Five Weeks in a Balloon - Large Print

From this island the latest expedition, sent by way of the great lakes to explorethe sources of the Nile, had just set out.But it would be well to indicate what explorations Dr. Ferguson hoped to linktogether. The two principal ones were those of Dr. Barth in 1849, and ofLieutenants Burton and Speke in 1858.Dr. Barth is a Hamburger, who obtained permission for himself and for hiscountryman Overweg to join the expedition of the Englishman Richardson. Thelatter was charged with a mission in the Soudan.This vast region is situated between the fifteenth and tenth degrees of northlatitude; that is to say, that, in order to approach it, the explorer must penetratefifteen hundred miles into the interior of Africa.Until then, the country in question had been known only through the journeys ofDenham, of Clapperton, and of Oudney, made from 1822 to 1824. Richardson,Barth, and Overweg, jealously anxious to push their investigations farther, arrivedat Tunis and Tripoli, like their predecessors, and got as far as Mourzouk, the capitalof Fezzan.They then abandoned the perpendicular line, and made a sharp turn westwardtoward Ghat, guided, with difficulty, by the Touaregs. After a thousand scenes ofpillage, of vexation, and attacks by armed forces, their caravan arrived, in October,at the vast oasis of Asben. Dr. Barth separated from his companions, made anexcursion to the town of Aghades, and rejoined the expedition, which resumed itsmarch on the 12th of December. At length it reached the province of Damerghou;there the three travellers parted, and Barth took the road to Kano, where he arrivedby dint of perseverance, and after paying considerable tribute.In spite of an intense fever, he quitted that place on the 7th of March,accompanied by a single servant. The principal aim of his journey was toreconnoitre Lake Tchad, from which he was still three hundred and fifty milesdistant. He therefore advanced toward the east, and reached the town of Zouricolo,in the Bornou country, which is the core of the great central empire of Africa.There he heard of the death of Richardson, who had succumbed to fatigue andprivation. He next arrived at Kouka, the capital of Bornou, on the borders of thelake. Finally, at the end of three weeks, on the 14th of April, twelve months afterhaving quitted Tripoli, he reached the town of Ngornou.We find him again setting forth on the 29th of March, 1851, with Overweg, tovisit the kingdom of Adamaoua, to the south of the lake, and from there he pushedon as far as the town of Yola, a little below nine degrees north latitude. This wasthe extreme southern limit reached by that daring traveller.He returned in the month of August to Kouka; from there he successivelytraversed the Mandara, Barghimi, and Klanem countries, and reached his extremelimit in the east, the town of Masena, situated at seventeen degrees twenty minuteswest longitude.