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chapter 5

Kennedy’s dreams—articles and pronouns in the plural—innuendos from Dick—jaunt over the map of Africa—what lies between two legs of a pair of compasses—current expeditions—Speke and Grant—Krapf, Decken, Heuglin.

Dr. Fergusson pressed energetically ahead with the preparations for his departure; he personally supervised the manufacture of his lighter-than-air vehicle, in line with certain modifications he was keeping strictly to himself.

For a good while he had been intently studying the Arabic language and various Mandingo dialects;¹ thanks to his polyglot inclinations, he was progressing rapidly.

Meanwhile his friend the hunter dogged his footsteps; probably he was afraid the doctor might take off without saying anything; he kept after him on this topic with his most persuasive arguments—which didn’t persuade Samuel Fergusson—and poured his heart out in touching appeals—which left the doctor thoroughly unmoved. Dick felt him slipping through his fingers.

The poor Scot was honestly to be pitied; he no longer looked at a blue sky without dark forebodings; while he slept he had a queasy sensation of swaying to and fro, and every night he felt he was tumbling down from some boundless height.

We should add that during these dreadful nightmares, he fell out of bed once or twice. His first order of business was to show Fergusson the severe contusions his cranium had acquired.

“And,” he added in a neighborly spirit, “I was only three feet up! No more than that! And look at this bump! Think what this means!”

This doleful innuendo failed to pluck the doctor’s heartstrings.

“We won’t fall out of the sky,” he said.

“But what if we finally do?”

“We won’t.”

That was that, and there wasn’t a thing Kennedy could say back.

What left Dick particularly exasperated was that the doctor seemed to utterly deny Kennedy’s own free will; he saw the Scot as irreversibly fated to become his companion in the clouds. There was no longer any shadow of a doubt. Samuel was unbearable in his overuse of the first-person plural pronoun:

“We shall make steady progress … we shall be ready on the … we shall be leaving on—”

And likewise with the possessive adjective for singular nouns:

“Our balloon … our gondola … our excursion …”

And ditto for plural nouns:

“Our preparations … our discoveries … our ascensions.”

Dick shuddered, although he was bound and determined to not go; but he didn’t want to clash openly with his friend. Let’s acknowledge, moreover, that without explaining himself to anybody, he quietly had his wardrobe put together and sent him from Edinburgh along with the finest shotguns in his armory.

One day, while recognizing that even unbelievable luck would give him only a one-in-a-thousand chance of success, he pretended to give in to the doctor’s wishes; but in order to delay the journey, he brought up a wide variety of possible snags. He raised concerns about the expedition’s value and timeliness…. Was there any real need to go looking for the Nile’s headwaters …? Would they truly be working for the benefit of humanity …? If every tribe in Africa ultimately became civilized, would they be any happier …? Besides, were they certain that civilization would fare any better in those parts than in Europe? (Maybe.) And in the first place, couldn’t they just wait and see …? One day somebody would certainly cross Africa and run fewer risks in the process…. In a month, in six months, before the year was out, some explorer would undoubtedly make it …

These innuendos had an effect exactly opposite to the one they aimed at, and the doctor trembled with impatience:

“O poor Dick! My faithless friend! So you want somebody else to get the glory? I have to disown my past? Shrink from obstacles that are trivial? Repay the English government and the Royal Society of London by turning into a wavering coward?”

“But …” continued Kennedy, who got a lot of mileage out of this conjunction.

“But,” the doctor kept on, “can’t you see that my journey has to compete with the achievements of undertakings already in progress? Don’t you realize that new expeditions are now forging deep into central Africa?”

“And yet—”

“Listen closely, Dick, and take a look at this map.”

Dick sighed and took a look.

“Follow the Nile upstream,” Fergusson said.

“I’m following it,” the Scot replied meekly.

“Go to Gondokoro.”

“I’m there.”

And Kennedy thought how easy such a journey was … on a map.

“Take this pair of compasses,” the doctor went on, “and place one leg on this town that the boldest men have barely gotten past.”

“It’s placed.”

“And now search along the coast for the island of Zanzibar at latitude 6° south.”

“Got it.”

“Now follow that parallel until you reach Kazeh.”

“Done.”

“Go up longitude 33° to the lower reaches of Lake Victoria, to the locale where Lieutenant Speke came to a halt.”

“I’m there. Any closer and I’ll fall in the lake.”

“All right, do you know what we’re justified in assuming, based on information supplied by the lakeside tribes?”

Dick checking the map

“No idea.”

“It’s that this lake, whose southern end lies in latitude 2° 30′, is sure to reach an equivalent 21/2 degrees above the equator.”

“Really!”

“Now then, from this northern end a stream flows that inevitably has to join up with the Nile, if it isn’t the Nile itself.”

“Interesting.”

“Now then, take your pair of compasses and place the other leg at that end of Lake Victoria.”

“Done, Fergusson old friend.”

“How many degrees do you count between the two legs?”

“Barely two.”

“And do you know what that amounts to, Dick?”

“Haven’t the foggiest.”

“That amounts to barely 120 miles—essentially nothing.”²

“Well, almost nothing, Samuel.”

“Now then, do you know what’s taking place even as we speak?”

“I honestly don’t.”

“This. The Royal Geographical Society sees it as very important to explore this lake that Speke glimpsed. Under their auspices Lieutenant (now Captain) Speke has teamed up with Captain Grant of the Indian army; they’re heading a sizable and well-funded expedition; their mission is to go all the way up the lake, then continue on as far as Gondokoro; they’ve received a grant of more than £5000, and the governor at the Cape has put his Hottentot soldiers at their disposal; they left Zanzibar at the end of October 1860. In the meantime the Englishman John Petherick, Her Majesty’s consul in Khartoum, has received upwards of £700 from the foreign office; he’s to equip a steamboat in Khartoum, stock it with adequate provisions, and make his way to Gondokoro; there he’ll wait for Captain Speke’s caravan and will be in a position to replenish the captain’s supplies.”

“Good thinking,” Kennedy said.

“You can easily see how urgent this is, if we’re to take part in these exploring activities. And that’s not all; while some are well on their way to finding the source of the Nile, other travelers are charging boldly into Africa’s heartlands.”

“On foot?” Kennedy said.

“On foot,” the doctor answered, ignoring this new innuendo. “Dr. Krapf proposes to press on to the west via the Djob, a river located below the equator. Baron von der Decken has left Mombasa, has scouted out Mt. Kenya and Mt. Kilimanjaro, and is now pushing toward the center.”

“Still on foot?”

“On foot still, or on muleback.”

“Same exact thing in my opinion,” Kennedy remarked.

“Finally,” the doctor went on, “Herr von Heuglin, Austria’s vice-consul in Khartoum, has just organized a highly important expedition whose primary objective is to search for Vogel, the traveler sent to Sudan in 1853 to assist with Dr. Barth’s work. In 1856 he left Bornu and decided to explore the unknown country that stretches from Lake Chad to Darfur. Well, he hasn’t been seen since then.* Letters reaching Alexandria in June 1860 report that he was murdered by order of the King of Wadaï; but other letters, addressed to the traveler’s father by Dr. Hartmann, quote a felata³ from Bornu who indicated that Vogel would merely be held prisoner in Wara; therefore they shouldn’t abandon all hope. A committee has been formed, and it’s presided over by the Duke Regent of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha; my friend Petermann is secretary; a national funding drive has taken care of the expedition’s costs, and many experts have signed on; Herr von Heuglin set out from Massawa during the month of June, and while looking for traces of Vogel, he’s supposed to scour the country lying between the Nile and Lake Chad, in other words, to link Captain Speke’s operations with Dr. Barth’s. And then explorers will have crossed Africa from east to west.”

“Well,” the Scot went on, “since everything’s off to a flying start, what’s left for us to do down there?”

Dr. Fergusson didn’t answer and settled for shrugging his shoulders.

* Following Dr. Fergusson’s departure, it came out that after some debate, Herr von Heuglin took a route different from the one assigned to his expedition, whose command has reverted to Herr Munzinger.