Five Weeks In A Balloon

by Jules Verne

  "Yes, indeed, it may!" objected Ferguson.

  "What are they, then, doctor?"

  "They are the careless people in the car! So, my friends, let us have vigilance in all places and at all times."

  Chapter Thirty-First.

  Departure in the Night-time.--All Three.--Kennedy's Instincts.--Precautions.-- The Course of the Shari River.--Lake Tchad.--The Water of the Lake.--The Hippopotamus.--One Bullet thrown away.

  About three o'clock in the morning, Joe, who was then on watch, at length saw the city move away from beneath his feet. The Victoria was once again in motion, and both the doctor and Kennedy awoke.

  The former consulted his compass, and saw, with satisfaction, that the wind was carrying them toward the north-northeast.

  "We are in luck!" said he; "every thing works in our favor: we shall discover Lake Tchad this very day."

  "Is it a broad sheet of water?" asked Kennedy.

  "Somewhat, Dick. At its greatest length and breadth, it measures about one hundred and twenty miles."

  "It will spice our trip with a little variety to sail over a spacious sheet of water."

  "After all, though, I don't see that we have much to complain of on that score. Our trip has been very much varied, indeed; and, moreover, we are getting on under the best possible conditions."

  "Unquestionably so; excepting those privations on the desert, we have encountered no serious danger."

  "It is not to be denied that our noble balloon has behaved wonderfully well. To-day is May 12th, and we started on the 18th of April. That makes twenty-five days of journeying. In ten days more we shall have reached our destination."

  "Where is that?"

  "I do not know. But what does that signify?"

  "You are right again, Samuel! Let us intrust to Providence the care of guiding us and of keeping us in good health as we are now. We don't look much as though we had been crossing the most pestilential country in the world!"

  "We had an opportunity of getting up in life, and that's what we have done!"

  "Hurrah for trips in the air!" cried Joe. "Here we are at the end of twenty-five days in good condition, well fed, and well rested. We've had too much rest in fact, for my legs begin to feel rusty, and I wouldn't be vexed a bit to stretch them with a run of thirty miles or so!"

  "You can do that, Joe, in the streets of London, but in fine we set out three together, like Denham, Clapperton, and Overweg; like Barth, Richardson, and Vogel, and, more fortunate than our predecessors here, we are three in number still. But it is most important for us not to separate. If, while one of us was on the ground, the Victoria should have to ascend in order to escape some sudden danger, who knows whether we should ever see each other again? Therefore it is that I say again to Kennedy frankly that I do not like his going off alone to hunt."

  "But still, Samuel, you will permit me to indulge that fancy a little. There is no harm in renewing our stock of provisions. Besides, before our departure, you held out to me the prospect of some superb hunting, and thus far I have done but little in the line of the Andersons and Cummings."

  "But, my dear Dick, your memory fails you, or your modesty makes you forget your own exploits. It really seems to me that, without mentioning small game, you have already an antelope, an elephant, and two lions on your conscience."

  "But what's all that to an African sportsman who sees all the animals in creation strutting along under the muzzle of his rifle? There! there! look at that troop of giraffes!"

  "Those giraffes," roared Joe; "why, they're not as big as my fist."

  "Because we are a thousand feet above them; but close to them you would discover that they are three times as tall as you are!"

  "And what do you say to yon herd of gazelles, and those ostriches, that run with the speed of the wind?" resumed Kennedy.

  "Those ostriches?" remonstrated Joe, again; "those are chickens, and the greatest kind of chickens!"

  "Come, doctor, can't we get down nearer to them?" pleaded Kennedy.

  "We can get closer to them, Dick, but we must not land. And what good will it do you to strike down those poor animals when they can be of no use to you? Now, if the question were to destroy a lion, a tiger, a cat, a hyena, I could understand it; but to deprive an antelope or a gazelle of life, to no other purpose than the gratification of your instincts as a sportsman, seems hardly worth the trouble. But, after all, my friend, we are going to keep at about one hundred feet only from the soil, and, should you see any ferocious wild beast, oblige us by sending a ball through its heart!"

  The Victoria descended gradually, but still keeping at a safe height, for, in a barbarous, yet very populous country, it was necessary to keep on the watch for unexpected perils.

  The travellers were then directly following the course of the Shari. The charming banks of this river were hidden beneath the foliage of trees of various dyes; lianas and climbing plants wound in and out on all sides and formed the most curious combinations of color. Crocodiles were seen basking in the broad blaze of the sun or plunging beneath the waters with the agility of lizards, and in their gambols they sported about among the many green islands that intercept the current of the stream.

  It was thus, in the midst of rich and verdant landscapes that our travellers passed over the district of Maffatay, and about nine o'clock in the morning reached the southern shore of Lake Tchad.

  There it was at last, outstretched before them, that Caspian Sea of Africa, the existence of which was so long consigned to the realms of fable--that interior expanse of water to which only Denham's and Barth's expeditions had been able to force their way.

  The doctor strove in vain to fix its precise configuration upon paper. It had already changed greatly since 1847. In fact, the chart of Lake Tchad is very difficult to trace with exactitude, for it is surrounded by muddy and almost impassable morasses, in which Barth thought that he was doomed to perish. From year to year these marshes, covered with reeds and papyrus fifteen feet high, become the lake itself. Frequently, too, the villages on its shores are half submerged, as was the case with Ngornou in 1856, and now the hippopotamus and the alligator frisk and dive where the dwellings of Bornou once stood.

  The sun shot his dazzling rays over this placid sheet of water, and toward the north the two elements merged into one and the same horizon.

  The doctor was desirous of determining the character of the water, which was long believed to be salt. There was no danger in descending close to the lake, and the car was soon skimming its surface like a bird at the distance of only five feet.

  Joe plunged a bottle into the lake and drew it up half filled. The water was then tasted and found to be but little fit for drinking, with a certain carbonate-of-soda flavor.

  While the doctor was jotting down the result of this experiment, the loud report of a gun was heard close beside him. Kennedy had not been able to resist the temptation of firing at a huge hippopotamus. The latter, who had been basking quietly, disappeared at the sound of the explosion, but did not seem to be otherwise incommoded by Kennedy's conical bullet.

  "You'd have done better if you had harpooned him," said Joe.

  "But how?"

  "With one of our anchors. It would have been a hook just big enough for such a rousing beast as that!"

  "Humph!" ejaculated Kennedy, "Joe really has an idea this time--"

  "Which I beg of you not to put into execution," interposed the doctor. "The animal would very quickly have dragged us where we could not have done much to help ourselves, and where we have no business to be."

  "Especially now since we've settled the question as to what kind of water there is in Lake Tchad. Is that sort of fish good to eat, Dr. Ferguson?"

  "That fish, as you call it, Joe, is really a mammiferous animal of the pachydermal species. Its flesh is said to be excellent and is an article of important trade between the tribes living along the borders of the lake."

  "Then I'm sorry that Mr. Kennedy's shot didn't do more damage."

/>   "The animal is vulnerable only in the stomach and between the thighs. Dick's ball hasn't even marked him; but should the ground strike me as favorable, we shall halt at the northern end of the lake, where Kennedy will find himself in the midst of a whole menagerie, and can make up for lost time."

  "Well," said Joe, "I hope then that Mr. Kennedy will hunt the hippopotamus a little; I'd like to taste the meat of that queer-looking beast. It doesn't look exactly natural to get away into the centre of Africa, to feed on snipe and partridge, just as if we were in England."

  Chapter Thirty-Second.

  The Capital of Bornou.--The Islands of the Biddiomahs.--The Condors.--The Doctor's Anxieties.--His Precautions.--An Attack in Mid-air.--The Balloon Covering torn.--The Fall.--Sublime Self-Sacrifice.--The Northern Coast of the Lake.

  Since its arrival at Lake Tchad, the balloon had struck a current that edged it farther to the westward. A few clouds tempered the heat of the day, and, besides, a little air could be felt over this vast expanse of water; but about one o'clock, the Victoria, having slanted across this part of the lake, again advanced over the land for a space of seven or eight miles.

  The doctor, who was somewhat vexed at first at this turn of his course, no longer thought of complaining when he caught sight of the city of Kouka, the capital of Bornou. He saw it for a moment, encircled by its walls of white clay, and a few rudely-constructed mosques rising clumsily above that conglomeration of houses that look like playing-dice, which form most Arab towns. In the court-yards of the private dwellings, and on the public squares, grew palms and caoutchouc-trees topped with a dome of foliage more than one hundred feet in breadth. Joe called attention to the fact that these immense parasols were in proper accordance with the intense heat of the sun, and made thereon some pious reflections which it were needless to repeat.

  Kouka really consists of two distinct towns, separated by the "Dendal," a large boulevard three hundred yards wide, at that hour crowded with horsemen and foot passengers. On one side, the rich quarter stands squarely with its airy and lofty houses, laid out in regular order; on the other, is huddled together the poor quarter, a miserable collection of low hovels of a conical shape, in which a poverty-stricken multitude vegetate rather than live, since Kouka is neither a trading nor a commercial city.

  Kennedy thought it looked something like Edinburgh, were that city extended on a plain, with its two distinct boroughs.

  But our travellers had scarcely the time to catch even this glimpse of it, for, with the fickleness that characterizes the air-currents of this region, a contrary wind suddenly swept them some forty miles over the surface of Lake Tchad.

  Then then were regaled with a new spectacle. They could count the numerous islets of the lake, inhabited by the Biddiomahs, a race of bloodthirsty and formidable pirates, who are as greatly feared when neighbors as are the Touaregs of Sahara.

  These estimable people were in readiness to receive the Victoria bravely with stones and arrows, but the balloon quickly passed their islands, fluttering over them, from one to the other with butterfly motion, like a gigantic beetle.

  At this moment, Joe, who was scanning the horizon, said to Kennedy:

  "There, sir, as you are always thinking of good sport, yonder is just the thing for you!"

  "What is it, Joe?"

  "This time, the doctor will not disapprove of your shooting."

  "But what is it?"

  "Don't you see that flock of big birds making for us?"

  "Birds?" exclaimed the doctor, snatching his spyglass.

  "I see them," replied Kennedy; "there are at least a dozen of them."

  "Fourteen, exactly!" said Joe.

  "Heaven grant that they may be of a kind sufficiently noxious for the doctor to let me peg away at them!"

  "I should not object, but I would much rather see those birds at a distance from us!"

  "Why, are you afraid of those fowls?"

  "They are condors, and of the largest size. Should they attack us--"

  "Well, if they do, we'll defend ourselves. We have a whole arsenal at our disposal. I don't think those birds are so very formidable."

  "Who can tell?" was the doctor's only remark.

  Ten minutes later, the flock had come within gunshot, and were making the air ring with their hoarse cries. They came right toward the Victoria, more irritated than frightened by her presence.

  "How they scream! What a noise!" said Joe.

  "Perhaps they don't like to see anybody poaching in their country up in the air, or daring to fly like themselves!"

  "Well, now, to tell the truth, when I take a good look at them, they are an ugly, ferocious set, and I should think them dangerous enough if they were armed with Purdy-Moore rifles," admitted Kennedy.

  "They have no need of such weapons," said Ferguson, looking very grave.

  The condors flew around them in wide circles, their flight growing gradually closer and closer to the balloon. They swept through the air in rapid, fantastic curves, occasionally precipitating themselves headlong with the speed of a bullet, and then breaking their line of projection by an abrupt and daring angle.

  The doctor, much disquieted, resolved to ascend so as to escape this dangerous proximity. He therefore dilated the hydrogen in his balloon, and it rapidly rose.

  But the condors mounted with him, apparently determined not to part company.

  "They seem to mean mischief!" said the hunter, cocking his rifle.

  And, in fact, they were swooping nearer, and more than one came within fifty feet of them, as if defying the fire-arms.

  "By George, I'm itching to let them have it!" exclaimed Kennedy.

  "No, Dick; not now! Don't exasperate them needlessly. That would only be exciting them to attack us!"

  "But I could soon settle those fellows!"

  "You may think so, Dick. But you are wrong!"

  "Why, we have a bullet for each of them!"

  "And suppose that they were to attack the upper part of the balloon, what would you do? How would you get at them? Just imagine yourself in the presence of a troop of lions on the plain, or a school of sharks in the open ocean! For travellers in the air, this situation is just as dangerous."

  "Are you speaking seriously, doctor?"

  "Very seriously, Dick."

  "Let us wait, then!"

  "Wait! Hold yourself in readiness in case of an attack, but do not fire without my orders."

  The birds then collected at a short distance, yet to near that their naked necks, entirely bare of feathers, could be plainly seen, as they stretched them out with the effort of their cries, while their gristly crests, garnished with a comb and gills of deep violet, stood erect with rage. They were of the very largest size, their bodies being more than three feet in length, and the lower surface of their white wings glittering in the sunlight. They might well have been considered winged sharks, so striking was their resemblance to those ferocious rangers of the deep.

  "They are following us!" said the doctor, as he saw them ascending with him, "and, mount as we may, they can fly still higher!"

  "Well, what are we to do?" asked Kennedy.

  The doctor made no answer.

  "Listen, Samuel!" said the sportsman. "There are fourteen of those birds; we have seventeen shots at our disposal if we discharge all our weapons. Have we not the means, then, to destroy them or disperse them? I will give a good account of some of them!"

  "I have no doubt of your skill, Dick; I look upon all as dead that may come within range of your rifle, but I repeat that, if they attack the upper part of the balloon, you could not get a sight at them. They would tear the silk covering that sustains us, and we are three thousand feet up in the air!"

  At this moment, one of the ferocious birds darted right at the balloon, with outstretched beak and claws, ready to rend it with either or both.

  "Fire! fire at once!" cried the doctor.

  He had scarcely ceased, ere the huge creature, stricken dead, dropped headlong, turning ov
er and over in space as he fell.

  Kennedy had already grasped one of the two-barrelled fowling-pieces and Joe was taking aim with another.

  Frightened by the report, the condors drew back for a moment, but they almost instantly returned to the charge with extreme fury. Kennedy severed the head of one from its body with his first shot, and Joe broke the wing of another.

  "Only eleven left," said he.

  Thereupon the birds changed their tactics, and by common consent soared above the balloon. Kennedy glanced at Ferguson. The latter, in spite of his imperturbability, grew pale. Then ensued a moment of terrifying silence. In the next they heard a harsh tearing noise, as of something rending the silk, and the car seemed to sink from beneath the feet of our three aeronauts.

  "We are lost!" exclaimed Ferguson, glancing at the barometer, which was now swiftly rising.

  "Over with the ballast!" he shouted, "over with it!"

  And in a few seconds the last lumps of quartz had disappeared.

  "We are still falling! Empty the water-tanks! Do you hear me, Joe? We are pitching into the lake!"

  Joe obeyed. The doctor leaned over and looked out. The lake seemed to come up toward him like a rising tide. Every object around grew rapidly in size while they were looking at it. The car was not two hundred feet from the surface of Lake Tchad.

  "The provisions! the provisions!" cried the doctor.

  And the box containing them was launched into space.

  Their descent became less rapid, but the luckless aeronauts were still falling, and into the lake.

  "Throw out something--something more!" cried the doctor.

  "There is nothing more to throw!" was Kennedy's despairing response.

  "Yes, there is!" called Joe, and with a wave of the hand he disappeared like a flash, over the edge of the car.

  "Joe! Joe!" exclaimed the doctor, horror-stricken.

  The Victoria thus relieved resumed her ascending motion, mounted a thousand feet into the air, and the wind, burying itself in the disinflated covering, bore them away toward the northern part of the lake.