THE WORKS AT KILIMANJARO.
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 would 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!”