ly, on the following morning, the first streaks of dawn saw von
Schalckenberg astir, and on his way to the pilot-house, where he first
of all manipulated the lever that controlled the grip-anchors, drawing
it back, and thus causing the anchors to relinquish their hold upon the
ground. Then he turned a sufficient stream of vapour into the
air-chambers to create a partial vacuum and cause the ship to rise in
the air to a height of about two hundred feet above the tops of the most
lofty trees; and finally to set the engines going ahead at a speed of
about fifty miles an hour, in accordance with an arrangement between
himself and Sir Reginald, made the last thing before turning in on the
previous night. Then, the morning being perfectly calm, he set the
course due south, and returned below to get his bath and dress.

For the first three hours or so of this comparatively rapid flight the
forest was found to be by no means dense. The trees grew more or less
in clumps, with plenty of open spaces between, many of which were
occupied by native villages, the inhabitants of which turned out _en
masse_ to gaze in awe at the wonderful sight of the huge ship rushing
through the air overhead, and to greet her appearance with weird,
blood-curdling cries and the beating of their great war drums. Then
they crossed the Aruwimi River--an important tributary of the great
Congo, shortly afterward sighting the snow-crowned summit of Ruwenzori,
glistening in the sun. And here the villages abruptly ceased, and the
forest growth rapidly thickened, until, with the arrival of noon, they
found themselves floating over a mass of foliage so dense that it was
impossible to see anything of the ground beneath. They had by this time
traversed some two hundred and fifty miles of forest, and they came to
the conclusion that they were now near enough to the heart of it for all
practical purposes. They therefore slowed the ship down to a speed of
ten knots, and rose to a height of two thousand feet, with the object of
searching for some opening in the great mass of multi-tinted green
beneath them large enough to receive the ship and allow her to come to
earth. This they eventually found some ten miles farther south, on the
banks of an almost dry stream, flowing in a westerly direction. Four
mountain peaks were then in sight to the eastward, at an estimated
distance of between forty and fifty miles.

By the time that the ship was moored luncheon was