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be right we shall have passed it before seven o’clock in the evening.”
“Shall we not travel at night?” asked the Scotchman.
“No, as little as possible. With care and vigilance we might do so safely, but it is not enough to sweep across Africa. We want to see it.”
“Up to this time we have nothing to complain of, master. The best cultivated and most fertile country in the world instead of a desert! Believe the geographers after that!”
Let us wait, Joe! we shall see by-and-by.”
About half-past six in the evening the Victoria was directly opposite Mount Duthumi; in order to pass, it had to ascend to a height of more than three thousand feet, and to accomplish that the doctor had only to raise the temperature of his gas eighteen degrees. It might have been correctly said that he held his balloon in his hand. Kennedy had only to indicate to him the obstacles to be surmounted, and the Victoria sped through the air, skimming the summits of the range.
At eight o’clock it descended the farther slope, the acclivity of which was much less abrupt. The anchors were thrown out from the car and one of them, coming in contact with the branches of an enormous nopal, caught on it firmly. Joe at once let himself slide down the rope and secured it. The silk ladder was then lowered to him and he remounted to the car with agility. The balloon now remained perfectly at rest sheltered from the eastern winds.
The evening meal was got ready, and the aeronauts, excited by their day’s journey, made a heavy onslaught upon the provisions.
“What distance have we traversed to-day?” asked Kennedy, disposing of some alarming mouthfuls.
The doctor took his bearings, by means of lunar observations, and consulted the excellent map that he had with him for his guidance. It belonged to the Atlas of “Der Neuester Endeckungen in Afrika” (“The Latest Discoveries in Africa”), published at Gotha by his learned friend Dr. Petermann, and by that savant sent to him. This Atlas was to serve the doctor on his whole journey; for it contained the itinerary of Burton and Speke to the great lakes; the Soudan, according to Dr. Barth; the Lower Senegal, according to Guillaume Lejean; and the Delta of the Niger, by Dr. Blaikie.
Ferguson had also provided himself with a work which combined in one compilation all the notions already acquired concerning the Nile. It was entitled “The Sources of the Nile; being a General Survey of the Basin of that River and of its Head-Stream, with the History of the Nilotic Discovery, by Charles Beke, D.D.”
He also had the excellent charts published in the “Bulletins of the Geographical Society of London;” and not a single point of the countries already discovered could, therefore, escape his notice.
Upon tracing on his maps, he found that his latitudinal route had been two degrees, or one hundred and twenty miles, to the westward.
Kennedy remarked that the route tended toward the south; but this direction was satisfactory to the doctor, who desired to reconnoitre the tracks of his predecessors as much as possible. It was agreed that the night should be divided into three watches, so that each of the party should take his turn in watching over the safety of the rest. The doctor took the watch commencing at nine o’clock; Kennedy, the one commencing at midnight; and Joe, the three o’clock morning watch.
So Kennedy and Joe, well wrapped in their blankets, stretched themselves at full length under the awning, and slept quietly; while Dr. Ferguson kept on the lookout.
CHAPTER 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.
The night was calm. However, on Saturday morning, Kennedy, as he awoke, complained of lassitude and feverish chills. The weather was changing. The sky, covered with clouds, seemed to be laying in supplies for a fresh deluge. A gloomy region is that Zungomoro country, where it rains continually, excepting, perhaps, for a couple of weeks in the month of January.
A violent shower was not long in drenching our travellers. Below them, the roads, intersected by “nullahs,” a sort of instantaneous torrent, were soon rendered impracticable, entangled as they were, besides, with thorny thickets and gigantic lianas, or creeping vines. The sulphuretted hydrogen emanations, which Captain Burton mentions, could be distinctly smelt.
“According to his statement, and I think he’s right,” said the doctor, “one could readily believe that there is a corpse hidden behind every thicket.”
“An ugly country this!” sighed Joe; “and it seems to me that Mr. Kennedy is none the better for having passed the night in it.”
“To tell the truth, I have quite a high fever,” said the sportsman.
“There’s nothing remarkable about that, my dear Dick, for we are in one of the most unhealthy regions in Africa; but we shall not remain here long; so let’s be off.”
Thanks to a skilful manoeuvre achieved by Joe, the anchor was disengaged, and Joe reascended to the car by means of the ladder. The doctor vigorously dilated the gas, and the Victoria resumed her flight, driven along by a spanking breeze.
Only a few scattered huts could be seen through the pestilential mists; but the appearance of the country soon changed, for it often happens in Africa that some of the unhealthiest districts lie close beside others that are perfectly salubrious.
Kennedy was visibly suffering, and the fever was mastering his vigorous constitution.
“It won’t do to fall ill, though,” he grumbled; and so saying, he wrapped himself in a blanket, and lay down under the awning.
“A little patience, Dick, and you’ll soon get over this,” said the doctor.
“Get over it! Egad, Samuel, if you’ve any drug in your travelling-chest that will set me on my feet again, bring it without delay. I’ll swallow it with my eyes shut!”
“Oh, I can do better than that, friend Dick; for I can give you a febrifuge that won’t cost any thing.”
“And how will you do that?”
“Very easily. I am simply going to take you up above these clouds that are now deluging us, and remove you from this pestilential atmosphere. I ask for only ten minutes, in order to dilate the hydrogen.”
The ten minutes had scarcely elapsed ere the travellers were beyond the rainy belt of country.
“Wait a little, now, Dick, and you’ll begin to feel the effect of pure air and sunshine.”
“There’s a cure for you!” said Joe; “why, it’s wonderful!”
“No, it’s merely natural.”
“Oh! natural; yes, no doubt of that!”
“I bring Dick into good air, as the doctors do, every day, in Europe, or, as I would send a patient at Martinique to the Pitons, a lofty mountain on that island, to get clear of the yellow fever.”
“Ah! by Jove, this balloon is a paradise!” exclaimed Kennedy, feeling much better already.
“It leads to it, anyhow!” replied Joe, quite gravely.
It was a curious spectacle—that mass of clouds piled up, at the moment, away below them! The vapors rolled over each other, and mingled together in confused masses of superb brilliance, as they reflected the rays of the sun. The Victoria had attained an altitude of four thousand feet, and the thermometer indicated a certain diminution of temperature. The land below could no longer be seen. Fifty miles away to the westward, Mount Rubeho raised its sparkling crest, marking the limit of the Ugogo country in east longitude thirty-six degrees twenty minutes. The wind was blowing