ly as in
daylight; we look at each other, surprised at this brightness, for we
have nothing to look at but ourselves and a few silvery clouds floating
below us. The barometers mark twelve hundred metres, then thirteen,
fourteen, fifteen hundred; and the little rice papers still fall about
us.

Captain Jovis claims that the moon has often made balloons act thus, and
that the upward journey will continue.

We are now at two thousand metres; we go up to two thousand three hundred
and fifty; then the balloon stops: We blow the siren and are surprised
that no one answers us from the stars.

We are now going down rapidly. M. Mallet keeps crying: "Throw out more
ballast! throw out more ballast!" And the sand and stones that we throw
over come back into our faces, as if they were going up, thrown from
below toward the stars, so rapid is our descent.

Here is the earth! Where are we? It is now past midnight, and we are
crossing a broad, dry, well-cultivated country, with many roads and well
populated.

To the right is a large city and farther away to the left is another. But
suddenly from the earth appears a bright fairy light; it disappears,
reappears and once more disappears. Jovis, intoxicated by space,
exclaims: "Look, look at this phenomenon of the moon in the water. One
can see nothing more beautiful at night!"

Nothing indeed can give one an idea of the wonderful brightness of these
spots of light which are not fire, which do not look like reflections,
which appear quickly here or there and immediately go out again. These
shining lights appear on the winding rivers at every turn, but one hardly
has time to see them as the balloon passes as quickly as the wind.

We are now quite near the earth, and Beer exclaims:--"Look at that!
What is that running over there in the fields? Isn't it a dog?" Indeed,
something is running along the ground with great speed, and this
something seems to jump over ditches, roads, trees with such ease that we
could not understand what it might be. The captain laughed: "It is the
shadow of our balloon. It will grow as we descend."

I distinctly hear a great noise of foundries in the distance. And,
according to the polar star, which we have been observing all night, 'and
which I have so often watched and consulted from the bridge of my little
yacht on the Mediterranean, we are heading straight for Belgium.

Our siren and our two horns are continually calling. A few cries from
some truck