"Here, at last, is Africa, such as you pictured it to
yourself, Joe! Was I not right in saying, 'Wait a
little?' eh?"
"Well, master, it's all natural, at least--heat and dust.
It would be foolish to look for any thing else in such a
country. Do you see," he added, laughing, "I had no
confidence, for my part, in your forests and your prairies;
they were out of reason. What was the use of coming
so far to find scenery just like England? Here's the first
time that I believe in Africa, and I'm not sorry to get a
taste of it."
Toward evening, the doctor calculated that the balloon
had not made twenty miles during that whole burning day,
and a heated gloom closed in upon it, as soon as the sun
had disappeared behind the horizon, which was traced
against the sky with all the precision of a straight line.
The next day was Thursday, the 1st of May, but the
days followed each other with desperate monotony. Each
morning was like the one that had preceded it; noon
poured down the same exhaustless rays, and night condensed
in its shadow the scattered heat which the ensuing
day would again bequeath to the succeeding night. The
wind, now scarcely observable, was rather a gasp than a
breath, and the morning could almost be foreseen when
even that gasp would cease.
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