Five Weeks in a Balloon | Page 8

had seen a great
deal. In doing so, he had simply obeyed the laws of his nature, and we
have good reason to believe that he was, to some extent, a fatalist, but
of an orthodox school of fatalism withal, that led him to rely upon
himself and even upon Providence. He claimed that he was impelled,
rather than drawn by his own volition, to journey as he did, and that he
traversed the world like the locomotive, which does not direct itself,
but is guided and directed by the track it runs on.
"I do not follow my route;" he often said, "it is my route that follows
me."
The reader will not be surprised, then, at the calmness with which the
doctor received the applause that welcomed him in the Royal Society.
He was above all such trifles, having no pride, and less vanity. He
looked upon the proposition addressed to him by Sir Francis M---- as
the simplest thing in the world, and scarcely noticed the immense effect
that it produced.
When the session closed, the doctor was escorted to the rooms of the
Travellers' Club, in Pall Mall. A superb entertainment had been
prepared there in his honor. The dimensions of the dishes served were
made to correspond with the importance of the personage entertained,
and the boiled sturgeon that figured at this magnificent repast was not

an inch shorter than Dr. Ferguson himself.
Numerous toasts were offered and quaffed, in the wines of France, to
the celebrated travellers who had made their names illustrious by their
explorations of African territory. The guests drank to their health or to
their memory, in alphabetical order, a good old English way of doing
the thing. Among those remembered thus, were: Abbadie, Adams,
Adamson, Anderson, Arnaud, Baikie, Baldwin, Barth, Batouda, Beke,
Beltram, Du Berba, Bimbachi, Bolognesi, Bolwik, Belzoni, Bonnemain,
Brisson, Browne, Bruce, Brun-Rollet, Burchell, Burckhardt, Burton,
Cailland, Caillie, Campbell, Chapman, Clapperton, Clot-Bey,
Colomieu, Courval, Cumming, Cuny, Debono, Decken, Denham,
Desavanchers, Dicksen, Dickson, Dochard, Du Chaillu, Duncan,
Durand, Duroule, Duveyrier, D'Escayrac, De Lauture, Erhardt, Ferret,
Fresnel, Galinier, Galton, Geoffroy, Golberry, Hahn, Halm, Harnier,
Hecquart, Heuglin, Hornemann, Houghton, Imbert, Kauffmann,
Knoblecher, Krapf, Kummer, Lafargue, Laing, Lafaille, Lambert,
Lamiral, Lampriere, John Lander, Richard Lander, Lefebvre, Lejean,
Levaillant, Livingstone, MacCarthy, Maggiar, Maizan, Malzac, Moffat,
Mollien, Monteiro, Morrison, Mungo Park, Neimans, Overweg, Panet,
Partarrieau, Pascal, Pearse, Peddie, Penney, Petherick, Poncet, Prax,
Raffenel, Rabh, Rebmann, Richardson, Riley, Ritchey, Rochet
d'Hericourt, Rongawi, Roscher, Ruppel, Saugnier, Speke, Steidner,
Thibaud, Thompson, Thornton, Toole, Tousny, Trotter, Tuckey,
Tyrwhitt, Vaudey, Veyssiere, Vincent, Vinco, Vogel, Wahlberg,
Warrington, Washington, Werne, Wild, and last, but not least, Dr.
Ferguson, who, by his incredible attempt, was to link together the
achievements of all these explorers, and complete the series of African
discovery.


CHAPTER SECOND
.
The Article in the Daily Telegraph.--War between the Scientific
Journals.-- Mr. Petermann backs his Friend Dr. Ferguson.--Reply of the
Savant Koner. --Bets made.--Sundry Propositions offered to the

Doctor.
On the next day, in its number of January 15th, the Daily Telegraph
published an article couched in the following terms:
"Africa is, at length, about to surrender the secret of her vast solitudes;
a modern OEdipus is to give us the key to that enigma which the
learned men of sixty centuries have not been able to decipher. In other
days, to seek the sources of the Nile--fontes Nili quoerere--was
regarded as a mad endeavor, a chimera that could not be realized.
"Dr. Barth, in following out to Soudan the track traced by Denham and
Clapperton; Dr. Livingstone, in multiplying his fearless explorations
from the Cape of Good Hope to the basin of the Zambesi; Captains
Burton and Speke, in the discovery of the great interior lakes, have
opened three highways to modern civilization. THEIR POINT OF
INTERSECTION, which no traveller has yet been able to reach, is the
very heart of Africa, and it is thither that all efforts should now be
directed.
"The labors of these hardy pioneers of science are now about to be knit
together by the daring project of Dr. Samuel Ferguson, whose fine
explorations our readers have frequently had the opportunity of
appreciating.
"This intrepid discoverer proposes to traverse all Africa from east to
west IN A BALLOON. If we are well informed, the point of departure
for this surprising journey is to be the island of Zanzibar, upon the
eastern coast. As for the point of arrival, it is reserved for Providence
alone to designate.
"The proposal for this scientific undertaking was officially made,
yesterday, at the rooms of the Royal Geographical Society, and the sum
of twenty-five hundred pounds was voted to defray the expenses of the
enterprise.
"We shall keep our readers informed as to the progress of this
enterprise, which has no precedent in the annals of exploration."
As may