Works of Jules Verne/Five Weeks in a Balloon/Chapter 9
CHAPTER IX
DOUBLING THE CAPE
The Resolute made rapid progress towards the Cape, meeting with fine weather, but with occasionally heavy seas. Upon the 30th March, twenty-seven days after they had left London, Table Mountain appeared upon the horizon. Cape Town, situated at the foot of an amphitheater of hills, could be distinguished by the glasses, and the Resolute soon cast anchor in the harbor. But the captain only waited to "coal," which was accomplished in a day, and upon the following one the ship's head was put to the south to double the most southerly point of Africa and enter the Mozambique Channel.
As this was by no means Joe's first voyage, he very soon made himself at home on board. Everyone liked him for his frankness and good humor. No inconsiderable portion of his master's fame was reflected upon him, he was listened to as an oracle, and he had not the slightest doubt that he was anything else.
Now, while the doctor was continuing his course of lectures in the cabin, Joe was mounted on the forecastle telling stones in his own way, a proceeding in imitation of the greatest writers of all ages. The subject of the aerial voyage was naturally discussed. Joe had had some trouble to overcome the stubborn spirits of his companions; but now the enterprise was an accepted fact, the imagination of the sailors, stimulated by Joe’s stories, believed everything to be possible.
This dazzling narrator had persuaded his hearers that after this voyage there would be many more undertaken. It was only the commencement of a long series of super-human expeditions. "Don't you see, my friends, that when one has had a taste of this kind of locomotion one can be no longer contented, so in our next expedition, instead of going sideways, we shall go directly upwards."
"What! right up into the moon, then?" cried his astonished audience.
"Into the moon?" rejoined Joe; "no, faith, that is too commonplace. Everybody now goes up to the moon. More-over, there is no water there, and one would be obliged to carry a quantity of provisions, and even air in bottles to be able to breathe."
"Well, it would be all right if one could find some grog tip there, "said a sailor who had only lately experienced the taste of that mixture.
"That's enough, my lad, we shall not go to the moon, but we shall sail about amongst the stars in the midst of those beautiful planets of which my master has often spoken to me. We shall commence by visiting Saturn."
"That one with the ring?" asked the quartermaster.
"Yes, a wedding-ring, only no one knows what has become of his wife."
"Hullo! are you going so far as that?" said a cabin-boy, utterly astounded. "Why your master must be the devil in person!"
"The devil! oh dear no; he is too good for that."
"But where are you going after Saturn?" asked one of the most impatient of the audience.
"After Saturn? Well, we shall visit Jupiter, a most extraordinary country, where the days are only nine hours and a half long, which is a great blessing for idle people; and where the years, by-the-by, last as long as twelve of ours, which is a great source of satisfaction to people who have only six months to live. That gives them a little longer lease of life."
"Twelve years!" exclaimed the cabin boy.
"Yes, my boy; so in that country you would not be weaned yet, and that old fellow over there, who is nearly fifty, would be only a child four years and a half old."
"That is not true!" cried all the men.
"Perfectly true!" said Joe, with assurance. "But what can you expect if you will persist in vegetating in this world? You learn nothing, and you remain as ignorant as a porpoise. Come up to Jupiter for a little, and you will see. You must hold on pretty tight up there, for there are satellites knocking about which are occasionally inconvenient."
They laughed at this, but they did not half believe him. Then he spoke to them about Neptune, where sailors were always so well received, and of Mars, where soldiers take the wall, which conduct on their part invariably leads to a fight. As for Mercury, it is a wretched place, full of robbers and tradesmen, who are so much alike, that it is difficult to distinguish one from the other. Finally, he drew them a truly enchanting picture of Venus; "and when we shall have returned from that expedition we shall be decorated with the Southern Cross."
"And well you will have won it," cried the sailors.
Thus, in animated conversation, the long evenings were passed on the forecastle. All this time the interesting conversations with the doctor continued.
One day, when they were conversing respecting the guidance of balloons, Ferguson was asked to give his opinion on the question.
"I do not think," he said, "that we shall ever be able to direct the course of a balloon. I am acquainted with all the systems which have been proposed or attempted. Not one has succeeded; not one is practicable. You may very well imagine that I have myself been engaged in this matter, which ought to possess a very great interest for me, but I have never been able to solve it by means of our present knowledge of mechanics. It would be necessary to discover a motive power of extraordinary strength and of an impossible lightness. Even then, one could not resist any considerable currents. As it is, one is much more anxious to direct the car than the balloon. That's a mistake."
"Nevertheless," said someone, "there is a great resemblance between the balloon and a ship, which can be guided at will."
"Not at all," replied Doctor Ferguson; "there is little or no resemblance. Air is infinitely less dense than water, in which, moreover, a ship is only half submerged, while the balloon is entirely surrounded by the atmosphere, and remains stationary on account of the fluid which encircles it."
"Then you are of opinion that science is exhausted upon that point?"
"Not so, not so; it has become necessary to look for other means by which, if a balloon cannot be guided, it can be kept up in favorable atmospheric currents. As one rises higher, these currents become more uniform, and are more constant in their direction, as they are not interfered with by the valleys and mountains which intersect the face of the earth; and here is the principal cause, as you are aware, of the changes of the force and direction of the wind. Now once these zones have been determined, the balloon will only have to be placed in the currents which will be met there."
"But," replied the captain, "to hit upon these currents you must be always ascending or descending. There is the true difficulty, my dear doctor."
"Why, my dear captain?"
"Let us understand each other; it would only be an obstacle in the way of long journeys, not for small ascents."
"Your reasons, if you please?"
"Because you can only ascend by throwing out ballast, you can only descend by letting the gas escape; and under these circumstances your store of gas would be very soon exhausted."
"My dear Penney, that is the point of the whole thing. There is the difficulty which science should endeavor to overcome. It is not a question of directing the course of a balloon so much, as it is a question of moving up and down without losing the gas, which is the strength, the blood, the soul, so to speak, of a balloon."
"Quite right, doctor; but this difficulty is not overcome; the means to accomplish this have not yet been found."
"Excuse me, they have been."
"By whom?"
"By me."
"By you!"
"Why, you must understand that without this power I should not have run the risks of crossing Africa in a balloon. Why, in about twenty-four hours I should have had no gas left."
"But you have never spoken of this in England!"
"No, I did not think it desirable to discuss it in public. That seemed to me useless. I made secretly some preliminary experiments, and I am satisfied. I have not any need of learning anything further on that point."
"My dear Ferguson, may one ask to be made acquainted with your secrets?"
"Here it is, gentlemen, and my plan is a very simple one."
The curiosity of the audience was raised to the highest pitch, while the doctor calmly addressed himself to his subject as follows.