by Jules Verne
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIRST.
Departure in the Night-time.--All Three.--Kennedy'sInstincts.--Precautions.--The Course of the Shari River.--LakeTchad.--The Water of the Lake.--The Hippopotamus.--One Bullet thrownaway.
About three o'clock in the morning, Joe, who was then on watch, atlength saw the city move away from beneath his feet. The Victoria wasonce again in motion, and both the doctor and Kennedy awoke.
The former consulted his compass, and saw, with satisfaction, that thewind was carrying them toward the north-northeast.
"We are in luck!" said he; "every thing works in our favor: we shalldiscover Lake Tchad this very day."
"Is it a broad sheet of water?" asked Kennedy.
"Somewhat, Dick. At its greatest length and breadth, it measures aboutone hundred and twenty miles."
"It will spice our trip with a little variety to sail over a spacioussheet of water."
"After all, though, I don't see that we have much to complain of on thatscore. Our trip has been very much varied, indeed; and, moreover, we aregetting on under the best possible conditions."
"Unquestionably so; excepting those privations on the desert, we haveencountered no serious danger."
"It is not to be denied that our noble balloon has behaved wonderfullywell. To-day is May 12th, and we started on the 18th of April. Thatmakes twenty-five days of journeying. In ten days more we shall havereached 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 ofguiding us and of keeping us in good health as we are now. We don't lookmuch as though we had been crossing the most pestilential country in theworld!"
"We had an opportunity of getting up in life, and that's what we havedone!"
"Hurrah for trips in the air!" cried Joe. "Here we are at the end oftwenty-five days in good condition, well fed, and well rested. We've hadtoo much rest in fact, for my legs begin to feel rusty, and I wouldn'tbe 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 setout 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 toseparate. If, while one of us was on the ground, the Victoria shouldhave to ascend in order to escape some sudden danger, who knows whetherwe should ever see each other again? Therefore it is that I say again toKennedy 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, beforeour 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 andCummings."
"But, my dear Dick, your memory fails you, or your modesty makes youforget your own exploits. It really seems to me that, without mentioningsmall game, you have already an antelope, an elephant, and two lions onyour conscience."
"But what's all that to an African sportsman who sees all the animalsin 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 woulddiscover that they are three times as tall as you are!"
"And what do you say to yon herd of gazelles, and those ostriches, thatrun with the speed of the wind?" resumed Kennedy.
"Those ostriches?" remonstrated Joe, again; "those are chickens, and thegreatest 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 goodwill it do you to strike down those poor animals when they can be of nouse 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 gazelleof life, to no other purpose than the gratification of your instincts asa 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 ballthrough 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 keepon the watch for unexpected perils.
The travellers were then directly following the course of the Shari. Thecharming banks of this river were hidden beneath the foliage of trees ofvarious dyes; lianas and climbing plants wound in and out on all sidesand formed the most curious combinations of color. Crocodiles were seenbasking in the broad blaze of the sun or plunging beneath the waterswith the agility of lizards, and in their gambols they sported aboutamong the many green islands that intercept the current of the stream.
It was thus, in the midst of rich and verdant landscapes that ourtravellers passed over the district of Maffatay, and about nine o'clockin the morning reached the southern shore of Lake Tchad.
There it was at last, outstretched before them, that Caspian Sea ofAfrica, the existence of which was so long consigned to the realms offable--that interior expanse of water to which only Denham's and Barth'sexpeditions 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 LakeTchad is very difficult to trace with exactitude, for it is surroundedby muddy and almost impassable morasses, in which Barth thought thathe was doomed to perish. From year to year these marshes, covered withreeds and papyrus fifteen feet high, become the lake itself. Frequently,too, the villages on its shores are half submerged, as was the case withNgornou in 1856, and now the hippopotamus and the alligator frisk anddive where the dwellings of Bornou once stood.
The sun shot his dazzling rays over this placid sheet of water, andtoward the north the two elements merged into one and the same horizon.
The doctor was desirous of determining the character of the water, whichwas long believed to be salt. There was no danger in descending close tothe lake, and the car was soon skimming its surface like a bird at thedistance of only five feet.
Joe plunged a bottle into the lake and drew it up half filled. The waterwas then tasted and found to be but little fit for drinking, with acertain carbonate-of-soda flavor.
While the doctor was jotting down the result of this experiment, theloud report of a gun was heard close beside him. Kennedy had not beenable to resist the temptation of firing at a huge hippopotamus. Thelatter, who had been basking quietly, disappeared at the sound of theexplosion, but did not seem to be otherwise incommoded by Kennedy'sconical 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 forsuch 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 havedone much to help ourselves, and where we have no business to be."
"Especially now since we've settled the question as to what kind ofwater 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 thepachydermal species. Its flesh is said to be excellent and is an articleof important trade between the tribes living along the borders of thelake."
"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 asfavorable, we shall halt at the northern end of the lake, where Kennedywill find himself in the midst of a whole menagerie, and can make up forlost time."
"Well," sa
id Joe, "I hope then that Mr. Kennedy will hunt thehippopotamus a little; I'd like to taste the meat of that queer-lookingbeast. It doesn't look exactly natural to get away into the centre ofAfrica, to feed on snipe and partridge, just as if we were in England."