Jules Verne (11 page)

Below the "Albatross" the air was filled with a singular harmony. It
seemed to be a concert of Aeolian harps. In the air were a hundred
kites of different forms, made of sheets of palm-leaf, and having at
their upper end a sort of bow of light wood with a thin slip of
bamboo beneath. In the breath of the wind these slips, with all their
notes varied like those of a harmonicon, gave forth a most melancholy
murmuring. It seemed as though they were breathing musical oxygen.

It suited Robur's whim to run close up to this aerial orchestra, and
the "Albatross" slowed as she glided through the sonorous waves which
the kites gave off through the atmosphere.

But immediately an extraordinary effect was produced amongst the
innumerable population. Beatings of the tomtoms and sounds of other
formidable instruments of the Chinese orchestra, gun reports by the
thousand, mortars fired in hundreds, all were brought into play to
scare away the aeronef. Although the Chinese astronomers may have
recognized the aerial machine as the moving body that had given rise
to such disputes, it was to the Celestial million, from the humblest
tankader to the best-buttoned mandarin, an apocalyptical monster
appearing in the sky of Buddha.

The crew of the "Albatross" troubled themselves very little about
these demonstrations. But the strings which held the kites, and were
tied to fixed pegs in the imperial gardens, were cut or quickly
hauled in; and the kites were either drawn in rapidly, sounding
louder as they sank, or else fell like a bird shot through both
wings, whose song ends with its last sigh.

A noisy fanfare escaped from Tom Turner's trumpet, and drowned the
final notes of the aerial concert. It did not interrupt the
terrestrial fusillade. At last a shell exploded a few feet below the
"Albatross," and then she mounted into the inaccessible regions of
the sky.

Nothing happened during the few following days of which the prisoners
could take advantage. The aeronef kept on her course to the
southwest, thereby showing that it was intended to take her to India.
Twelve hours after leaving Peking, Uncle Prudent and Phil Evans
caught a glimpse of the Great Wall in the neighborhood of Chen-Si.
Then, avoiding the Lung Mountains, they passed over the valley of the
Hoangho and crossed the Chinese border on the Tibet side.

Tibet consists of high table-lands without vegetation, with here and
there snowy peaks and barren ravines, torrents fed by glaciers,
depressions with glittering beds of salt, lakes surrounded by
luxurious forests, with icy winds sweeping over all.

The barometer indicated an altitude of thirteen thousand feet above
the level of the sea. At that height the temperature, although it was
in the warmest months of the northern hemisphere, was only a little
above freezing. This cold, combined with the speed of the
"Albatross," made the voyage somewhat trying, and although the
friends had warm traveling wraps, they preferred to keep to their
cabin.

It need hardly be said that to keep the aeronef in this rarefied
atmosphere the suspensory screws had to be driven at extreme speed.
But they worked with perfect regularity, and the sound of their wings
almost acted as a lullaby.

During this day, appearing from below about the size of a carrier
pigeon, she passed over Garlock, a town of western Tibet, the capital
of the province of Cari Khorsum.

On the 27th of June, Uncle Prudent and Phil Evans sighted an enormous
barrier, broken here and there by several peaks, lost in the snows
that bounded the horizon.

Leaning against the fore-cabin, so as to keep their places
notwithstanding the speed of the ship, they watched these colossal
masses, which seemed to be running away from the aeronef.

"The Himalayas, evidently," said Phil Evans; "and probably Robur is
going round their base, so as to pass into India."

"So much the worse," answered Uncle Prudent. "On that immense
territory we shall perhaps be able to—"

"Unless he goes round by Burma to the east, or Nepal to the west."

"Anyhow, I defy him to go through them."

"Indeed!" said a voice.

The next day, the 28th of June, the "Albatross" was in front of the
huge mass above the province of Zang. On the other side of the chain
was the province of Nepal. These ranges block the road into India
from the north. The two northern ones, between which the aeronef was
gliding like a ship between enormous reefs are the first steps of the
Central Asian barrier. The first was the Kuen Lung, the other the
Karakorum, bordering the longitudinal valley parallel to the
Himalayas, from which the Indus flows to the west and the
Brahmapootra to the east.

What a superb orographical system! More than two hundred summits have
been measured, seventeen of which exceed twenty-five thousand feet.
In front of the "Albatross," at a height of twenty-nine thousand
feet, towered Mount Everest. To the right was Dhawalagiri, reaching
twenty-six thousand eight hundred feet, and relegated to second place
since the measurement of Mount Everest.

Evidently Robur did not intend to go over the top of these peaks; but
probably he knew the passes of the Himalayas, among others that of
Ibi Ganim, which the brothers Schlagintweit traversed in 1856 at a
height of twenty-two thousand feet. And towards it he went.

Several hours of palpitation, becoming quite painful, followed; and
although the rarefaction of the air was not such as to necessitate
recourse being had to the special apparatus for renewing oxygen in
the cabins, the cold was excessive.

Robur stood in the bow, his sturdy figure wrapped in a great-coat. He
gave the orders, while Tom Turner was at the helm. The engineer kept
an attentive watch on his batteries, the acid in which fortunately
ran no risk of congelation. The screws, running at the full strength
of the current, gave forth a note of intense shrillness in spite of
the trifling density of the air. The barometer showed twenty-three
thousand feet in altitude.

Magnificent was the grouping of the chaos of mountains! Everywhere
were brilliant white summits. There were no lakes, but glaciers
descending ten thousand feet towards the base. There was no herbage,
only a few phanerogams on the limit of vegetable life. Down on the
lower flanks of the range were splendid forests of pines and cedars.
Here were none of the gigantic ferns and interminable parasites
stretching from tree to tree as in the thickets of the jungle. There
were no animals—no wild horses, or yaks, or Tibetan bulls.
Occasionally a scared gazelle showed itself far down the slopes.
There were no birds, save a couple of those crows which can rise to
the utmost limits of the respirable air.

The pass at last was traversed. The "Albatross" began to descend.
Coming from the hills out of the forest region there was now beneath
them an immense plain stretching far and wide.

Then Robur stepped up to his guests, and in a pleasant voice
remarked, "India, gentlemen!"

The engineer had no intention of taking his ship over the wondrous
lands of Hindustan. To cross the Himalayas was to show how admirable
was the machine he commanded; to convince those who would not be
convinced was all he wished to do.

But if in their hearts Uncle Prudent and his colleague could not help
admiring so perfect an engine of aerial locomotion, they allowed none
of their admiration to be visible. All they thought of was how to
escape. They did not even admire the superb spectacle that lay
beneath them as the "Albatross" flew along the river banks of the
Punjab.

At the base of the Himalayas there runs a marshy belt of country, the
home of malarious vapors, the Terai, in which fever is endemic. But
this offered no obstacle to the "Albatross," or, in any way, affected
the health of her crew. She kept on without undue haste towards the
angle where India joins on to China and Turkestan, and on the 29th of
June, in the early hours of the morning, there opened to view the
incomparable valley of Cashmere.

Yes! Incomparable is this gorge between the major and the minor
Himalayas—furrowed by the buttresses in which the mighty range dies
out in the basin of the Hydaspes, and watered by the capricious
windings of the river which saw the struggle between the armies of
Porus and Alexander, when India and Greece contended for Central
Asia. The Hydaspes is still there, although the two towns founded by
the Macedonian in remembrance of his victory have long since
disappeared.

During the morning the aeronef was over Serinuggur, which is better
known under the name of Cashmere. Uncle Prudent and his companion
beheld the superb city clustered along both banks of the river; its
wooden bridges stretching across like threads, its villas and their
balconies standing out in bold outline, its hills shaded by tall
poplars, its roofs grassed over and looking like molehills; its
numerous canals, with boats like nut-shells, and boatmen like ants;
its palaces, temples, kiosks, mosques, and bungalows on the
outskirts; and its old citadel of Hari-Pawata on the slope of the
hill like the most important of the forts of Paris on the slope of
Mont Valerien.

"That would be Venice," said Phil Evans, "if we were in Europe."

"And if we were in Europe," answered Uncle Prudent, "we should know
how to find the way to America."

The "Albatross" did not linger over the lake through which the river
flows, but continued her flight down the valley of the Hydaspes.

For half an hour only did she descend to within thirty feet of the
river and remained stationary. Then, by means of an india-rubber
pipe, Tom Turner and his men replenished their water supply, which
was drawn up by a pump worked by the accumulators. Uncle Prudent and
Phil Evans stood watching the operation. The same idea occurred to
each of them. They were only a few feet from the surface of the
stream. They were both good swimmers. A plunge would give them their
liberty; and once they had reached the river, how could Robur get
them back again? For his propellers to work, he must keep at least
six feet above the ground.

In a moment all the chances pro and con were run over in their heads.
In a moment they were considered, and the prisoners rushed to throw
themselves overboard, when several pairs of hands seized them by the
shoulders.

They had been watched; and flight was utterly impossible.

This time they did not yield without resisting. They tried to throw
off those who held them. But these men of the "Albatross" were no
children.

"Gentlemen," said the engineer, "when people, have the pleasure of
traveling with Robur the Conqueror, as you have so well named him, on
board his admirable "Albatross," they do not leave him in that way. I
may add you never leave him."

Phil Evans drew away his colleague, who was about to commit some act
of violence. They retired to their cabin, resolved to escape, even if
it cost them their lives.

Immediately the "Albatross" resumed her course to the west. During
the day at moderate speed she passed over the territory of
Cabulistan, catching a momentary glimpse of its capital, and crossed
the frontier of the kingdom of Herat, nearly seven hundred miles from
Cashmere.

In these much-disputed countries, the open road for the Russians to
the English possessions in India, there were seen many columns and
convoys, and, in a word, everything that constitutes in men and
material an army on the march. There were heard also the roar of the
cannon and the crackling of musketry. But the engineer never meddled
with the affairs of others where his honor or humanity was not
concerned. He passed above them. If Herat as we are told, is the key
of Central Asia, it mattered little to him if it was kept in an
English or Muscovite pocket. Terrestrial interests were nothing to
him who had made the air his domain.

Besides, the country soon disappeared in one of those sandstorms
which are so frequent in these regions. The wind called the "tebbad"
bears along the seeds of fever in the impalpable dust it raises in
its passage. And many are the caravans that perish in its eddies.

To escape this dust, which might have interfered with the working of
the screws, the "Albatross" shot up some six thousand feet into a
purer atmosphere.

And thus vanished the Persian frontier and the extensive plains. The
speed was not excessive, although there were no rocks ahead, for the
mountains marked on the map are of very moderate altitude. But as the
ship approached the capital, she had to steer clear of Demavend,
whose snowy peak rises some twenty-two thousand feet, and the chain
of Elbruz, at whose foot is built Teheran.

As soon as the day broke on the 2nd of July the peak of Demavend
appeared above the sandstorm, and the "Albatross" was steered so as
to pass over the town, which the wind had wrapped in a mantle of dust.

However, about six o'clock her crew could see the large ditches that
surround it, and the Shah's palace, with its walls covered with
porcelain tiles, and its ornamental lakes, which seemed like huge
turquoises of beautiful blue.

It was but a hasty glimpse. The "Albatross" now headed for the north,
and a few hours afterwards she was over a little hill at the northern
angle of the Persian frontier, on the shores of a vast extent of
water which stretched away out of sight to the north and east.

The town was Ashurada, the most southerly of the Russian stations.
The vast extent of water was a sea. It was the Caspian.

The eddies of sand had been passed. There was a view of a group of
European houses rising along a promontory, with a church tower in the
midst of them.

The "Albatross" swooped down towards the surface of the sea. Towards
evening she was running along the coast—which formerly belonged to
Turkestan, but now belongs to Russia—and in the morning of the 3rd
of July she was about three hundred feet above the Caspian.