Works of Jules Verne/Five Weeks in a Balloon/Chapter 4
CHAPTER IV
AFRICAN EXPLORATION
The direction which Dr. Ferguson intended to follow in his balloon had not been chosen at hap-hazard. He had seriously considered his point of departure, and it was not without reason that he had resolved to ascend from the island of Zanzibar.
This island, situated close to the east coast of Africa, is in the 6th degree of South latitude, or 430 geographical miles below the equator. The last expedition which went by way of the great lakes to discover the source of the Nile started from Zanzibar.
But perhaps it may be as well to mention what expeditions Doctor Ferguson was hoping to connect together. There were two principal ones–that of Doctor Barth in 1849, and that of Lieutenants Burton and Speke in 1858.
Doctor Barth was a native of Hamburg, who obtained permission for himself and for his countryman, Overweg, to join the English expedition under Richardson, who was charged with a mission into the Soudan. This immense district is situated between the 10th and 15th degrees of North latitude; that is to say, that to arrive there it is necessary to travel more than 1,500 miles into the interior of Africa. Up to the period mentioned the country was only known from the expeditions of Denham, Clapperton, and Oudney, between the years 1822 and 1824.
Richardson, Earth, and Overweg, desirous of pushing their researches farther, went to Tunis and Tripoli, like their predecessors, and penetrated to Mourzouk, the capital of Fezzan. They then quitted the direct line of march and made a detour to the west, towards Ghat, guided, and not without difficulty, by the Touaregs. After undergoing a thousand perils and attacks, their caravan arrived, in October, at the great oasis of the Asben. Here Doctor Earth separated himself from his companions and made an excursion to the town of Aghades. Rejoining the expedition, it marched again on the I2th December, and having reached the province of Damaghou, the three travelers separated. Earth took the route to Kano, where he eventually arrived in safety, thanks to his indomitable patience and the payment of considerable tribute.
In spite of a severe attack of fever, he quitted Kano on the 7th of March, accompanied only by one servant. The principal aim of his journey was to explore Lake Tchad, from which he was distant 350 miles. He advanced, therefore, in an easterly direction, and reached Zouricolo, in the Bornou, which town is the capital of the great central empire of Africa.
It was there that he heard of Richardson's death caused by fatigue and privation. Passing on, he reached Kouka, the capital of Bornou, situated on the Lake. At length, after a further period of three weeks, on the I4th of April, twelve months and a half after quitting Tripoli, he arrived at the town of Ngornou.
We find him once more in company with Overweg, starting on the 29th March, 1851, to visit the kingdom of Adamaon, at the south side of the Lake. He succeeded in reaching Yola, a little below the 9th degree of North latitude. That was the extreme southerly point reached by this intrepid traveler.
In August he returned to Kouka, thence he reached in succession Mandara, Berghimi, and Kanem, attaining his eastern limit at Mazena in 17° 20′ W. long.
In November, 1852, after the death of Overweg, his latest companion, he plunged into the west, visited Sockoto, crossed the Niger, and finally arrived at Timbuctoo, where he was obliged to languish for eight tedious months, exposed to incessant annoyance by the sheik, to ill-treatment, and wretchedness. But the presence of a Christian in the town could not be tolerated longer, and the Foullaunes threatened to beset him.
So the doctor departed on the I7th March, 1854, and sought refuge on the frontier, where he remained thirty-three days in terrible destitution. He returned to Kano in November, and thence to Kouka. Here he struck the former route of Denham, after four months' detention. About the end of the year 1855 he got back to Tripoli, and reached London on the 6th September, the sole survivor of his party. Such was the extraordinary journey of Barth.
Doctor Ferguson had noted carefully that Barth did not penetrate beyond 4° N. lat. and 17° W. long.
Now let us see what Burton and Speke accomplished in Eastern Africa.
The various expeditions which ascended the Nile were all unable to reach its source, apparently shrouded in mystery. According to the account of the German doctor, Ferdinand Werne, the expedition projected in 1840, under the auspices of Mehamet Ali, was stopped at Gondokoro between the 4th and 5th parallels of N. lat.
In 1855 Brun-Rollet, a Savoyard, Sardinian consul in the Soudan in the place of Vauday, who had been killed, quitted Karthoum, and, in the disguise of a merchant dealing in gum and ivory, he reached Belenia just beyond 4°, and returned to Karthoum sick. He died there in 1857.
Neither Doctor Beney, chief of the Egyptian Medical Service, who in a small steamer reached to one degree below Gondokoro, and returned to die of exhaustion at Karthoum; nor the Venetian Miani, who, by avoiding the cataracts below Gondokoro, touched the second parallel; nor the Maltese merchant, Andrea Debono, who pushed on farther still, was able to pass that insurmountable barrier.
In 1859, M. Guillaume Lejean, sent out by the French Government, reached Karthoum by way of the Red Sea, and embarked on the Nile with a crew of twenty-one men and twenty soldiers, but he could not get beyond Gondokoro, and incurred the greatest danger from the negro tribes, then in full revolt. The expedition under the direction of M. Escayrac de Lauture made an equally vain attempt to reach these famous sources.
That fatal barrier always stopped would-be explorers.
The people sent by Nero had in his time reached the 9th degree of latitude, so in 1800 years we have only gained five or six degrees, or about 300 to 360 geographical miles.
Many travelers have attempted to reach the sources of the Nile from the west side of the continent. During the years 1768-72, the Scotchman, Bruce, departing from Masuah, a port of Abyssinia, sailed up the Tigris, visited the ruins of Axum, actually beheld the sources of the Nile where they did not exist, and returned without obtaining any other remarkable success.
In 1844, Doctor Krapf, an Anglican missionary, established a station at Monbez on the coast of Zanguebar, and discovered, in company with the Reverend Mr. Rebmann, two mountains at a distance of 300 miles from the coast. These are Kilimandjaro and Kenia, that Heuglin and Thornton ascended together.
In 1845, Maizan, a Frenchman, disembarked alone at Bazamaye, opposite Zanzibar, and got as far as Deje la Mhora, where he was put to death with cruel tortures.
In 1859, in the month of August, Roscher, of Hamburg, a young traveler, set out with a caravan of Arab merchants, and reached Lake Nyassa, where he was murdered in his sleep.
Finally, in 1857, Lieutenants Burton and Speke, both officers of the Bengal army, were dispatched by the Geographical Society of London, to explore the great African Lakes. On the 17th of June they quitted Zanzibar, and directed their course to the west.
After four months of incredible suffering, their baggage pillaged, their porters worn out and dispirited, they arrived at Kazeh, the meeting center for merchants and caravans. They were in the true land of the moon. There they collected many valuable documents respecting the manners, government, religion, and the fauna and flora of the country.
Thence they journeyed towards the first of the great lakes, Tanganyika, situated between the 3° and 8° of South latitude. They reached it on the 14th of February, 1858, and made themselves acquainted with the various tribes along its banks, who were chiefly cannibals. Leaving the lake on the 20th May, they re-entered Kazeh on the 20th June. Here Burton, quite knocked up, remained ill for several months, and during that time Speke traveled northwards more than 300 miles, as far as Lake Onkéreoné, which he sighted on the 13th August, but could only see the opening of it in 2° 30′ longtitude. He then returned to Kazeh on the 25th, and with Burton retraced his steps to Zanzibar, which they reached in March of the following year. These two intrepid travelers then came back to England, and the Geographical Society of Paris bestowed upon them its annual prize.
Doctor Ferguson had also carefully noted that they had not passed either the 2° of South latitude nor the 29° longitude East.
He therefore set himself to the task of joining the discoveries of Burton and Speke to those of Doctor Barth, and to pass over a tract of country extending to more than twelve degrees.