Five Weeks in a Balloon - Jules Verne (read book TXT) 📗

went thither alone with a cask that would hold about ten gallons. He found the place pointed out to him, without difficulty, near to a deserted village; got his stock of water, and returned in less than three-quarters of an hour. He had seen nothing particular excepting some immense elephant-pits. In fact, he came very near falling into one of them, at the bottom of which lay a half-eaten carcass.

He brought back with him a sort of clover which the apes eat with avidity. The doctor recognized the fruit of the mbenbu⁠—tree which grows in profusion, on the western part of Jihoue-la-Mkoa. Ferguson waited for Joe with a certain feeling of impatience, for even a short halt in this inhospitable region always inspires a degree of fear.

The water was got aboard without trouble, as the car was nearly resting on the ground. Joe then found it easy to loosen the anchor and leaped lightly to his place beside the doctor. The latter then replenished the flame in the cylinder, and the balloon majestically soared into the air.

It was then about one hundred miles from Kazeh, an important establishment in the interior of Africa, where, thanks to a south-southeasterly current, the travellers might hope to arrive on that same day. They were moving at the rate of fourteen miles per hour, and the guidance of the balloon was becoming difficult, as they dared not rise very high without extreme dilation of the gas, the country itself being at an average height of three thousand feet. Hence, the doctor preferred not to force the dilation, and so adroitly followed the sinuosities of a pretty sharply-inclined plane, and swept very close to the villages of Thembo and Tura-Wels. The latter forms part of the Unyamwezy, a magnificent country, where the trees attain enormous dimensions; among them the cactus, which grows to gigantic size.

About two o’clock, in magnificent weather, but under a fiery sun that devoured the least breath of air, the balloon was floating over the town of Kazeh, situated about three hundred and fifty miles from the coast.

“We left Zanzibar at nine o’clock in the morning,” said the doctor, consulting his notes, “and, after two days’ passage, we have, including our deviations, travelled nearly five hundred geographical miles. Captains Burton and Speke took four months and a half to make the same distance!”

XV

Kazeh⁠—The noisy marketplace⁠—The appearance of the balloon⁠—The Wangaga⁠—The sons of the moon⁠—The doctor’s walk⁠—The population of the place⁠—The royal Tembé⁠—The sultan’s wives⁠—A royal drunken-bout⁠—Joe an object of worship⁠—How they dance in the moon⁠—A reaction⁠—Two moons in one sky⁠—The instability of divine honors.

Kazeh, an important point in Central Africa, is not a city; in truth, there are no cities in the interior. Kazeh is but a collection of six extensive excavations. There are enclosed a few houses and slave-huts, with little courtyards and small gardens, carefully cultivated with onions, potatoes, cucumbers, pumpkins, and mushrooms, of perfect flavor, growing most luxuriantly.

The Unyamwezy is the country of the Moon⁠—above all the rest, the fertile and magnificent garden-spot of Africa. In its centre is the district of Unyanembé⁠—a delicious region, where some families of Omani, who are of very pure Arabic origin, live in luxurious idleness.

They have, for a long period, held the commerce between the interior of Africa and Arabia: they trade in gums, ivory, fine muslin, and slaves. Their caravans traverse these equatorial regions on all sides; and they even make their way to the coast in search of those articles of luxury and enjoyment which the wealthy merchants covet; while the latter, surrounded by their wives and their attendants, lead in this charming country the least disturbed and most horizontal of lives⁠—always stretched at full length, laughing, smoking, or sleeping.

Around these excavations are numerous native dwellings; wide, open spaces for the markets; fields of cannabis and datura; superb trees and depths of freshest shade⁠—such is Kazeh!

There, too, is held the general rendezvous of the caravans⁠—those of the south, with their slaves and their freightage of ivory; and those of the west, which export cotton, glassware, and trinkets, to the tribes of the great lakes.

So in the marketplace there reigns perpetual excitement, a nameless hubbub, made up of the cries of mixed-breed porters and carriers, the beating of drums, and the twanging of horns, the neighing of mules, the braying of donkeys, the singing of women, the squalling of children, and the banging of the huge rattan, wielded by the jemadar or leader of the caravans, who beats time to this pastoral symphony.

There, spread forth, without regard to order⁠—indeed, we may say, in charming disorder⁠—are the showy stuffs, the glass beads, the ivory tusks, the rhinoceros’-teeth, the shark’s-teeth, the honey, the tobacco, and the cotton of these regions, to be purchased at the strangest of bargains by customers in whose eyes each article has a price only in proportion to the desire it excites to possess it.

All at once this agitation, movement and noise stopped as though by magic. The balloon had just come in sight, far aloft in the sky, where it hovered majestically for a few moments, and then descended slowly, without deviating from its perpendicular. Men, women, children, merchants and slaves, Arabs and negroes, as suddenly disappeared within the “tembés” and the huts.

“My dear doctor,” said Kennedy, “if we continue to produce such a sensation as this, we shall find some difficulty in establishing commercial relations with the people hereabouts.”

“There’s one kind of trade that we might carry on, though, easily enough,” said Joe; “and that would be to go down there quietly, and walk off with the best of the goods, without troubling our heads about the merchants; we’d get rich that way!”

“Ah!” said the doctor, “these natives are a little scared at first; but they won’t be long in coming back, either through suspicion or through curiosity.”

“Do you really think so, doctor?”

“Well, we’ll see pretty soon. But it wouldn’t be prudent to go too near to them, for