The Moon-Voyage

CHAPTER XIII.

STONY HILL.

Since the choice made by the mem­bers of the Gun Club to the detri­ment of Texas, ev­ery one in Amer­ica--where ev­ery one knows how to read--made it his busi­ness to study the ge­og­ra­phy of Flori­da. Nev­er be­fore had the book­sellers sold so many _Bertram's Trav­els in Flori­da_, _Ro­man's Nat­ural His­to­ry of East and West Flori­da_, _Williams' Ter­ri­to­ry of Flori­da_, and _Cle­land on the Cul­ture of the Sug­ar Cane in East Flori­da_. New edi­tions of these works were re­quired. There was quite a rage for them.

Bar­bi­cane had some­thing bet­ter to do than to read; he wished to see with his own eyes and choose the site of the Columbi­ad. There­fore, with­out los­ing a mo­ment, he put the funds nec­es­sary for the con­struc­tion of a tele­scope at the dis­po­si­tion of the Cam­bridge Ob­ser­va­to­ry, and made a con­tract with the firm of Bread­will and Co., of Al­bany, for the mak­ing of the alu­mini­um pro­jec­tile; then he left Bal­ti­more ac­com­pa­nied by J.T. Mas­ton, Ma­jor El­phin­stone, and the man­ag­er of the Gold­spring Man­ufac­to­ry.

The next day the four trav­el­ling com­pan­ions reached New Or­leans. There they em­barked on board the _Tampi­co_, a despatch-​boat be­long­ing to the Fed­er­al Navy, which the Gov­ern­ment had placed at their dis­pos­al, and, with all steam on, they quick­ly lost sight of the shores of Louisiana.

The pas­sage was not a long one; two days af­ter its de­par­ture the _Tampi­co_, hav­ing made four hun­dred and eighty miles, sight­ed the Florid­ian coast. As it ap­proached, Bar­bi­cane saw a low, flat coast, look­ing rather un­fer­tile. Af­ter coast­ing a se­ries of creeks rich in oys­ters and lob­sters, the _Tampi­co_ en­tered the Bay of Es­pir­itu-​San­to.

This bay is di­vid­ed in­to two long road­steads, those of Tam­pa and Hillis­boro, the nar­row en­trance to which the steam­er soon cleared. A short time af­ter­wards the bat­ter­ies of Fort Brooke rose above the waves and the town of Tam­pa ap­peared, care­less­ly ly­ing on a lit­tle nat­ural har­bour formed by the mouth of the riv­er Hillis­boro.

There the _Tampi­co_ an­chored on Oc­to­ber 22nd, at sev­en p.m.; the four pas­sen­gers land­ed im­me­di­ate­ly.

Bar­bi­cane felt his heart beat vi­olent­ly as he set foot on Florid­ian soil; he seemed to feel it with his feet like an ar­chi­tect try­ing the so­lid­ity of a house. J.T. Mas­ton scratched the ground with his steel hook.

“Gen­tle­men,” then said Bar­bi­cane, “we have no time to lose, and we will set off on horse­back to-​mor­row to sur­vey the coun­try.”

The minute Bar­bi­cane land­ed the three thou­sand in­hab­itants of Tam­pa Town went out to meet him, an hon­our quite due to the pres­ident of the Gun Club, who had de­cid­ed in their favour. They re­ceived him with formidable ex­cla­ma­tions, but Bar­bi­cane es­caped an ova­tion by shut­ting him­self up in his room at the Franklin Ho­tel and re­fus­ing to see any one.

The next day, Oc­to­ber 23rd, small hors­es of Span­ish race, full of fire and vigour, pawed the ground un­der his win­dows. But, in­stead of four, there were fifty, with their rid­ers. Bar­bi­cane went down ac­com­pa­nied by his three com­pan­ions, who were at first as­ton­ished to find them­selves in the midst of such a cav­al­cade. He re­marked be­sides that each horse­man car­ried a car­bine slung across his shoul­ders and pis­tols in his hol­sters. The rea­son for such a dis­play of force was im­me­di­ate­ly giv­en him by a young Florid­ian, who said to him--

“Sir, the Semi­noles are there.”

“What Semi­noles?”

“Sav­ages who fre­quent the prairies, and we deemed it pru­dent to give you an es­cort.”

“Pooh!” ex­claimed J.T. Mas­ton as he mount­ed his steed.

“It is well to be on the safe side,” an­swered the Florid­ian.

“Gen­tle­men,” replied Bar­bi­cane, “I thank you for your at­ten­tion, and now let us be off.”

The lit­tle troop set out im­me­di­ate­ly, and dis­ap­peared in a cloud of dust. It was five a.m.; the sun shone bril­liant­ly al­ready, and the ther­mome­ter in­di­cat­ed 84°, but fresh sea breezes mod­er­at­ed this ex­ces­sive heat.

Bar­bi­cane, on leav­ing Tam­pa Town, went down south and fol­lowed the coast to Al­ifia Creek. This small riv­er falls in­to Hillis­boro Bay, twelve miles be­low Tam­pa Town. Bar­bi­cane and his es­cort fol­lowed its right bank go­ing up to­wards the east. The waves of the bay dis­ap­peared be­hind an in­equal­ity in the ground, and the Florid­ian coun­try was alone in sight.

Flori­da is di­vid­ed in­to two parts; the one to the north, more pop­ulous and less aban­doned, has Tal­la­has­see for cap­ital, and Pen­saco­la, one of the prin­ci­pal ma­rine ar­se­nals of the Unit­ed States; the oth­er, ly­ing be­tween the At­lantic and the Gulf of Mex­ico, is on­ly a nar­row penin­su­la, eat­en away by the cur­rent of the Gulf Stream--a lit­tle tongue of land lost amidst a small archipela­go, which the nu­mer­ous ves­sels of the Ba­hama Chan­nel dou­ble con­tin­ual­ly. It is the ad­vanced sen­tinel of the gulf of great tem­pests. The su­per­fi­cial area of this state mea­sures 38,033,267 acres, amongst which one had to be cho­sen sit­uat­ed be­yond the 28th par­al­lel and suit­able for the en­ter­prise. As Bar­bi­cane rode along he at­ten­tive­ly ex­am­ined the con­fig­ura­tion of the ground and its par­tic­ular dis­tri­bu­tion.

Flori­da, dis­cov­ered by Juan Ponce de Leon in 1512, on Palm Sun­day, was first of all named _Pascha Flori­da_. It was well wor­thy of that des­ig­na­tion with its dry and arid coasts. But a few miles from the shore the na­ture of the ground grad­ual­ly changed, and the coun­try showed it­self wor­thy of its name; the soil was cut up by a net­work of creeks, rivers, wa­ter­cours­es, ponds, and small lakes; it might have been mis­tak­en for Hol­land or Guiana; but the ground grad­ual­ly rose and soon showed its cul­ti­vat­ed plains, where all the veg­eta­bles of the North and South grow in per­fec­tion, its im­mense fields, where a trop­ical sun and the wa­ter con­served in its clayey tex­ture do all the work of cul­ti­vat­ing, and last­ly its prairies of pineap­ples, yams, to­bac­co, rice, cot­ton, and sug­ar­canes, which ex­tend­ed as far as the eye could reach, spread­ing out their rich­es with care­less prodi­gal­ity.

Bar­bi­cane ap­peared great­ly sat­is­fied on find­ing the pro­gres­sive el­eva­tion of the ground, and when J.T. Mas­ton ques­tioned him on the sub­ject,

“My wor­thy friend,” said he, “it is great­ly to our in­ter­est to cast our Columbi­ad on el­evat­ed ground.”

“In or­der to be near­er the moon?” ex­claimed the sec­re­tary of the Gun Club.

“No,” an­swered Bar­bi­cane, smil­ing. “What can a few yards more or less mat­ter? No, but on el­evat­ed ground our work can be ac­com­plished more eas­ily; we shall not have to strug­gle against wa­ter, which will save us long and ex­pen­sive tub­ings, and that has to be tak­en in­to con­sid­er­ation when a well 900 feet deep has to be sunk.”

“You are right,” said Murchi­son, the en­gi­neer; “we must, as much as pos­si­ble, avoid wa­ter­cours­es dur­ing the cast­ing; but if we meet with springs they will not mat­ter much; we can ex­haust them with our ma­chines or di­vert them from their course. Here we have not to work at an arte­sian well, nar­row and dark, where all the bor­ing im­ple­ments have to work in the dark. No; we can work un­der the open sky, with spade and pick­axe, and, by the help of blast­ing, our work will not take long.”

“Still,” re­sumed Bar­bi­cane, “if by the el­eva­tion of the ground or its na­ture we can avoid a strug­gle with sub­ter­ranean wa­ters, we can do our work more rapid­ly and per­fect­ly; we must, there­fore, make our cut­ting in ground sit­uat­ed some thou­sands of feet above the lev­el of the sea.”

“You are right, Mr. Bar­bi­cane, and, if I am not mis­tak­en, we shall soon find a suit­able spot.”

“I should like to see the first spade­ful turned up,” said the pres­ident.

“And I the last!” ex­claimed J.T. Mas­ton.

“We shall man­age it, gen­tle­men,” an­swered the en­gi­neer; “and, be­lieve me, the Gold­spring Com­pa­ny will not have to pay you any for­feit for de­lay.”

“Faith! it had bet­ter not,” replied J.T. Mas­ton; “a hun­dred dol­lars a day till the moon presents her­self in the same con­di­tions--that is to say, for eigh­teen years and eleven days--do you know that would make 658,000 dol­lars?”

“No, sir, we do not know, and we shall not need to learn.”

About ten a.m. the lit­tle troop had jour­neyed about twelve miles; to the fer­tile coun­try suc­ceed­ed a for­est re­gion. There were the most var­ied per­fumes in trop­ical pro­fu­sion. The al­most im­pen­etra­ble forests were made up of pomegranates, or­ange, cit­ron, fig, olive, and apri­cot trees, ba­nanas, huge vines, the blos­soms and fruit of which ri­valled each oth­er in colour and per­fume. Un­der the per­fumed shade of these mag­nif­icent trees sang and flut­tered a world of bril­liant­ly-​coloured birds, amongst which the crab-​eater de­served a jew­el cas­ket, wor­thy of its feath­ered gems, for a nest.

J.T. Mas­ton and the ma­jor could not pass through such op­ulent na­ture with­out ad­mir­ing its splen­did beau­ty.

But Pres­ident Bar­bi­cane, who thought lit­tle of these mar­vels, was in a hur­ry to has­ten on­wards; this coun­try, so fer­tile, dis­pleased him by its very fer­til­ity; with­out be­ing oth­er­wise hy­drop­ical, he felt wa­ter un­der his feet, and sought in vain the signs of in­con­testable arid­ity.

In the mean­time they jour­neyed on. They were obliged to ford sev­er­al rivers, and not with­out dan­ger, for they were in­fest­ed with al­li­ga­tors from fif­teen to eigh­teen feet long. J.T. Mas­ton threat­ened them bold­ly with his formidable hook, but he on­ly suc­ceed­ed in fright­en­ing the pel­icans, phaetons, and teals that fre­quent­ed the banks, while the red flamin­goes looked on with a stupid stare.

At last these in­hab­itants of hu­mid coun­tries dis­ap­peared in their turn. The trees be­came small­er and more thin­ly scat­tered in small­er woods; some iso­lat­ed groups stood amidst im­mense plains where ranged herds of star­tled deer.

“At last!” ex­claimed Bar­bi­cane, ris­ing in his stir­rups. “Here is the re­gion of pines.”

“And sav­ages,” an­swered the ma­jor.

In fact, a few Semi­noles ap­peared on the hori­zon. They moved about back­wards and for­wards on their fleet hors­es, bran­dish­ing long lances or fir­ing their guns with a dull re­port. How­ev­er, they con­fined them­selves to these hos­tile demon­stra­tions, which had no ef­fect on Bar­bi­cane and his com­pan­ions.

They were then in the mid­dle of a rocky plain, a vast open space of sev­er­al acres in ex­tent which the sun cov­ered with burn­ing rays. It was formed by a wide el­eva­tion of the soil, and seemed to of­fer to the mem­bers of the Gun Club all the re­quired con­di­tions for the con­struc­tion of their Columbi­ad.

“Halt!” cried Bar­bi­cane, stop­ping. “Has this place any name?”

“It is called Stony Hill,” an­swered the Florid­ians.

Bar­bi­cane, with­out say­ing a word, dis­mount­ed, took his in­stru­ments, and be­gan to fix his po­si­tion with ex­treme pre­ci­sion. The lit­tle troop drawn up around him watched him in pro­found si­lence.

At that mo­ment the sun passed the merid­ian. Bar­bi­cane, af­ter an in­ter­val, rapid­ly not­ed the re­sult of his ob­ser­va­tion, and said--

“This place is sit­uat­ed 1,800 feet above the sea lev­el in lat. 27° 7' and West long. 5° 7' by the Wash­ing­ton merid­ian. It ap­pears to me by its bar­ren and rocky na­ture to of­fer ev­ery con­di­tion favourable to our en­ter­prise; we will there­fore raise our mag­azines, work­shops, fur­naces, and work­men's huts here, and it is from this very spot,” said he, stamp­ing up­on it with his foot, “the sum­mit of Stony Hill, that our pro­jec­tile will start for the re­gions of the so­lar world!”