George Eli Hall

“ A flock of sheep stampedes at the sight of our shadow moving upon the earth, and disappears in a cloud of dust.
We glide peacefully over meadows and swamps, clearing hedges and trees, dragging the guide-rope behind us. ”

“ But the same wind is driving us on, and we hope to keep out of its reach, even if we have to rise up in the heavens above it.
“If our balloon obeys as it should, we will soon have some fun,” says the captain, as we reach the first trees of a thick forest.
The “Rolla” is so sensitive that by merely hauling in a few yards of the guide-rope, we gently descend on the tops of the trees, lightly skipping from one to the other; we brush by an elm, a poplar, or an ash, and as we pass, pick their fresh green leaves. ”

“ Rolled in heavy masses by the winds that drive them on, they move peacefully in the sunlight like a fleet of sombre ships, with prows of solid gold. Now bunched together in small and graceful groups, thin and sleek like birds of passage, they fly swiftly with the breeze, iridescent and translucent, like huge opals picked from the treasures of heaven, or sparkling with immaculate candor, like the snow the winds harvest on the crest of inaccessible sierras, and carry off on their invisible wings. ”

“ The world looks like a painted atlas, with every little detail carefully marked. As I compare it with the military map in my hands, I can not tell which is the better of the two; and, moreover, at this altitude, they both seem the same size.
The captain is throwing out ballast,—quite a lot it seems to me. But the barometer is still falling. Down we go, and in a moment we are close to earth again. Half a dozen peasants are harvesting in the grain fields.
“Captain! we are dead birds this time!” ”

“ Owing to the increasing coolness of the atmosphere, our balloon had a slight, though constant, tendency to descend. But we easily kept our altitude by occasionally throwing overboard a spoonful or two of ballast.
[Pg 5] After ascertaining that we would not come in contact with the towers of Notre Dame or the sharp edges of the Eiffel Tower, we decided to keep the same distance, and let the breeze do the rest.
At our feet Paris is breathing, like a monster with a million eyes. ”

“ A long and purple fissure that cuts the city in twain marks the Seine, long before we reach it. The “Rolla” feels the cool current that rises above the waters. A few handfuls of sand thrown overboard, and we resume our former position. ”

“ The great boulevards roll out in every direction like ribbons of fire; we can hear, as we sail over them, the muffled rumbling of a thousand carriages, and we watch them as they dodge each other in their complicated course. ”

“ The guide-rope, though a mere cable, about two hundred feet in length, is a very delicate accessory to a balloon, and the most important after the anchor. When in operation, one end of the rope is attached to the basket, and a quarter or a fifth of its length is allowed to drag on the surface of the earth, where it regulates automatically the air-ship’s aerostatic equilibrium. ”

“ A l’heure où sous le ciel l’homme est seul avec Dieu!”
Alf. de Musset: Le Saule, IV.
II.
WE ARE now passing over the little hamlet of Uri, and the voice of a cuckoo-clock tells us the hour, as it pipes up in the breeze its five double notes.
“The temperature is very even,” remarks the captain, “and there is no danger of it rising or falling unexpectedly, at least not for an hour or more. We might as well travel with the guide-rope, and skip along close to the earth.” ”

“ They have seen, perhaps in a single day, the countries and the homes we love, and cherish in remembrance or in hope. They have passed over spots that have beaten time to our happiest hours; they have looked down upon places that have witnessed our deepest sorrows. ”

“ Here we leave the dome of the Panthéon on our right. Below us the lights are gradually thinning out; we are passing over the crowded faubourgs, where thousands of poor and tired human beings are resting in sleep. ”

“ It has also the serious advantage of saving gas, and sand ballast as well.
“That modest young fellow you met at dinner the other night,” remarks the captain, “uses the guide-rope with great [Pg 8] success as part of the steering-gear of his new aeronef, the ‘Santos-Dumont V.’ We all expect to hear within a few weeks that Santos-Dumont has solved the great problem of aerial navigation.”
The farmers who can not understand this new method of locomotion are all eager to tug at the guide-rope, thinking we have decided to land. ”