the country of the wamasai is situated in the east of central africa, between zanzibar and the great lakes. our knowledge of it is due chiefly to thomson, johnston, count tekeli and doctor meyer. it is a mountainous district under the sovereignty of the sultan bali-bali, whose people are negroes, and number from thirty to forty thousand.
three degrees south of the equator rises the chain of kilimanjaro, which lifts its highest summit over 18,000 feet above the sea, and commands northwards, southwards, and westwards, the vast and fertile plains of the wamasai.
a few miles below the first slopes of the mountain lies the town of kisongo, where the sultan resides. the capital is, truth to tell, but a large village. it is occupied by a population, highly gifted and intelligent, and working hard as much by itself as by its slaves under the iron yoke of bali-bali, who is justly considered to be one of the most remarkable sovereigns of central africa.
impey barbicane and captain nicholl, accompanied by ten foremen devoted to the enterprise, had arrived at kisongo in the first week of january. the fact of their departure had only been communicated to j. t. maston and mrs. scorbitt. they had embarked at new york for the cape of good hope; thence they had gone to zanzibar; and a barque, secretly chartered, had taken them to mombasa on the other side of the channel. an escort from the sultan had met them at this port, and after a difficult journey of about 300 miles across this harassed region, obstructed by forests, cut up by streams, and chequered with marshes, they had reached the royal residence.
as soon as he had obtained j. t. maston’s calculations, barbicane had put himself in communication with bali-bali through a swedish explorer who intended to spend a few years in this part of africa. the sultan had become one of the warmest admirers of the audacious yankee after the celebrated moon voyage, the fame of which had spread even to this distant country. without disclosing his object barbicane had obtained from the wamasai the needful authority to open important works at the southern base of kilimanjaro. for the very considerable sum of three hundred thousand dollars bali-bali had engaged to furnish him with the labour he required to do what he liked with kilimanjaro. he could take it down if he liked, or carry it away if he could; and he became as much the owner of the mountain as he was of the north pole.
barbicane and his colleague were cordially welcomed at kisongo. bali-bali felt an admiration bordering on adoration for the two illustrious voyagers who had launched out into space to attain the circumlunar regions, and sympathized enthusiastically with the projectors of the mysterious works they wished to establish in his kingdom. he undertook that the enterprise should be kept secret, both by himself and his subjects, for all of whom he could answer, as not one of the negroes engaged had the right to leave the works for a day under penalty of the most dreadful punishments.
on this account the operation was enveloped in a mystery that the cleverest detectives of america and europe failed to penetrate, and if it was discovered at last it was because the sultan had relaxed his severity after the completion of the works, and that there are traitors or chatterers even among negroes. it was in this way that richard w. trust, the consul at zanzibar, got wind of what was happening at kilimanjaro. but at that date, the 13th of september, it was too late to stop barbicane in the accomplishment of his plans.
the reason that barbicane & co. had chosen the country of the wamasai as the scene of their operations was that, in the first place, it was little known and rarely visited by travellers, and, secondly, that the mass of kilimanjaro offered all the qualities of solidity and position necessary for their work. besides, the country was rich in all the materials they required, and these were found under conditions that made them easily workable.
a few months before leaving the united states, barbicane had learnt from the swedish explorer that iron and coal were abundant in the kilimanjaro chain. there were no mines to be opened, and no shafts to be driven thousands of feet into the crust of the earth. the minerals were on the surface, and had only to be picked up from the ground. and in addition to these, there were large deposits of nitrate of soda and iron pyrites, such as were required for the manufacture of the meli-melonite.
barbicane and nicholl had brought no staff of workmen with them except the ten foremen, on whom they could depend. these could take command of the ten thousand negroes placed at their disposal by bali-bali, to whom was entrusted the task of making the monster cannon and its no less monster projectile.
a fortnight after the arrival of barbicane and his colleague among the wamasai, three large workshops had been erected on the south of the mountain; one as the foundry for the gun, one as the foundry for the shot, and one as the factory for the meli-melonite.
and how did barbicane & co. intend to cast a cannon of such colossal dimensions? the only chance for the inhabitants of the world was, as we have seen, in the difficulty of dealing with such a huge undertaking.
to cast a cannon a million times larger than a four hundred pounder would have been beyond the power of man. to make a four hundred pounder is difficult enough, but a four hundred million pounder! barbicane and co. did not attempt to do so. it was not a cannon, nor even a mortar, that they had in their minds. they simply intended to drive a gallery into the mountain.
evidently this enormous mine would have the same effect as a gigantic columbiad, the manufacture of which 121would have been as costly as it was difficult, owing to the thickness it would have to be to avoid the risk of bursting. barbicane & co. had always intended to act in this way, and if j. t. maston’s note-book spoke of a cannon, it was the four hundred pounder he had taken as the basis of his calculations.
consequently, a spot was chosen a hundred feet up the southern side of the chain, from the base of which the plains extended for miles and miles, so that nothing would be in the way of the projectile when it was hurled from the long tube in the mass of kilimanjaro.
with great precision and much labour barbicane carried on the driving of his tunnel. easy to him was the construction of boring machines worked with air compressed by the power of the large waterfalls in the district. the holes bored by the machines were charged with meli-melonite, and the blasting of the rock was easy, it being a kind of syenite composed of orthoclastic felspar and amphibolic hornblende. it was a favourable circumstance that a rock so constituted would strongly resist the frightful pressure developed by the expansion of the gas; but the height and thickness of the mountain afforded ample security against any exterior splitting or cracking.
the thousands of workmen under the guidance of the ten foremen, superintended by barbicane, progressed with such zeal and intelligence that in less than six months the tunnel was finished. it measured nearly ninety feet in diameter and two thousand feet long. as it was important that the projectile should glide along a perfectly smooth surface without losing any of the gas of deflagration, the interior was lined with a smooth tube of cast iron. this was a much larger affair than the celebrated columbiad of tampa town, which had sent the aluminium projectile round the moon. but what is there that is impossible to the engineers of the modern world?
while the boring went on in the flank of kilimanjaro, the workmen were busy at the second foundry. while the tube was being built the enormous projectile was in process of manufacture.
all it consisted of was a mass of cast iron, cylindro-conical in form, weighing one hundred and eighty thousand tons. it had never been intended to make such a casting in one piece, but to provide one hundred and eighty masses, each of a thousand tons, which could be hoisted into the tube and arranged in front of the meli-melonite so as to form a compact charge.
it thus became necessary to furnish the second foundry with four hundred thousand tons of ore, seventy thousand tons of flux, and four hundred thousand tons of good coal, which at the outset was transformed into two hundred and eighty thousand tons of coke. as the deposits were all in the vicinity, this was only a matter of transport.
the greatest difficulty was the construction of the blast furnaces for dealing with the ore; but nevertheless, before a month was out ten furnaces were at work, capable, each, of an output of one hundred and eighty tons a day. this gave eighteen hundred tons in the twenty-four hours, and a hundred and eighty thousand tons in ten working days.
in the meli-melonite factory the work went on easily, and so secretly that the composition of the explosive was never discovered.
all went well; and there was hardly an accident to mar the progress.
the sultan was delighted. he followed the operations with indefatigable assiduity, and it may be imagined how his majesty’s presence stimulated the zeal of his faithful subjects.
when he asked what it all meant, barbicane would reply enigmatically,—
“it is a work which will change the face of the world!”
“a work,” captain nicholl would add, “that will confer on the sultan bali-bali a glory that will never fade among the monarchs of eastern africa!”
and that the sultan of the wamasai felt proud there is no need for us to insist!
on the 29th of august the works were completed. the tunnel was lined with the smooth iron tube built up within it. at the end lay stored two thousand tons of meli-melonite in communication with the box of fulminate. then came the projectile three hundred and forty-five feet long. in front of the projectile was a space of fourteen hundred and fifty feet in which effect would be given to the impulse due to the expansion of the gas.
that being the case, there remained the question—a question of pure ballistics—would the projectile have the trajectory assigned to it by j. t. maston? the calculations were correct. they indicated in what measure the projectile would deviate to the east of the meridian of kilimanjaro in virtue of the earth’s rotation, and what would be the form of the hyperbolic curve which it described in virtue of its enormous initial velocity.
second question: would it be visible during its flight? no, for when it left the tube plunged in the darkness of the earth, it could not be seen, and besides owing to its moderate height it would have a very considerable angular velocity. once it entered the zone of light, the smallness of its volume would conceal it from the most powerful glasses, and for a stronger reason it would, when free from the influence of terrestrial attraction, gravitate for ever round the sun.
assuredly barbicane & co. might be proud of the work they were about to complete. why was not j. t. maston there to admire the admirable execution of the works which was worthy of the precision of the calculations that had inspired them? and above all things why was he far away when the formidable detonation would awake the echoes of the most distant horizons of africa?
in thinking of him his colleagues had no notion that he had had to leave ballistic cottage after escaping from baltimore gaol, and was now in hiding to save his precious life. they knew not to what a degree public opinion had risen against the north polar practical association. they knew not what would be the massacres, quarterings, and roastings if the people happened to lay hold of them. indeed they were fortunate that when the mine was fired they could only be saluted by the shouts of the wamasai.
“at last!” said captain nicholl, when on the evening of the 22nd of september they were strolling about at the mouth of the mine.
“yes! at last! and also—ha!” and barbicane gave a sigh of relief.
“if you had to begin again?”
“bah! we should begin again!”
“what luck,” said nicholl, “that we should have at our disposal this admirable meli-melonite!”
“which will make you illustrious, nicholl!”
“doubtless, barbicane,” said the captain modestly. “but do you know how many galleries we should have had to drive in the flanks of kilimanjaro to obtain the same result if we had only had fulmi-cotton like that which flung our projectile at the moon?”
“tell me.”
“one hundred and eighty, barbicane!”
“well, we would have driven them!”
“and a hundred and eighty projectiles of a hundred and eighty thousand tons!”
“we would have made them, nicholl!”
there is no nonsense about men of this stamp. but when artillerists have made the round of the moon, or what could they not be capable?
and that very evening, an hour or two only before the discharge was to take place, and while barbicane and nicholl were thus congratulating themselves, alcide pierdeux, shut up in his room at baltimore, jumped to his feet and whooped like a redskin.
“whoooop! mr. j. t. maston! you brute, you shall swallow your problem, you shall! and why didn’t i see that before! in the name of a cosine! if i knew where you were i would ask you to supper, and we would have a glass of champagne together at the very moment your gun is to go off!”
and he capered round the room and whirled his arms about like a railway signal gone mad.
“whoooop, you old plum-tree! you must have had a big bang when you calculated the cannon of kilimanjaro! hurrah for the cannon of kilimanjaro; and how many more would you like? that is not only the sine quâ non, my boy, but the sine cannon! whoooop!”
