



Produced by Judy Boss






FIVE WEEKS IN A BALLOON

Or,

Journeys And Discoveries In Africa By Three Englishmen.

Compiled In French

By Jules Verne,

From The Original Notes Of Dr. Ferguson.

And Done Into English By

"William Lackland."




PUBLISHERS' NOTE.

"Five Weeks in a Balloon" is, in a measure, a satire on modern books of
African travel. So far as the geography, the inhabitants, the animals,
and the features of the countries the travellers pass over are
described, it is entirely accurate. It gives, in some particulars, a
survey of nearly the whole field of African discovery, and in this
way will often serve to refresh the memory of the reader. The mode
of locomotion is, of course, purely imaginary, and the incidents and
adventures fictitious. The latter are abundantly amusing, and, in view
of the wonderful "travellers' tales" with which we have been entertained
by African explorers, they can scarcely be considered extravagant; while
the ingenuity and invention of the author will be sure to excite the
surprise and the admiration of the reader, who will find M. VERNE
as much at home in voyaging through the air as in journeying "Twenty
Thousand Leagues under the Seas."




DETAILED CONTENTS.


CHAP. FIRST.

The End of a much-applauded Speech.--The Presentation of Dr. Samuel
Ferguson.--Excelsior.--Full-length Portrait of the Doctor.--A Fatalist
convinced.--A Dinner at the Travellers' Club.--Several Toasts for the
Occasion

CHAP. SECOND.

The Article in the Daily Telegraph.--War between the Scientific
Journals.--Mr. Petermann backs his Friend Dr. Ferguson.--Reply of the
Savant Koner.--Bets made.--Sundry Propositions offered to the Doctor

CHAP. THIRD.

The Doctor's Friend.--The Origin of their Friendship.--Dick Kennedy at
London.--An unexpected but not very consoling Proposal.--A Proverb by
no means cheering.--A few Names from the African Martyrology.--The
Advantages of a Balloon.--Dr. Ferguson's Secret

CHAP. FOURTH.

African Explorations.--Barth, Richardson, Overweg, Werne, Brun-Rollet,
Penney, Andrea, Debono, Miani, Guillaume Lejean, Brace, Krapf and
Rebmann, Maizan, Roscher, Burton and Speke

CHAP. FIFTH.

Kennedy's Dreams.--Articles and Pronouns in the Plural.--Dick's
Insinuations.--A Promenade over the Map of Africa.--What is contained
between two Points of the Compass.--Expeditions now on foot.--Speke and
Grant.--Krapf, De Decken, and De Heuglin

CHAP. SIXTH.

A Servant--match him!--He can see the Satellites of Jupiter.--Dick
and Joe hard at it.--Doubt and Faith.--The Weighing Ceremony.--Joe and
Wellington.--He gets a Half-crown

CHAP. SEVENTH.

Geometrical Details.--Calculation of the Capacity of the Balloon.--The
Double Receptacle.--The Covering.--The Car.--The Mysterious
Apparatus.--The Provisions and Stores.--The Final Summing up

CHAP. EIGHTH.

Joe's Importance.--The Commander of the Resolute.--Kennedy's
Arsenal.--Mutual Amenities.--The Farewell Dinner.--Departure on the
21st of February.--The Doctor's Scientific
Sessions.--Duveyrier.--Livingstone.--Details of the Aerial
Voyage.--Kennedy silenced

CHAP. NINTH.

They double the Cape.--The Forecastle.--A Course of Cosmography by
Professor Joe.--Concerning the Method of guiding Balloons.--How to seek
out Atmospheric Currents.--Eureka

CHAP. TENTH.

Former Experiments.--The Doctor's Five Receptacles.--The Gas
Cylinder.--The Calorifere.--The System of Manoeuvring.--Success certain

CHAP. ELEVENTH.

The Arrival at Zanzibar.--The English Consul.--Ill-will of the
Inhabitants.--The Island of Koumbeni.--The Rain-Makers.--Inflation of
the Balloon.--Departure on the 18th of April.--The last Good-by.--The
Victoria

CHAP. TWELFTH.

Crossing the Strait.--The Mrima.--Dick's Remark and Joe's
Proposition.--A Recipe for Coffee-making.--The Uzaramo.--The Unfortunate
Maizan.--Mount Duthumi.--The Doctor's Cards.--Night under a Nopal

CHAP. THIRTEENTH.

Change of Weather.--Kennedy has the Fever.--The Doctor's
Medicine.--Travels on Land.--The Basin of Imenge.--Mount Rubeho.--Six
Thousand Feet Elevation.--A Halt in the Daytime

CHAP. FOURTEENTH.

The Forest of Gum-Trees.--The Blue Antelope.--The Rallying-Signal.--An
Unexpected Attack.--The Kanyeme.--A Night in the Open Air.--The
Mabunguru.--Jihoue-la-Mkoa.--A Supply of Water.--Arrival at Kazeh

CHAP. FIFTEENTH.

Kazeh.--The Noisy Market-place.--The Appearance of the Balloon.--The
Wangaga.--The Sons of the Moon.--The Doctor's Walk.--The Population
of the Place.--The Royal Tembe.--The Sultan's Wives.--A Royal
Drunken-Bout.--Joe an Object of Worship.--How they Dance in the Moon.--A
Reaction.--Two Moons in one Sky.--The Instability of Divine Honors

CHAP. SIXTEENTH.

Symptoms of a Storm.--The Country of the Moon.--The Future of the
African Continent.--The Last Machine of all.--A View of the Country at
Sunset.--Flora and Fauna.--The Tempest.--The Zone of Fire.--The Starry
Heavens.

CHAP. SEVENTEENTH.

The Mountains of the Moon.--An Ocean of Venture.--They cast Anchor.--The
Towing Elephant.--A Running Fire.--Death of the Monster.--The Field
Oven.--A Meal on the Grass.--A Night on the Ground

CHAP. EIGHTEENTH.

The Karagwah.--Lake Ukereoue.--A Night on an Island.--The
Equator.--Crossing the Lake.--The Cascades.--A View of the Country.--The
Sources of the Nile.--The Island of Benga.--The Signature of Andrea
Debono.--The Flag with the Arms of England

CHAP. NINETEENTH.

The Nile.--The Trembling Mountain.--A Remembrance of the
Country.--The Narratives of the Arabs.--The Nyam-Nyams.--Joe's
Shrewd Cogitations.--The Balloon runs the Gantlet.--Aerostatic
Ascensions.--Madame Blanchard.

CHAP. TWENTIETH.

The Celestial Bottle.--The Fig-Palms.--The Mammoth Trees.--The Tree of
War.--The Winged Team.--Two Native Tribes in Battle.--A Massacre.--An
Intervention from above

CHAP. TWENTY-FIRST.

Strange Sounds.--A Night Attack.--Kennedy and Joe in the Tree.--Two
Shots.--"Help! help!"--Reply in French.--The Morning.--The
Missionary.--The Plan of Rescue

CHAP. TWENTY-SECOND.

The Jet of Light.--The Missionary.--The Rescue in a Ray of
Electricity.--A Lazarist Priest.--But little Hope.--The Doctor's
Care.--A Life of Self-Denial.--Passing a Volcano

CHAP. TWENTY-THIRD.

Joe in a Fit of Rage.--The Death of a Good Man.--The Night of watching
by the Body.--Barrenness and Drought.--The Burial.--The Quartz
Rocks.--Joe's Hallucinations.--A Precious Ballast.--A Survey of the
Gold-bearing Mountains.--The Beginning of Joe's Despair

CHAP. TWENTY-FOURTH.

The Wind dies away.--The Vicinity of the Desert.--The Mistake in
the Water Supply.--The Nights of the Equator.--Dr. Ferguson's
Anxieties.--The Situation flatly stated.--Energetic Replies of Kennedy
and Joe.--One Night more

CHAP. TWENTY-FIFTH.

A Little Philosophy.--A Cloud on the Horizon.--In the Midst of a
Fog.--The Strange Balloon.--An Exact View of the Victoria.--The
Palm-Trees.--Traces of a Caravan.--The Well in the Midst of the Desert

CHAP. TWENTY-SIXTH.

One Hundred and Thirteen Degrees.--The Doctor's Reflections.--A
Desperate Search.--The Cylinder goes out.--One Hundred and
Twenty-two Degrees.--Contemplation of the Desert.--A Night
Walk.--Solitude.--Debility.--Joe's Prospects.--He gives himself One Day
more

CHAP. TWENTY-SEVENTH.

Terrific Heat.--Hallucinations.--The Last Drops of Water.--Nights of
Despair.--An Attempt at Suicide.--The Simoom.--The Oasis.--The Lion and
Lioness.

CHAP. TWENTY-EIGHTH.

An Evening of Delight.--Joe's Culinary Performances.--A Dissertation
on Raw Meat.--The Narrative of James Bruce.--Camping out.--Joe's
Dreams.--The Barometer begins to fall.--The Barometer rises
again.--Preparations for Departure.--The Tempest

CHAP. TWENTY-NINTH.

Signs of Vegetation.--The Fantastic Notion of a French Author.--A
Magnificent Country.--The Kingdom of Adamova.--The Explorations of
Speke and Burton connected with those of Dr. Barth.--The Atlantika
Mountains.--The River Benoue.--The City of Yola.--The Bagele.--Mount
Mendif

CHAP. THIRTIETH.

Mosfeia.--The Sheik.--Denham, Clapperton, and Oudney.--Vogel.--The
Capital of Loggoum.--Toole.--Becalmed above Kernak.--The Governor and
his Court.--The Attack.--The Incendiary Pigeons

CHAP. 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

CHAP. 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

CHAP. THIRTY-THIRD.

Conjectures.--Reestablishment of the Victoria's Equilibrium.--Dr.
Ferguson's New Calculations.--Kennedy's Hunt.--A Complete Exploration of
Lake Tchad.--Tangalia.--The Return.--Lari

CHAP. THIRTY-FOURTH.

The Hurricane.--A Forced Departure.--Loss of an Anchor.--Melancholy
Reflections.--The Resolution adopted.--The Sand-Storm.--The Buried
Caravan.--A Contrary yet Favorable Wind.--The Return southward.--Kennedy
at his Post

CHAP. THIRTY-FIFTH.

What happened to Joe.--The Island of the Biddiomahs.--The Adoration
shown him.--The Island that sank.--The Shores of the Lake.--The Tree
of the Serpents.--The Foot-Tramp.--Terrible Suffering.--Mosquitoes and
Ants.--Hunger.--The Victoria seen.--She disappears.--The Swamp.--One
Last Despairing Cry

CHAP. THIRTY-SIXTH.

A Throng of People on the Horizon.--A Troop of Arabs.--The Pursuit.--It
is He.--Fall from Horseback.--The Strangled Arab.--A Ball from
Kennedy.--Adroit Manoeuvres.--Caught up flying.--Joe saved at last

CHAP. THIRTY-SEVENTH.

The Western Route.--Joe wakes up.--His Obstinacy.--End of Joe's
Narrative.--Tagelei.--Kennedy's Anxieties.--The Route to the North.--A
Night near Aghades

CHAP. THIRTY-EIGHTH.

A Rapid Passage.--Prudent Resolves.--Caravans in Sight.--Incessant
Rains.--Goa.--The Niger.--Golberry, Geoffroy, and Gray.--Mungo
Park.--Laing.--Rene Caillie.--Clapperton.--John and Richard Lander

CHAP. THIRTY-NINTH.

The Country in the Elbow of the Niger.--A Fantastic View of the Hombori
Mountains.--Kabra.--Timbuctoo.--The Chart of Dr. Barth.--A Decaying
City.--Whither Heaven wills

CHAP. 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

CHAP. FORTY-FIRST.

The Approaches to Senegal.--The Balloon sinks lower and lower.--They
keep throwing out, throwing out.--The Marabout Al-Hadji.--Messrs.
Pascal, Vincent, and Lambert.--A Rival of Mohammed.--The Difficult
Mountains.--Kennedy's Weapons.--One of Joe's Manoeuvres.--A Halt over a
Forest

CHAP. FORTY-SECOND.

A Struggle of Generosity.--The Last Sacrifice.--The Dilating
Apparatus.--Joe's Adroitness.--Midnight.--The Doctor's Watch.--Kennedy's
Watch.--The Latter falls asleep at his Post.--The Fire.--The Howlings of
the Natives.--Out of Range

CHAP. FORTY-THIRD.

The Talabas.--The Pursuit.--A Devastated Country.--The Wind begins to
fall.--The Victoria sinks.--The last of the Provisions.--The Leaps of
the Balloon.--A Defence with Fire-arms.--The Wind freshens.--The Senegal
River.--The Cataracts of Gouina.--The Hot Air.--The Passage of the River

CHAP. FORTY-FOURTH.

Conclusion.--The Certificate.--The French Settlements.--The Post of
Medina.--The Battle.--Saint Louis.--The English Frigate.--The Return to
London.




FIVE WEEKS IN A BALLOON.



CHAPTER FIRST.

The End of a much-applauded Speech.--The Presentation of Dr. Samuel
Ferguson.--Excelsior.--Full-length Portrait of the Doctor.--A Fatalist
convinced.--A Dinner at the Travellers' Club.--Several Toasts for the
Occasion.

There was a large audience assembled on the 14th of January, 1862, at
the session of the Royal Geographical Society, No. 3 Waterloo
Place, London. The president, Sir Francis M----, made an important
communication to his colleagues, in an address that was frequently
interrupted by applause.

This rare specimen of eloquence terminated with the following sonorous
phrases bubbling over with patriotism:

"England has always marched at the head of nations" (for, the reader
will observe, the nations always march at the head of each other), "by
the intrepidity of her explorers in the line of geographical discovery."
(General assent). "Dr. Samuel Ferguson, one of her most glorious sons,
will not reflect discredit on his origin." ("No, indeed!" from all parts
of the hall.)

"This attempt, should it succeed" ("It will succeed!"), "will complete
and link together the notions, as yet disjointed, which the world
entertains of African cartology" (vehement applause); "and, should it
fail, it will, at least, remain on record as one of the most daring
conceptions of human genius!" (Tremendous cheering.)

"Huzza! huzza!" shouted the immense audience, completely electrified by
these inspiring words.

"Huzza for the intrepid Ferguson!" cried one of the most excitable of
the enthusiastic crowd.

The wildest cheering resounded on all sides; the name of Ferguson was in
every mouth, and we may safely believe that it lost nothing in passing
through English throats. Indeed, the hall fairly shook with it.

And there were present, also, those fearless travellers and explorers
whose energetic temperaments had borne them through every quarter of the
globe, many of them grown old and worn out in the service of science.
All had, in some degree, physically or morally, undergone the sorest
trials. They had escaped shipwreck; conflagration; Indian tomahawks and
war-clubs; the fagot and the stake; nay, even the cannibal maws of the
South Sea Islanders. But still their hearts beat high during Sir Francis
M----'s address, which certainly was the finest oratorical success that
the Royal Geographical Society of London had yet achieved.

But, in England, enthusiasm does not stop short with mere words. It
strikes off money faster than the dies of the Royal Mint itself. So a
subscription to encourage Dr. Ferguson was voted there and then, and
it at once attained the handsome amount of two thousand five hundred
pounds. The sum was made commensurate with the importance of the
enterprise.

A member of the Society then inquired of the president whether Dr.
Ferguson was not to be officially introduced.

"The doctor is at the disposition of the meeting," replied Sir Francis.

"Let him come in, then! Bring him in!" shouted the audience. "We'd like
to see a man of such extraordinary daring, face to face!"

"Perhaps this incredible proposition of his is only intended to mystify
us," growled an apoplectic old admiral.

"Suppose that there should turn out to be no such person as Dr.
Ferguson?" exclaimed another voice, with a malicious twang.

"Why, then, we'd have to invent one!" replied a facetious member of this
grave Society.

"Ask Dr. Ferguson to come in," was the quiet remark of Sir Francis
M----.

And come in the doctor did, and stood there, quite unmoved by the
thunders of applause that greeted his appearance.

He was a man of about forty years of age, of medium height and physique.
His sanguine temperament was disclosed in the deep color of his cheeks.
His countenance was coldly expressive, with regular features, and a
large nose--one of those noses that resemble the prow of a ship, and
stamp the faces of men predestined to accomplish great discoveries.
His eyes, which were gentle and intelligent, rather than bold, lent a
peculiar charm to his physiognomy. His arms were long, and his feet were
planted with that solidity which indicates a great pedestrian.

A calm gravity seemed to surround the doctor's entire person, and no one
would dream that he could become the agent of any mystification, however
harmless.

Hence, the applause that greeted him at the outset continued until he,
with a friendly gesture, claimed silence on his own behalf. He stepped
toward the seat that had been prepared for him on his presentation,
and then, standing erect and motionless, he, with a determined glance,
pointed his right forefinger upward, and pronounced aloud the single
word--

"Excelsior!"

Never had one of Bright's or Cobden's sudden onslaughts, never had
one of Palmerston's abrupt demands for funds to plate the rocks of the
English coast with iron, made such a sensation. Sir Francis M----'s
address was completely overshadowed. The doctor had shown himself
moderate, sublime, and self-contained, in one; he had uttered the word
of the situation--

"Excelsior!"

The gouty old admiral who had been finding fault, was completely won
over by the singular man before him, and immediately moved the insertion
of Dr. Ferguson's speech in "The Proceedings of the Royal Geographical
Society of London."

Who, then, was this person, and what was the enterprise that he
proposed?

Ferguson's father, a brave and worthy captain in the English Navy, had
associated his son with him, from the young man's earliest years, in
the perils and adventures of his profession. The fine little fellow, who
seemed to have never known the meaning of fear, early revealed a keen
and active mind, an investigating intelligence, and a remarkable
turn for scientific study; moreover, he disclosed uncommon address in
extricating himself from difficulty; he was never perplexed, not even
in handling his fork for the first time--an exercise in which children
generally have so little success.

His fancy kindled early at the recitals he read of daring enterprise and
maritime adventure, and he followed with enthusiasm the discoveries that
signalized the first part of the nineteenth century. He mused over the
glory of the Mungo Parks, the Bruces, the Caillies, the Levaillants, and
to some extent, I verily believe, of Selkirk (Robinson Crusoe), whom
he considered in no wise inferior to the rest. How many a well-employed
hour he passed with that hero on his isle of Juan Fernandez! Often he
criticised the ideas of the shipwrecked sailor, and sometimes discussed
his plans and projects. He would have done differently, in such and such
a case, or quite as well at least--of that he felt assured. But of one
thing he was satisfied, that he never should have left that pleasant
island, where he was as happy as a king without subjects--no, not if
the inducement held out had been promotion to the first lordship in the
admiralty!

It may readily be conjectured whether these tendencies were developed
during a youth of adventure, spent in every nook and corner of the
Globe. Moreover, his father, who was a man of thorough instruction,
omitted no opportunity to consolidate this keen intelligence by serious
studies in hydrography, physics, and mechanics, along with a slight
tincture of botany, medicine, and astronomy.

Upon the death of the estimable captain, Samuel Ferguson, then
twenty-two years of age, had already made his voyage around the world.
He had enlisted in the Bengalese Corps of Engineers, and distinguished
himself in several affairs; but this soldier's life had not exactly
suited him; caring but little for command, he had not been fond of
obeying. He, therefore, sent in his resignation, and half botanizing,
half playing the hunter, he made his way toward the north of the Indian
Peninsula, and crossed it from Calcutta to Surat--a mere amateur trip
for him.

From Surat we see him going over to Australia, and in 1845 participating
in Captain Sturt's expedition, which had been sent out to explore the
new Caspian Sea, supposed to exist in the centre of New Holland.

Samuel Ferguson returned to England about 1850, and, more than ever
possessed by the demon of discovery, he spent the intervening time,
until 1853, in accompanying Captain McClure on the expedition that went
around the American Continent from Behring's Straits to Cape Farewell.

Notwithstanding fatigues of every description, and in all climates,
Ferguson's constitution continued marvellously sound. He felt at ease in
the midst of the most complete privations; in fine, he was the very
type of the thoroughly accomplished explorer whose stomach expands or
contracts at will; whose limbs grow longer or shorter according to
the resting-place that each stage of a journey may bring; who can fall
asleep at any hour of the day or awake at any hour of the night.

Nothing, then, was less surprising, after that, than to find our
traveller, in the period from 1855 to 1857, visiting the whole region
west of the Thibet, in company with the brothers Schlagintweit,
and bringing back some curious ethnographic observations from that
expedition.

During these different journeys, Ferguson had been the most active and
interesting correspondent of the Daily Telegraph, the penny newspaper
whose circulation amounts to 140,000 copies, and yet scarcely suffices
for its many legions of readers. Thus, the doctor had become well known
to the public, although he could not claim membership in either of the
Royal Geographical Societies of London, Paris, Berlin, Vienna, or
St. Petersburg, or yet with the Travellers' Club, or even the Royal
Polytechnic Institute, where his friend the statistician Cockburn ruled
in state.

The latter savant had, one day, gone so far as to propose to him the
following problem: Given the number of miles travelled by the doctor in
making the circuit of the Globe, how many more had his head described
than his feet, by reason of the different lengths of the radii?--or,
the number of miles traversed by the doctor's head and feet respectively
being given, required the exact height of that gentleman?

This was done with the idea of complimenting him, but the doctor had
held himself aloof from all the learned bodies--belonging, as he did, to
the church militant and not to the church polemical. He found his time
better employed in seeking than in discussing, in discovering rather
than discoursing.

There is a story told of an Englishman who came one day to Geneva,
intending to visit the lake. He was placed in one of those odd vehicles
in which the passengers sit side by side, as they do in an omnibus.
Well, it so happened that the Englishman got a seat that left him with
his back turned toward the lake. The vehicle completed its circular trip
without his thinking to turn around once, and he went back to London
delighted with the Lake of Geneva.

Doctor Ferguson, however, had turned around to look about him on his
journeyings, and turned to such good purpose that he had seen a great
deal. In doing so, he had simply obeyed the laws of his nature, and we
have good reason to believe that he was, to some extent, a fatalist,
but of an orthodox school of fatalism withal, that led him to rely
upon himself and even upon Providence. He claimed that he was impelled,
rather than drawn by his own volition, to journey as he did, and that he
traversed the world like the locomotive, which does not direct itself,
but is guided and directed by the track it runs on.

"I do not follow my route;" he often said, "it is my route that follows
me."

The reader will not be surprised, then, at the calmness with which the
doctor received the applause that welcomed him in the Royal Society. He
was above all such trifles, having no pride, and less vanity. He
looked upon the proposition addressed to him by Sir Francis M----as the
simplest thing in the world, and scarcely noticed the immense effect
that it produced.

When the session closed, the doctor was escorted to the rooms of the
Travellers' Club, in Pall Mall. A superb entertainment had been prepared
there in his honor. The dimensions of the dishes served were made to
correspond with the importance of the personage entertained, and the
boiled sturgeon that figured at this magnificent repast was not an inch
shorter than Dr. Ferguson himself.

Numerous toasts were offered and quaffed, in the wines of France, to
the celebrated travellers who had made their names illustrious by their
explorations of African territory. The guests drank to their health or
to their memory, in alphabetical order, a good old English way of doing
the thing. Among those remembered thus, were: Abbadie, Adams, Adamson,
Anderson, Arnaud, Baikie, Baldwin, Barth, Batouda, Beke, Beltram, Du
Berba, Bimbachi, Bolognesi, Bolwik, Belzoni, Bonnemain, Brisson, Browne,
Bruce, Brun-Rollet, Burchell, Burckhardt, Burton, Cailland, Caillie,
Campbell, Chapman, Clapperton, Clot-Bey, Colomieu, Courval, Cumming,
Cuny, Debono, Decken, Denham, Desavanchers, Dicksen, Dickson, Dochard,
Du Chaillu, Duncan, Durand, Duroule, Duveyrier, D'Escayrac, De Lauture,
Erhardt, Ferret, Fresnel, Galinier, Galton, Geoffroy, Golberry,
Hahn, Halm, Harnier, Hecquart, Heuglin, Hornemann, Houghton, Imbert,
Kauffmann, Knoblecher, Krapf, Kummer, Lafargue, Laing, Lafaille,
Lambert, Lamiral, Lampriere, John Lander, Richard Lander, Lefebvre,
Lejean, Levaillant, Livingstone, MacCarthy, Maggiar, Maizan, Malzac,
Moffat, Mollien, Monteiro, Morrison, Mungo Park, Neimans, Overweg,
Panet, Partarrieau, Pascal, Pearse, Peddie, Penney, Petherick, Poncet,
Prax, Raffenel, Rabh, Rebmann, Richardson, Riley, Ritchey, Rochet
d'Hericourt, Rongawi, Roscher, Ruppel, Saugnier, Speke, Steidner,
Thibaud, Thompson, Thornton, Toole, Tousny, Trotter, Tuckey, Tyrwhitt,
Vaudey, Veyssiere, Vincent, Vinco, Vogel, Wahlberg, Warrington,
Washington, Werne, Wild, and last, but not least, Dr. Ferguson, who,
by his incredible attempt, was to link together the achievements of all
these explorers, and complete the series of African discovery.



CHAPTER SECOND.

The Article in the Daily Telegraph.--War between the Scientific
Journals.--Mr. Petermann backs his Friend Dr. Ferguson.--Reply of the
Savant Koner.--Bets made.--Sundry Propositions offered to the Doctor.

On the next day, in its number of January 15th, the Daily Telegraph
published an article couched in the following terms:

"Africa is, at length, about to surrender the secret of her vast
solitudes; a modern OEdipus is to give us the key to that enigma which
the learned men of sixty centuries have not been able to decipher. In
other days, to seek the sources of the Nile--fontes Nili quoerere--was
regarded as a mad endeavor, a chimera that could not be realized.

"Dr. Barth, in following out to Soudan the track traced by Denham and
Clapperton; Dr. Livingstone, in multiplying his fearless explorations
from the Cape of Good Hope to the basin of the Zambesi; Captains Burton
and Speke, in the discovery of the great interior lakes, have opened
three highways to modern civilization. THEIR POINT OF INTERSECTION,
which no traveller has yet been able to reach, is the very heart of
Africa, and it is thither that all efforts should now be directed.

"The labors of these hardy pioneers of science are now about to be
knit together by the daring project of Dr. Samuel Ferguson, whose
fine explorations our readers have frequently had the opportunity of
appreciating.

"This intrepid discoverer proposes to traverse all Africa from east to
west IN A BALLOON. If we are well informed, the point of departure
for this surprising journey is to be the island of Zanzibar, upon
the eastern coast. As for the point of arrival, it is reserved for
Providence alone to designate.

"The proposal for this scientific undertaking was officially made,
yesterday, at the rooms of the Royal Geographical Society, and the sum
of twenty-five hundred pounds was voted to defray the expenses of the
enterprise.

"We shall keep our readers informed as to the progress of this
enterprise, which has no precedent in the annals of exploration."

As may be supposed, the foregoing article had an enormous echo among
scientific people. At first, it stirred up a storm of incredulity; Dr.
Ferguson passed for a purely chimerical personage of the Barnum stamp,
who, after having gone through the United States, proposed to "do" the
British Isles.

A humorous reply appeared in the February number of the Bulletins de la
Societe Geographique of Geneva, which very wittily showed up the Royal
Society of London and their phenomenal sturgeon.

But Herr Petermann, in his Mittheilungen, published at Gotha, reduced
the Geneva journal to the most absolute silence. Herr Petermann knew
Dr. Ferguson personally, and guaranteed the intrepidity of his dauntless
friend.

Besides, all manner of doubt was quickly put out of the question:
preparations for the trip were set on foot at London; the factories of
Lyons received a heavy order for the silk required for the body of the
balloon; and, finally, the British Government placed the transport-ship
Resolute, Captain Bennett, at the disposal of the expedition.

At once, upon word of all this, a thousand encouragements were offered,
and felicitations came pouring in from all quarters. The details of the
undertaking were published in full in the bulletins of the Geographical
Society of Paris; a remarkable article appeared in the Nouvelles Annales
des Voyages, de la Geographie, de l'Histoire, et de l'Archaeologie de
M. V. A. Malte-Brun ("New Annals of Travels, Geography, History, and
Archaeology, by M. V.