Five Weeks in a Balloon Chapter 4

**Jules Verne** (0:26)
CHAPTER IV.
African Explorations. Barth, Richardson, Overweg, Verne, Brunerulet, Penny, Andrea, de Bono, Mayani, Guilhom, Lejeune, Bruce, Clef, and Redmond, Maison, Rusher, Burton, and Speke.
The aerial line which Dr. Ferguson counted upon following had not been chosen at random. His point of departure had been carefully studied, and it was not without good cause that he had resolved to ascend to the island of Zanzibar. This island, lying near to the eastern coast of Africa, is in the sixth degree of south latitude, that is to say 430 geographical miles below the equator. From this island the latest expedition, sent by way of the Great Lakes to explore the sources of the Nile, had just set out. But it would be well to indicate what explorations Dr. Ferguson hoped to link together. The two principal ones were those of Dr. Barth in 1849, and of Lieutenants Burton and Speke in 1858
Dr. Barth is a hamburger, who obtained permission for himself and for his countrymen overwork to join the expedition of the Englishman Richardson. The latter was charged with a mission in the Sudan. This vast region is situated between the 15th and 10th degrees of north latitude. That is to say that, in order to approach it, the explorer must penetrate 1500 miles into the interior of Africa. Until then, the country in question had been known only through the journeys of Denham, of Claperton and of Odney, made from 1822 to 1824
Richardson, Barth and Overwreg, jealously anxious to push their investigation's farther, arrived at Tunis and Tripoli, like their predecessors, and got as far as Mourzouk, the capital of Frizzane. They then abandoned the perpendicular line and made a sharp turn westward toward Gat, guided with difficulty by the Touaregs. After a thousand scenes of pillage, of vexation and attacks by armed forces, their caravan arrived in October, at the vast oasis of Aspen. Dr. Barth separated from his companions, made an excursion to the town of Agadez, and rejoined the expedition, which resumed its march on the 12th of December. At length it reached the province of Demergou. There the three travelers parted, and Barth took the road to Canel, where he arrived by dint of perseverance, and after paying considerable tribute.
In spite of an intense fever, he quitted that place on the 7th of March, accompanied by a single servant. The principal aim of his journey was to reconnoitre Lake Chad, from which he was still 350 miles distance. He therefore advanced toward the east, and reached the town of Zurikolo, in the Bournoux county, which is the core of the great central empire of Africa. There he heard of the death of Richardson, who had succumbed to fatigue and privation. He next arrived at Kuka, the capital of Bournoux, on the borders of the lake. Finally at the end of three weeks, on the 14th of April, twelve months after having quitted Tripoli, he reached the town of Ngomo. We find him again setting forth on the 29th of March, 1851, with overwork, to visit the kingdom of Adamao, to the south of the lake, and from there he pushed on as far as the town of Yola, a little below nine degrees north latitude. This was the extreme southern limit reached by that daring traveler. He returned in the month of August to Kuka. From there he successfully traversed the Mandara, Bargimi and Klanem countries and reached the extreme limit in the east, the town of Massena, situated at 17 degrees 20 minutes west longitude. On the 25th of November 1852, after the death of Overwijk, his last companion, he plunged into the west, visited Sokoto, crossed the Niger and finally reached Timbuktu, where he had to languish during eight long months under vexations inflicted upon him by the sheikh and all kinds of ill treatment and wretchedness. But the presence of a Christian in the city could not long be tolerated, and the Fulans threatened to besiege it. The doctor, therefore, left it on the 17th of March, 1854, and fled to the frontier, where he remained for thirty-three days in the most abject destitution. He then managed to get back to Kano in November, thence to Kuka, where he resumed Denon's route after four months' delay. He again tripled toward the close of August, 1855, and arrived in London on the 6th of September, the only survivor of his party. Such was the venturesome journey of Dr. Barth. Dr. Ferguson carefully noted the fact that he had stopped at four degrees north latitude and seventeen degrees west longitude. Now let us see what Lieutenant Spurton and Speke accomplished in East Africa. The various expeditions that had descended the Nile could never manage to reach the mysterious source of that river. According to the narrative of the German doctor, Ferdinand Verne, the expedition attempted in 1840 under the auspices of Mehmet Ali stopped at Gondokoro, between the fourth and fifth parallels of north latitude. In 1855, Brun de Lullet, a native of Savoy, appointed consul for Sardinia in eastern Sudan to take the place of Vaudet, who had just died, set out from Khartoum, and under the name of Yaqub, the merchant, trading in gums and ivory, got as far as Bellenia, beyond the fourth degree, but had to return in ill health to Khartoum, where he died in 1857 Neither Dr. Penny, the head of the Egyptian medical service, who in a small steamer penetrated one degree beyond Gondokoro, and then came back to die of exhaustion at Khartoum, nor Miani, the Venetian, who, turning the cataracts below Gondokoro, reached the second parallel, nor the Maltese trader Andrea de Bono, who pushed his journey up the Nile still farther, could work their way beyond the apparently impassable limit. In 1859, M. Gilon Lejeune, entrusted with admission by the French government, reached Khartoum by way of the Red Sea, and embarked upon the Nile with a retinue of twenty-one hired men and twenty soldiers. But he could not get past Gondokoro and ran extreme risk of his life among the Negro tribes, who were in full revolt. The expedition, directed by M. Descaillac de Rautours, made an equally unsuccessful attempt to reach the famous sources of the Nile. This fatal limit invariably brought every traveller to a halt. In ancient times the ambassadors of Nero reached the ninth degree of latitude, but in the eighteenth century only from five to six degrees, or from three hundred to three hundred and sixty geographical miles, were gained. Many travellers endeavoured to reach the sources of the Nile by taking their point of departure on the eastern coast of Africa. Between 1768 and 1772 the Scotch traveller, Bruce, set out for Masoa, a port of Abyssinia, traversed the Tigray, visited the ruins of Aksum, saw the sources of the Nile, where they did not exist, and obtained no serious result. In 1844, Dr. Krafff, an Anglican missionary, founded an establishment at Mombaz, on the coast of Zangweba, and in company with the Reverend Dr. Rebman, discovered two mountain ranges, three hundred miles from the coast. These were the mountains of Kilimanjaro and Kenya, which measures de Hoeghlen and Thornton had partly scaled so recently.