Chương Chương 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!”