Five Weeks in a Balloon

CHAPTER FORTIETH.

Dr. Fer­gu­son’s Anx­ieties.–Per­sis­tent Move­ment south­ward.–A Cloud of Grasshop­pers.–A View of Jenne.–A View of Sego.–Change of the Wind.–Joe’s Re­grets.

The flow of the riv­er was, at that point, di­vid­ed by large is­lands in­to nar­row branch­es, with a very rapid cur­rent. Up­on one among them stood some shep­herds’ huts, but it had be­come im­pos­si­ble to take an ex­act ob­ser­va­tion of them, be­cause the speed of the bal­loon was con­stant­ly in­creas­ing. Un­for­tu­nate­ly, it turned still more to­ward the south, and in a few mo­ments crossed Lake De­bo.

Dr. Fer­gu­son, forc­ing the di­la­tion of his aeri­al craft to the ut­most, sought for oth­er cur­rents of air at dif­fer­ent heights, but in vain; and he soon gave up the at­tempt, which was on­ly aug­ment­ing the waste of gas by press­ing it against the well-​worn tis­sue of the bal­loon.

He made no re­mark, but he be­gan to feel very anx­ious. This per­sis­tence of the wind to head him off to­ward the south­ern part of Africa was de­feat­ing his cal­cu­la­tions, and he no longer knew up­on whom or up­on what to de­pend. Should he not reach the En­glish or French ter­ri­to­ries, what was to be­come of him in the midst of the bar­barous tribes that in­fest the coasts of Guinea? How should he there get to a ship to take him back to Eng­land? And the ac­tu­al di­rec­tion of the wind was driv­ing him along to the king­dom of Da­homey, among the most sav­age races, and in­to the pow­er of a ruler who was in the habit of sac­ri­fic­ing thou­sands of hu­man vic­tims at his pub­lic or­gies. There he would be lost!

On the oth­er hand, the bal­loon was vis­ibly wear­ing out, and the doc­tor felt it fail­ing him. How­ev­er, as the weath­er was clear­ing up a lit­tle, he hoped that the ces­sa­tion of the rain would bring about a change in the at­mo­spher­ic cur­rents.

It was there­fore a dis­agree­able re­minder of the ac­tu­al sit­ua­tion when Joe said aloud:

“There! the rain’s go­ing to pour down hard­er than ev­er; and this time it will be the del­uge it­self, if we’re to judge by yon cloud that’s com­ing up!”

“What! an­oth­er cloud?” asked Fer­gu­son.

“Yes, and a fa­mous one,” replied Kennedy.

“I nev­er saw the like of it,” added Joe.

“I breathe freely again!” said the doc­tor, lay­ing down his spy-​glass. “That’s not a cloud!”

“Not a cloud?” queried Joe, with sur­prise.

“No; it is a swarm.”

“Eh?”

“A swarm of grasshop­pers!”

“That? Grasshop­pers!”

“Myr­iads of grasshop­pers, that are go­ing to sweep over this coun­try like a wa­ter-​spout; and woe to it! for, should these in­sects alight, it will be laid waste.”

“That would be a sight worth be­hold­ing!”

“Wait a lit­tle, Joe. In ten min­utes that cloud will have ar­rived where we are, and you can then judge by the aid of your own eyes.”

The doc­tor was right. The cloud, thick, opaque, and sev­er­al miles in ex­tent, came on with a deaf­en­ing noise, cast­ing its im­mense shad­ow over the fields. It was com­posed of num­ber­less le­gions of that species of grasshop­per called crick­ets. About a hun­dred paces from the bal­loon, they set­tled down up­on a tract full of fo­liage and ver­dure. Fif­teen min­utes lat­er, the mass re­sumed its flight, and our trav­ellers could, even at a dis­tance, see the trees and the bush­es en­tire­ly stripped, and the fields as bare as though they had been swept with the scythe. One would have thought that a sud­den win­ter had just de­scend­ed up­on the earth and struck the re­gion with the most com­plete steril­ity.

“Well, Joe, what do you think of that?”

“Well, doc­tor, it’s very cu­ri­ous, but quite nat­ural. What one grasshop­per does on a small scale, thou­sands do on a grand scale.”

“It’s a ter­ri­ble show­er,” said the hunter; “more so than hail it­self in the dev­as­ta­tion it caus­es.”

“It is im­pos­si­ble to pre­vent it,” replied Fer­gu­son. “Some­times the in­hab­itants have had the idea to burn the forests, and even the stand­ing crops, in or­der to ar­rest the progress of these in­sects; but the first ranks plung­ing in­to the flames would ex­tin­guish them be­neath their mass, and the rest of the swarm would then pass ir­re­sistibly on­ward. For­tu­nate­ly, in these re­gions, there is some sort of com­pen­sa­tion for their rav­ages, since the na­tives gath­er these in­sects in great num­bers and greed­ily eat them.”

“They are the prawns of the air,” said Joe, who added that he was sor­ry that he had nev­er had the chance to taste them–just for in­for­ma­tion’s sake!

The coun­try be­came more marshy to­ward evening; the forests dwin­dled to iso­lat­ed clumps of trees; and on the bor­ders of the riv­er could be seen plan­ta­tions of to­bac­co, and swampy mead­ow-​lands fat with for­age. At last the city of Jenne, on a large is­land, came in sight, with the two tow­ers of its clay-​built mosque, and the pu­trid odor of the mil­lions of swal­lows’ nests ac­cu­mu­lat­ed in its walls. The tops of some baob­abs, mi­mosas, and date-​trees peeped up be­tween the hous­es; and, even at night, the ac­tiv­ity of the place seemed very great. Jenne is, in fact, quite a com­mer­cial city: it sup­plies all the wants of Tim­buc­too. Its boats on the riv­er, and its car­avans along the shad­ed roads, bear thith­er the var­ious prod­ucts of its in­dus­try.

“Were it not that to do so would pro­long our jour­ney,” said the doc­tor, “I should like to alight at this place. There must be more than one Arab there who has trav­elled in Eng­land and France, and to whom our style of lo­co­mo­tion is not al­to­geth­er new. But it would not be pru­dent.”

“Let us put off the vis­it un­til our next trip,” said Joe, laugh­ing.

“Be­sides, my friends, un­less I am mis­tak­en, the wind has a slight ten­den­cy to veer a lit­tle more to the east­ward, and we must not lose such an op­por­tu­ni­ty.”

The doc­tor threw over­board some ar­ti­cles that were no longer of use–some emp­ty bot­tles, and a case that had con­tained pre­served-​meat–and there­by man­aged to keep the bal­loon in a belt of the at­mo­sphere more fa­vor­able to his plans. At four o’clock in the morn­ing the first rays of the sun light­ed up Sego, the cap­ital of Bam­bar­ra, which could be rec­og­nized at once by the four towns that com­pose it, by its Saracenic mosques, and by the in­ces­sant go­ing and com­ing of the flat-​bot­tomed boats that con­vey its in­hab­itants from one quar­ter to the oth­er. But the trav­ellers were not more seen than they saw. They sped rapid­ly and di­rect­ly to the north­west, and the doc­tor’s anx­iety grad­ual­ly sub­sid­ed.

“Two more days in this di­rec­tion, and at this rate of speed, and we’ll reach the Sene­gal Riv­er.”

“And we’ll be in a friend­ly coun­try?” asked the hunter.

“Not al­to­geth­er; but, if the worst came to the worst, and the bal­loon were to fail us, we might make our way to the French set­tle­ments. But, let it hold out on­ly for a few hun­dred miles, and we shall ar­rive with­out fa­tigue, alarm, or dan­ger, at the west­ern coast.”

“And the thing will be over!” added Joe. “Heigh-​ho! so much the worse. If it wasn’t for the plea­sure of telling about it, I would nev­er want to set foot on the ground again! Do you think any­body will be­lieve our sto­ry, doc­tor?”

“Who can tell, Joe? One thing, how­ev­er, will be un­de­ni­able: a thou­sand wit­ness­es saw us start on one side of the African Con­ti­nent, and a thou­sand more will see us ar­rive on the oth­er.”

“And, in that case, it seems to me that it would be hard to say that we had not crossed it,” added Kennedy.

“Ah, doc­tor!” said Joe again, with a deep sigh, “I’ll think more than once of my lumps of sol­id gold-​ore! There was some­thing that would have giv­en WEIGHT to our nar­ra­tive! At a grain of gold per head, I could have got to­geth­er a nice crowd to lis­ten to me, and even to ad­mire me!”