The Adventures of Saturnin Farandoul

by Albert Robida

  “And then it’s Africa, for both of us!” murmured Farandoul, who spent the entire journey huddled over maps of that continent.

  I.

  Gondokoro, October 26.

  To Monsieur le Président de la Société de Géographie,

  Boulevard Saint-Germain, Paris

  Monsieur le President,

  You must have gathered from my recent reports that I was beginning to despair of finding any trace of Saturnin Farandoul, lost in the heart of Africa. All my effort and all my fatigue had been fruitless. No indication of the passage of the celebrated traveler could be found in the countries bordering Lake Albert-Nyanza. I have already explained to you how I was able to follow him as far as there. The iron boat constructed for him in the workshops of Indret, transported secretly to Marseille and put on a ship for Alexandria, had taken to the water in Cairo. At the first cataract of the Nile I found the Nubians who had transported it on their shoulders, and likewise at the second; further on, caravans had encountered him, etc. etc.

  It was only in Khartoum that the real difficulties began. On departure from there, no clue, no trace. For six months I explored Yambokalfa, Bertat, Deuka, the land of the Makarakas, and Lakes Albert-Nyanza and Victoria-Nyanza, in vain. No one had seen him. Had he perished in one of the rapids of the African river? Had he been massacred by some unknown tribe? All suppositions were permissible.

  In spite of the perils of the enterprise, and in spite of the ferocious wars laying waste to these countries, I was heading towards Lake Tanganyika to pursue my research there when terrible—and, unfortunately, only too reliable—news reached us at Gondokoro: Farandoul had been eaten by the Niam-Niams!64

  No doubt is any longer possible, alas! This is how the news reached us.

  A caravan arrived yesterday from the shores of Albert-Nyanza. I was addressing a few questions without much hope, to the negro porters when one of them men, a large and vigorous Niam-Niam, replied to the description of the iron boat and the portrait I gave of Farandoul with a exclamation and rubbed his belly joyfully while clicking his teeth.

  “Have you seen him?” I asked, by way of my interpreter.

  “I’ve eaten him!” he replied, renewing his pantomime. “He was a good man, very good.”

  Bowled over by astonishment and anger, I had difficulty recovering my composure in order to address further questions to the horrible cannibal. Alas, alas we can no longer conserve the slightest hope! When we appeared to doubt the veracity of our Niam-Niam, he seemed annoyed, and fetched two of his comrades, who had also tasted the unfortunate voyager.

  It is finished! Farandoul is lost to science; there is nothing left for his numerous friends to do but mourn him. I shudder to think of the despair that this news will bring to the heart of Lieutenant Mandibul.

  My mission is thus, unfortunately, terminated. Today, I shall begin preparations for my return.

  Eusébin de Saint-Gommer 65

  P.S. I administered to the Niam-Niams, of course, all the reproaches merited by their heinous conduct; I told them that, on my return, I would expose them to the scorn of civilized Europe in all the newspapers, scientific journals, Academies and other Societies. The wretches wept, but I was implacable, and pursued my admonition even more forcefully.

  E. de St-G.

  We shall not attempt to describe the emotion aroused in the scientific world by this letter from the Geographical Society’s envoy. We shall go back a few months into the past, and we shall see for what terrible events central Africa had served as a theater.

  It is 11 p.m.; the air is pure and fresh; the thermometer indicates no more than 40 degrees above zero, having oscillated between 50 and 55 in the shade. We are on the edge of a large watercourse, a regal river majestically resplendent in the moonlight, reflecting the stars—those innumerable celestial lamps scintillating in the azured vault—like an astronomical chart.

  Gigantic trees form confused rounded masses on the river’s banks, each standing up like tall columns terminated by a fan of foliage. These trees are baobabs, with a thousand giant branches, each of which is a forest by itself, palm-trees, date-palms, roniers, mangroves, etc., etc.

  This region of enormous and abundant vegetation is in Africa. We are on the banks of the N’kari, not far from Lake Albert-Nyanza, in a region scarcely touched by Livingstone and Stanley. On the bank there is an immense fire, a veritable pyre, before which hundreds of black shadows are dancing and gesticulating. Others shadows move through the crowds, bring even more masses of branches to feed the fire. The forest, illuminated by long flames, takes on an increasingly fantastic appearance. Before the enormous fire, the negroes are making great efforts to roll along a strange mass whose form can only be made out indistinctly.

  Finally, as the negroes stand aside, the mass become visible. It is a small iron boat, bizarrely constructed, completely enclosed by a metal lid.

  The negroes, who were probably spying on its progress along the river, have ambushed it at anchor; finding the hatches sealed, they have attached numerous ropes to it and, soundlessly and without agitation, have pulled it out of the water and dragging it over the sand. They have slipped masses of foliage and dry wood under the boat’s hull; the fire has been lit, and the silence—religiously guarded until then—has changed into an infernal concert.

  The tom-toms resound, the negroes howl—and in the distance, lions roar in terror.

  A witch-doctor chants:

  “The white man is shut up in his boat!

  “The white man will be cooked; he is good, very good.

  “The Niam-Niams will feast themselves upon the white man!”

  What is happening? To what inexcusable scene of cannibalism shall we have the agony of bearing witness? You have guessed it; it is our Farandoul who is enclosed in this iron boat, a gigantic saucepan set on the fire by a band of Niam-Niam gastronomes. The unfortunate will, therefore, perish in the full bloom of his youth, far from his friends, far from Mandibul!

  What a miserable destiny for a heroic man! To perish by being cooked! After having occupied the world stage so brilliantly, to disappear obscurely into the stomachs of Niam-Niams! Let us go into the saucepan boat and see how he is bearing his torture.

  Farandoul is alone in his boat. Prey to a sullen misanthropy since his return from America, his heart poisoned by all the grief caused to him by his fatal encounter with Phileas Fogg and Passepartout, Farandoul wanted to flee from the human world. Without even taking his friend Mandibul into his confidence, he commissioned the building of a steamboat, made entirely of iron, an authentic carapace that opened and closed at will. With this boat, which he named the Solitaire, he set off to explore central Africa, in the hope that he might contrive to calm the anguish of his heart in the midst of a whirlwind of perils and adventures.

  This evening, having found an anchorage for his Solitaire in a tranquil backwater of the N’kari, he sealed up his boat and went to sleep. His mind returned to the time of his earliest adventures with the monkeys of Oceania; he found himself in the midst of his adoptive family, with his brothers the young monkeys; then he saw himself embarking on the conquest of Australia; he saw once again the young Malay woman, Mysora, the unfortunate victim of Croknuff, an angelic smile illuminating her diving-suit….

  Suddenly, Farandoul leaps out of his bunk, a sudden sensation of warmth waking him up with a start. Finally, here is one of those perils that he has sought in order to plunge himself back into action! A single glace through the little portholes of his cabin suffices to inform our hero of his situation. The Solitaire is on the fire, and the negroes are intoning their chants of triumph while awaiting the opportunity to eat their victim.

  There is not a moment to lose; the danger is immense. The boat is heating up rapidly. Farandoul tries to open the hatches, but the Niam-Niams have bound them with ropes. A negro, climbing on to the boat, pours water through the gaps in the panels from calabashes that his comrades pass up to him. Farandoul understands that they want to eat him boi
led!

  The heat is becoming worse and worse; it is necessary to put an end to it. He hurls himself upon a box of fireworks that he had brought with him in order to illuminate the ruins of Thebes during his passage through Egypt, of which he has not made use by reason of his melancholy. He rapidly disposes all the sunbursts and rockets in the openings designed to ventilate the boat, and sets them all off at once. At the same time, he falls upon one of the hatches, axe in hand, cuts through all the ropes and stands up like a statue in the midst of the firework display on the deck of the boat.

  The explosion of squibs, the whistle of rockets and the rotation of Catherine-wheels have terrified the astonished Niam-Niams. The chants have ceased abruptly; the drums have been thrown away and all those who have not been floored by terror have launched themselves at top speed in all directions howling in fear.

  Farandoul leapt down to the ground in the midst of a few Niam-Niams extended face down on the ground. Seizing a staff, he rapidly scattered the brands of the fire and saved the Solitaire from any immediate anger.

  The Niam-Niams nearby dared not budge. Farandoul seemed to them to be a terrible god manifested in order to exterminate them. Having need of their arms to refloat his boat, our hero struck them a few times with his staff to force them to get back to their feet. This light volley of blows had the effect of a voltaic pile, making them jump up with frog-like hops. Further blows of the staff made them understand what the god expected of them, well enough that, within a few minutes, the Solitaire—still burning—was back in the water. While Farandoul reinstalled himself therein, the Niam-Niams, having recovered sufficient courage to flee, launched themselves into the trees in order to go and mingle their howls with those of their brothers.

  By the time he gained open water, Farandoul could only see one of them on the shore: a young boy of about 15 who, having been struck by a rocket, thought that he was dead and had remained flat on the ground throughout the entire scene. Farandoul took pity on his terror; he got up again, brought him aboard the Solitaire, and made him swallow a draught of cordial. The little Niam-Niam finally dared to raise his eyes to look at the terrible white man and found enough strength to reply to his questions.

  Farandoul had learned a few words of the Zulu language, which almost all the dwellers on the shore of Lake Albert-Nyanza understand, so he succeeded in obtaining some items of information from the little Niam-Niam. He learned that the members of the voracious band who had taken it into their heads to cook him in his boat were part of a Niam-Niam army that was presently on an expedition to replenish its food supplies in the land of the Makalolos.66

  The mention of “food supplies” made Farandoul raise his head. “Yes,” the little Niam-Niam went on, under interrogation, “Makalolos good, very good. Niam-Niams have large stomachs, always hungry. When they have no more prisoners to eat, Niam-Niams make war. Niam-Niams good warriors. Makalolos good warrior-women, but also good to eat.”

  “What do you men, good warrior-women?”

  “Yes, Makalolos women warriors—very brave but very good!” And the little Niam-Niam burst out laughing, showing two superb rows of sharp teeth.

  Farandoul remembered then having heard mention in Gondokoro of Makalolo, a very important nation that was said to be governed by two queens and defended by regiments of female warriors. He had considered the tales he had been told to be ridiculous fables, but now, it seemed that their exactitude was demonstrated. He resumed his questions, therefore, and asked the little Niam-Niam where the land of the Makalolos was located.

  “Here,” replied the young cannibal. “Niam-Niams very close to the Makalolos too, will fight them tomorrow on the N’kari.”

  With much patience and skill, Farandoul succeeded in extracting all the desired information from his prisoner, the little Niam-Niam. He learned that the Niam-Niams had come to the land of the Makalolos in 300 war-canoes, each one manned by 30 men, and that their flotilla was a few leagues away on the N’kari, confronted by a Makalolo fleet that was almost as numerous. The Niam-Niams with whom he had had dealings were to rejoin the Niam-Niam fleet at daybreak in order to take part in the attack on the Makalolos and the feast that would follow thereafter.

  Farandoul did not hesitate for a minute. Nine thousand Niam-Niam cannibals were hurling themselves upon brave warrior-women to replenish their kitchens; he had to intervene. The Solitaire immediately left the fatal creek where it had almost been transformed into a saucepan and moved into the middle of the river.

  The last embers of the Niam-Niams’ fire were just going out; the most courageous of them, seeing the Solitaire draw away, dared to come back to the river-bank, and found the corpse of one of their witch-doctors—who had died of fright—among the burned vegetation. This discovery consoled them; they pretended that the roasted witch-doctor was the white man they had dreamed of getting their teeth into, and tucked into him with a hearty appetite. Those who survived got the rest later; it was presumably one of these who took news of Farandoul’s death to Gondokoro—news that Monsieur de Saint-Gommer, sent in search of Farandoul by the Société de Géographie, transmitted to a saddened Europe.

  The crew of the Solitaire now consisted of two men, Farandoul having kept the little Niam-Niam as a cabin-boy.

  The N’kari is an immense river which empties, after having described many twists and turns and watered numerous unknown countries, into the Congo—or, rather, is one of the branches of the Congo, like the Zaire and the Bankoro. In the morning, the Solitaire came within sight of the Niam-Niam fleet, a few kilometers away, in the process of deploying on the river, which was almost 1500 meters wide at that point. A little further upriver, the Makalolo fleet was visible, arranged in good order on the left bank.

  A huge racket of chants and war-drums was audible in spite of the distance of the Niam-Niam fleet; it was obvious that the attack was about to commence. A little further on, the Makalolo canoes were getting under way in order to face the enemy. Farandoul veered toward the right bank in order to conceal his moments from the Niam-Niams for as long as possible, and doubled his speed.

  After ten minutes, during which the Solitaire covered three kilometers, scarcely 500 meters separated the two flotillas. The Niam-Niams filled the air with their war-cries and the noise of their big drums; 9000 throats were howling breathlessly, producing a powerful symphony compared with which all the choirs of the great orchestras of our opera-houses would have seemed mere cooing.

  At the same time as the first volleys of arrows were exchanged, the Niam-Niam canoes were propelled forward by their oars, and those on the left flank soon collided with those on the Makalolos’ left flank.

  The Solitaire hurtled over the water, with its steam-engine at full power. Before the Niam-Niams, totally intent on their attack, were able to recognize the enemy that was menacing them, the iron boat was upon them, ripping through their lines like a cannonball, breaking canoes and cutting larger boats in two by attacking them side-on and then reversing its direction.

  When it reached their left flank, to the great terror of the Makalolos themselves, the Solitaire came about and turned on the Niam-Niam fleet; while the canoes that had not been touched made forceful use of their oars to flee, the Solitaire passed through the middle of them again, disemboweling all those it encountered. The Niam-Niams, in complete disarray, immediately scattered in order to flee.

  The affair did not last long; within five minutes the chants of victory had been transformed into howls of distress. Scarcely 100 canoes remained intact; the debris of others was floating on the water and the Niam-Niams, clinging on to wreckage or swimming desperately, were collected up and taken prisoner by the Makalolos.

  The lesson given to the Niam-Niams appeared to be sufficient. Farandoul came back at reduced steam to the Makalolos. The latter, initially fearful and unable to comprehend this unexpected assistance, were reassured when they saw the Solitaire come to a stop in front of their lines and a man appear on the vessel’s bridge.

  A boat tha
t was larger and more grandiose than the rest detached itself from the line and came to meet the Solitaire. It was guided by 20 male oarsmen, behind whom 20 warrior women stood proudly erect, armed with long spears, bows and daggers, and covered with necklaces, bracelets, copper plates and metal stars. One of them, who appeared to be the general or the admiral, leapt lithely on to the Solitaire’s deck and extended her hand to Farandoul, pronouncing a few words in an unknown language.

  “There’s no need,” replied our hero, without having understood a single word of the speech. “You’re charming, my dear lady, and I am happy to have arrived in time to prevent you from making the acquaintance of the Niam-Niam cooks.”

  The warrior woman reflected briefly, and replied in the Zulu language, which our hero knew: “Thank you, white man. You have saved the Makalolo nation from a great peril, and the Makalolo nation loves you. Come with us to our city, Makalolo, so that we may show our queens the man who has saved their warriors in their hour of need.”

  Farandoul bowed. The warrior woman shook his hand, kissed him on the forehead and nose, according to the Makalolo custom, and then offered her own forehead so that he could return the favor. That done, she beckoned to the warriors in her canoe, which formed the fleet’s general staff, to come aboard the iron boat in order to present their greetings to our hero in a similar fashion.

  Farandoul spoke in Zulu in his turn. “Brave warrior women,” he said, “I am truly overwhelmed by your appreciation; I have only done my duty as a civilized man! I hope that the Niam-Niams profit from the lesson and that they will henceforth renounce all food-seeking expeditions against you. Now, I am ready to follow you. I shall be delighted to visit your capital and render my homage to your queens.”