“Not altogether; but, if the worst came to the worst, and the balloon were to fail us, we might make our way to the French settlements. But, let it hold out only for a few hundred miles, and we shall arrive without fatigue, alarm, or danger, at the western coast.” “And the thing will be over!” added Joe. “Heigh-ho! so much the worse. If it wasn’t for the pleasure of telling about it, I would never want to set foot on the ground again! Do you think anybody will believe our story, doctor?” “Who can tell, Joe? One thing, however, will be undeniable: a thousand witnesses saw us start on one side of the African Continent, and a thousand more will see us arrive on the other.” “And, in that case, it seems to me that it would be hard to say that we had not crossed it,” added Kennedy. “Ah, doctor!” said Joe again, with a deep sigh, “I’ll think more than once of my lumps of solid gold-ore! There was something that would have given _weight_ to our narrative! At a grain of gold per head, I could have got together a nice crowd to listen to me, and even to admire me!” 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 Manœuvres.—A Halt over a Forest. On the 27th of May, at nine o’clock in the morning, the country presented an entirely different aspect. The slopes, extending far away, changed to hills that gave evidence of mountains soon to follow. They would have to cross the chain which separates the basin of the Niger from the basin of the Senegal, and determines the course of the water-shed, whether to the Gulf of Guinea on the one hand, or to the bay of Cape Verde on the other. As far as Senegal, this part of Africa is marked down as dangerous. Dr. Ferguson knew it through the recitals of his predecessors. They had suffered a thousand privations and been exposed to a thousand dangers in the midst of these barbarous negro tribes. It was this fatal climate that had devoured most of the companions of Mungo Park. Ferguson, therefore, was more than ever decided not to set foot in this inhospitable region. But he had not enjoyed one moment of repose. The _Victoria_ was descending very perceptibly, so much so that he had to throw overboard a number more of useless articles, especially when there was a mountain-top to pass. Things went on thus for more than one hundred and twenty miles; they were worn out with ascending and falling again; the balloon, like another rock of Sisyphus, kept continually sinking back toward the ground. The rotundity of the covering, which was now but little inflated, was collapsing already. It assumed an elongated shape, and the wind hollowed large cavities in the silken surface. Kennedy could not help observing this. “Is there a crack or a tear in the balloon?” he asked.