Five Weeks in a Balloon quotes

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.

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.

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.

Each could call himself expert in his own province, and more than one rare botanical specimen, that to science was as great a victory won as the conquest of a pair of ivory tusks, became the doctor’s booty.

These two young men, moreover, never had occasion to save each other’s lives, or to render any reciprocal service. Hence, an unalterable friendship.

Destiny sometimes bore them apart, but sympathy always united them again.

Since their return to England they had been frequently separated by the doctor’s distant expeditions; but, on his return, the latter never failed to go, not to ask for hospitality, but to bestow some weeks of his presence at the home of his crony Dick.

The Scot talked of the past; the doctor busily prepared for the future. The one looked back, the other forward.

Hence, a restless spirit personified in Ferguson; perfect calmness typified in Kennedy—such was the contrast.

“Merciful Heaven!” he exclaimed, “the lunatic! the madman! Cross Africa in a balloon! Nothing but that was wanted to cap the climax! That’s what he’s been bothering his wits about these two years past!”

Now, reader, substitute for all these exclamation points, as many ringing thumps with a brawny fist upon the table, and you have some idea of the manual exercise that Dick went through while he thus spoke.

When his confidential maid-of-all-work, the aged Elspeth, tried to insinuate that the whole thing might be a hoax—

“Not a bit of it!” said he. “Don’t I know my man? Isn’t it just like him?

Travel through the air! There, now, he’s jealous of the eagles, next!

No! I warrant you, he’ll not do it! I’ll find a way to stop him! He! why if they’d let him alone, he’d start some day for the moon!”

“As for difficulties,” replied Ferguson, in a serious tone, “they were made to be overcome; as for risks and dangers, who can flatter himself that he is to escape them?

Everything in life involves danger; it may even be dangerous to sit down at one’s own table, or to put one’s hat on one’s own head. Moreover, we must look upon what is to occur as having already occurred, and see nothing but the present in the future, for the future is but the present a little farther on.

”

With such profound faith as Joe felt in the doctor, it is not to be wondered at that incessant discussions sprang up between him and Kennedy, without any lack of respect to the latter, however.

One doubted, the other believed; one had a prudent foresight, the other blind confidence.

The doctor, however, vibrated between doubt and confidence; that is to say, he troubled his head with neither one nor the other.

On the 20th, a grand farewell dinner was given to Dr. Ferguson and Kennedy by the Royal Geographical Society. Commander Bennet and his officers were present at the entertainment, which was signalized by copious libations and numerous toasts.

Healths were drunk, in sufficient abundance to guarantee all the guests a lifetime of centuries.

Sir Francis M⸺ presided, with restrained but dignified feeling.

To his own supreme confusion, Dick Kennedy came in for a large share in the jovial felicitations of the night. After having drunk to the “intrepid Ferguson, the glory of England,” they had to drink to “the no less courageous Kennedy, his daring companion.”

Dick blushed a good deal, and that passed for modesty; whereupon the applause redoubled, and Dick blushed again.

A message from the Queen arrived while they were at dessert. Her Majesty offered her compliments to the two travellers, and expressed her wishes for their safe and successful journey. This, of course, rendered imperative fresh toasts to “Her most gracious Majesty.”

The ascent would be, usually, more rapid than the descent; but that is a fortunate circumstance, since it is of no importance to me to descend rapidly, while, on the other hand, it is by a very rapid ascent that I avoid obstacles.

The real danger lurks below, and not above.

“Besides, as I have said, I have a certain quantity of ballast, which will enable me to ascend more rapidly still, when necessary. My valve, at the top of the balloon, is nothing more nor less than a safety-valve.

“However,” said the captain, “the thing may prove dangerous.”

“What matters that,” replied the doctor, “provided that it be practicable?”

“Railroads! eh? rubbish!” put in Kennedy, “that you travel on, without seeing the country!”

“Balloons! they’re the sort for me!” Joe would add. “Why, you don’t feel yourself going, and Nature takes the trouble to spread herself out before one’s eyes!”

“What a splendid sight! What a spectacle! What a delight! a dream in a hammock!”

“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.

”

“Come, come, Joe! a truce to your suppositions; they’re anything but pleasant.”

“Ah! sir, everything that happens in this world is natural, of course; but, then, anything may happen, and we ought to look out beforehand.”

At this moment the report of a gun rang out upon the air.

“You, too, my good Joe—perhaps you’re to be a god!”

“Well, master, that won’t trouble me much. I like a little flattery!”

At this moment, one of the sorcerers, a “myanga,” made a sign, and all the clamor died away into the profoundest silence. He then addressed a few words to the strangers, but in an unknown tongue.

Besides, he went so far as to chat agreeably with them.

“Worship me, ladies! worship me!” he said to them. “I’m a clever sort of devil, if I am the son of a goddess.”

They brought him propitiatory gifts, such as are usually deposited in the fetich huts or mzimu. These gifts consisted of stalks of barley and of “pombé.”

“An old half-dead sot,” replied the doctor, “whose loss will not be very severely felt.

But the moral of all this is that honors are fleeting, and we must not take too great a fancy to them.

”

“Besides,” said Kennedy, “that may prove to be a very dull period when industry will swallow up everything for its own profit.

By dint of inventing machinery, men will end in being eaten up by it!

I have always fancied that the end of the earth will be when some enormous boiler, heated to three thousand millions of atmospheric pressure, shall explode and blow up our Globe!”

“Good night, if you can only find it so!”

Kennedy and Joe stretched themselves out under their blankets, and the doctor remained alone in the immensity of space.

However, the huge dome of clouds visibly descended, and the darkness became profound. The black vault closed in upon the earth as if to crush it in its embrace.

The tempests of the tropics develop with a rapidity equalled only by their violence. A second flash of lightning rent the darkness, and was followed by a score of others in quick succession.

The sky was crossed and dotted, like the zebra’s hide, with electric sparks, which danced and flickered beneath the great drops of rain.

“We have delayed too long,” exclaimed the doctor; “we must now pass through a zone of fire, with our balloon filled as it is with inflammable gas!”

Then they enjoyed one of the grandest spectacles that Nature can offer to the gaze of man.

Below them, the tempest; above them, the starry firmament, tranquil, mute, impassible, with the moon projecting her peaceful rays over these angry clouds.

Dr. Ferguson consulted the barometer; it announced twelve thousand feet of elevation. It was then eleven o’clock at night.

… moderated, and the anchors, flung out from the car, ere long began to sweep the grass of an immense prairie, that, from a certain height, looked like a shaven lawn, but the growth of which, in reality, was from seven to eight feet in height.

The balloon skimmed this tall grass without bending it, like a gigantic butterfly: not an obstacle was in sight; it was an ocean of verdure without a single breaker.

“We might proceed a long time in this style,” remarked Kennedy; “I don’t see one tree that we could approach, and I’m afraid that our hunt’s over.”

The ancients gave it the name of an ocean, and were not far from believing that it flowed directly from the sun; but we must come down from these flights from time to time, and accept what science teaches us.

There will not always be scientific men, perhaps; but there always will be poets.

”

“Faith!” said Joe, as the Victoria skimmed closely along the ground, at scarcely the elevation of one hundred feet, and immediately over a village, “

I’ll throw them an empty bottle, with your leave, doctor, and if it reaches them safe and sound, they’ll worship it; if it breaks, they’ll make talismans of the pieces.

”

“

But then, sir, there was nothing wonderful in it! When one has lived four thousand years, one ought to be pretty tall!

” was Joe’s remark.

“No! no!” objected the doctor, vehemently; “no, let us not meddle with what don’t concern us. Do you know which is right or which is wrong, that you would assume the part of the Almighty? Let us, rather, hurry away from this revolting spectacle.

Could the great captains of the world float thus above the scenes of their exploits, they would at last, perhaps, conceive a disgust for blood and conquest.

”

“Death is at hand,” replied the missionary, “I know it! Let me look it in the face!

Death, the commencement of things eternal, is but the end of earthly cares.

Place me upon my knees, my brethren, I beseech you!”

“

That priest, who took the oath of perpetual poverty, now reposes in a goldmine!

”

“See, my dear Dick!” the doctor went on. “

Just see the power of this metal over the cleverest lad in the world! What passions, what greed, what crimes, the knowledge of such a mine as that would cause!

It is sad to think of it!”

“Undoubtedly so, Dick, provided it would not require an expenditure of water to put it in motion, for, in that case, the situation would be precisely the same; moreover, up to this time, nothing practical of the sort has been invented.

Balloons are still at that point where ships were before the invention of steam. It took six thousand years to invent propellers and screws; so we have time enough yet.

”

And what changes might not have occurred in nine days! Perhaps, too, while retaining the water, he might have ascended by throwing out ballast, at the cost merely of discharging some gas, when he had again to descend.

But the gas in his balloon was his blood, his very life!

A thousand one such reflections whirled in succession through his brain; and, resting his head between his hands, he sat there for hours without raising it.

“Good for that!” said the excited hunter; “we’ll fight him.

A man feels strong when only a fight’s in question.

”

The Scotchman had a wholesome dread of the brawny traveller, and did eat the steak, although not without a good many wry faces. Thereupon, with the utmost coolness, James Bruce added: ‘

Even admitting, sir, that the thing were untrue, you will, at least, no longer maintain that it is impossible.

’ ”

“

Why, I’ll make the doubters swallow the pieces of the balloon, without either salt or pepper!

”

“Pah!” said Joe, “but, after all, it’s natural enough.

If savages had the ways of gentlemen, where would be the difference?

By George, these fine fellows wouldn’t have to be coaxed long to eat the Scotchman’s raw steak, nor the Scotchman either, into the bargain!”

“

They are the careless people in the car!

So, my friends, let us have vigilance in all places and at all times.”

“I will follow you, doctor,” replied the hunter, with emphasis. “You may count upon me! We would rather give up the idea of prosecuting this journey than not return.

Joe forgot himself for our sake; we will sacrifice ourselves for his!

”

“It often happens, Dick; these trips across the desert are far more perilous than those across the ocean.

The desert has all the dangers of the sea, including the risk of being swallowed up, and added thereto are unendurable fatigues and privations.

”

“I foresee that they are going to make a god of me again,” thought he, “some son of the moon most likely.

Well, one trade’s as good as another when a man has no choice.

The main thing is to gain time. Should the Victoria pass this way again, I’ll take advantage of my new position to treat my worshippers here to a miracle when I go sailing up into the sky!”

“

A poor country for the landowners!

” said Joe, once more vigorously resorting to his skill in the art of natation.

“Oh! why, naturally enough, Mr. Kennedy, very naturally! I never felt better in my life!

Nothing sets a man up like a little pleasure-trip with a bath in Lake Tchad to start on⁠—eh, doctor?

”

I was hoping all the time to see the balloon tacking about and waiting for me. But not a bit of it; and so, in about three hours, I go plump, like a fool, into a camp of Arabs! Whew! what a hunt that was!

You see, Mr. Kennedy, a hunter don’t know what a real hunt is until he’s been hunted himself!

Still I advise him not to try it if he can keep out of it! My horse was so tired, he was ready to drop off his legs; they were close on me; I threw myself to the ground;

“Poh! doctor, one has only just to follow things along as they happen, and he can always work his way out of a scrape!

The safest plan, you see, is to take matters as they come.

”

“Where would we be,” said he, “with only one balloon?

The second balloon is like the lifeboat to a ship; in case of wreck we could always take to it and escape.

”

“It will not be long before we see the Niger,” said the doctor. “The face of the country always changes in the vicinity of large rivers.

These moving highways, as they are sometimes correctly called, have first brought vegetation with them, as they will at last bring civilization.

Thus, in its course of twenty-five hundred miles, the Niger has scattered along its banks the most important cities of Africa.”

At length he entered Tangiers, and on the 28th of September sailed for Toulon. In nineteen months, notwithstanding one hundred and eighty days’ sickness, he had traversed Africa from west to north.

Ah! had Callié been born in England, he would have been honored as the most intrepid traveller of modern times, as was the case with Mungo Park.

But in France he was not appreciated according to his worth.”

In the environs there was almost nothing, hardly even a few grasses, with some dwarf mimosas and stunted bushes.

As for the appearance of Timbuktu, the reader has but to imagine a collection of billiard-balls and thimbles⁠—such is the bird’s-eye view!

The streets, which are quite narrow, are lined with houses only one story in height, built of bricks dried in the sun, and huts of straw and reeds, the former square, the latter conical.

and this great centre of civilization, where a sage like Ahmed-Baba owned, in the sixteenth century, a library of sixteen hundred manuscripts, is now nothing but a mere halfway house for the trade of Central Africa.”

The city, indeed, seemed abandoned to supreme neglect; it betrayed that indifference which seems epidemic to cities that are passing away.

Huge heaps of rubbish encumbered the suburbs, and, with the hill on which the marketplace stood, formed the only inequalities of the ground.

“

That’s what comes of doing nothing, doctor; when a man lies stretched out all day long in his hammock, he gets fat and heavy.

It’s a lazybones trip, this of ours, master, and when we get back everybody will find us big and stout.”

Fifteen minutes later, the mass resumed its flight, and our travellers could, even at a distance, see the trees and the bushes entirely stripped, and the fields as bare as though they had been swept with the scythe.

One would have thought that a sudden winter had just descended upon the earth and struck the region with the most complete sterility.

“Well, Joe, what do you think of that?”

“Well, doctor, it’s very curious, but quite natural.

What one grasshopper does on a small scale, thousands do on a grand scale.

”

“

Let us put off the visit until our next trip,

” said Joe, laughing.

“And the thing will be over!” added Joe. “Heigh-ho! so much the worse.

If it wasn’t for the pleasure of telling about it, I would never want to set foot on the ground again!

Do you think anybody will believe our story, doctor?”

“Oh! what I did,” laughed the other, “was not for you; it was to save Mr. Kennedy’s rifle. I owed him that good turn for the affair with the Arab!

I like to pay my debts, and now we are even,

” added he, handing to the sportsman his favorite weapon. “I’d feel very badly to see you deprived of it.”

He was in that mood which solitude makes more keenly felt, and during which vague terrors mount to the brain.

At the close of such a journey, after having surmounted so many obstacles, and at the moment of touching the goal, one’s fears are more vivid, one’s emotions keener.

The point of arrival seems to fly farther from our gaze.

At the close of such a journey, after having surmounted so many obstacles, and at the moment of touching the goal, one’s fears are more vivid, one’s emotions keener.

The point of arrival seems to fly farther from our gaze.

Moreover, the present situation had nothing very consolatory about it. They were in the midst of a barbarous country, and dependent upon a vehicle that might fail them at any moment. The doctor no longer counted implicitly on his balloon;