Part 11 (1/2)
Kennedy and Joe, whom scientific speculations failed to disturb to that extent, were not long in falling into sound slumber, while the doctor held his post
On Wednesday, April 23d, the balloon started at four o'clock in the ht was slow in quitting the surface of the lake, which was enveloped in a dense fog, but presently a violent breeze scattered all theto and fro for a th veered in a straight line toward the north
Dr Ferguson fairly clapped his hands for joy
”We are on the right track!” he exclaimed ”To-day or never we shall see the Nile! Look,our own hemisphere!”
”Ah!” said Joe, ”do you think, doctor, that the equator passes here?”
”Just here, my boy!”
”Well, then, with all respect to you, sir, it seems to me that this is the very ti ”Let us have a glass of punch You have a way of co but dull”
And thus was the passage of the Victoria over the equator duly celebrated
The balloon made rapid headway In the west could be seen a low and but slightly-diversified coast, and, farther away in the background, the elevated plains of the Uganda and the Usoga At length, the rapidity of the wind beca thirty itated, were foa like the billows of a sea By the appearance of certain long swells that followed the sinking of the waves, the doctor was enabled to conclude that the lake reat depth of water Only one or two rude boats were seen during this rapid passage
”This lake is evidently, from its elevated position, the natural reservoir of the rivers in the eastern part of Africa, and the sky gives back to it in rain what it takes in vapor from the streams that flow out of it I am certain that the Nile must here take its rise”
”Well, we shall see!” said Kennedy
About nine o'clock they drew nearer to the western coast It seemed deserted, and covered oods; the wind freshened a little toward the east, and the other shore of the lake could be seen It bent around in such a curve as to end in a wide angle toward two degrees forty minutes north latitude Lofty mountains uplifted their arid peaks at this extreave exit to a turbulent and foauson never ceased reconnoitring the country with eager eyes
”Look!” he exclaimed, ”look, my friends! the statements of the Arabs were correct! They spoke of a river by which Lake Ukereoue discharged its waters toward the north, and this river exists, and we are descending it, and it floith a speed analogous to our own! And this drop of water now gliding away beneath our feet is, beyond all question, rushi+ng on, to le with the Mediterranean! It is the Nile!”
”It is the Nile!” reeechoed Kennedy, carried away by the enthusiaslad, and always ready to cheer for so
Enormous rocks, here and there, embarrassed the course of this mysterious river The water foamed as it fell in rapids and cataracts, which confirmed the doctor in his preconceived ideas on the subject Fro and seething down, and the eye could take the fro in all directions, crossing and recrossing each other, ress, and all rushi+ng toward that nascent strea drunk them in
”Here is, indeed, the Nile!” reiterated the doctor, with the tone of profound conviction ”The origin of its naination of the learned; they have sought to trace it from the Greek, the Coptic, the Sanscrit; but all that matters little now, since we have made it surrender the secret of its source!”
”But,” said the Scotchman, ”how are you to nized by the travellers from the north?”
”We shall have certain, irrefutable, convincing, and infallible proof,” replied Ferguson, ”should the wind hold another hour in our favor!”
Thein their place nues, and fields of white Indian corn, doura, and sugar-cane The tribes inhabiting the region seeer than adoration, and evidently saw in the aeronauts only obtrusive strangers, and not condescending deities It appeared as though, in approaching the sources of the Nile, these , and so the Victoria had to keep out of range of their muskets
”To land here would be a ticklish matter!” said the Scot
”Well!” said Joe, ”so much the worse for these natives They'll have to do without the pleasure of our conversation”
”Nevertheless, descend I must,” said the doctor, ”were it only for a quarter of an hour Without doing so I cannot verify the results of our expedition”
”It is indispensable, then, doctor?”
”Indispensable; and ill descend, even if we have to do so with a volley ofwith his pet rifle
”And I'm ready,for the fight
”It would not be the first time,” remarked the doctor, ”that science has been followed up, sword in hand The sa thethe terrestrial meridian”
”Be easy on that score, doctor, and trust to your two body-guards”
”Are we there, o up a little, first, in order to get an exact idea of the configuration of the country”
The hydrogen expanded, and in less than ten ht of twenty-five hundred feet above the ground
Frouished an inextricable network of smaller streams which the river received into its bosom; others came from the west, from between numerous hills, in the midst of fertile plains
”We are not ninetyoff the distance on his map, ”and less than five miles from the point reached by the explorers froreat care”
And, upon this, the balloon was lowered about two thousand feet
”Now, my friends, let us be ready, come what may”
”Ready it is!” said dick and Joe, with one voice
”Good!”
In a fewthe bed of the river, and scarcely one hundred feet above the ground The Nile measured but fifty fathoreat excitees that lined the banks of the strearee it forht, and consequently impassable by boats
”Here, then, is the cascade mentioned by Debono!” exclaimed the doctor
The basin of the river spread out, dotted with nuuson devoured with his eyes He see for a point of reference which he had not yet found
By this ti ventured in a boat just under the balloon, Kennedy saluted theain the bank at their utood journey to you,” bawled Joe, ”and if I were in your place, I wouldn't try cohtily afraid of a monster that can hurl thunderbolts when he pleases”
But, all at once, the doctor snatched up his spy-glass, and directed it toward an island reposing in the middle of the river
”Four trees!” he exclaih, there were four trees standing alone at one end of it
”It is Bengal Island! It is the very saly