Five Weeks in a Balloon

CHAPTER SEVENTEENTH.

The Moun­tains of the Moon.–An Ocean of Ver­dure.–They cast An­chor.–The Tow­ing Ele­phant.–A Run­ning Fire.–Death of the Mon­ster.–The Field-​Oven.–A Meal on the Grass.–A Night on the Ground.

About four in the morn­ing, Mon­day, the sun reap­peared in the hori­zon; the clouds had dis­persed, and a cheery breeze re­freshed the morn­ing dawn.

The earth, all redo­lent with fra­grant ex­ha­la­tions, reap­peared to the gaze of our trav­ellers. The bal­loon, whirled about by op­pos­ing cur­rents, had hard­ly budged from its place, and the doc­tor, let­ting the gas con­tract, de­scend­ed so as to get a more norther­ly di­rec­tion. For a long while his quest was fruit­less; the wind car­ried him to­ward the west un­til he came in sight of the fa­mous Moun­tains of the Moon, which grouped them­selves in a semi­cir­cle around the ex­trem­ity of Lake Tan­ganayi­ka; their ridges, but slight­ly in­dent­ed, stood out against the bluish hori­zon, so that they might have been mis­tak­en for a nat­ural for­ti­fi­ca­tion, not to be passed by the ex­plor­ers of the cen­tre of Africa. Among them were a few iso­lat­ed cones, re­veal­ing the mark of the eter­nal snows.

“Here we are at last,” said the doc­tor, “in an un­ex­plored coun­try! Cap­tain Bur­ton pushed very far to the west­ward, but he could not reach those cel­ebrat­ed moun­tains; he even de­nied their ex­is­tence, strong­ly as it was af­firmed by Speke, his com­pan­ion. He pre­tend­ed that they were born in the lat­ter’s fan­cy; but for us, my friends, there is no fur­ther doubt pos­si­ble.”

“Shall we cross them?” asked Kennedy.

“Not, if it please God. I am look­ing for a wind that will take me back to­ward the equa­tor. I will even wait for one, if nec­es­sary, and will make the bal­loon like a ship that casts an­chor, un­til fa­vor­able breezes come up.”

But the fore­sight of the doc­tor was not long in bring­ing its re­ward; for, af­ter hav­ing tried dif­fer­ent heights, the Vic­to­ria at length be­gan to sail off to the north­east­ward with medi­um speed.

“We are in the right track,” said the doc­tor, con­sult­ing his com­pass, “and scarce­ly two hun­dred feet from the sur­face; lucky cir­cum­stances for us, en­abling us, as they do, to re­con­noitre these new re­gions. When Cap­tain Speke set out to dis­cov­er Lake Uk­ere­oue, he as­cend­ed more to the east­ward in a straight line above Kazeh.”

“Shall we keep on long in this way?” in­quired the Scot.

“Per­haps. Our ob­ject is to push a point in the di­rec­tion of the sources of the Nile; and we have more than six hun­dred miles to make be­fore we get to the ex­treme lim­it reached by the ex­plor­ers who came from the north.”

“And we shan’t set foot on the sol­id ground?” mur­mured Joe; “it’s enough to cramp a fel­low’s legs!”

“Oh, yes, in­deed, my good Joe,” said the doc­tor, re­as­sur­ing him; “we have to econ­omize our pro­vi­sions, you know; and on the way, Dick, you must get us some fresh meat.”

“When­ev­er you like, doc­tor.”

“We shall al­so have to re­plen­ish our stock of wa­ter. Who knows but we may be car­ried to some of the dried-​up re­gions? So we can­not take too many pre­cau­tions.”

At noon the Vic­to­ria was at twen­ty-​nine de­grees fif­teen min­utes east lon­gi­tude, and three de­grees fif­teen min­utes south lat­itude. She passed the vil­lage of Uy­ofu, the last north­ern lim­it of the Un­yamwezi, op­po­site to the Lake Uk­ere­oue, which could still be seen.

The tribes liv­ing near to the equa­tor seem to be a lit­tle more civ­ilized, and are gov­erned by ab­so­lute monar­chs, whose con­trol is an un­lim­it­ed despo­tism. Their most com­pact union of pow­er con­sti­tutes the province of Karag­wah.

It was de­cid­ed by the aero­nauts that they would alight at the first fa­vor­able place. They found that they should have to make a pro­longed halt, and take a care­ful in­spec­tion of the bal­loon: so the flame of the cylin­der was mod­er­at­ed, and the an­chors, flung out from the car, ere long be­gan to sweep the grass of an im­mense prairie, that, from a cer­tain height, looked like a shaven lawn, but the growth of which, in re­al­ity, was from sev­en to eight feet in height.

The bal­loon skimmed this tall grass with­out bend­ing it, like a gi­gan­tic but­ter­fly: not an ob­sta­cle was in sight; it was an ocean of ver­dure with­out a sin­gle break­er.

“We might pro­ceed a long time in this style,” re­marked Kennedy; “I don’t see one tree that we could ap­proach, and I’m afraid that our hunt’s over.”

“Wait, Dick; you could not hunt any­how in this grass, that grows high­er than your head. We’ll find a fa­vor­able place present­ly.”

In truth, it was a charm­ing ex­cur­sion that they were mak­ing now–a ver­ita­ble nav­iga­tion on this green, al­most trans­par­ent sea, gen­tly un­du­lat­ing in the breath of the wind. The lit­tle car seemed to cleave the waves of ver­dure, and, from time to time, cov­eys of birds of mag­nif­icent plumage would rise flut­ter­ing from the tall herbage, and speed away with joy­ous cries. The an­chors plunged in­to this lake of flow­ers, and traced a fur­row that closed be­hind them, like the wake of a ship.

All at once a sharp shock was felt–the an­chor had caught in the fis­sure of some rock hid­den in the high grass.

“We are fast!” ex­claimed Joe.

These words had scarce­ly been ut­tered when a shrill cry rang through the air, and the fol­low­ing phras­es, min­gled with ex­cla­ma­tions, es­caped from the lips of our trav­ellers:

“What’s that?”

“A strange cry!”

“Look! Why, we’re mov­ing!”

“The an­chor has slipped!”

“No; it holds, and holds fast too!” said Joe, who was tug­ging at the rope.

“It’s the rock, then, that’s mov­ing!”

An im­mense rustling was no­ticed in the grass, and soon an elon­gat­ed, wind­ing shape was seen ris­ing above it.

“A ser­pent!” shout­ed Joe.

“A ser­pent!” re­peat­ed Kennedy, han­dling his ri­fle.

“No,” said the doc­tor, “it’s an ele­phant’s trunk!”

“An ele­phant, Samuel?”

And, as Kennedy said this, he drew his ri­fle to his shoul­der.

“Wait, Dick; wait!”

“That’s a fact! The an­imal’s tow­ing us!”

“And in the right di­rec­tion, Joe–in the right di­rec­tion.”

The ele­phant was now mak­ing some head­way, and soon reached a clear­ing where his whole body could be seen. By his gi­gan­tic size, the doc­tor rec­og­nized a male of a su­perb species. He had two whitish tusks, beau­ti­ful­ly curved, and about eight feet in length; and in these the shanks of the an­chor had firm­ly caught. The an­imal was vain­ly try­ing with his trunk to dis­en­gage him­self from the rope that at­tached him to the car.

“Get up–go ahead, old fel­low!” shout­ed Joe, with de­light, do­ing his best to urge this rather nov­el team. “Here is a new style of trav­el­ling!–no more hors­es for me. An ele­phant, if you please!”

“But where is he tak­ing us to?” said Kennedy, whose ri­fle itched in his grasp.

“He’s tak­ing us ex­act­ly to where we want to go, my dear Dick. A lit­tle pa­tience!”

“‘Wig-​a-​more! wig-​a-​more!’ as the Scotch coun­try folks say,” shout­ed Joe, in high glee. “Gee-​up! gee-​up there!”

The huge an­imal now broke in­to a very rapid gal­lop. He flung his trunk from side to side, and his mon­strous bounds gave the car sev­er­al rather heavy thumps. Mean­while the doc­tor stood ready, hatch­et in hand, to cut the rope, should need arise.

“But,” said he, “we shall not give up our an­chor un­til the last mo­ment.”

This drive, with an ele­phant for the team, last­ed about an hour and a half; yet the an­imal did not seem in the least fa­tigued. These im­mense crea­tures can go over a great deal of ground, and, from one day to an­oth­er, are found at enor­mous dis­tances from there they were last seen, like the whales, whose mass and speed they ri­val.

“In fact,” said Joe, “it’s a whale that we have har­pooned; and we’re on­ly do­ing just what whale­men do when out fish­ing.”

But a change in the na­ture of the ground com­pelled the doc­tor to vary his style of lo­co­mo­tion. A dense grove of cal­madores was de­scried on the hori­zon, about three miles away, on the north of the prairie. So it be­came nec­es­sary to de­tach the bal­loon from its draught-​an­imal at last.

Kennedy was in­trust­ed with the job of bring­ing the ele­phant to a halt. He drew his ri­fle to his shoul­der, but his po­si­tion was not fa­vor­able to a suc­cess­ful shot; so that the first ball fired flat­tened it­self on the an­imal’s skull, as it would have done against an iron plate. The crea­ture did not seem in the least trou­bled by it; but, at the sound of the dis­charge, he had in­creased his speed, and now was go­ing as fast as a horse at full gal­lop.

“The deuce!” ejac­ulat­ed Kennedy.

“What a sol­id head!” com­ment­ed Joe.

“We’ll try some con­ical balls be­hind the shoul­der-​joint,” said Kennedy, reload­ing his ri­fle with care. In an­oth­er mo­ment he fired.

The an­imal gave a ter­ri­ble cry, but went on faster than ev­er.

“Come!” said Joe, tak­ing aim with an­oth­er gun, “I must help you, or we’ll nev­er end it.” And now two balls pen­etrat­ed the crea­ture’s side.

The ele­phant halt­ed, lift­ed his trunk, and re­sumed his run to­ward the wood with all his speed; he shook his huge head, and the blood be­gan to gush from his wounds.

“Let us keep up our fire, Mr. Kennedy.”

“And a con­tin­uous fire, too,” urged the doc­tor, “for we are close on the woods.”

Ten shots more were dis­charged. The ele­phant made a fear­ful bound; the car and bal­loon cracked as though ev­ery thing were go­ing to pieces, and the shock made the doc­tor drop his hatch­et on the ground.

The sit­ua­tion was thus ren­dered re­al­ly very alarm­ing; the an­chor-​rope, which had se­cure­ly caught, could not be dis­en­gaged, nor could it yet be cut by the knives of our aero­nauts, and the bal­loon was rush­ing head­long to­ward the wood, when the an­imal re­ceived a ball in the eye just as he lift­ed his head. On this he halt­ed, fal­tered, his knees bent un­der him, and he un­cov­ered his whole flank to the as­saults of his en­emies in the bal­loon.

“A bul­let in his heart!” said Kennedy, dis­charg­ing one last ri­fle-​shot.

The ele­phant ut­tered a long bel­low of ter­ror and agony, then raised him­self up for a mo­ment, twirling his trunk in the air, and fi­nal­ly fell with all his weight up­on one of his tusks, which he broke off short. He was dead.

“His tusk’s bro­ken!” ex­claimed Kennedy–“ivory too that in Eng­land would bring thir­ty-​five guineas per hun­dred pounds.”

“As much as that?” said Joe, scram­bling down to the ground by the an­chor-​rope.

“What’s the use of sigh­ing over it, Dick?” said the doc­tor. “Are we ivory mer­chants? Did we come hith­er to make mon­ey?”

Joe ex­am­ined the an­chor and found it solid­ly at­tached to the un­bro­ken tusk. The doc­tor and Dick leaped out on the ground, while the bal­loon, now half emp­tied, hov­ered over the body of the huge an­imal.

“What a splen­did beast!” said Kennedy, “what a mass of flesh! I nev­er saw an ele­phant of that size in In­dia!”

“There’s noth­ing sur­pris­ing about that, my dear Dick; the ele­phants of Cen­tral Africa are the finest in the world. The An­der­sons and the Cum­mings have hunt­ed so in­ces­sant­ly in the neigh­bor­hood of the Cape, that these an­imals have mi­grat­ed to the equa­tor, where they are of­ten met with in large herds.”

“In the mean while, I hope,” added Joe, “that we’ll taste a morsel of this fel­low. I’ll un­der­take to get you a good din­ner at his ex­pense. Mr. Kennedy will go off and hunt for an hour or two; the doc­tor will make an in­spec­tion of the bal­loon, and, while they’re busy in that way, I’ll do the cook­ing.”

“A good ar­range­ment!” said the doc­tor; “so do as you like, Joe.”

“As for me,” said the hunter, “I shall avail my­self of the two hours’ re­cess that Joe has con­de­scend­ed to let me have.”

“Go, my friend, but no im­pru­dence! Don’t wan­der too far away.”

“Nev­er fear, doc­tor!” and, so say­ing, Dick, shoul­der­ing his gun, plunged in­to the woods.

Forth­with Joe went to work at his vo­ca­tion. At first he made a hole in the ground two feet deep; this he filled with the dry wood that was so abun­dant­ly scat­tered about, where it had been strewn by the ele­phants, whose tracks could be seen where they had made their way through the for­est. This hole filled, he heaped a pile of fagots on it a foot in height, and set fire to it.

Then he went back to the car­cass of the ele­phant, which had fall­en on­ly about a hun­dred feet from the edge of the for­est; he next pro­ceed­ed adroit­ly to cut off the trunk, which might have been two feet in di­am­eter at the base; of this he se­lect­ed the most del­icate por­tion, and then took with it one of the an­imal’s spongy feet. In fact, these are the finest morsels, like the hump of the bi­son, the paws of the bear, and the head of the wild boar.

When the pile of fagots had been thor­ough­ly con­sumed, in­side and out­side, the hole, cleared of the cin­ders and hot coals, re­tained a very high tem­per­ature. The pieces of ele­phant-​meat, sur­round­ed with aro­mat­ic leaves, were placed in this ex­tem­pore oven and cov­ered with hot coals. Then Joe piled up a sec­ond heap of sticks over all, and when it had burned out the meat was cooked to a turn.

Then Joe took the viands from the oven, spread the sa­vory mess up­on green leaves, and ar­ranged his din­ner up­on a mag­nif­icent patch of greensward. He fi­nal­ly brought out some bis­cuit, some cof­fee, and some cognac, and got a can of pure, fresh wa­ter from a neigh­bor­ing stream­let.

The repast thus pre­pared was a pleas­ant sight to be­hold, and Joe, with­out be­ing too proud, thought that it would al­so be pleas­ant to eat.

“A jour­ney with­out dan­ger or fa­tigue,” he so­lil­oquized; “your meals when you please; a swing­ing ham­mock all the time! What more could a man ask? And there was Kennedy, who didn’t want to come!”

On his part, Dr. Fer­gu­son was en­grossed in a se­ri­ous and thor­ough ex­am­ina­tion of the bal­loon. The lat­ter did not ap­pear to have suf­fered from the storm; the silk and the gut­ta per­cha had re­sist­ed won­der­ful­ly, and, up­on es­ti­mat­ing the ex­act height of the ground and the as­cen­sion­al force of the bal­loon, our aero­naut saw, with sat­is­fac­tion, that the hy­dro­gen was in ex­act­ly the same quan­ti­ty as be­fore. The cov­er­ing had re­mained com­plete­ly wa­ter­proof.

It was now on­ly five days since our trav­ellers had quit­ted Zanz­ibar; their pem­mi­can had not yet been touched; their stock of bis­cuit and pot­ted meat was enough for a long trip, and there was noth­ing to be re­plen­ished but the wa­ter.

The pipes and spi­ral seemed to be in per­fect con­di­tion, since, thanks to their in­dia-​rub­ber joint­ings, they had yield­ed to all the os­cil­la­tions of the bal­loon. His ex­am­ina­tion end­ed, the doc­tor be­took him­self to set­ting his notes in or­der. He made a very ac­cu­rate sketch of the sur­round­ing land­scape, with its long prairie stretch­ing away out of sight, the for­est of cal­madores, and the bal­loon rest­ing mo­tion­less over the body of the dead ele­phant.

At the end of his two hours, Kennedy re­turned with a string of fat par­tridges and the haunch of an oryx, a sort of gems­bok be­long­ing to the most ag­ile species of an­telopes. Joe took up­on him­self to pre­pare this sur­plus stock of pro­vi­sions for a lat­er repast.

“But, din­ner’s ready!” he shout­ed in his most mu­si­cal voice.

And the three trav­ellers had on­ly to sit down on the green turf. The trunk and feet of the ele­phant were de­clared to be exquisite. Old Eng­land was toast­ed, as usu­al, and de­li­cious Ha­vanas per­fumed this charm­ing coun­try for the first time.

Kennedy ate, drank, and chat­ted, like four; he was per­fect­ly de­light­ed with his new life, and se­ri­ous­ly pro­posed to the doc­tor to set­tle in this for­est, to con­struct a cab­in of boughs and fo­liage, and, there and then, to lay the foun­da­tion of a Robin­son Cru­soe dy­nasty in Africa.

The propo­si­tion went no fur­ther, al­though Joe had, at once, se­lect­ed the part of Man Fri­day for him­self.

The coun­try seemed so qui­et, so de­sert­ed, that the doc­tor re­solved to pass the night on the ground, and Joe ar­ranged a cir­cle of watch-​fires as an in­dis­pens­able bar­ri­er against wild an­imals, for the hye­nas, cougars, and jack­als, at­tract­ed by the smell of the dead ele­phant, were prowl­ing about in the neigh­bor­hood. Kennedy had to fire his ri­fle sev­er­al times at these un­cer­emo­ni­ous vis­itors, but the night passed with­out any un­to­ward oc­cur­rence.