The city forms an immense triangle marked out upon a vast plain of white sand, its acute angle directed toward the north and piercing a corner of the desert.
In the environs there was almost nothing, hardly even a few grasses, with some dwarf mimosas and stunted bushes.
As for the appearance of Timbuctoo, the reader has but to imagine a collection of billiard-balls and thimbles—such is the bird’s-eye view!
The streets, which are quite narrow, are lined with houses only one story in height, built of bricks dried in the sun, and huts of straw and reeds, the former square, the latter conical.
Upon the terraces were seen some of the male inhabitants, carelessly lounging at full length in flowing apparel of bright colors, and lance or musket in hand; but no women were visible at that hour of the day.
“Yet they are said to be handsome,” remarked the doctor.
“You see the three towers of the three mosques that are the only ones left standing of a great number—the city has indeed fallen from its ancient splendor!
At the top of the triangle rises the Mosque of Sankore, with its ranges of galleries resting on arcades of sufficiently pure design.
Farther on, and near to the Sane-Gungu quarter, is the Mosque of Sidi-Yahia and some two-story houses.
But do not look for either palaces or monuments: the sheik is a mere son of traffic, and his royal palace is a counting-house.”
“It seems to me that I can see half-ruined ramparts,” said Kennedy.
“They were destroyed by the Fouillanes in 1826; the city was one-third larger then, for Timbuctoo, an object generally coveted by all the tribes, since the eleventh century, has belonged in succession to the Touaregs, the Sonrayans, the Morocco men, and the Fouillanes; and this great centre of civilization, where a sage like Ahmed-Baba owned, in the sixteenth century, a library of sixteen hundred manuscripts, is now nothing but a mere half-way house for the trade of Central Africa.”
The city, indeed, seemed abandoned to supreme neglect; it betrayed that indifference which seems epidemic to cities that are passing away.
Huge heaps of rubbish encumbered the suburbs, and, with the hill on which the market-place stood, formed the only inequalities of the ground.
When the Victoria passed, there was some slight show of movement; drums were beaten; but the last learned man still lingering in the place had hardly time to notice the new phenomenon, for our travellers, driven onward by the wind of the desert, resumed the winding course of the river, and, ere long, Timbuctoo was nothing more than one of the fleeting reminiscences of their journey.
“And now,” said the doctor, “Heaven may waft us whither it pleases!”
“Provided only that we go westward,” added Kennedy.
“Bah!” said Joe; “I wouldn’t be afraid if it was to go back to Zanzibar by the same road, or to cross the ocean to America.”
“We would first have to be able to do that, Joe!”
“And what’s wanting, doctor?”
“Gas, my boy; the ascending force of the balloon is evidently growing weaker, and we shall need all our management to make it carry us to the sea-coast.
I shall even have to throw over some ballast.
We are too heavy.”
“That’s what comes of doing nothing, doctor; when a man lies stretched out all day long in his hammock, he gets fat and heavy.
It’s a lazybones trip, this of ours, master, and when we get back every body will find us big and stout.”
“Just like Joe,” said Kennedy; “just the ideas for him: but wait a bit! Can you tell what we may have to go through yet?
We are still far from the end of our trip. Where do you expect to strike the African coast, doctor?”
“I should find it hard to answer you, Kennedy.
We are at the mercy of very variable winds; but I should think myself fortunate were we to strike it between Sierra Leone and Portendick.
There is a stretch of country in that quarter where we should meet with friends.”
“And it would be a pleasure to press their hands; but, are we going in the desirable direction?”
“Not any too well, Dick; not any too well!
Look at the needle of the compass; we are bearing southward, and ascending the Niger toward its sources.”
“A fine chance to discover them,” said Joe, “if they were not known already. Now, couldn’t we just find others for it, on a pinch?”
“Not exactly, Joe; but don’t be alarmed: I hardly expect to go so far as that.”
At nightfall the doctor threw out the last bags of sand. The Victoria rose higher, and the blow-pipe, although working at full blast, could scarcely keep her up.
At that time she was sixty miles to the southward of Timbuctoo, and in the morning the aeronauts awoke over the banks of the Niger, not far from Lake Debo.
CHAPTER FORTIETH. Dr.
Ferguson’s Anxieties.—Persistent Movement southward.—A Cloud of Grasshoppers.—A View of Jenne.—A View of Sego.—Change of the Wind.—Joe’s Regrets.
The flow of the river was, at that point, divided by large islands into narrow branches, with a very rapid current.
Upon one among them stood some shepherds’ huts, but it had become impossible to take an exact observation of them, because the speed of the balloon was constantly increasing.
Unfortunately, it turned still more toward the south, and in a few moments crossed Lake Debo.
Dr. Ferguson, forcing the dilation of his aerial craft to the utmost, sought for other currents of air at different heights, but in vain; and he soon gave up the attempt, which was only augmenting the waste of gas by pressing it against the well-worn tissue of the balloon.
He made no remark, but he began to feel very anxious.
This persistence of the wind to head him off toward the southern part of Africa was defeating his calculations, and he no longer knew upon whom or upon what to depend.
Should he not reach the English or French territories, what was to become of him in the midst of the barbarous tribes that infest the coasts of Guinea?
How should he there get to a ship to take him back to England?
And the actual direction of the wind was driving him along to the kingdom of Dahomey, among the most savage races, and into the power of a ruler who was in the habit of sacrificing thousands of human victims at his public orgies.
There he would be lost!
On the other hand, the balloon was visibly wearing out, and the doctor felt it failing him.