The Astonishing Adventure of the Barsac Mission

The Astonishing Adventure of the Barsac Mission (Into the Niger Bend, The City in the Sahara), Jules Verne, Ace Books, 1960

A great debate has been going on in the early 19th century French National Assembly as to whether or not the inhabitants of France's West African colonies deserve the right to vote. An expedition, led by two Deputies with totally opposite views on the subject, is formed, to go and find out, once and for all. A young woman named Jane Blazon, and her nephew/uncle (the relationship is complicated) Agenor de St-Berain, have their own reasons for wanting to join the expedition. At the last minute, the group (which includes a doctor, a journalist, and a man completely obsessed with statistics) are forced to acept 200 mounted cavalrymen as protection.

The expedition is pretty uneventful. After several weeks of traveling, a female fortune teller in one village urges them to not go beyond a certain town, where the expedition was planning to split up to cover more territory. One part of the expedition has a relatively easy time, and makes it back to France with no problem. But the other part of the expedition suffers a much different fate.

They wake up one morning to find their lead guide missing; he returns the next day as if nothing happened. Another day, they are stopped by a group of twenty black men in what look like French uniforms. They say they have been chasing the expedition for the past couple of weeks, carrying urgent orders for Captain Marcenay, the head of the cavalry, and his men. The cavalry is to head to the town of Timbuktu immediately, and the black men, who say they are Sudanese Volunteers, will take care of the expedition. The men look like they have been in the bush for weeks, but their leader, Lt. Lacour, looks as if his uniform came back from the cleaners that morning. Just to make things worse, another morning the Europeans wake up to find their security, their porters and guides, and most of their supplies gone. They attempt to buy food from the local villages, but someone has gotten to them first, and wiped out all of them, killing everybody. What's left of the expedition continues on horseback, until the horses fall dead, one by one. As the book ends, at night they are surrounded by this very loud roaring sound coming from the sky (which they have heard before), with bright lights shining down on them, and they are grabbed by unknown persons.

In the second book, after a several-hour trip, tied up and blindfolded, the group finds itself inside a walled city called Blackland, far out in the Sahara Desert. Weather modification is only one of the technical marvels which allows a city to exist in such an inhospitable place. They are brough before the leader of Blackland, a very unpleasant person and criminal named Harry Killer. The Europeans are given the choice to become part of Blackland, or die. For Jane, the choice is to become Mrs Harry Killer, or die.

After a failed escape attempt, the group runs into Marcel Camaret, the technical genius behind Blackland. He is also the sort of person who sets new records for being blind to everything except his work. After being told just what Blackland is all about, something he honestly never realized, Camaret needs little encouraging to fight back, using other inventions of his. Of course, Killer and his criminal cohorts aren't going to give up without a fight.

Barricaded in The Factory, the only hope of the Europeans is if Tongane, one of their guides, can mingle among the slaves of Blackland, and convince them to revolt. After a seemingly interminable wait, the revolt begins. The battle ebbs and flows, but the battle turns against the rebels. When things are looking hopeless, well, one can almost hear the bugle in the background, in the form of Captain Marcenay, a couple of hundred men and a cannon. His orders to proceed to Timbuktu turned out to be fake. Having gotten a partial location of Blackland through a wireless telegraphy distress call, he eventually convinced his superiors to let him undertake a military/rescue mission.

I really enjoyed both books. They are recommended for those who like 19th century exploration/adventure novels, and for those who appreciate prophetic science fiction novels. Verne has always been one of the best at attempting to predict the future. The reader won't go wrong with this pair of novels.