Five Weeks in a Balloon

CHAPTER SIXTEENTH.

Symp­toms of a Storm.–The Coun­try of the Moon.–The Fu­ture of the African Con­ti­nent.–The Last Ma­chine of all.–A View of the Coun­try at Sun­set.– Flo­ra and Fau­na.–The Tem­pest.–The Zone of Fire.–The Star­ry Heav­ens.

“See,” said Joe, “what comes of play­ing the sons of the moon with­out her leave! She came near serv­ing us an ug­ly trick. But say, mas­ter, did you dam­age your cred­it as a physi­cian?”

“Yes, in­deed,” chimed in the sports­man. “What kind of a dig­ni­tary was this Sul­tan of Kazeh?”

“An old half-​dead sot,” replied the doc­tor, “whose loss will not be very severe­ly felt. But the moral of all this is that hon­ors are fleet­ing, and we must not take too great a fan­cy to them.”

“So much the worse!” re­joined Joe. “I liked the thing–to be wor­shipped!–Play the god as you like! Why, what would any one ask more than that? By-​the-​way, the moon did come up, too, and all red, as if she was in a rage.”

While the three friends went on chat­ting of this and oth­er things, and Joe ex­am­ined the lu­mi­nary of night from an en­tire­ly nov­el point of view, the heav­ens be­came cov­ered with heavy clouds to the north­ward, and the low­er­ing mass­es as­sumed a most sin­is­ter and threat­en­ing look. Quite a smart breeze, found about three hun­dred feet from the earth, drove the bal­loon to­ward the north-​north­east; and above it the blue vault was clear; but the at­mo­sphere felt close and dull.

The aero­nauts found them­selves, at about eight in the evening, in thir­ty-​two de­grees forty min­utes east lon­gi­tude, and four de­grees sev­en­teen min­utes lat­itude. The at­mo­spher­ic cur­rents, un­der the in­flu­ence of a tem­pest not far off, were driv­ing them at the rate of from thir­ty to thir­ty-​five miles an hour; the un­du­lat­ing and fer­tile plains of Mfu­to were pass­ing swift­ly be­neath them. The spec­ta­cle was one wor­thy of ad­mi­ra­tion–and ad­mire it they did.

“We are now right in the coun­try of the Moon,” said Dr. Fer­gu­son; “for it has re­tained the name that an­tiq­ui­ty gave it, un­doubt­ed­ly, be­cause the moon has been wor­shipped there in all ages. It is, re­al­ly, a su­perb coun­try.”

“It would be hard to find more splen­did veg­eta­tion.”

“If we found the like of it around Lon­don it would not be nat­ural, but it would be very pleas­ant,” put in Joe. “Why is it that such sav­age coun­tries get all these fine things?”

“And who knows,” said the doc­tor, “that this coun­try may not, one day, be­come the cen­tre of civ­iliza­tion? The races of the fu­ture may re­pair hith­er, when Eu­rope shall have be­come ex­haust­ed in the ef­fort to feed her in­hab­itants.”

“Do you think so, re­al­ly?” asked Kennedy.

“Un­doubt­ed­ly, my dear Dick. Just note the progress of events: con­sid­er the mi­gra­tions of races, and you will ar­rive at the same con­clu­sion as­sured­ly. Asia was the first nurse of the world, was she not? For about four thou­sand years she tra­vailed, she grew preg­nant, she pro­duced, and then, when stones be­gan to cov­er the soil where the gold­en har­vests sung by Homer had flour­ished, her chil­dren aban­doned her ex­haust­ed and bar­ren bo­som. You next see them pre­cip­itat­ing them­selves up­on young and vig­or­ous Eu­rope, which has nour­ished them for the last two thou­sand years. But al­ready her fer­til­ity is be­gin­ning to die out; her pro­duc­tive pow­ers are di­min­ish­ing ev­ery day. Those new dis­eases that an­nu­al­ly at­tack the prod­ucts of the soil, those de­fec­tive crops, those in­suf­fi­cient re­sources, are all signs of a vi­tal­ity that is rapid­ly wear­ing out and of an ap­proach­ing ex­haus­tion. Thus, we al­ready see the mil­lions rush­ing to the lux­uri­ant bo­som of Amer­ica, as a source of help, not in­ex­haustible in­deed, but not yet ex­haust­ed. In its turn, that new con­ti­nent will grow old; its vir­gin forests will fall be­fore the axe of in­dus­try, and its soil will be­come weak through hav­ing too ful­ly pro­duced what had been de­mand­ed of it. Where two har­vests bloomed ev­ery year, hard­ly one will be gath­ered from a soil com­plete­ly drained of its strength. Then, Africa will be there to of­fer to new races the trea­sures that for cen­turies have been ac­cu­mu­lat­ing in her breast. Those cli­mates now so fa­tal to strangers will be pu­ri­fied by cul­ti­va­tion and by drainage of the soil, and those scat­tered wa­ter sup­plies will be gath­ered in­to one com­mon bed to form an artery of nav­iga­tion. Then this coun­try over which we are now pass­ing, more fer­tile, rich­er, and fuller of vi­tal­ity than the rest, will be­come some grand realm where more as­ton­ish­ing dis­cov­er­ies than steam and elec­tric­ity will be brought to light.”

“Ah! sir,” said Joe, “I’d like to see all that.”

“You got up too ear­ly in the morn­ing, my boy!”

“Be­sides,” said Kennedy, “that may prove to be a very dull pe­ri­od when in­dus­try will swal­low up ev­ery thing for its own prof­it. By dint of in­vent­ing ma­chin­ery, men will end in be­ing eat­en up by it! I have al­ways fan­cied that the end of the earth will be when some enor­mous boil­er, heat­ed to three thou­sand mil­lions of at­mo­spher­ic pres­sure, shall ex­plode and blow up our Globe!”

“And I add that the Amer­icans,” said Joe, “will not have been the last to work at the ma­chine!”

“In fact,” as­sent­ed the doc­tor, “they are great boil­er-​mak­ers! But, with­out al­low­ing our­selves to be car­ried away by such spec­ula­tions, let us rest con­tent with en­joy­ing the beau­ties of this coun­try of the Moon, since we have been per­mit­ted to see it.”

The sun, dart­ing his last rays be­neath the mass­es of heaped-​up cloud, adorned with a crest of gold the slight­est in­equal­ities of the ground be­low; gi­gan­tic trees, ar­bores­cent bush­es, moss­es on the even sur­face–all had their share of this lu­mi­nous ef­ful­gence. The soil, slight­ly un­du­lat­ing, here and there rose in­to lit­tle con­ical hills; there were no moun­tains vis­ible on the hori­zon; im­mense bram­bly pal­isades, im­pen­etra­ble hedges of thorny jun­gle, sep­arat­ed the clear­ings dot­ted with nu­mer­ous vil­lages, and im­mense eu­phor­biae sur­round­ed them with nat­ural for­ti­fi­ca­tions, in­ter­lac­ing their trunks with the coral-​shaped branch­es of the shrub­bery and un­der­growth.

Ere long, the Malagaz­eri, the chief trib­utary of Lake Tan­ganayi­ka, was seen wind­ing be­tween heavy thick­ets of ver­dure, of­fer­ing an asy­lum to many wa­ter-​cours­es that spring from the tor­rents formed in the sea­son of freshets, or from ponds hol­lowed in the clayey soil. To ob­servers look­ing from a height, it was a chain of wa­ter­falls thrown across the whole west­ern face of the coun­try.

An­imals with huge humps were feed­ing in the lux­uri­ant prairies, and were half hid­den, some­times, in the tall grass; spread­ing forests in bloom redo­lent of spicy per­fumes pre­sent­ed them­selves to the gaze like im­mense bou­quets; but, in these bou­quets, li­ons, leop­ards, hye­nas, and tigers, were then crouch­ing for shel­ter from the last hot rays of the set­ting sun. From time to time, an ele­phant made the tall tops of the un­der­growth sway to and fro, and you could hear the crack­ling of huge branch­es as his pon­der­ous ivory tusks broke them in his way.

“What a sport­ing coun­try!” ex­claimed Dick, un­able longer to re­strain his en­thu­si­asm; “why, a sin­gle ball fired at ran­dom in­to those forests would bring down game wor­thy of it. Sup­pose we try it once!”

“No, my dear Dick; the night is close at hand–a threat­en­ing night with a tem­pest in the back­ground–and the storms are aw­ful in this coun­try, where the heat­ed soil is like one vast elec­tric bat­tery.”

“You are right, sir,” said Joe, “the heat has got to be enough to choke one, and the breeze has died away. One can feel that some­thing’s com­ing.”

“The at­mo­sphere is sat­urat­ed with elec­tric­ity,” replied the doc­tor; “ev­ery liv­ing crea­ture is sen­si­ble that this state of the air por­tends a strug­gle of the el­ements, and I con­fess that I nev­er be­fore was so full of the flu­id my­self.”

“Well, then,” sug­gest­ed Dick, “would it not be ad­vis­able to alight?”

“On the con­trary, Dick, I’d rather go up, on­ly that I am afraid of be­ing car­ried out of my course by these counter-​cur­rents con­tend­ing in the at­mo­sphere.”

“Have you any idea, then, of aban­don­ing the route that we have fol­lowed since we left the coast?”

“If I can man­age to do so,” replied the doc­tor, “I will turn more di­rect­ly north­ward, by from sev­en to eight de­grees; I shall then en­deav­or to as­cend to­ward the pre­sumed lat­itudes of the sources of the Nile; per­haps we may dis­cov­er some traces of Cap­tain Speke’s ex­pe­di­tion or of M. de Heuglin’s car­avan. Un­less I am mis­tak­en, we are at thir­ty-​two de­grees forty min­utes east lon­gi­tude, and I should like to as­cend di­rect­ly north of the equa­tor.”

“Look there!” ex­claimed Kennedy, sud­den­ly, “see those hip­popota­mi slid­ing out of the pools–those mass­es of blood-​col­ored flesh–and those crocodiles snuff­ing the air aloud!”

“They’re chok­ing!” ejac­ulat­ed Joe. “Ah! what a fine way to trav­el this is; and how one can snap his fin­gers at all that ver­min!–Doc­tor! Mr. Kennedy! see those packs of wild an­imals hur­ry­ing along close to­geth­er. There are ful­ly two hun­dred. Those are wolves.”

“No! Joe, not wolves, but wild dogs; a fa­mous breed that does not hes­itate to at­tack the li­on him­self. They are the worst cus­tomers a trav­eller could meet, for they would in­stant­ly tear him to pieces.”

“Well, it isn’t Joe that’ll un­der­take to muz­zle them!” re­spond­ed that ami­able youth. “Af­ter all, though, if that’s the na­ture of the beast, we mustn’t be too hard on them for it!”

Si­lence grad­ual­ly set­tled down un­der the in­flu­ence of the im­pend­ing storm: the thick­ened air ac­tu­al­ly seemed no longer adapt­ed to the trans­mis­sion of sound; the at­mo­sphere ap­peared MUF­FLED, and, like a room hung with tapestry, lost all its sonorous re­ver­ber­ation. The “rover bird” so-​called, the coro­net­ed crane, the red and blue jays, the mock­ing-​bird, the fly­catch­er, dis­ap­peared among the fo­liage of the im­mense trees, and all na­ture re­vealed symp­toms of some ap­proach­ing catas­tro­phe.

At nine o’clock the Vic­to­ria hung mo­tion­less over Msene, an ex­ten­sive group of vil­lages scarce­ly dis­tin­guish­able in the gloom. Once in a while, the re­flec­tion of a wan­der­ing ray of light in the dull wa­ter dis­closed a suc­ces­sion of ditch­es reg­ular­ly ar­ranged, and, by one last gleam, the eye could make out the calm and som­bre forms of palm-​trees, sycamores, and gi­gan­tic eu­phor­biae.

“I am sti­fling!” said the Scot, in­hal­ing, with all the pow­er of his lungs, as much as pos­si­ble of the rar­efied air. “We are not mov­ing an inch! Let us de­scend!”

“But the tem­pest!” said the doc­tor, with much un­easi­ness.

“If you are afraid of be­ing car­ried away by the wind, it seems to me that there is no oth­er course to pur­sue.”

“Per­haps the storm won’t burst to-​night,” said Joe; “the clouds are very high.”

“That is just the thing that makes me hes­itate about go­ing be­yond them; we should have to rise still high­er, lose sight of the earth, and not know all night whether we were mov­ing for­ward or not, or in what di­rec­tion we were go­ing.”

“Make up your mind, dear doc­tor, for time press­es!”

“It’s a pity that the wind has fall­en,” said Joe, again; “it would have car­ried us clear of the storm.”

“It is, in­deed, a pity, my friends,” re­joined the doc­tor. “The clouds are dan­ger­ous for us; they con­tain op­pos­ing cur­rents which might catch us in their ed­dies, and light­nings that might set on fire. Again, those per­ils avoid­ed, the force of the tem­pest might hurl us to the ground, were we to cast our an­chor in the tree-​tops.”

“Then what shall we do?”

“Well, we must try to get the bal­loon in­to a medi­um zone of the at­mo­sphere, and there keep her sus­pend­ed be­tween the per­ils of the heav­ens and those of the earth. We have enough wa­ter for the cylin­der, and our two hun­dred pounds of bal­last are un­touched. In case of emer­gen­cy I can use them.”

“We will keep watch with you,” said the hunter.

“No, my friends, put the pro­vi­sions un­der shel­ter, and lie down; I will rouse you, if it be­comes nec­es­sary.”

“But, mas­ter, wouldn’t you do well to take some rest your­self, as there’s no dan­ger close on us just now?” in­sist­ed poor Joe.

“No, thank you, my good fel­low, I pre­fer to keep awake. We are not mov­ing, and should cir­cum­stances not change, we’ll find our­selves to-​mor­row in ex­act­ly the same place.”

“Good-​night, then, sir!”

“Good-​night, if you can on­ly find it so!”

Kennedy and Joe stretched them­selves out un­der their blan­kets, and the doc­tor re­mained alone in the im­men­si­ty of space.

How­ev­er, the huge dome of clouds vis­ibly de­scend­ed, and the dark­ness be­came pro­found. The black vault closed in up­on the earth as if to crush it in its em­brace.

All at once a vi­olent, rapid, in­ci­sive flash of light­ning pierced the gloom, and the rent it made had not closed ere a fright­ful clap of thun­der shook the ce­les­tial depths.

“Up! up! turn out!” shout­ed Fer­gu­son.

The two sleep­ers, aroused by the ter­ri­ble con­cus­sion, were at the doc­tor’s or­ders in a mo­ment.

“Shall we de­scend?” said Kennedy.

“No! the bal­loon could not stand it. Let us go up be­fore those clouds dis­solve in wa­ter, and the wind is let loose!” and, so say­ing, the doc­tor ac­tive­ly stirred up the flame of the cylin­der, and turned it on the spi­rals of the ser­pen­tine siphon.

The tem­pests of the trop­ics de­vel­op with a ra­pid­ity equalled on­ly by their vi­olence. A sec­ond flash of light­ning rent the dark­ness, and was fol­lowed by a score of oth­ers in quick suc­ces­sion. The sky was crossed and dot­ted, like the ze­bra’s hide, with elec­tric sparks, which danced and flick­ered be­neath the great drops of rain.

“We have de­layed too long,” ex­claimed the doc­tor; “we must now pass through a zone of fire, with our bal­loon filled as it is with in­flammable gas!”

“But let us de­scend, then! let us de­scend!” urged Kennedy.

“The risk of be­ing struck would be just about even, and we should soon be torn to pieces by the branch­es of the trees!”

“We are go­ing up, doc­tor!”

“Quick­er, quick­er still!”

In this part of Africa, dur­ing the equa­to­ri­al storms, it is not rare to count from thir­ty to thir­ty-​five flash­es of light­ning per minute. The sky is lit­er­al­ly on fire, and the crash­es of thun­der are con­tin­uous.

The wind burst forth with fright­ful vi­olence in this burn­ing at­mo­sphere; it twist­ed the blaz­ing clouds; one might have com­pared it to the breath of some gi­gan­tic bel­lows, fan­ning all this con­fla­gra­tion.

Dr. Fer­gu­son kept his cylin­der at full heat, and the bal­loon di­lat­ed and went up, while Kennedy, on his knees, held to­geth­er the cur­tains of the awning. The bal­loon whirled round wild­ly enough to make their heads turn, and the aero­nauts got some very alarm­ing jolts, in­deed, as their ma­chine swung and swayed in all di­rec­tions. Huge cav­ities would form in the silk of the bal­loon as the wind fierce­ly bent it in, and the stuff fair­ly cracked like a pis­tol as it flew back from the pres­sure. A sort of hail, pre­ced­ed by a rum­bling noise, hissed through the air and rat­tled on the cov­er­ing of the Vic­to­ria. The lat­ter, how­ev­er, con­tin­ued to as­cend, while the light­ning de­scribed tan­gents to the con­vex­ity of her cir­cum­fer­ence; but she bore on, right through the midst of the fire.

“God pro­tect us!” said Dr. Fer­gu­son, solemn­ly, “we are in His hands; He alone can save us–but let us be ready for ev­ery event, even for fire–our fall could not be very rapid.”

The doc­tor’s voice could scarce­ly be heard by his com­pan­ions; but they could see his coun­te­nance calm as ev­er even amid the flash­ing of the light­nings; he was watch­ing the phe­nom­ena of phos­pho­res­cence pro­duced by the fires of St. El­mo, that were now skip­ping to and fro along the net­work of the bal­loon.

The lat­ter whirled and swung, but steadi­ly as­cend­ed, and, ere the hour was over, it had passed the stormy belt. The elec­tric dis­play was go­ing on be­low it like a vast crown of ar­ti­fi­cial fire­works sus­pend­ed from the car.

Then they en­joyed one of the grand­est spec­ta­cles that Na­ture can of­fer to the gaze of man. Be­low them, the tem­pest; above them, the star­ry fir­ma­ment, tran­quil, mute, im­pas­si­ble, with the moon pro­ject­ing her peace­ful rays over these an­gry clouds.

Dr. Fer­gu­son con­sult­ed the barom­eter; it an­nounced twelve thou­sand feet of el­eva­tion. It was then eleven o’clock at night.

“Thank Heav­en, all dan­ger is past; all we have to do now, is, to keep our­selves at this height,” said the doc­tor.

“It was fright­ful!” re­marked Kennedy.

“Oh!” said Joe, “it gives a lit­tle va­ri­ety to the trip, and I’m not sor­ry to have seen a storm from a tri­fling dis­tance up in the air. It’s a fine sight!”