Home>> Culture & Life>> 历险小说>> · fán 'ěr Jules Verne   guó France   lán sān gòng guó   (1828niánèryuè8rì1905niánsānyuè24rì)
Five Weeks in a Balloon
  Five Weeks in a Balloon, or, Journeys and Discoveries in Africa by Three Englishmen (French: Cinq semaines en ballon) is an adventure novel by Jules Verne.
  
  It is the first Verne novel in which he perfected the "ingredients" of his later work, skillfully mixing a plot full of adventure and twists that hold the reader's interest with passages of technical, geographic, and historic description. The book gives readers a glimpse of the exploration of Africa, which was still not completely known to Europeans of the time, with explorers traveling all over the continent in search of its secrets.
  
  Public interest in fanciful tales of African exploration was at its height, and the book was an instant hit; it made Verne financially independent and got him a contract with Jules Hetzel's publishing house, which put out several dozen more works of his for over forty years afterward.
  
  Plot summary
  
  A scholar, Dr. Samuel Ferguson, accompanied by his manservant Joe and his friend Richard "Dick" Kennedy, sets out to travel across the African continent — still not fully explored — with the help of a hot-air balloon filled with hydrogen. He has invented a mechanism that, by eliminating the need to release gas or throw ballast overboard to control his altitude, allows very long trips to be taken. This voyage is meant to link together the voyages of Sir Richard Burton and John Hanning Speke in East Africa with those of Heinrich Barth in the regions of the Sahara and Chad. The trip begins in Zanzibar on the east coast, and passes across Lake Victoria, Lake Chad, Agadez, Timbuktu, Djenné and Ségou to St Louis in modern day Senegal on the west coast. The book describes the unknown interior of Africa near modern day Central African Republic as a desert, when it is actually savanna.
  Map of the trip described in the book from the east to the west coast of Africa.
  
  A good deal of the initial exploration is to focus on the finding of the source of the Nile, an event that occurs in chapter 18 (out of 43). The second leg is to link up the other explorers. There are numerous scenes of adventure, composed of either a conflict with a native or a conflict with the environment. Some examples include:
  
   * Rescuing of a missionary from a tribe that was preparing to sacrifice him.
   * Running out of water while stranded, windless, "over" the Sahara.
   * An attack on the balloon by condors, leading to a dramatic action as Joe leaps out of the balloon.
   * The actions taken to rescue Joe later.
   * Narrowly escaping the remnants of a militant army as the balloon dwindles to nothingness with the loss of hydrogen.
  
  In all these adventures, the protagonists overcome by continued perseverance more than anything else. The novel is filled with coincidental moments where trouble is avoided because wind catches up at just the right time, or the characters look in just the right direction. There are frequent references to a higher power watching out for them, as tidy an explanation as any.
  
  The balloon itself ultimately fails before the end, but makes it far enough across to get the protagonists to friendly lands, and eventually back to England, therefore succeeding in the expedition. The story abruptly ends after the African trip, with only a brief synopsis of what follows.
  Themes of the novel
  
  The novel has several themes and motifs central to European exploration: scientific achievement, the otherworldliness of the region explored, and the question of how much shared humanity there is between the explorers and the natives. The balloon is a straight allegory of scientific achievement overcoming the wild, as well as overcoming the limitations of the Western world. Most of the Africans are contrasted as being superstitious and quick to worship any object cast down from the balloon, though Verne does not generalize this to all religion. The treatment of animals is in line with the image of the Great White Hunter. This is most obvious by Dick's statement, upon seeing a herd of elephants, "Oh, what magnificent elephants! Is there no way to get a little shooting?" These aspects are both tied into the explorers being above, quite literally in this novel, the region they are traveling across, and Verne makes them worthy of their status through their technological achievements.
  
  As one scene where the explorers confuse baboons for black men illustrates, Africa is approached as an alien place. The explorers do not, and maybe cannot, fully understand the people they are interacting with (or, as the case may be, avoiding). Only later in the novel do they comment on the similarities between themselves and the people they have flown over, when they hold that the Africans' ways of war are not one whit worse than white men's, only filthier. In most scenes, neither the Africans nor the explorers show much compassion for the other.
  
  In Chapter 16, the Doctor equates Africa to the "Last Machine", which will serve as the place of human growth after the Americas are dry. His depiction is of an Africa tamed and cultivated over years to come.
  Inconsistent scientific/technological reference
  
  The description of the apparatus used to heat the hydrogen gas in the balloon is deeply flawed. Jules Verne states that it uses a powerful electric battery to electrolyze water into hydrogen and oxygen, and then burns resulting hydrogen in a blow-pipe. He also says that the apparatus weighs 700 pounds (including the battery) and it is able to process 25 gallons of water. This is physically impossible. Even using state-of-the-art 21st century batteries (e.g. lithium-ion batteries) and assuming zero losses, one needs over 4000 pounds of batteries to electrolyze that much water. This number should be increased by at least a factor of five if authentic mid-19th century batteries are to be used. It would have been far more realistic simply to electrolyze the water up front and to load a tank of compressed hydrogen onto the balloon (electrolysis of that quantity of water produces less than 25 pounds of hydrogen).
  
  Further, it would have been more efficient to use the energy contained in the battery to heat the gas directly. Electrolysis of water is not 100% efficient. So some of the energy contained in the battery is wasted and the heat generated by burning the obtained hydrogen is less than the heat that could have been obtained by simply using a resistance connected to the battery. In fact, Verne implies that the described device is a perpetual motion machine, since he implies that greater energy can be obtained by electrolysis than could have been obtained from the battery directly: if this were true, then the obtained hydrogen could be used to boil water to create steam to power an electrical generator to create more electricity for the battery. This may have been a deliberate joke by Verne.
  
  Though the novel goes into great detail with much of the calculations involving the lift power of the hydrogen balloon, and how to obtain the proper amount of volume through changes in temperature, there are gaps in the logic. The balloon rises up when heated, and lowers as it is allowed to cool. This pattern is used as numerous plot points and is shown to be a somewhat quick process of cooling. At night, however, there is little mention of them maintaining the temperature through the night. Another gap in the scientific logic is the lack of reference to the effect of atmospheric temperature on the balloon itself, though the temperature is referenced as affecting the heating coil.
  
  And it would be very dangerous to light a fire in the nacelle under a balloon filled with hydrogen.
  
  Further, in Chapter 41, the load carried is progressively reduced in order to allow the balloon to rise higher and higher. But in fact a single load reduction would have been sufficient, because at that point the lift of the balloon would have exceeded the weight and it would have continued to rise until the volume of gas was reduced. (The density of air decreases with increasing altitude, thus reducing the lift at constant balloon volume, but the balloon would expand proportionately, due to decreasing air pressure, thus maintaining constant total lift.)
  
  In Chapter 26, it says the doctor takes the balloon up to five miles. Later, in Chapter 29, in order to get over Mount Mendif, the doctor "by means of a temperature increased to one hundred and eighty degrees, gave the balloon a fresh ascensional force of nearly sixteen hundred pounds, and it went up to an elevation of more than eight thousand feet" which is noted as being "the greatest height attained during the journey." If this is meant to imply that the doctor went eight thousand feet above Mount Mendif, at a height greater than five miles, Jules Verne would have greatly underestimated the drop in temperature and how much heat would have been required to keep the balloon at that height for any length of time.
  
  At the time when the book was first written, lands to the north and northwest of Lake Victoria were still poorly known to Europeans. Jules Verne makes a few inaccurate predictions here, such as placing the source of the Nile river at 2°40′N (instead of 0°45′N); claiming that this source is just over 90 miles from of Gondokoro (the actual distance is closer to 300 miles); not mentioning Lake Albert at all (it was not discovered by Europeans until after the publication of the book). Much of the geography described further in the book is completely fictional. For example, coordinates given for the "desert oasis" in chapter 27 correspond to a location in a savanna region of southern Chad, less than twenty miles from a big river.
  Similarities to later novels
  
  Five Weeks has a handful of similarities to the novel Journey to the Center of the Earth. There is the same sort of conjecture from current scientific ideas and what Verne puts forth as the actual truth (though Five Weeks is far more successful, assuming there is any attempt at accuracy with Journey). The party of three characters is similarly divided into the Doctor, the doubtful companion who initially balks at the journey, and the servant who is quite able. In both novels, Purdey rifles are referenced. In both novels, there is an episode of despair categorized by thirst.
  
  Also, neither novel deals directly with the French, but with (generally positive) stereotypes of other countries.
第一章
  FIVE WEEKS IN A BALLOON;
   OR,
   JOURNEYS AND DISCOVERIES IN AFRICA BY THREE ENGLISHMEN.
   COMPILED IN FRENCH
   BY JULES VERNE,
   FROM THE ORIGINAL NOTES OF DR. FERGUSON.
   AND DONE INTO ENGLISH BY
   "WILLIAM LACKLAND."
   PUBLISHERS' NOTE.
   "Five Weeks in a Balloon" is, in a measure, a satire on modern books of African travel. So far as the geography, the inhabitants, the animals, and the features of the countries the travellers pass over are described, it is entirely accurate. It gives, in some particulars, a survey of nearly the whole field of African discovery, and in this way will often serve to refresh the memory of the reader. The mode of locomotion is, of course, purely imaginary, and the incidents and adventures fictitious. The latter are abundantly amusing, and, in view of the wonderful "travellers' tales" with which we have been entertained by African explorers, they can scarcely be considered extravagant; while the ingenuity and invention of the author will be sure to excite the surprise and the admiration of the reader, who will find M. VERNE as much at home in voyaging through the air as in journeying "Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Seas."
   CONTENTS.
   -----
   CHAPTER FIRST.
   The End of a much-applauded Speech.--The Presentation of Dr. Samuel Ferguson. --Excelsior.--Full-length Portrait of the Doctor.--A Fatalist convinced. --A Dinner at the Travellers' Club.--Several Toasts for the Occasion
   CHAPTER SECOND.
   The Article in the Daily Telegraph.--War between the Scientific Journals.-- Mr. Petermann backs his Friend Dr. Ferguson.--Reply of the Savant Koner. --Bets made.--Sundry Propositions offered to the Doctor
   CHAPTER THIRD.
   The Doctor's Friend.--The Origin of their Friendship.--Dick Kennedy at London. --An unexpected but not very consoling Proposal.--A Proverb by no means cheering.--A few Names from the African Martyrology.--The Advantages of a Balloon.--Dr. Ferguson's Secret
   CHAPTER FOURTH.
   African Explorations.--Barth, Richardson, Overweg, Werne, Brun-Rollet, Penney, Andrea, Debono, Miani, Guillaume Lejean, Brace, Krapf and Rebmann, Maizan, Roscher, Burton and Speke
   CHAPTER FIFTH.
   Kennedy's Dreams.--Articles and Pronouns in the Plural.--Dick's Insinuations. --A Promenade over the Map of Africa.--What is contained between two Points of the Compass.--Expeditions now on foot.--Speke and Grant.--Krapf, De Decken, and De Heuglin
   CHAPTER SIXTH.
   A Servant--match him!--He can see the Satellites of Jupiter.--Dick and Joe hard at it.--Doubt and Faith.--The Weighing Ceremony.--Joe and Wellington. --He gets a Half-crown
   CHAPTER SEVENTH.
   Geometrical Details.--Calculation of the Capacity of the Balloon.--The Double Receptacle.--The Covering.--The Car.--The Mysterious Apparatus.--The Provisions and Stores.--The Final Summing up
   CHAPTER EIGHTH.
   Joe's Importance.--The Commander of the Resolute.--Kennedy's Arsenal. --Mutual Amenities.--The Farewell Dinner.--Departure on the 21st of February.-- The Doctor's Scientific Sessions.--Duveyrier.--Livingstone.--Details of the Aerial Voyage.--Kennedy silenced
   CHAPTER NINTH.
   They double the Cape.--The Forecastle.--A Course of Cosmography by Professor Joe.--Concerning the Method of guiding Balloons.--How to seek out Atmospheric Currents.--Eureka
   CHAPTER TENTH.
   Former Experiments.--The Doctor's Five Receptacles.--The Gas Cylinder.-- The Calorifere.--The System of Manoeuvring.--Success certain
   CHAPTER ELEVENTH.
   The Arrival at Zanzibar.--The English Consul.--Ill-will of the Inhabitants.--The Island of Koumbeni.--The Rain-Makers.--Inflation of the Balloon.--Departure on the 18th of April.--The last Good-by.--The Victoria
   CHAPTER TWELFTH.
   Crossing the Strait.--The Mrima.--Dick's Remark and Joe's Proposition.--A Recipe for Coffee-making.--The Uzaramo.--The Unfortunate Maizan.-- Mount Duthumi.--The Doctor's Cards.--Night under a Nopal
   CHAPTER THIRTEENTH.
   Change of Weather.--Kennedy has the Fever.--The Doctor's Medicine.--Travels on Land.--The Basin of Imenge.--Mount Rubeho.--Six Thousand Feet Elevation.--A Halt in the Daytime
   CHAPTER FOURTEENTH.
   The Forest of Gum-Trees.--The Blue Antelope.--The Rallying-Signal.--An Unexpected Attack.--The Kanyeme.--A Night in the Open Air.--The Mabunguru.--Jihoue-la-Mkoa.--A Supply of Water.--Arrival at Kazeh
   CHAPTER FIFTEENTH.
   Kazeh.--The Noisy Market-place.--The Appearance of the Balloon.--The Wangaga. --The Sons of the Moon.--The Doctor's Walk.--The Population of the Place.--The Royal Tembe.--The Sultan's Wives.--A Royal Drunken-Bout.-- Joe an Object of Worship.--How they Dance in the Moon.--A Reaction.-- Two Moons in one Sky.--The Instability of Divine Honors
   CHAPTER SIXTEENTH.
   Symptoms of a Storm.--The Country of the Moon.--The Future of the African Continent.--The Last Machine of all.--A View of the Country at Sunset.-- Flora and Fauna.--The Tempest.--The Zone of Fire.--The Starry Heavens.
   CHAPTER SEVENTEENTH.
   The Mountains of the Moon.--An Ocean of Venture.--They cast Anchor.--The Towing Elephant.--A Running Fire.--Death of the Monster.--The Field Oven.--A Meal on the Grass.--A Night on the Ground
   CHAPTER EIGHTEENTH.
   The Karagwah.--Lake Ukereoue.--A Night on an Island.--The Equator. --Crossing the Lake.--The Cascades.--A View of the Country.--The Sources of the Nile.--The Island of Benga.--The Signature of Andrea Debono.--The Flag with the Arms of England
   CHAPTER NINETEENTH.
   The Nile.--The Trembling Mountain.--A Remembrance of the Country.--The Narratives of the Arabs.--The Nyam-Nyams.--Joe's Shrewd Cogitations.-- The Balloon runs the Gantlet.--Aerostatic Ascensions.--Madame Blanchard.
   CHAPTER TWENTIETH.
   The Celestial Bottle.--The Fig-Palms.--The Mammoth Trees.--The Tree of War. --The Winged Team.--Two Native Tribes in Battle.--A Massacre.--An Intervention from above
   CHAPTER TWENTY-FIRST.
   Strange Sounds.--A Night Attack.--Kennedy and Joe in the Tree.--Two Shots. --"Help! help!"--Reply in French.--The Morning.--The Missionary.--The Plan of Rescue
   CHAPTER TWENTY-SECOND.
   The Jet of Light.--The Missionary.--The Rescue in a Ray of Electricity.--A Lazarist Priest.--But little Hope.--The Doctor's Care.--A Life of Self-Denial. --Passing a Volcano
   CHAPTER TWENTY-THIRD.
   Joe in a Fit of Rage.--The Death of a Good Man.--The Night of watching by the Body.--Barrenness and Drought.--The Burial.--The Quartz Rocks.--Joe's Hallucinations.--A Precious Ballast.--A Survey of the Gold-bearing Mountains. --The Beginning of Joe's Despair
   CHAPTER TWENTY-FOURTH.
   The Wind dies away.--The Vicinity of the Desert.--The Mistake in the WaterSupply.--The Nights of the Equator.--Dr. Ferguson's Anxieties. --The Situation flatly stated.--Energetic Replies of Kennedy and Joe. --One Night more
   CHAPTER TWENTY-FIFTH.
   A Little Philosophy.--A Cloud on the Horizon.--In the Midst of a Fog.--The Strange Balloon.--An Exact View of the Victoria.--The Palm-Trees.--Traces of a Caravan.--The Well in the Midst of the Desert
   CHAPTER TWENTY-SIXTH.
   One Hundred and Thirteen Degrees.--The Doctor's Reflections.--A Desperate Search.--The Cylinder goes out.--One Hundred and Twenty-two Degrees.-- Contemplation of the Desert.--A Night Walk.--Solitude.--Debility.--Joe's Prospects.--He gives himself One Day more
   CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVENTH.
   Terrific Heat.--Hallucinations.--The Last Drops of Water.--Nights of Despair. --An Attempt at Suicide.--The Simoom.--The Oasis.--The Lion and Lioness.
   CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHTH.
   An Evening of Delight.--Joe's Culinary Performances.--A Dissertation on Raw Meat.--The Narrative of James Bruce.--Camping out.--Joe's Dreams.--The Barometer begins to fall.--The Barometer rises again.--Preparations for Departure.--The Tempest
   CHAPTER TWENTY-NINTH.
   Signs of Vegetation.--The Fantastic Notion of a French Author.--A Magnificent Country.--The Kingdom of Adamova.--The Explorations of Speke and Burton connected with those of Dr. Barth.--The Atlantika Mountains.--The River Benoue.--The City of Yola.--The Bagele.--Mount Mendif
   CHAPTER THIRTIETH.
   Mosfeia.--The Sheik.--Denham, Clapperton, and Oudney.--Vogel.--The Capital of Loggoum.--Toole.--Becalmed above Kernak.--The Governor and his Court. --The Attack.--The Incendiary Pigeons
   CHAPTER THIRTY-FIRST.
   Departure in the Night-time.--All Three.--Kennedy's Instincts.--Precautions.-- The Course of the Shari River.--Lake Tchad.--The Water of the Lake.--The Hippopotamus.--One Bullet thrown away
   CHAPTER THIRTY-SECOND.
   The Capital of Bornou.--The Islands of the Biddiomahs.--The Condors.--The Doctor's Anxieties.--His Precautions.--An Attack in Mid-air.--The Balloon Covering torn.--The Fall.--Sublime Self-Sacrifice.--The Northern Coast of the Lake
   CHAPTER THIRTY-THIRD.
   Conjectures.--Reestablishment of the Victoria's Equilibrium.--Dr. Ferguson's New Calculations.--Kennedy's Hunt.--A Complete Exploration of Lake Tchad.--Tangalia.--The Return.--Lari
   CHAPTER THIRTY-FOURTH.
   The Hurricane.--A Forced Departure.--Loss of an Anchor.--Melancholy Reflections.--The Resolution adopted.--The Sand-Storm.--The Buried Caravan.-- A Contrary yet Favorable Wind.--The Return southward.--Kennedy at his Post
   CHAPTER THIRTY-FIFTH.
   What happened to Joe.--The Island of the Biddiomahs.--The Adoration shown him.--The Island that sank.--The Shores of the Lake.--The Tree of the Serpents.--The Foot-Tramp.--Terrible Suffering.--Mosquitoes and Ants.-- Hunger.--The Victoria seen.--She disappears.--The Swamp.--One Last Despairing Cry
   CHAPTER THIRTY-SIXTH.
   A Throng of People on the Horizon.--A Troop of Arabs.--The Pursuit.--It is He.--Fall from Horseback.--The Strangled Arab.--A Ball from Kennedy.-- Adroit Manoeuvres.--Caught up flying.--Joe saved at last
   CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVENTH.
   The Western Route.--Joe wakes up.--His Obstinacy.--End of Joe's Narrative. --Tagelei.--Kennedy's Anxieties.--The Route to the North.--A Night near Aghades
   CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHTH.
   A Rapid Passage.--Prudent Resolves.--Caravans in Sight.--Incessant Rains.-- Goa.--The Niger.--Golberry, Geoffroy, and Gray.--Mungo Park.--Laing.-- Rene Caillie.--Clapperton.--John and Richard Lander
   CHAPTER THIRTY-NINTH.
   The Country in the Elbow of the Niger.--A Fantastic View of the Hombori Mountains.--Kabra.--Timbuctoo.--The Chart of Dr. Barth.--A Decaying City.-- Whither Heaven wills
   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
   CHAPTER FORTY-FIRST.
   The Approaches to Senegal.--The Balloon sinks lower and lower.--They keep throwing out, throwing out.--The Marabout Al-Hadji.--Messrs. Pascal, Vincent, and Lambert.--A Rival of Mohammed.--The Difficult Mountains. --Kennedy's Weapons.--One of Joe's Manoeuvres.--A Halt over a Forest
   CHAPTER FORTY-SECOND.
   A Struggle of Generosity.--The Last Sacrifice.--The Dilating Apparatus.--Joe's Adroitness.--Midnight.--The Doctor's Watch.--Kennedy's Watch.--The Latter falls asleep at his Post.--The Fire.--The Howlings of the Natives.--Out of Range
   CHAPTER FORTY-THIRD.
   The Talabas.--The Pursuit.--A Devastated Country.--The Wind begins to fall.--The Victoria sinks.--The last of the Provisions.--The Leaps of the Balloon.--A Defence with Fire-arms.--The Wind freshens.--The Senegal River.--The Cataracts of Gouina.--The Hot Air.--The Passage of the River
   CHAPTER FORTY-FOURTH.
   Conclusion.--The Certificate.--The French Settlements.--The Post of Medina.-- The Battle.--Saint Louis.--The English Frigate.--The Return to London.
第二章
  The End of a much-applauded Speech.--The Presentation of Dr. Samuel Ferguson.--Excelsior.--Full-length Portrait of the Doctor.--A Fatalist convinced.--A Dinner at the Travellers' Club.--Several Toasts for the Occasion.
   There was a large audience assembled on the 14th of January, 1862, at the session of the Royal Geographical Society, No. 3 Waterloo Place, London. The president, Sir Francis M----, made an important communication to his colleagues, in an address that was frequently interrupted by applause.
   This rare specimen of eloquence terminated with the following sonorous phrases bubbling over with patriotism:
   "England has always marched at the head of nations" (for, the reader will observe, the nations always march at the head of each other), "by the intrepidity of her explorers in the line of geographical discovery." (General assent). "Dr. Samuel Ferguson, one of her most glorious sons, will not reflect discredit on his origin." ("No, indeed!" from all parts of the hall.)
   "This attempt, should it succeed" ("It will succeed!"), "will complete and link together the notions, as yet disjointed, which the world entertains of African cartology" (vehement applause); "and, should it fail, it will, at least, remain on record as one of the most daring conceptions of human genius!" (Tremendous cheering.)
   "Huzza! huzza!" shouted the immense audience, completely electrified by these inspiring words.
   "Huzza for the intrepid Ferguson!" cried one of the most excitable of the enthusiastic crowd.
   The wildest cheering resounded on all sides; the name of Ferguson was in every mouth, and we may safely believe that it lost nothing in passing through English throats. Indeed, the hall fairly shook with it.
   And there were present, also, those fearless travellers and explorers whose energetic temperaments had borne them through every quarter of the globe, many of them grown old and worn out in the service of science. All had, in some degree, physically or morally, undergone the sorest trials. They had escaped shipwreck; conflagration; Indian tomahawks and war-clubs; the fagot and the stake; nay, even the cannibal maws of the South Sea Islanders. But still their hearts beat high during Sir Francis M----'s address, which certainly was the finest oratorical success that the Royal Geographical Society of London had yet achieved.
   But, in England, enthusiasm does not stop short with mere words. It strikes off money faster than the dies of the Royal Mint itself. So a subscription to encourage Dr. Ferguson was voted there and then, and it at once attained the handsome amount of two thousand five hundred pounds. The sum was made commensurate with the importance of the enterprise.
   A member of the Society then inquired of the president whether Dr. Ferguson was not to be officially introduced.
   "The doctor is at the disposition of the meeting," replied Sir Francis.
   "Let him come in, then! Bring him in!" shouted the audience. "We'd like to see a man of such extraordinary daring, face to face!"
   "Perhaps this incredible proposition of his is only intended to mystify us," growled an apoplectic old admiral.
   "Suppose that there should turn out to be no such person as Dr. Ferguson?" exclaimed another voice, with a malicious twang.
   "Why, then, we'd have to invent one!" replied a facetious member of this grave Society.
   "Ask Dr. Ferguson to come in," was the quiet remark of Sir Francis M----.
   And come in the doctor did, and stood there, quite unmoved by the thunders of applause that greeted his appearance.
   He was a man of about forty years of age, of medium height and physique. His sanguine temperament was disclosed in the deep color of his cheeks. His countenance was coldly expressive, with regular features, and a large nose--one of those noses that resemble the prow of a ship, and stamp the faces of men predestined to accomplish great discoveries. His eyes, which were gentle and intelligent, rather than bold, lent a peculiar charm to his physiognomy. His arms were long, and his feet were planted with that solidity which indicates a great pedestrian.
   A calm gravity seemed to surround the doctor's entire person, and no one would dream that he could become the agent of any mystification, however harmless.
   Hence, the applause that greeted him at the outset continued until he, with a friendly gesture, claimed silence on his own behalf. He stepped toward the seat that had been prepared for him on his presentation, and then, standing erect and motionless, he, with a determined glance, pointed his right forefinger upward, and pronounced aloud the single word--
   "Excelsior!"
   Never had one of Bright's or Cobden's sudden onslaughts, never had one of Palmerston's abrupt demands for funds to plate the rocks of the English coast with iron, made such a sensation. Sir Francis M----'s address was completely overshadowed. The doctor had shown himself moderate, sublime, and self-contained, in one; he had uttered the word of the situation--
   "Excelsior!"
   The gouty old admiral who had been finding fault, was completely won over by the singular man before him, and immediately moved the insertion of Dr. Ferguson's speech in "The Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society of London."
   Who, then, was this person, and what was the enterprise that he proposed?
   Ferguson's father, a brave and worthy captain in the English Navy, had associated his son with him, from the young man's earliest years, in the perils and adventures of his profession. The fine little fellow, who seemed to have never known the meaning of fear, early revealed a keen and active mind, an investigating intelligence, and a remarkable turn for scientific study; moreover, he disclosed uncommon address in extricating himself from difficulty; he was never perplexed, not even in handling his fork for the first time--an exercise in which children generally have so little success.
   His fancy kindled early at the recitals he read of daring enterprise and maritime adventure, and he followed with enthusiasm the discoveries that signalized the first part of the nineteenth century. He mused over the glory of the Mungo Parks, the Bruces, the Caillies, the Levaillants, and to some extent, I verily believe, of Selkirk (Robinson Crusoe), whom he considered in no wise inferior to the rest. How many a well-employed hour he passed with that hero on his isle of Juan Fernandez! Often he criticised the ideas of the shipwrecked sailor, and sometimes discussed his plans and projects. He would have done differently, in such and such a case, or quite as well at least--of that he felt assured. But of one thing he was satisfied, that he never should have left that pleasant island, where he was as happy as a king without subjects-- no, not if the inducement held out had been promotion to the first lordship in the admiralty!
   It may readily be conjectured whether these tendencies were developed during a youth of adventure, spent in every nook and corner of the Globe. Moreover, his father, who was a man of thorough instruction, omitted no opportunity to consolidate this keen intelligence by serious studies in hydrography, physics, and mechanics, along with a slight tincture of botany, medicine, and astronomy.
   Upon the death of the estimable captain, Samuel Ferguson, then twenty-two years of age, had already made his voyage around the world. He had enlisted in the Bengalese Corps of Engineers, and distinguished himself in several affairs; but this soldier's life had not exactly suited him; caring but little for command, he had not been fond of obeying. He, therefore, sent in his resignation, and half botanizing, half playing the hunter, he made his way toward the north of the Indian Peninsula, and crossed it from Calcutta to Surat--a mere amateur trip for him.
   From Surat we see him going over to Australia, and in 1845 participating in Captain Sturt's expedition, which had been sent out to explore the new Caspian Sea, supposed to exist in the centre of New Holland.
   Samuel Ferguson returned to England about 1850, and, more than ever possessed by the demon of discovery, he spent the intervening time, until 1853, in accompanying Captain McClure on the expedition that went around the American Continent from Behring's Straits to Cape Farewell.
   Notwithstanding fatigues of every description, and in all climates, Ferguson's constitution continued marvellously sound. He felt at ease in the midst of the most complete privations; in fine, he was the very type of the thoroughly accomplished explorer whose stomach expands or contracts at will; whose limbs grow longer or shorter according to the resting-place that each stage of a journey may bring; who can fall asleep at any hour of the day or awake at any hour of the night.
   Nothing, then, was less surprising, after that, than to find our traveller, in the period from 1855 to 1857, visiting the whole region west of the Thibet, in company with the brothers Schlagintweit, and bringing back some curious ethnographic observations from that expedition.
   During these different journeys, Ferguson had been the most active and interesting correspondent of the Daily Telegraph, the penny newspaper whose circulation amounts to 140,000 copies, and yet scarcely suffices for its many legions of readers. Thus, the doctor had become well known to the public, although he could not claim membership in either of the Royal Geographical Societies of London, Paris, Berlin, Vienna, or St. Petersburg, or yet with the Travellers' Club, or even the Royal Polytechnic Institute, where his friend the statistician Cockburn ruled in state.
   The latter savant had, one day, gone so far as to propose to him the following problem: Given the number of miles travelled by the doctor in making the circuit of the Globe, how many more had his head described than his feet, by reason of the different lengths of the radii?--or, the number of miles traversed by the doctor's head and feet respectively being given, required the exact height of that gentleman?
   This was done with the idea of complimenting him, but the doctor had held himself aloof from all the learned bodies--belonging, as he did, to the church militant and not to the church polemical. He found his time better employed in seeking than in discussing, in discovering rather than discoursing.
   There is a story told of an Englishman who came one day to Geneva, intending to visit the lake. He was placed in one of those odd vehicles in which the passengers sit side by side, as they do in an omnibus. Well, it so happened that the Englishman got a seat that left him with his back turned toward the lake. The vehicle completed its circular trip without his thinking to turn around once, and he went back to London delighted with the Lake of Geneva.
   Doctor Ferguson, however, had turned around to look about him on his journeyings, and turned to such good purpose that he had seen a great deal. In doing so, he had simply obeyed the laws of his nature, and we have good reason to believe that he was, to some extent, a fatalist, but of an orthodox school of fatalism withal, that led him to rely upon himself and even upon Providence. He claimed that he was impelled, rather than drawn by his own volition, to journey as he did, and that he traversed the world like the locomotive, which does not direct itself, but is guided and directed by the track it runs on.
   "I do not follow my route;" he often said, "it is my route that follows me."
   The reader will not be surprised, then, at the calmness with which the doctor received the applause that welcomed him in the Royal Society. He was above all such trifles, having no pride, and less vanity. He looked upon the proposition addressed to him by Sir Francis M---- as the simplest thing in the world, and scarcely noticed the immense effect that it produced.
   When the session closed, the doctor was escorted to the rooms of the Travellers' Club, in Pall Mall. A superb entertainment had been prepared there in his honor. The dimensions of the dishes served were made to correspond with the importance of the personage entertained, and the boiled sturgeon that figured at this magnificent repast was not an inch shorter than Dr. Ferguson himself.
   Numerous toasts were offered and quaffed, in the wines of France, to the celebrated travellers who had made their names illustrious by their explorations of African territory. The guests drank to their health or to their memory, in alphabetical order, a good old English way of doing the thing. Among those remembered thus, were: Abbadie, Adams, Adamson, Anderson, Arnaud, Baikie, Baldwin, Barth, Batouda, Beke, Beltram, Du Berba, Bimbachi, Bolognesi, Bolwik, Belzoni, Bonnemain, Brisson, Browne, Bruce, Brun-Rollet, Burchell, Burckhardt, Burton, Cailland, Caillie, Campbell, Chapman, Clapperton, Clot-Bey, Colomieu, Courval, Cumming, Cuny, Debono, Decken, Denham, Desavanchers, Dicksen, Dickson, Dochard, Du Chaillu, Duncan, Durand, Duroule, Duveyrier, D'Escayrac, De Lauture, Erhardt, Ferret, Fresnel, Galinier, Galton, Geoffroy, Golberry, Hahn, Halm, Harnier, Hecquart, Heuglin, Hornemann, Houghton, Imbert, Kauffmann, Knoblecher, Krapf, Kummer, Lafargue, Laing, Lafaille, Lambert, Lamiral, Lampriere, John Lander, Richard Lander, Lefebvre, Lejean, Levaillant, Livingstone, MacCarthy, Maggiar, Maizan, Malzac, Moffat, Mollien, Monteiro, Morrison, Mungo Park, Neimans, Overweg, Panet, Partarrieau, Pascal, Pearse, Peddie, Penney, Petherick, Poncet, Prax, Raffenel, Rabh, Rebmann, Richardson, Riley, Ritchey, Rochet d'Hericourt, Rongawi, Roscher, Ruppel, Saugnier, Speke, Steidner, Thibaud, Thompson, Thornton, Toole, Tousny, Trotter, Tuckey, Tyrwhitt, Vaudey, Veyssiere, Vincent, Vinco, Vogel, Wahlberg, Warrington, Washington, Werne, Wild, and last, but not least, Dr. Ferguson, who, by his incredible attempt, was to link together the achievements of all these explorers, and complete the series of African discovery.
Home>> Culture & Life>> 历险小说>> · fán 'ěr Jules Verne   guó France   lán sān gòng guó   (1828niánèryuè8rì1905niánsānyuè24rì)