Five Weeks in a Balloon [27]
At last the moment of final leave–taking arrived. The captain and his officers embraced their dauntless friends with great feeling, not excepting even Joe, who, worthy fellow, was as proud and happy as a prince. Every one in the party insisted upon having a final shake of the doctor’s hand.
At nine o’clock the three travellers got into their car. The doctor lit the combustible in his cylinder and turned the flame so as to produce a rapid heat, and the balloon, which had rested on the ground in perfect equipoise, began to rise in a few minutes, so that the seamen had to slacken the ropes they held it by. The car then rose about twenty feet above their heads.
"My friends!" exclaimed the doctor, standing up between his two companions, and taking off his hat, "let us give our aerial ship a name that will bring her good luck! let us christen her Victoria!"
This speech was answered with stentorian cheers of "Huzza for the Queen! Huzza for Old England!"
At this moment the ascensional force of the balloon increased prodigiously, and Ferguson, Kennedy, and Joe, waved a last good–by to their friends.
"Let go all!" shouted the doctor, and at the word the Victoria shot rapidly up into the sky, while the four carronades on board the Resolute thundered forth a parting salute in her honor.
CHAPTER TWELFTH
Crossing the Strait.—The Mrima.—Dick’s Remark and Joe’s Proposition.—A Recipe for Coffee–making.—The Uzaramo.—The Unfortunate Maizan.—Mount Dathumi.—The Doctor’s Cards.—Night under a Nopal
The air was pure, the wind moderate, and the balloon ascended almost perpendicularly to a height of fifteen hundred feet, as indicated by a depression of two inches in the barometric column.
At this height a more decided current carried the balloon toward the southwest. What a magnificent spectacle was then outspread beneath the gaze of the travellers! The island of Zanzibar could be seen in its entire extent, marked out by its deeper color upon a vast planisphere; the fields had the appearance of patterns of different colors, and thick clumps of green indicated the groves and thickets.
The inhabitants of the island looked no larger than insects. The huzzaing and shouting were little by little lost in the distance, and only the discharge of the ship’s guns could be heard in the concavity beneath the balloon, as the latter sped on its flight.
"How fine that is!" said Joe, breaking silence for the first time.
He got no reply. The doctor was busy observing the variations of the barometer and noting down the details of his ascent.
Kennedy looked on, and had not eyes enough to take in all that he saw.
The rays of the sun coming to the aid of the heating cylinder, the tension of the gas increased, and the Victoria attained the height of twenty–five hundred feet.
The Resolute looked like a mere cockle–shell, and the African coast could be distinctly seen in the west marked out by a fringe of foam.
"You don’t talk?" said Joe, again.
"We are looking!" said the doctor, directing his spy–glass toward the mainland.
"For my part, I must talk!"
"As much as you please, Joe; talk as much as you like!"
And Joe went on alone with a tremendous volley of exclamations. The "ohs!" and the "ahs!" exploded one after the other, incessantly, from his lips.
During his passage over the sea the doctor deemed it best to keep at his present elevation. He could thus reconnoitre a greater stretch of the coast. The thermometer and the barometer, hanging up inside of the half–opened awning, were always within sight, and a second barometer suspended outside was to serve during the night watches.
At the end of about two hours the Victoria, driven along at a speed of a little more than eight miles, very visibly neared the coast of the mainland. The doctor, thereupon, determined to descend a little nearer to the ground. So he moderated the flame of his cylinder, and the balloon, in a few moments, had descended to an altitude only three hundred feet above the soil.
It was then found to be passing just over the Mrima country, the name of this part of the