Crossing the straits—Mrima—Kennedy's remarks and a suggestion from Joe—A recipe for coffee—Usaramo—The unhappy Maizan—Mount Duthumi—The doctor's maps—A night over a nopal

THE AIR WAS CLEAR, the wind moderate. The Victoria climbed almost vertically to a height of 1500 feet, indicated by a drop of not quite two inches in the column of the barometer. At this height a more decided current carried the balloon in a southwesterly direction. What a magnificent panorama unrolled itself below the eyes of the explorers! The island of Zanzibar was displayed in its entirety, its deeper colour causing it to stand out as though on a huge relief map; the fields looked like samples of various coloured stuffs, and the forests and jungle like small clumps of trees. The inhabitants of the island had the appearance of insects. The cheers and shouts gradually faded away and the gunfire of the ship alone shook the lower folds of the balloon.

'How beautiful it all is!' exclaimed Joe, breaking the silence for the first time. He received no reply. The doctor was busy watching the variations of the barometer and noting the different details of the ascent. Kennedy's eyes were inadequate to take in all he wanted to see. The rays of the sun came to the assistance of the furnace. The tension of the gas increased and the Victoria attained a height of 2500 feet. The Resolute now looked like a pinnace, and the African coast could be traced to westward by a long line of foam.

'You're very quiet,' said Joe.

'We're looking,' the doctor answered, pointing his glasses towards the continent.

'I can't help talking.'

'Go ahead, Joe. Talk as much as you like.'

Joe broke into a succession of onomatopœic sounds. A torrent of 'ohs,''ahs' and 'eehs' poured from his lips.

While they were passing over the sea the doctor thought it wise to maintain the height they had reached. It enabled him to command a wider view of the coast. The thermometer and barometer, hanging under the halfopen tent, could be readily observed. A second barometer placed under cover was to be used for the night watches. In two hours the Victoria , now moving at rather more than eight miles an hour, was drawing near to the coast. The doctor decided to come down a little. He lowered the flame of the furnace and the balloon descended to 300 feet.

He found that they were above Mrima, as this part of the East African coast is called. It was edged by a thick border of mangroves, the thick roots of which, exposed to the waves of the Indian Ocean, were left exposed, for the tide was out. The dunes which had once formed the coast-line swelled up against the horizon, and Mount Nguru stood up sheer to the north-west.

The Victoria passed close to a village which the doctor recognised from the map as Faole. The whole population had turned out, and howled with rage and fear. Arrows were vainly shot at the monster of the air soaring majestically above all this impotent fury. The wind was blowing them south, but this did not worry the doctor, as it would enable him to follow the route taken by Captains Burton and Speke. Kennedy had by now become as talkative as Joe and the two exchanged ejaculations of admiration.

'A bit better than travelling by coach,' said one.

'Or steamer,' replied the other.

'I don't know that I think much of railways either,' went on Kennedy. 'I like to see where I'm going.'

'What price balloons!' said Joe. 'You don't feel as if you were moving and the scenery slides along under you to be looked at.'

'What a view! Splendid! Perfect! Like dreaming in a hammock.'

'What about some lunch, sir?' said Joe, whose appetite had been sharpened by the fresh air.

'Good idea, Joe.'

'It won't take long to cook; some biscuit and tinned meat.'

'And as much coffee as you like,' added the doctor. 'You can borrow a little heat from my furnace; there's plenty to spare and it might save the danger of a fire.'

'That would be pretty awful,' Kennedy answered. 'It's like hanging under a powder-magazine.'

'Not at all,' said Fergusson; 'and even if the gas did get on fire, it would burn gradually and we should come down, which would be a nuisance. But don't worry; our balloon is quite gas-tight.'

'Well, in that case, let's have something to eat,' said Kennedy.

'Here you are, gentlemen,' said Joe; 'and while I'm having mine I'll go and make you some coffee which I think you'll find extra special.'

'It's a fact,' said the doctor, 'that among his thousand virtues Joe has an extraordinary gift for preparing that delicious beverage. He uses a mixture of various ingredients which he has always kept a secret from me.'

'Well, sir. As we're in the open I can let you into the secret. It's only a mixture of equal parts of mocha, bourbon and rio-nunez.'

A few minutes later three steaming cups were served to crown a substantial lunch which was seasoned by the good-humour of the company, and afterwards each man returned to his post of observation. The landscape was remarkable for its extreme fertility. Narrow, winding paths were hidden under a vaulting of foliage. The balloon passed over fields of ripe tobacco, maize and barley. Here and there stretched vast fields of rice with its straight stems and purplish flowers. Sheep and goats could be seen penned in large enclosures raised on piles to protect them from the leopards. A luxuriant vegetation covered this rich soil. In many villages the sight of the balloon roused fresh clamour and bewilderment, and Dr Fergusson prudently kept out of range of arrows. The inhabitants, gathered round their groups of huts, continued for a long time to hurl their vain imprecations after the balloon.

At noon the doctor, consulting his map, reckoned that he was over the district of Usaramo. The balloon seemed to gambol over the masses of coco-nut palms, papaws and cotton-trees. Joe took this vegetation for granted the moment he knew he was in Africa. Kennedy saw hares and quails simply asking to be shot; but it would have been waste of powder in view of the impossibility of retrieving the game. Travelling at a rate of twelve miles per hour, the aeronauts soon found themselves in long. 38°20′E., above the village of Tunda.

'That's the place,' said the doctor, 'where Burton and Speke were attacked by virulent fever and thought for a moment that it was all up with their expedition. Though they weren't far from the coast, fatigue and privations were already making themselves seriously felt.' In fact, a malaria hung perpetually over this country and even Dr Fergusson could only avoid it by lifting his balloon above the miasmas which the hot sun drew from the damp earth. Every now and again they caught sight of a caravan resting in a kraal, awaiting the cool of the evening to resume its march. These kraals are large plots of ground surrounded by hedges and jungle, affording shelter for travellers not only against wild beasts but also against the marauding tribes of the country. The natives could be seen running away in all directions at the sight of the balloon. Kennedy wanted to get a closer look at them, but Fergusson refused to listen to this suggestion.

'The chiefs are armed with muskets,' he said, 'and our balloon would offer too easy a target.'

'Would a bullet hole bring us down, sir?' asked Joe.

'Not immediately, but the hole would soon develop into a big rent through which all the gas would soon escape.'

'Well, let's keep away from the brutes. I wonder what they think of us flying through the air like this. I'm sure they'll want to worship us.'

'We'll let ourselves be worshipped then, but from a distance. That's always an advantage. Look, the country's changing. There aren't so many villages and no more mangroves. They don't grow in this latitude. The country is getting hilly and it looks as though we are coming near the mountains.'

'As a matter of fact, I think I can see some over there,' said Kennedy.

'To westward—those are the first chains of the Urizaras, probably Mount Duthumi, behind which I hope to spend the night. I'll turn up the flame, for we shall have to keep at a height of five or six hundred feet.'

'That's a great idea of yours, sir,' said Joe, 'it's so easy to work. Just turn a tap and the thing's done.'

'That's better,' said the Scotsman when the balloon had lifted. 'The glare of the sun on that red sand was getting unbearable.'

'What fine trees!' cried Joe. 'Of course they're, what you'd expect, but they really are fine specimens. It would only take a dozen of them to make a forest.'

'Those are baobabs,' Dr Fergusson answered. 'Look! That one must have a girth of a hundred feet. It might have been at the foot of that very tree that Maizan, the Frenchman, died in 1845, for we're over the village of Deje la Mhora into which he ventured alone. He was captured by the chief of this country and tied to the trunk of a baobab, after which the bloodthirsty nigger cut his tendons one by one, while the tribe chanted their war-song. He then cut his throat a little way, stopped to sharpen his knife that had become rather blunted, and then tore off the wretched man's head before the neck had been cut through. The poor fellow was twenty-six years old.'

'And France has not demanded vengeance for the crime?' Kennedy asked.

'France put in a claim. The Sultan of Zanzibar did all he could to capture the murderer, but without success.'

'I vote we don't stop,' said Joe. 'We'll go up higher, sir, if you take my advice.'

'I'm quite ready to do so, Joe, especially as that's Mount Duthumi standing up ahead of us. If my reckoning is correct, we shall be over it before seven.'

'We're not going to travel by night, are we?' asked Kennedy.

'No more than we can help. If we take precautions and keep a good look-out we shall be able to without risk; but it's not enough just to cross Africa, we want to see it.'

'So far we've had nothing to complain of, sir. It's the best cultivated and most fertile country in the world instead of being a desert. Now we know how much good geography is.'

'Wait, Joe, wait. We'll see before long.'

About half-past six in the evening, the Victoria was directly in front of Mount Duthumi. To cross it, they would have to rise to over 3000 feet, to do which the doctor had only to raise the temperature by 18° Fahrenheit. Kennedy pointed out the obstacles that had to be cleared, and the Victoria sailed just over the mountain.

At 8 p.m. they were running down the opposite slope, which was less abrupt. The anchors were thrown out of the car and one, catching the branches of a huge nopal, established a firm hold. At once Joe slid down the rope and made it fast. The silk ladder was lowered and he climbed back again briskly. The balloon remained almost motionless in the lee of the mountain. The evening meal was prepared and the travellers, their appetites stimulated by their journey through the air, made a big hole in their stores.

'How far have we come today?' asked Kennedy.

The doctor took a reckoning on the moon and consulted the excellent map which served as his guide, and which was taken from the Atlas der neuesten Entdeckungen in Afrika, published at Gotha by his learned friend Petermann, who had presented him with a copy. This atlas could be used for the whole of the doctor's journey, for it gave Burton and Speke's route to the Great Lakes, Dr Barth's discoveries in the Sudan, Lower Senegal according to Guillaume Lejean, and the Niger delta as surveyed by Dr Baikie.

Fergusson had also provided himself with a work which contained in one volume all the information that had been acquired about the Nile. This was called The Sources of the Nile , and was a general survey of the basin of that river and of its main stream, with the history of Nilotic discovery by Charles Beke, D.D. He also possessed an excellent map published in Bulletins of the London Royal Geographical Society , so that no area already discovered was likely to baffle him.

Measuring on his map with his dividers, he found that their latitudinal route had covered two degrees or 120 miles in a westerly direction. Kennedy observed that the route was southerly, but the doctor did not mind this as he was anxious, as far as possible, to follow the tracks of his predecessors.

It was decided to divide the night into three watches so that each might take his turn in guarding the other two. The doctor was to take the watch beginning at nine, Kennedy that beginning at midnight, and he in his turn was to be relieved by Joe at 3 a.m. Kennedy and Joe therefore wrapped themselves up in their blankets, lay down under the awning and slept soundly while Dr Fergusson kept watch. jv1iT9v5wKPx6MonT81D1LG77xHOlpGudTYD5K5vNwl+plZlYEOHmn0shUFH7psx