends.

At this mo­ment Kennedy went right up to the doc­tor, grasped his hand, and said:

“Samuel, have you ab­so­lute­ly de­ter­mined to go?”

“Solemn­ly de­ter­mined, my dear Dick.”

“I have done ev­ery thing that I could to pre­vent this ex­pe­di­tion, have I not?”

“Ev­ery thing!”

“Well, then, my con­science is clear on that score, and I will go with you.”

“I was sure you would!” said the doc­tor, be­tray­ing in his fea­tures swift traces of emo­tion.

At last the mo­ment of fi­nal leave-​tak­ing ar­rived. The cap­tain and his of­fi­cers em­braced their daunt­less friends with great feel­ing, not ex­cept­ing even Joe, who, wor­thy fel­low, was as proud and hap­py as a prince. Ev­ery one in the par­ty in­sist­ed up­on hav­ing a fi­nal shake of the doc­tor’s hand.

At nine o’clock the three trav­ellers got in­to their car. The doc­tor lit the com­bustible in his cylin­der and turned the flame so as to pro­duce a rapid heat, and the bal­loon, which had rest­ed on the ground in per­fect equipoise, be­gan to rise in a few min­utes, so that the sea­men had to slack­en the ropes they held it by. The car then rose about twen­ty feet above their heads.

“My friends!” ex­claimed the doc­tor, stand­ing up be­tween his two com­pan­ions, and tak­ing off his hat, “let us give our aeri­al ship a name that will bring her good luck! let us chris­ten her Vic­to­ria!”

This speech was an­swered with sten­to­ri­an cheers of “Huz­za for the Queen! Huz­za for Old Eng­land!”

At this mo­ment the as­cen­sion­al force of the bal­loon in­creased prodi­gious­ly, and Fer­gu­son, Kennedy, and Joe, waved a last good-​by to their friends.

“Let go all!” shout­ed the doc­tor, and at the word the Vic­to­ria shot rapid­ly up in­to the sky, while the four car­ronades on board the Res­olute thun­dered forth a part­ing salute in her hon­or.