Page:Works of Jules Verne - Parke - Vol 1.djvu/373

 with all the resources of an Arab's imagination. Judge then what their legends will be respecting us some of these days."

"That will be rather disappointing from the civilization point of view," replied Kennedy. "It would be better to pass for simple men, who would give these negroes an excellent idea of European power."

"Agreed, my dear Dick; but what could we do here? You might explain at length to the wise men the mechanism of the balloon, which they would not understand, and would always suppose it to be a supernatural appearance."

"Sir," said Joe, "you have spoken of the first Europeans who explored this country; who were they, if you please?"

"My dear boy, we are precisely on the track of Major Denham. It was at this very Mosfeia that he was received by the Sultan of Mandara; he had left the Bornou. He accompanied the sheik in an expedition against the Fellatabs; he assisted at the attack on the town, which resisted bravely with its arrows against the Arabs' bullets, and put the troops of the sheik to flight; all this was but a pretext for murder, pillage, and raids. The major was completely stripped, and had it not been for a horse, beneath whose belly he crept, and which enabled him to escape his conquerors by its headlong gallop, he would never have reentered Kouka, the capital of Bornou."

"But who was this Major Denham?"

"A brave Englishman, who from 1822 to 1824, commanded an expedition into the Bornou, in company with Captain Clapperton and Doctor Oudney. They left Tripoli in the month of March, arrived at Mourzouk, the capital of Fezzan; and, following the route which Doctor Barth traversed afterwards on his return to Europe, they arrived on the 16th of February, 1823, in Bornou, in the Mandara, and at the eastern side of the lake. During this time, on the 15th December, 1823, Captain Clapperton and Doctor Oudney penetrated into the Soudan as far as Sackatou, and Oudney died of fatigue and privation at Murmur."

"This part of Africa," said Kennedy, "has then paid a large tribute of victims to science."

"Yes! this region is indeed fatal. We are tending directly towards the kingdom of Barghimi, which Vogel