The country of the Wamasai is situated¹ 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 yoke² of Bali-Bali, who is justly considered to be one of the most remarkable³ sovereigns of Central Africa.
 
Impey Barbicane and Captain Nicholl, accompanied by ten foremen devoted⁵ 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 embarked⁶ at New York for the Cape⁷ 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 harassed⁸ region, obstructed⁹ by forests, cut up by streams, and chequered with marshes¹⁰, 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 celebrated¹¹ 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 admiration¹² bordering on adoration¹³ for the two illustrious voyagers who had launched out into space to attain¹⁴ the circumlunar regions, and sympathized enthusiastically with the projectors¹⁵ 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 enveloped¹⁶ in a mystery that the cleverest detectives of America and Europe failed to penetrate¹⁷, 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 traitors¹⁸ or chatterers even among negroes. It was in this way that Richard W. Trust, the consul¹⁹ 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 accomplishment²⁰ 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, secondly²¹, 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 shafts²² 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 soda²³ 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 entrusted²⁴ the task of making the monster cannon²⁵ and its no less monster projectile²⁶.
 
A fortnight after the arrival of Barbicane and his colleague among the Wamasai, three large workshops had been erected²⁷ 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 colossal²⁸ dimensions? The only chance for the inhabitants of the world was, as we have seen, in the difficulty of dealing²⁹ with such a huge undertaking³⁰.
 
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 mortar³¹, 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 costly³² 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 spoke³³ 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 hurled³⁴ 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 favourable³⁵ circumstance that a rock so constituted would strongly resist the frightful³⁶ press............