The surface,
which was quite flat, offered no impediment to their progress.
The doctor's sole anxiety arose from the obstinate
northeast wind which continued to blow furiously, and bore
them away from the latitude of Timbuctoo.
The Niger, after running northward as far as that city,
sweeps around, like an immense water-jet from some fountain,
and falls into the Atlantic in a broad sheaf. In the
elbow thus formed the country is of varied character,
sometimes luxuriantly fertile, and sometimes extremely
bare; fields of maize succeeded by wide spaces covered
with broom-corn and uncultivated plains. All kinds of
aquatic birds--pelicans, wild-duck, kingfishers, and the
rest--were seen in numerous flocks hovering about the
borders of the pools and torrents.
From time to time there appeared an encampment of
Touaregs, the men sheltered under their leather tents,
while their women were busied with the domestic toil
outside, milking their camels and smoking their
huge-bowled pipes.
By eight o'clock in the evening the Victoria had advanced
more than two hundred miles to the westward,
and our aeronauts became the spectators of a magnificent
scene.
A mass of moonbeams forcing their way through an
opening in the clouds, and gliding between the long lines
of falling rain, descended in a golden shower on the ridges
of the Hombori Mountains.
Pages:
364
365
366
367
368
369
370
371
372
373
374
375
376
377
378
379
380
381
382
383
384
385
386
387
388