Doctor Ferguson looked at the barometer; it indicated 12,000 feet elevation. The time was eleven o'clock.
"Thank Heaven the danger is over," said he; "we have now only to remain here as we are."
"It was awful," said Kennedy.
"Yes," replied Joe, "that gives a little change to our journey, and I am not sorry to have seen a storm from such a height. It was a magnificent sight indeed."
CHAPTER XVII
NIGHT ON THE GROUND
About six o'clock in the morning (Sunday) the sun rose above the horizon, the clouds dispersed and a most pleasant breeze tempered the first rays of the morning light.
The sweetly-refreshed earth again became visible to the travelers. The balloon, having been turning round in the midst of opposing currents, had scarcely drifted at all, and the doctor, permitting the gas to contract, descended at length to strike a more northerly direction. For a long time his search was in vain, the breeze carried him to the west, even within sight of the celebrated Mountains of the Moon, which rise up in a semicircle round the end of Lake Tanganyika. Their chain, but little broken, stood out against the bluish horizon—a natural fortification, as it were, impassable to explorers of the center of Africa; some of the peaks bore traces of eternal snow.
"We are now in an unexplored country," said the doctor; "Captains Burton and Speke advanced far into the west, but they were not able to reach these celebrated mountains. Burton even denied their existence as affirmed by his companion; he pretended that they only existed in the imagination of the latter. For us, my friends, no doubt is possible."
"Shall we pass over them?" asked Kennedy.
"I hope not. I expect to find a favorable wind to bring me back to the equator. I will wait for it even, if necessary, and treat the 'Victoria' like a ship that casts anchor when the wind is contrary."
The prognostications of the doctor were soon realized.
