Chapter Chapter 40 · Dr. Ferguson’s Anxieties.—Persistent Movement southward.—A Cloud of
. Dr. Ferguson’s Anxieties.—Persistent Movement southward.—A Cloud of
Grasshoppers.—A View of Jenné.—A View of Ségo.—Change of the
Wind.—Joe’s Regrets.
The flow of the river was, at that point, divided by large islands into
narrow branches, with a very rapid current. Upon one among them stood
some shepherds’ huts, but it had become impossible to take an exact
observation of them, because the speed of the balloon was constantly
increasing. Unfortunately, it turned still more toward the south, and
in a few moments crossed Lake Debo.
Dr. Ferguson, forcing the dilation of his aërial craft to the utmost,
sought for other currents of air at different heights, but in vain; and
he soon gave up the attempt, which was only augmenting the waste of gas
by pressing it against the well-worn tissue of the balloon.
He made no remark, but he began to feel very anxious. This persistence
of the wind to head him off toward the southern part of Africa was
defeating his calculations, and he no longer knew upon whom or upon
what to depend. Should he not reach the English or French territories,
what was to become of him in the midst of the barbarous tribes that
infest the coasts of Guinea? How should he there get to a ship to take
him back to England? And the actual direction of the wind was driving
him along to the kingdom of Dahomey, among the most savage races, and
into the power of a ruler who was in the habit of sacrificing thousands
of human victims at his public orgies. There he would be lost!
On the other hand, the balloon was visibly wearing out, and the doctor
felt it failing him. However, as the weather was clearing up a little,
he hoped that the cessation of the rain would bring about a change in
the atmospheric currents.
It was therefore a disagreeable reminder of the actual situation when
Joe said aloud:
“There! the rain’s going to pour down harder than ever; and this time
it will be the deluge itself, if we’re to judge by yon cloud that’s
coming up!”
“What! another cloud?” asked Ferguson.
“Yes, and a famous one,” replied Kennedy.
“I never saw the like of it,” added Joe.
“I breathe freely again!” said the doctor, laying down his spy-glass.
“That’s not a cloud!”
“Not a cloud?” queried Joe, with surprise.
“No; it is a swarm.”
“Eh?”
“A swarm of grasshoppers!”
“That? Grasshoppers!”
“Myriads of grasshoppers, that are going to sweep over this country
like a water-spout; and woe to it! for, should these insects alight, it
will be laid waste.”
“That would be a sight worth beholding!”
“Wait a little, Joe. In ten minutes that cloud will have arrived where
we are, and you can then judge by the aid of your own eyes.”
The doctor was right. The cloud, thick, opaque, and several miles in
extent, came on with a deafening noise, casting its immense shadow over
the fields. It was composed of numberless legions of that species of
grasshopper called crickets. About a hundred paces from the balloon,
they settled down upon a tract full of foliage and verdure. 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.”
“It’s a terrible shower,” said the hunter; “more so than hail itself in
the devastation it causes.”
“It is impossible to prevent it,” replied Ferguson. “Sometimes the
inhabitants have had the idea to burn the forests, and even the
standing crops, in order to arrest the progress of these insects; but
the first ranks plunging into the flames would extinguish them beneath
their mass, and the rest of the swarm would then pass irresistibly
onward. Fortunately, in these regions, there is some sort of
compensation for their ravages, since the natives gather these insects
in great numbers and greedily eat them.”
“They are the prawns of the air,” said Joe, who added that he was sorry
that he had never had the chance to taste them—just for information’s
sake!
The country became more marshy toward evening; the forests dwindled to
isolated clumps of trees; and on the borders of the river could be seen
plantations of tobacco, and swampy meadow-lands fat with forage. At
last the city of Jenné, on a large island, came in sight, with the two
towers of its clay-built mosque, and the putrid odor of the millions of
swallows’ nests accumulated in its walls. The tops of some baobabs,
mimosas, and date-trees peeped up between the houses; and, even at
night, the activity of the place seemed very great. Jenné is, in fact,
quite a commercial city: it supplies all the wants of Timbuctoo. Its
boats on the river, and its caravans along the shaded roads, bear
thither the various products of its industry.
“Were it not that to do so would prolong our journey,” said the doctor,
“I should like to alight at this place. There must be more than one
Arab there who has travelled in England and France, and to whom our
style of locomotion is not altogether new. But it would not be
prudent.”
“Let us put off the visit until our next trip,” said Joe, laughing.
“Besides, my friends, unless I am mistaken, the wind has a slight
tendency to veer a little more to the eastward, and we must not lose
such an opportunity.”
The doctor threw overboard some articles that were no longer
of use—some empty bottles, and a case that had contained
preserved-meat—and thereby managed to keep the balloon in a belt of the
atmosphere more favorable to his plans. At four o’clock in the morning
the first rays of the sun lighted up Ségo, the capital of Bambarra,
which could be recognized at once by the four towns that compose it,
by its Saracenic mosques, and by the incessant going and coming of the
flat-bottomed boats that convey its inhabitants from one quarter to
the other. But the travellers were not more seen than they saw. They
sped rapidly and directly to the northwest, and the doctor’s anxiety
gradually subsided.
“Two more days in this direction, and at this rate of speed, and we’ll
reach the Senegal River.”
“And we’ll be in a friendly country?” asked the hunter.
“Not altogether; but, if the worst came to the worst, and the balloon
were to fail us, we might make our way to the French settlements. But,
let it hold out only for a few hundred miles, and we shall arrive
without fatigue, alarm, or danger, at the western coast.”
“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?”
“Who can tell, Joe? One thing, however, will be undeniable: a thousand
witnesses saw us start on one side of the African Continent, and a
thousand more will see us arrive on the other.”
“And, in that case, it seems to me that it would be hard to say that we
had not crossed it,” added Kennedy.
“Ah, doctor!” said Joe again, with a deep sigh, “I’ll think more than
once of my lumps of solid gold-ore! There was something that would have
given _weight_ to our narrative! At a grain of gold per head, I could
have got together a nice crowd to listen to me, and even to admire me!”