第23章 The Victoria Falls

Nicolas Palander’s wounds were not serious.The bushman,whoknew what to do,rubbed the good man’s shoulders with certain herbs,and the Helsingfors astronomer was soon able to walk again;excitement kept him up for some time,but this soon abated,and then he relapsed into a calculating absent-minded savant.One of the registers had been left in his possession,but he had had to put the other,containing duplicates of all the calculations,into William Emery’s hands,and this he did very willingly.

The triangulation was continued quickly and successfully.It was now only a question of finding a plain suitable for a base.

On 1st April the Europeans were crossing large tracts of marsh,which somewhat delayed their march,for they were intersected by numerous pools exhaling most pestiferous odours.Colonel Everest hastened to leave this unhealthy region behind by making their triangles larger.The little troop got on together excellently.Michel Zorn and William Emery congratulated each other on the cordiality which reigned between the leaders.They seemed to have forgotten that an international quarrel had ever parted them.

‘My dear William,’Michel Zorn said one day,‘I hope when we return to Europe we shall find peace concluded between England and Russia,so that we shall be able to remain as good friends there as we are here in Africa.’

‘I hope that as much as you do,my dear Michel,’replied Emery.‘Modern wars never last long;a battle or two and a peace treaty is signed.This unfortunate war has lasted a year already,and I think,as you do,that peace will be signed by the time we return to Europe?’

‘But you don’t intend to return to the Cape?’observed Michel Zorn;‘the observatory there has no particular claim on you,and I hope to do you the honours of my own observatory at Kiew.’

‘Yes,my friend,’replied Emery,‘I shall accompany you to Europe,and I won’t go back to Africa without having seen something of Russia.But some day you must pay me a visit at Cape Town.You would lose yourself among our beautiful southern constellations!You’ll see what a magnificent firmament we have,and what a pleasure it is to observe it.I promise to delay operations until I have a visit from you.’

‘Agreed,William;but this war must first be over.Battles fought with cannon do not last as long as disputes about stars.Russia and England will have become reconciled before Colonel Everest and Matthew Strux.’

‘Then you don’t believe their reconciliation is sincere?’asked Zorn;‘not after all the trials they have gone through together?’

‘I wouldn’t trust to it,’replied Emery;‘you know what the jealousy of savants is,especially of famous savants.’

‘Then let our reputations never grow,my dear William,but let’s always be friends,’said Michel Zorn.

Eleven days had passed since the incident of the dog-faced baboons,and the astronomers came upon a plain several miles in extent,not far from the falls of the Zambezi.This suited them exactly for the direct measurement of a base.On its borders was a village consisting only of a few huts,and its population—a few dozen individuals at most—composed of inoffensive natives,welcomed the Europeans.This was fortunate for Colonel Everest’s troop,for,without tents or waggons or hardly any material,it would have been difficult for them to settle down comfortably.Measuring the base might take a month,and this month they could not very well spend in the open air with the trees for their only shelter.

The scientific commission accordingly took up its quarters in the huts prepared for their occupation.They were content with very little.They had only one object,on which all their energies were concentrated,the verification of their previous operations,which would be checked by the direct measurement of this new base—the last side of their last triangle.The length of this side had already been calculated mathematically,and the nearer the direct measurement approached the calculated measurement,the more perfect would the determination of the meridian prove to be.

This direct measure was begun on 10th April,and completed on 15th May,this delicate operation taking five weeks.Nicolas Palander and William Emery at once reduced the results to figures.

How the hearts of these astronomers beat when the result was announced.What a recompense for their labour and trials if the verification of their work‘could allow them to leave it unassailable by posterity.’

When the lengths obtained had been reduced by the calculators to arcs brought to the mean level of the sea,and to the temperature of sixty-one degrees of Fahrenheit(16°11’Centigrade),Nicolas Palander and William presented their colleagues with the following numbers:—

Base newly measured……5,075.25 fathoms The same base deduced from the firstbase and the whole trigonome tricalseries……5,075.11 fathoms

Difference between calculation andobservation……0.14 fathoms

Only fourteen-hundredths of a fathom,less than ten inches,though the two bases were six hundred miles apart!

This was more remarkable even than that obtained in France,and it made this work,carried out in difficult circumstances,in the heart of the African desert,in the midst of every trial and danger,the most perfect of the geodesical operations so far accomplished.

Three cheers greeted this splendid result,without precedent in the annals of science!

Thus the trigonometrical operations had been successfully carried out.The astronomers had completed their task.All they had to do now was to reach the mouths of the Zambezi by following inversely the route which Livingstone was to follow in his second journey from 1858 to 1864.

On 25th May,after a fatiguing journey through a country intersected by rivers,they reached the Victoria Falls.These magnificent cataracts justify their native name,which signifies‘the smoke that sounds.’These sheets of water,a mile in breadth,falling from a height double that of Niagara,were spanned by a threefold rainbow.Over the deep fissure in its basalt bed the enormous torrent produced a rolling sound like twenty simultaneous claps of thunder.

Below the cataract,where the river was smooth,the launch,which had arrived a fortnight previously by a lower tributary of the Zambezi,lay awaiting her passengers.They were all there—all had embarked.

Two men,however stayed on shore—the bushman and the vorloper.Mokoum had been more than a trusty guide;it was a friend whom the English,and especially Sir John,were leaving on the African continent.Sir John had invited the bushman to go to Europe with him,and to stay there as long as he liked to stay.But Mokoum had other engagements,and was anxious to keep them:he was to accompany David Livingstone on the second journey which that daring traveller was about to undertake up the Zambezi,and Mokoum would not break his word.

So the hunter stayed behind,well rewarded,and—which he valued still more—warmly thanked by the Europeans,who were so much indebted to him.The launch left the shore,and took the current down the middle of the stream,and the last wave of Sir John Murray’s hand was an adieu to his friend the bushman.

The descent of the great African river in this fast steam-launch past the numerous small towns on its banks was accomplished without fatigue or incident;the natives gazed at the smoking craft with superstitious wonder,and put no obstacle in its way.

The Europeans’first care was to ask the English counsel for news of the war.

It was not over,and Sebastopol was still holding out against the English and French armies.

This news was a disappointment to the Europeans,so recently united in scientific interest;but they made no comment,and prepared to leave.

The Novara,an Austrian merchant ship,was about to sail for Suez,and the members of the commission decided on embarking in her.

On 18th June,as they were about to embark,Colonel Everest called his colleagues together,and calmly addressed them:—

‘Gentlemen,we have been living together for eighteen months;we have passed through many perils together,but we have accomplished a work which will meet with the approbation of all scientific Europe.I would add that unshaken friendship between us ought to be the result.’

Matthew Strux bowed slightly without replying.‘But to our great regret,’continued the Colonel,‘war still continues between England and Russia.They are still fighting before Sebastopol,and until it falls into our hands—’

‘It will never fall,’said Matthew Strux,‘though France—’

‘The future will show us Sir,’retorted the Colonel coldly,‘At all events,and until the end of the war,I think we had better look on one another once more as enemies.’

‘I was about to make the same suggestion,’the astronomer from Poulkowa replied simply.

The situation was clearly defined,and it was thus that the members of the scientific commission embarked on the Novara.

A few days later,they arrived at Suez,and at the moment of parting William Emery said,as he grasped Michel Zorn’s hand—

‘Still friends,Michel?’

‘Yes,my dear William,still and in spite of everything.’