three o’clock the following day, February 21, the furnaces were throbbing; at five o’clock the crew weighed anchor, and under her propeller’s thrust, the Resolute headed for the mouth of the Thames.
No need to point out that conversations on board revolved entirely around Dr. Fergusson’s expedition. His looks and his words inspired such confidence, soon nobody other than the Scot doubted that his undertaking would succeed.
During the voyage’s long, idle hours, the doctor taught an honest-to-goodness course in geography down in the officers’ quarters. The young fellows were enthralled by the discoveries made over the last forty years in Africa; he told them about the exploring parties of Barth, Burton, Speke, and Grant; he painted them a portrait of that mysterious region scientists were freely investigating from every direction. In the north young Duveyrier was exploring the Sahara and bringing Tuareg chieftains back to Paris. Under the urging of the French government, a couple of expeditions were in preparation, one southbound and one westbound, the two planning to intersect in Timbuktu. Farther south the tireless Livingstone was drawing still closer to the equator, and since March 1862 he’d been going up the Ruvuma River together with Mackenzie. The nineteenth century would certainly not end without Africa revealing the secrets buried for 6,000 years in her bosom.
The Resolute
Dr. Fergusson aroused his audience’s particular interest when he gave them the details of his journey’s preparations; they insisted on double-checking his calculations; they argued about them, and the doctor was happy to participate in the debate.
On the whole they were amazed at the relatively limited number of provisions he was taking along. One of the officers questioned the doctor about this one day.
“That surprises you?” Fergusson responded.
“Definitely.”
“But how long do you think my journey will take? Months? That’s where you’re quite wrong; if it dragged on, we’d be done for, we wouldn’t make it. Please understand that it’s no more than 3,500 miles—make that 4,000 miles—from Zanzibar to the Senegal coastline.3 Now then, traveling day and night at the rate of 240 miles4 every twelve hours (nowhere near the speed of our railway trains), it will take seven days to cross Africa.”
“But then you wouldn’t be able to see anything, or take topographical readings, or scout out the countryside.”
“And yet,” the doctor replied, “if I’m in control of my balloon, if I go up and down at will, I can call a halt whenever it suits me, especially when the air currents are so strong that they threaten to carry me off.”
“And you’ll run into some,” Commander Pennet said. “There are hurricanes that go over 240 miles per hour.”
“See?” the doctor shot back. “At that kind of speed, you’d cross Africa in twelve hours; you’d wake up in Zanzibar and go to bed in Saint-Louis.”
“But,” another officer resumed, “could a balloon be swept along at that speed?”
“One already has,” Fergusson replied.
“And the balloon held up?”
“Perfectly. It happened in 1804 at the time of Napoleon’s coronation. In Paris at eleven at night, the balloonist Garnerin launched a lighter-than-air vehicle that bore the following inscription printed in gold letters: Paris, the 25th day in the Month of Frost during the 13th year of the French Revolutionary Calendar, coronation of the Emperor Napoleon by His Holiness Pope Pius VII. At five o’clock the next morning, the citizens of Rome saw the same balloon soar over the Vatican, cross the Roman Campagna, and splash down in Lake Bracciano. Therefore, gentlemen, a balloon can withstand such speeds.”
“A balloon, yes; but a man …” Kennedy ventured to say.
“A man as well! Because a balloon is always motionless in relation to the surrounding air; it isn’t the balloon that moves, it’s the mass of air itself; accordingly, if you light a candle inside your gondola, the flame won’t flicker. A balloonist riding in Garnerin’s vehicle wouldn’t suffer in the slightest from her velocity. But I don’t hold with such high-speed experiments, and if I can hitch up to some tree or crag during the night, I’ll do so without fail. In any case we’re taking enough provisions to last us two months, and there’s nothing to prevent our crack hunter from furnishing us with plenty of game when we’re on the ground.”
“Ah, Mr. Kennedy! You’ll squeeze off some prize-winning shots!” a young midshipman said, looking at the Scot with envious eyes.
“Not to mention,” another went on, “that you’ll have all the glory as well as all the fun!”
“Gentlemen …,” the hunter replied, “I truly appreciate … your compliments … but I don’t deserve such …”
“Huh?” everybody interrupted. “Aren’t you going too?”
“I’m not going.”
“You won’t be leaving with Dr. Fergusson?”
“I not only won’t be leaving with him, I’ve come along to stop him at the eleventh hour.”
All eyes turned to the doctor.
“Pay him no mind,” he replied in his calm way. “There’s no need to discuss this; deep down he’s perfectly aware that he’s going.”
“I swear by St. Patrick—” Kennedy exclaimed.5
“Don’t swear another word, Dick old friend; you’ve been measured, you’ve been weighed—you, your powder, firearms, and bullets; so there’s nothing more to say.”
And in fact, from that day until their arrival in Zanzibar, Dick didn’t reopen his mouth; he had nothing more to say on this subject or any other. Not one word.
chapter 9
Rounding the Cape—the forecastle—a course on the cosmos taught by Professor Joe—on steering balloons—on searching for air currents—Ευρηκα.1
The Resolute headed swiftly toward the Cape of Good Hope; the sky stayed clear, although the sea was beginning to run high.
On March 30, twenty-seven days after leaving London, they saw Table Mountain outlined on the horizon; located at the foot of a natural amphitheater formed by the hills, Cape Town was visible through the ship’s spyglasses, and the Resolute soon dropped anchor in its harbor. But the commander made a layover only to take on coal; this was a day’s work; the next morning his ship stood into the south to round Africa’s lowermost point and enter the Mozambique Channel.
This wasn’t Joe’s first ocean voyage; he wasted no time in making himself at home on board. Everybody liked him for his spontaneity and high spirits. A good part of his master’s fame had rubbed off on him. Folks listened to him as if he were an oracle, and his forecasts weren’t much wider of the mark than anybody else’s.
Consequently, while the doctor was busy providing clarification in the officers’ quarters, Joe
