Five Weeks in a Balloon

CHAPTER FIFTEENTH.

Kazeh.–The Noisy Mar­ket-​place.–The Ap­pear­ance of the Bal­loon.–The Wan­ga­ga.–The Sons of the Moon.–The Doc­tor’s Walk.–The Pop­ula­tion of the Place.–The Roy­al Tem­be.–The Sul­tan’s Wives.–A Roy­al Drunk­en-​Bout.– Joe an Ob­ject of Wor­ship.–How they Dance in the Moon.–A Re­ac­tion.– Two Moons in one Sky.–The In­sta­bil­ity of Di­vine Hon­ors.

Kazeh, an im­por­tant point in Cen­tral Africa, is not a city; in truth, there are no cities in the in­te­ri­or. Kazeh is but a col­lec­tion of six ex­ten­sive ex­ca­va­tions. There are en­closed a few hous­es and slave-​huts, with lit­tle court­yards and small gar­dens, care­ful­ly cul­ti­vat­ed with onions, pota­toes, cu­cum­bers, pump­kins, and mush­rooms, of per­fect fla­vor, grow­ing most lux­uri­ant­ly.

The Un­yamwezy is the coun­try of the Moon–above all the rest, the fer­tile and mag­nif­icent gar­den-​spot of Africa. In its cen­tre is the dis­trict of Un­yanem­be–a de­li­cious re­gion, where some fam­ilies of Omani, who are of very pure Ara­bic ori­gin, live in lux­uri­ous idle­ness.

They have, for a long pe­ri­od, held the com­merce be­tween the in­te­ri­or of Africa and Ara­bia: they trade in gums, ivory, fine muslin, and slaves. Their car­avans tra­verse these equa­to­ri­al re­gions on all sides; and they even make their way to the coast in search of those ar­ti­cles of lux­ury and en­joy­ment which the wealthy mer­chants cov­et; while the lat­ter, sur­round­ed by their wives and their at­ten­dants, lead in this charm­ing coun­try the least dis­turbed and most hor­izon­tal of lives–al­ways stretched at full length, laugh­ing, smok­ing, or sleep­ing.

Around these ex­ca­va­tions are nu­mer­ous na­tive dwellings; wide, open spaces for the mar­kets; fields of cannabis and datu­ra; su­perb trees and depths of fresh­est shade–such is Kazeh!

There, too, is held the gen­er­al ren­dezvous of the car­avans –those of the south, with their slaves and their freigh­tage of ivory; and those of the west, which ex­port cot­ton, glass­ware, and trin­kets, to the tribes of the great lakes.

So in the mar­ket-​place there reigns per­pet­ual ex­cite­ment, a name­less hub­bub, made up of the cries of mixed-​breed porters and car­ri­ers, the beat­ing of drums, and the twang­ing of horns, the neigh­ing of mules, the bray­ing of don­keys, the singing of wom­en, the squalling of chil­dren, and the bang­ing of the huge rat­tan, wield­ed by the je­madar or lead­er of the car­avans, who beats time to this pas­toral sym­pho­ny.

There, spread forth, with­out re­gard to or­der–in­deed, we may say, in charm­ing dis­or­der–are the showy stuffs, the glass beads, the ivory tusks, the rhinoceros’-teeth, the shark’s-​teeth, the hon­ey, the to­bac­co, and the cot­ton of these re­gions, to be pur­chased at the strangest of bar­gains by cus­tomers in whose eyes each ar­ti­cle has a price on­ly in pro­por­tion to the de­sire it ex­cites to pos­sess it.

All at once this ag­ita­tion, move­ment and noise stopped as though by mag­ic. The bal­loon had just come in sight, far aloft in the sky, where it hov­ered ma­jes­ti­cal­ly for a few mo­ments, and then de­scend­ed slow­ly, with­out de­vi­at­ing from its per­pen­dic­ular. Men, wom­en, chil­dren, mer­chants and slaves, Arabs and ne­groes, as sud­den­ly dis­ap­peared with­in the “tem­bes” and the huts.

“My dear doc­tor,” said Kennedy, “if we con­tin­ue to pro­duce such a sen­sa­tion as this, we shall find some dif­fi­cul­ty in es­tab­lish­ing com­mer­cial re­la­tions with the peo­ple here­abouts.”

“There’s one kind of trade that we might car­ry on, though, eas­ily enough,” said Joe; “and that would be to go down there qui­et­ly, and walk off with the best of the goods, with­out trou­bling our heads about the mer­chants; we’d get rich that way!”

“Ah!” said the doc­tor, “these na­tives are a lit­tle scared at first; but they won’t be long in com­ing back, ei­ther through sus­pi­cion or through cu­rios­ity.”

“Do you re­al­ly think so, doc­tor?”

“Well, we’ll see pret­ty soon. But it wouldn’t be pru­dent to go too near to them, for the bal­loon is not iron-​clad, and is, there­fore, not proof against ei­ther an ar­row or a bul­let.”

“Then you ex­pect to hold a par­ley with these blacks?”

“If we can do so safe­ly, why should we not? There must be some Arab mer­chants here at Kazeh, who are bet­ter in­formed than the rest, and not so bar­barous. I re­mem­ber that Bur­ton and Speke had noth­ing but prais­es to ut­ter con­cern­ing the hos­pi­tal­ity of these peo­ple; so we might, at least, make the ven­ture.”

The bal­loon hav­ing, mean­while, grad­ual­ly ap­proached the ground, one of the an­chors lodged in the top of a tree near the mar­ket-​place.

By this time the whole pop­ula­tion had emerged from their hid­ing-​places stealthi­ly, thrust­ing their heads out first. Sev­er­al “wa­gan­ga,” rec­og­niz­able by their badges of con­ical shell­work, came bold­ly for­ward. They were the sor­cer­ers of the place. They bore in their gir­dles small gourds, coat­ed with tal­low, and sev­er­al oth­er ar­ti­cles of witchcraft, all of them, by-​the-​way, most pro­fes­sion­al­ly filthy.

Lit­tle by lit­tle the crowd gath­ered be­side them, the wom­en and chil­dren grouped around them, the drums re­newed their deaf­en­ing up­roar, hands were vi­olent­ly clapped to­geth­er, and then raised to­ward the sky.

“That’s their style of pray­ing,” said the doc­tor; “and, if I’m not mis­tak­en, we’re go­ing to be called up­on to play a great part.”

“Well, sir, play it!”

“You, too, my good Joe–per­haps you’re to be a god!”

“Well, mas­ter, that won’t trou­ble me much. I like a lit­tle flat­tery!”

At this mo­ment, one of the sor­cer­ers, a “myan­ga,” made a sign, and all the clam­or died away in­to the pro­found­est si­lence. He then ad­dressed a few words to the strangers, but in an un­known tongue.

Dr. Fer­gu­son, not hav­ing un­der­stood them, shout­ed some sen­tences in Ara­bic, at a ven­ture, and was im­me­di­ate­ly an­swered in that lan­guage.

The speak­er be­low then de­liv­ered him­self of a very co­pi­ous ha­rangue, which was al­so very flow­ery and very grave­ly lis­tened to by his au­di­ence. From it the doc­tor was not slow in learn­ing that the bal­loon was mis­tak­en for noth­ing less than the moon in per­son, and that the ami­able god­dess in ques­tion had con­de­scend­ed to ap­proach the town with her three sons–an hon­or that would nev­er be for­got­ten in this land so great­ly loved by the god of day.

The doc­tor re­spond­ed, with much dig­ni­ty, that the moon made her provin­cial tour ev­ery thou­sand years, feel­ing the ne­ces­si­ty of show­ing her­self near­er at hand to her wor­ship­pers. He, there­fore, begged them not to be dis­turbed by her pres­ence, but to take ad­van­tage of it to make known all their wants and long­ings.

The sor­cer­er, in his turn, replied that the sul­tan, the “mwani,” who had been sick for many years, im­plored the aid of heav­en, and he in­vit­ed the son of the moon to vis­it him.

The doc­tor ac­quaint­ed his com­pan­ions with the in­vi­ta­tion.

“And you are go­ing to call up­on this ne­gro king?” asked Kennedy.

“Un­doubt­ed­ly so; these peo­ple ap­pear well dis­posed; the air is calm; there is not a breath of wind, and we have noth­ing to fear for the bal­loon?”

“But, what will you do?”

“Be qui­et on that score, my dear Dick. With a lit­tle medicine, I shall work my way through the af­fair!”

Then, ad­dress­ing the crowd, he said:

“The moon, tak­ing com­pas­sion on the sovereign who is so dear to the chil­dren of Un­yamwezy, has charged us to re­store him to health. Let him pre­pare to re­ceive us!”

The clam­or, the songs and demon­stra­tions of all kinds in­creased twofold, and the whole im­mense ants’ nest of black heads was again in mo­tion.

“Now, my friends,” said Dr. Fer­gu­son, “we must look out for ev­ery thing be­fore­hand; we may be forced to leave this at any mo­ment, un­ex­pect­ed­ly, and be off with ex­tra speed. Dick had bet­ter re­main, there­fore, in the car, and keep the cylin­der warm so as to se­cure a suf­fi­cient as­cen­sion­al force for the bal­loon. The an­chor is solid­ly fas­tened, and there is noth­ing to fear in that re­spect. I shall de­scend, and Joe will go with me, on­ly that he must re­main at the foot of the lad­der.”

“What! are you go­ing alone in­to that black­amoor’s den?”

“How! doc­tor, am I not to go with you?”

“No! I shall go alone; these good folks imag­ine that the god­dess of the moon has come to see them, and their su­per­sti­tion pro­tects me; so have no fear, and each one re­main at the post that I have as­signed to him.”

“Well, since you wish it,” sighed Kennedy.

“Look close­ly to the di­la­tion of the gas.”

“Agreed!”

By this time the shouts of the na­tives had swelled to dou­ble vol­ume as they ve­he­ment­ly im­plored the aid of the heav­en­ly pow­ers.

“There, there,” said Joe, “they’re rather rough in their or­ders to their good moon and her di­vine sons.”

The doc­tor, equipped with his trav­el­ling medicine-​chest, de­scend­ed to the ground, pre­ced­ed by Joe, who kept a straight coun­te­nance and looked as grave and know­ing as the cir­cum­stances of the case re­quired. He then seat­ed him­self at the foot of the lad­der in the Arab fash­ion, with his legs crossed un­der him, and a por­tion of the crowd col­lect­ed around him in a cir­cle, at re­spect­ful dis­tances.

In the mean­while the doc­tor, es­cort­ed to the sound of sav­age in­stru­ments, and with wild re­li­gious dances, slow­ly pro­ceed­ed to­ward the roy­al “tem­be,” sit­uat­ed a con­sid­er­able dis­tance out­side of the town. It was about three o’clock, and the sun was shin­ing bril­liant­ly. In fact, what less could it do up­on so grand an oc­ca­sion!

The doc­tor stepped along with great dig­ni­ty, the wa­gan­ga sur­round­ing him and keep­ing off the crowd. He was soon joined by the nat­ural son of the sul­tan, a hand­some­ly-​built young fel­low, who, ac­cord­ing to the cus­tom of the coun­try, was the sole heir of the pa­ter­nal goods, to the ex­clu­sion of the old man’s le­git­imate chil­dren. He pros­trat­ed him­self be­fore the son of the moon, but the lat­ter gra­cious­ly raised him to his feet.

Three-​quar­ters of an hour lat­er, through shady paths, sur­round­ed by all the lux­uri­ance of trop­ical veg­eta­tion, this en­thu­si­as­tic pro­ces­sion ar­rived at the sul­tan’s palace, a sort of square ed­ifice called ititenya, and sit­uat­ed on the slope of a hill.

A kind of ve­ran­da, formed by the thatched roof, adorned the out­side, sup­port­ed up­on wood­en pil­lars, which had some pre­ten­sions to be­ing carved. Long lines of dark-​red clay dec­orat­ed the walls in char­ac­ters that strove to re­pro­duce the forms of men and ser­pents, the lat­ter bet­ter im­itat­ed, of course, than the for­mer. The roof­ing of this abode did not rest di­rect­ly up­on the walls, and the air could, there­fore, cir­cu­late freely, but win­dows there were none, and the door hard­ly de­served the name.

Dr. Fer­gu­son was re­ceived with all the hon­ors by the guards and fa­vorites of the sul­tan; these were men of a fine race, the Wanyamwezi so-​called, a pure type of the cen­tral African pop­ula­tions, strong, ro­bust, well-​made, and in splen­did con­di­tion. Their hair, di­vid­ed in­to a great num­ber of small tress­es, fell over their shoul­ders, and by means of black-​and-​blue in­ci­sions they had tat­tooed their cheeks from the tem­ples to the mouth. Their ears, fright­ful­ly dis­tend­ed, held dan­gling to them disks of wood and plates of gum co­pal. They were clad in bril­liant­ly-​paint­ed cloths, and the sol­diers were armed with the saw-​toothed war-​club, the bow and ar­rows barbed and poi­soned with the juice of the eu­phor­bium, the cut­lass, the “sima,” a long sabre (al­so with saw-​like teeth), and some small bat­tle-​ax­es.

The doc­tor ad­vanced in­to the palace, and there, notwith­stand­ing the sul­tan’s ill­ness, the din, which was ter­rif­ic be­fore, re­dou­bled the in­stant that he ar­rived. He no­ticed, at the lin­tels of the door, some rab­bits’ tails and ze­bras’ manes, sus­pend­ed as tal­is­mans. He was re­ceived by the whole troop of his majesty’s wives, to the har­mo­nious ac­cords of the “up­atu,” a sort of cym­bal made of the bot­tom of a cop­per ket­tle, and to the up­roar of the “kilin­do,” a drum five feet high, hol­lowed out from the trunk of a tree, and ham­mered by the pon­der­ous, horny fists of two jet-​black vir­tu­osi.

Most of the wom­en were rather good-​look­ing, and they laughed and chat­tered mer­ri­ly as they smoked their to­bac­co and “thang” in huge black pipes. They seemed to be well made, too, un­der the long robes that they wore grace­ful­ly flung about their per­sons, and car­ried a sort of “kilt” wo­ven from the fi­bres of cal­abash fas­tened around their gir­dles.

Six of them were not the least mer­ry of the par­ty, al­though put aside from the rest, and re­served for a cru­el fate. On the death of the sul­tan, they were to be buried alive with him, so as to oc­cu­py and di­vert his mind dur­ing the pe­ri­od of eter­nal soli­tude.

Dr. Fer­gu­son, tak­ing in the whole scene at a rapid glance, ap­proached the wood­en couch on which the sul­tan lay re­clin­ing. There he saw a man of about forty, com­plete­ly bru­tal­ized by or­gies of ev­ery de­scrip­tion, and in a con­di­tion that left lit­tle or noth­ing to be done. The sick­ness that had af­flict­ed him for so many years was sim­ply per­pet­ual drunk­en­ness. The roy­al sot had near­ly lost all con­scious­ness, and all the am­mo­nia in the world would not have set him on his feet again.

His fa­vorites and the wom­en kept on bend­ed knees dur­ing this solemn vis­it. By means of a few drops of pow­er­ful cor­dial, the doc­tor for a mo­ment re­an­imat­ed the im­brut­ed car­cass that lay be­fore him. The sul­tan stirred, and, for a dead body that had giv­en no sign what­ev­er of life for sev­er­al hours pre­vi­ous­ly, this symp­tom was re­ceived with a tremen­dous rep­eti­tion of shouts and cries in the doc­tor’s hon­or.

The lat­ter, who had seen enough of it by this time, by a rapid mo­tion put aside his too demon­stra­tive ad­mir­ers and went out of the palace, di­rect­ing his steps im­me­di­ate­ly to­ward the bal­loon, for it was now six o’clock in the evening.

Joe, dur­ing his ab­sence, had been qui­et­ly wait­ing at the foot of the lad­der, where the crowd paid him their most hum­ble re­spects. Like a gen­uine son of the moon, he let them keep on. For a di­vin­ity, he had the air of a very clever sort of fel­low, by no means proud, nay, even pleas­ing­ly fa­mil­iar with the young ne­gress­es, who seemed nev­er to tire of look­ing at him. Be­sides, he went so far as to chat agree­ably with them.

“Wor­ship me, ladies! wor­ship me!” he said to them. “I’m a clever sort of dev­il, if I am the son of a god­dess.”

They brought him pro­pi­tia­to­ry gifts, such as are usu­al­ly de­posit­ed in the fetich huts or mz­imu. These gifts con­sist­ed of stalks of bar­ley and of “pombe.” Joe con­sid­ered him­self in du­ty bound to taste the lat­ter species of strong beer, but his palate, al­though ac­cus­tomed to gin and whiskey, could not with­stand the strength of the new bev­er­age, and he had to make a hor­ri­ble gri­mace, which his dusky friends took to be a benev­olent smile.

There­upon, the young damsels, con­join­ing their voic­es in a drawl­ing chant, be­gan to dance around him with the ut­most grav­ity.

“Ah! you’re danc­ing, are you?” said he. “Well, I won’t be be­hind you in po­lite­ness, and so I’ll give you one of my coun­try reels.”

So at it he went, in one of the wildest jigs that ev­er was seen, twist­ing, turn­ing, and jerk­ing him­self in all di­rec­tions; danc­ing with his hands, danc­ing with his body, danc­ing with his knees, danc­ing with his feet; de­scrib­ing the most fear­ful con­tor­tions and ex­trav­agant evo­lu­tions; throw­ing him­self in­to in­cred­ible at­ti­tudes; gri­mac­ing be­yond all be­lief, and, in fine giv­ing his sav­age ad­mir­ers a strange idea of the style of bal­let adopt­ed by the deities in the moon.

Then, the whole col­lec­tion of blacks, nat­ural­ly as im­ita­tive as mon­keys, at once re­pro­duced all his airs and graces, his leaps and shakes and con­tor­tions; they did not lose a sin­gle ges­tic­ula­tion; they did not for­get an at­ti­tude; and the re­sult was, such a pan­de­mo­ni­um of move­ment, noise, and ex­cite­ment, as it would be out of the ques­tion even fee­bly to de­scribe. But, in the very midst of the fun, Joe saw the doc­tor ap­proach­ing.

The lat­ter was com­ing at full speed, sur­round­ed by a yelling and dis­or­der­ly throng. The chiefs and sor­cer­ers seemed to be high­ly ex­cit­ed. They were close up­on the doc­tor’s heels, crowd­ing and threat­en­ing him.

Sin­gu­lar re­ac­tion! What had hap­pened? Had the sul­tan un­luck­ily per­ished in the hands of his ce­les­tial physi­cian?

Kennedy, from his post of ob­ser­va­tion, saw the dan­ger with­out know­ing what had caused it, and the bal­loon, pow­er­ful­ly urged by the di­la­tion of the gas, strained and tugged at the ropes that held it as though im­pa­tient to soar away.

The doc­tor had got as far as the foot of the lad­der. A su­per­sti­tious fear still held the crowd aloof and hin­dered them from com­mit­ting any vi­olence on his per­son. He rapid­ly scaled the lad­der, and Joe fol­lowed him with his usu­al agili­ty.

“Not a mo­ment to lose!” said the doc­tor. “Don’t at­tempt to let go the an­chor! We’ll cut the cord! Fol­low me!”

“But what’s the mat­ter?” asked Joe, clam­ber­ing in­to the car.

“What’s hap­pened?” ques­tioned Kennedy, ri­fle in hand.

“Look!” replied the doc­tor, point­ing to the hori­zon.

“Well?” ejac­ulat­ed the Scot.

“Well! the moon!”

And, in fact, there was the moon ris­ing red and mag­nif­icent, a globe of fire in a field of blue! It was she, in­deed–she and the bal­loon!–both in one sky!

Ei­ther there were two moons, then, or these strangers were im­posters, de­sign­ing scamps, false deities!

Such were the very nat­ural re­flec­tions of the crowd, and hence the re­ac­tion in their feel­ings.

Joe could not, for the life of him, keep in a roar of laugh­ter; and the pop­ula­tion of Kazeh, com­pre­hend­ing that their prey was slip­ping through their clutch­es, set up pro­longed howl­ings, aim­ing, the while, their bows and mus­kets at the bal­loon.

But one of the sor­cer­ers made a sign, and all the weapons were low­ered. He then be­gan to climb in­to the tree, in­tend­ing to seize the rope and bring the ma­chine to the ground.

Joe leaned out with a hatch­et ready. “Shall I cut away?” said he.

“No; wait a mo­ment,” replied the doc­tor.

“But this black?”

“We may, per­haps, save our an­chor–and I hold a great deal by that. There’ll al­ways be time enough to cut loose.”

The sor­cer­er, hav­ing climbed to the right place, worked so vig­or­ous­ly that he suc­ceed­ed in de­tach­ing the an­chor, and the lat­ter, vi­olent­ly jerked, at that mo­ment, by the start of the bal­loon, caught the ras­cal be­tween the limbs, and car­ried him off astride of it through the air.

The stu­pe­fac­tion of the crowd was in­de­scrib­able as they saw one of their wa­gan­ga thus whirled away in­to space.

“Huz­za!” roared Joe, as the bal­loon–thanks to its as­cen­sion­al force–shot up high­er in­to the sky, with in­creased ra­pid­ity.

“He holds on well,” said Kennedy; “a lit­tle trip will do him good.”

“Shall we let this darky drop all at once?” in­quired Joe.

“Oh no,” replied the doc­tor, “we’ll let him down eas­ily; and I war­rant me that, af­ter such an ad­ven­ture, the pow­er of the wiz­ard will be enor­mous­ly en­hanced in the sight of his com­rades.”

“Why, I wouldn’t put it past them to make a god of him!” said Joe, with a laugh.

The Vic­to­ria, by this time, had risen to the height of one thou­sand feet, and the black hung to the rope with des­per­ate en­er­gy. He had be­come com­plete­ly silent, and his eyes were fixed, for his ter­ror was blend­ed with amaze­ment. A light west wind was sweep­ing the bal­loon right over the town, and far be­yond it.

Half an hour lat­er, the doc­tor, see­ing the coun­try de­sert­ed, mod­er­at­ed the flame of his cylin­der, and de­scend­ed to­ward the ground. At twen­ty feet above the turf, the af­fright­ed sor­cer­er made up his mind in a twin­kling: he let him­self drop, fell on his feet, and scam­pered off at a fu­ri­ous pace to­ward Kazeh; while the bal­loon, sud­den­ly re­lieved of his weight, again shot up on her course.